“When you have a responsive list of quality people who want to hear from you and are pre-disposed to buy from you, then suddenly your business woes vanish (assuming you are selling quality products at profitable prices).”
~ Debra Hilton
Your List = Your Fortune
Imagine having a list of buyers who look forward to hearing from you regularly and who want you to share with them the tools and resources they can purchase to build their business and hone their skills. These are not just people who signed up to get your lead magnet, but the ones who stick around, consume your materials, and actually buy from you.
Now think about how that changes your need to advertise sales… it stops that dead in its tracks and you may even decide not to sell to people outside your own tribe. It also relieves your of the need to sell products and services when you are networking, speaking, or being interviewed because your focus is on inviting people to join your list knowing that these people will almost certainly buy from you sooner rather than later.
Why is Your List so Important?
I hope you’re starting to get a feel for my answer to this question.
Your list is something you own. It is not dependent on any social media platform not is it something you rent from a list-broker… although rented lists, used strategically, may help you to find more of your ideal clients and make them your own.
You can email your list as often as you choose and make them whatever offers you see fit. Everything you do and say is at your own risk, because if you abuse the trust they placed in you when they signed up and offer content that is inappropriate for the nature of your relationship they will leave and you will lose the ability to communicate. On the other hand, as long as you are authentic and consistent every time you interact with them the bond between you grows stronger and your sales will grow.
Quite simply, the risk is yours and so is the reward.
Should You Sell to Your List?
A business that doesn’t believe in the solution they offer enough to sell isn’t going to last very long. I know that above I said that when you are networking, speaking, or being interviewed your focus on list building relieves you of the need to make the sale immediately… but that doesn’t mean that I’m against selling per se, it means that I want you to think about the context of your relationship and a 5-minute interview probably doesn’t give you time to sell a $10,000 course, but it certainly gives you time to offer a compelling lead magnet or entry-level offer which then gives you a chance to develop the relationship further.
Yes, you should definitely sell to your list as often as you communicate with them.
The Benefits of Charging for a Lead Generation Product
Have you ever wondered why businesses charge $1.00, $0.99 or some other insignificant amount for their lead magnet?
It’s not to make money. It’s a powerful way of multiplying the value of your list. If your only means of communicating with people on your list is via email then you are losing a lot of opportunities. However, when you charge for a product, even though you do not keep their credit card details on file you also get their billing address and phone number. Their billing address is usually where they receive mail (perfect for direct mail), and many people pay much more attention to texts than they do to emails. This may or may not be true of your audience, but it is worth testing. In any case, it provides you with multiple ways of communicating with people on your list.
As an added bonus, charging for your lead magnet also helps you separate the tyre-kickers and freebie seekers, although you should can have an option for people to sign up without paying anything for those who like to ‘try before they buy’.
Unsubscribes are Your Friend
Now that list and email providers are a lot more conscientious about spam prevention, an unresponsive list can be detrimental. Actually, I’m rather sceptical about open rates because many people have preview turned on on their phones so they can read your email without opening it… something that cannot be monitored. That’s why many senders put links in the their emails that you have to click if you want to read the whole article… the theory is admirable, but ask yourself:
How many of those articles might you have continued reading, but you didn’t because you had to click the link?
So, are those additional metrics worth the lost attention and frustration of your readers? Personally, I don’t think so, but it depends whether your focus is on metrics per se, or other measures of responsiveness as well.
Anyway, the reason that unsubscribes are really a good thing is that you don’t want to artificially inflate your community out of vanity. A list of 50, 500, or 1000 people who care about hearing from you and are actively engaged with your ideas and products is far more profitable than 10,000 people who don’t care.
Your Book & Your List
There are many powerful ways to turn your authority book into a client and opportunity magnet, one is using it to get people onto your list. This is particularly important when people purchase your book or ebook via Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, or Nook, but it’s also important when they purchase it via your website or at an event.
List-building opportunities should be woven into the fabric of your book and should have their own advertisements at the beginning and the end of it. After all, a person who has read your book from cover to cover (or even skimmed it) is probably interested in learning more from you.
Would You Like to Learn How to Really Use Your Book to Create an Amazing Business Platform?
Whether you have an existing book that is under-performing or a new book that you want to gain early traction, I can help you optimise your marketing so that your ideas spread more quickly and your business and income grow with it.
This is especially useful if you are interested in building an international speaking career and working outside your existing geographic location.
For more information schedule an appointment use the following link: http://www.scheduleyou.in/aPy7Kmkuez
