How To Profit From Email Lists - Part 1

There are three things you must do in order to profit from any email list. If you are not getting the results you want from your email marketing campaigns, one of these three ingredients is missing. The three key ingredients are…

1. Build a personal relationship with your list
2. Build a personal relationship with your list
3. Build a personal relationship with your list

No, I’m not trying to be funny here; I am dead serious! In real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. With email marketing, it’s all about building a personal relationship. How do you come across in your emails? Are you pushing a sales pitch, or do you recommend a product or service that you actually use?

Here is a great example of what I mean: My wife went to Kohl’s the other day and she discovered a huge 50% off sale. She found some great deals that day. What do you think she did when she returned home? She got on the phone and told her sister, her mother, her friends, and her neighbor about this terrific sale. Some of them actually dropped what they were doing to check out the sale on my wife’s recommendation. My wife has a personal relationship with these people which makes them trust her opinion. Do you think she would have had the same impact if she mentioned this sale to a bunch of strangers at the super market? Probably not.

The industry average for your lists profitability is around $1.00 per subscriber. This means that if you have a thousand subscribers you should be earning $1000.00 per month. I don’t know where these figures came from; actually I think they are a bit high. I think the average is more like fifty cents or even less. My own monthly average is between $3.00 and $7.00 per month, per subscriber. This is 3 to 7 times what the industry average is.

What is the key to earning extreme profits from your list? Stop selling to your subscribers! All of your communication should be formatted the same way you would write to your mother, or your siblings, best friend, etc. Work on building a strong relationship first; you can recommend products later. Look back to when your subscriber first signed up to your list; what did you promise to teach them? You should over-deliver what you said you would.

Let your readers get to know you personally

You should try to start all of your emails with some news about your personal life; let them get to know you by sharing an experience you had the past week. My wife and I went to northern Michigan a few days ago to see the fall color tour; we took some great pictures which I will be sharing with my list. This will give them a chance to know me better and connect with me personally. I share good things as well as bad things that happened recently. This also encourages feedback which is extremely important.

Encourage feedback

Many email marketers will tell you that feedback is a bother; feedback is something they don’t have time for. I am here to tell you that feedback is absolutely crucial to your success with email marketing. Feedback from subscribers should make you fall out of your chair with excitement! If someone writes you back, you have a chance to communicate on a personal level. This is the starting point toward building a strong personal relationship. I try to answer all of my subscriber emails as soon as humanly possible. I also encourage my readers to Skype me, or send me an instant message as these tools are how friends communicate.

This is not the end of this discussion as I have a lot more to say. For now let me ask you this…

Would you rather have $1000.00 or 1000 friends? If you chose the second path you are on your way to greatness with email marketing!

Cheers!