Email Marketing - The Money is Not in the Size of Your List

Email marketing is not straight forward. You don't build a huge a list and then market to it. This is why the phrase "the money in the list" is misleading. There are many cases where you won't make a dime even if you had tens of thousands of subscribers on your list. Read these 2 scenarios to understand the true art of email marketing.

Scenario 1

I signed up to an email list offering me several reports on how to sell online with a website. There was also a bonus of several training videos for free.

I downloaded the content and read through some of the material. Since it was such a big package, I didn't manage to read all of it. I just glanced at it.

Two days, later I got an email from the owner of the list. He told me that there's a great product that has just launched and that I should buy it before it sells out.

Not really interested in the particular product, I had a look and deleted the email.

A day later, I get another email reminding me about the offer. As soon as I realized it was the same offer I read previously, I deleted the email again.

A few days later, I receive an email telling me that I should check out this new report. I clicked on the link and found that it was a sales letter to purchase a product. I scanned the sales letter and wasn't interested. I hit the DELETE key once again.

This continued. I realized that this list owner was promoting the same new products as other list owners. As soon as I read a similar message I didn't bother reading the rest of the email.

A month has gone since I subscribed to this list. Now I don't read the emails anymore. My brain just automatically tells me to ignore the email from this sender.

After a few months, I decided to unsubscribe from this list. I was reading too many emails and I wasn't reading this particular sender's emails anyway.

Scenario 2

I signed up to a list offering me a report on how to make money online with email marketing. I scanned the report and put it aside to read later on.

Two days later, I receive an email from the list owner. He thanked me for downloading the report and ask me to contact him if I had any questions. I liked the personal feel this guy was trying to create. I removed the email from my inbox and carried on as usual.

A few days later, I received another email asking me how I was doing with the report. He mentioned that he received a lot of questions on Chapter 4 from other readers and he will email everyone to explain in more detail later.

Feeling curious, I read Chapter 4 in the report to see what it was about. After I finished reading it, I read other chapters as well as I found the information useful.

After 2 weeks of asking me what I thought of the report and providing more supporting material to help me understand the concepts more, the list owner decided to talk a bit about himself and how he started the business.

His emails were entertaining, funny and he wasn't selling anything. He occasionally sent me an article which he wrote and I found it to contain good information.

Within 3 weeks or so, I started to really like this guy. He seems really knowledgeable and his emails always had some value in them and it made me laugh. I was looking forward to read more of his emails.

The next day, I was surprised to see him recommending a product. I read what he had to say and was really interested in buying the product. After all, this guy is an expert. If he says it's good, then it must be. Plus I like him.

After a while, I started to receive more recommendations from him. He wasn't really asking me to buy anything. He just told me his thoughts on it and provided a link for me to read more.

Over the past year, I've bought several products recommended by this list owner and the products have all been great. Whenever I speak on the topic of marketing online, I tell the person that they should check out this list owner's newsletter. It's one of the most entertaining things I love to read during the week.

Conclusion

Obviously the email marketing strategy used in scenario 2 was much more effective in bringing in sales. Look at the way how the list owner communicates with his subscribers to understand why. Also check out the list owner's actions in scenario 1. Learn why having a person on your list means nothing.

The funny thing is, the list owner in scenario 2 isn't really communicating with his subscribers. The messages are already in his autoresponder account. He starts to promote to his list after they've gone through the series of emails so that they know, trust and like him. This is the email marketing strategy that you need to implement in your business.