You see, if you build a list and all you ever do is hit them with one offer after another, they will leave. Why? Because they don't know you and they don't trust you. Building a list is great but a list is nothing without the relationship. It is the relationship that is going to make or break your list and, ultimately, your success in business.
Put yourself in the place of a customer. Who are you mostly going to buy from? Someone you don't know anything about or someone you know and trust. Pretty simple decision really, don't you think? So building a good relationship with your list is crucial to making a profit from the list.
You need to start building that relationship right from the start. Beginning with your squeeze page or sign-up form. You need to let the prospective subscriber to your list know that their privacy will be protected and you will not give away or sell their contact information ever. And hold to that! Put yourself in the subscriber's place. Would you sign up to something if you thought your name and contact information was going to be given away or sold?
The next step in building a relationship with your list is the very first email you send. It should be personable and a self-introduction. Don't use this or the first few emails to 'sell' to your list. In the first email, give some information about yourself and an outline of what is coming in future emails, such as tips, advice, an occasional quality freebie and recommendations when you come across products that will benefit them. Keep it short so your readers stay interested.
One very important thing to remember starting with the first email is to always provide an easy, readily visible way for them to opt out of your emails. Besides being the law, it is also part of building trust. If you know you can leave without a problem any time you chose, you would be more likely to stay, wouldn't you? Also give you readers your contact information so they feel you are a real person who is approachable. People are more willing to trust someone they feel is going to be there for them if they have questions.
In the first two or three emails, give some valuable tips and advice. Maybe give them a freebie for being on your list. Make sure it is a good quality product, though, and not junk. That would be a trust killer. When you do start sending offers, always make sure you can truthfully recommend the product and know what you are talking about. The members of your list will lose confidence in your judgment and truthfulness if you recommend they buy something that you have not tested and/or don't use yourself. In other words, don't push stuff at them just to make sales. Recommend only products that you really do believe will benefit them.
Once you have built a relationship of trust with your list, you need to maintain it. Establish creditability, trust and confidence with your list and no matter how many offers they might see for the same products you recommend to them, they will buy through you links. That is what spending the time building a good relationship will do for you. You won't even need all the gimmicks that some use like adding mountains of bonuses to get them to buy. They will buy because they trust your judgment and believe in your truthfulness.
The idea is that if you are to make money online it is no good simply putting up a site and adding a bunch of affiliate links and banner ads to it then sitting back and waiting for the cash to come rolling in.
...It isn't going to happen.
No, the idea is that if you are going to make money online your first aim is not to sell to your visitors straight off the front page of your website but to CAPTURE your visitor's name and, more importantly, email address. Your visitor will then be automatically placed on your auto-responder's mailing list and will automatically start receiving your mailings, which you previously loaded into your auto-responder.
As your list grows, so will sales from the links you provide in your mailings. To add to your income, you will be advised to send out an e-mail broadcast from time to time with a special offer.
This is all well and good, up to a point. But a one off e-mail broadcast is not much different from a one off visit by a surfer to your website. Indeed, it might be less effective since the surfer quite likely initiated his own visit to your site, whereas your broadcast arrives in his inbox for him to delete or ignore without taking any further action at all if he wishes.
A one-off broadcast or a series of preloaded mailings that skip from subject to subject is therefore not the best solution no matter how big your list is.
What is needed is a concerted campaign in which an initial mailing is followed-up with two or three more messages, each one different in style or perspective, but each helping to reinforce to basic "buy now" message of the first.
It is said that 60% of sales are made not in the initial approach, but in the follow-up. Hence, my title: The money is in the FOLLOW-UP rather than in the list.
Now you might reasonably object that without a list there could be no follow-up...
...but I say unto you that with no follow-up there will be no money!
Or at least, not as much of it sloshing around your bank account as there could have been if you'd followed up your initial approach with, well, with follow-up letters.
Here's what I suggest to improve your sales, using a Clickbank product as the example and a mini follow-up series as the model.
First, choose a Clickbank product that fits in well with your niche, then BUY it and thoroughly familiarize yourself with it.
Now, write a review of it in three parts.
In the first part you will need to focus on a strong curiosity-arousing headline to get your message opened by a reasonable percentage of your list.
Next, in the main body of the article you will want to focus on the key BIG BENEFIT of the product. Don't waffle on about the features - focus on HOW those features will BENEFIT the reader. Be benefits focused, not product-features focused. One way to go is to write "Feature - SO - BENEFIT"
For example (to take something near to hand for someone who lives in Japan), the humble Mitsubishi pencil might not be thought to offer too many benefits, but you can always dig deep and find something:
"The Mitsubishi pencil has an eraser firmly attached to the top by a metal band [FEATURE] SO when you screw up your sketch you'll never have to go searching around your cluttered desk for an eraser [BENEFIT]."
You know, stuff like that.
The aim of the first review should be to build rapport with the reader and introduce the major benefit from the reader's perspective, dampen scepticism and arouse sufficient curiosity or eagerness to cause the reader to click through to the main product sales page - the one provided by the Clickbank product provider.
Now, if you get your reader that far you will have done well.
Two or three days later, follow up with your second review. This one attacks their objections and predisposes them to buy. To do that it is best to use a Question and Answer format. To anticipate the objection by asking a question about it is already to weaken it by suggestion; the suggestion being that you have already considered and dealt with it. The proof lies in the answer, so make it strong and decisive. By answering objections you predispose your reader to buy, or at least to have another look, and familiarity, one of the key tools of the follow-up method, is an important wallet-opener.
Let another couple of days go by and send out your third message about the product.
This message drives home the points made in the previous two in a series of short sharp bullet points that encourage an instant click-through and purchase.
The follow-up technique should then be reapplied to all the names on your list who actually purchased. Transfer them from the "Subscribers" list to a new list designated "Customers".
Customers who had a good experience buying from you will be much more predisposed to purchase again, so make sure you keep them updated with a fresh series of mailings and with offers that you know they will love.
So the money really is in the follow-up, and in following up on your follow-up with more products to sell off the back end of your initial offer.
And if you are looking for more products to offer your new customers, all you need to do is head back over to Clickbank!!
Both Joseph Gilharry & D. Hurley are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Joseph Gilharry has sinced written about articles on various topics from Ezines And Newsletters, Small Business and Email Marketing. Learn Underground Marketing Tactics and jump start your online success. Gain access to our free membership today! (Absolutely No Cost)