Build a List of Eager Subscribers

Posted on 27. Jan, 2010 by JulieP in List Building Tips

If you want to get your website profitable, collecting email addresses and building a list of eager subscribers is a critical part of the equation.

As more traffic is driven to your site, whether from social media sites, PPC (Pay-per-Click), search engines or other methods, you should be trying to entice as many visitors as possible to subscribe to your email list.

This is a list of email addresses where your website visitors have “opted in” so they can receive more information from you.

This information can take many forms – articles, videos, photographs, audios, promotional offers, latest news in your industry, events lists – even the ubiquitous “newsletter”.

For you as a small business owner, using email to build an ongoing relationship with your online customers and prospects is exceedingly inexpensive!

A good autoresponder can be less than $10 per month (depending on the size of your list) – and sending the email is free!

If you use the SPAM scoring tool in your autoresponder, the majority of your emails will be received by your subscribers.

By sending out valuable and interesting (not self-serving!) content to your subscribers, you will continue to increase the number who not only open your emails – but who also look forward to reading them.

I am subscribed to many lists on the internet because I need to keep up with what is going on.

Recently I analysed my own behaviour as a subscriber. Out of the many emails I receive, there are only two that I read 100% of the time – and immediately click on their links to go to their website to read or watch the information they are sending to me.

So what sets the two of them apart?

They ALWAYS give me some new information that I didn’t already know.

They ALWAYS entertain me when providing that information (they both have a similar sense of humour to me!).

They ALWAYS are completely upfront if they are trying to get me to buy something specific from them.

Even if they are trying to make some money from me, they give me a minimum of 80% useful/great information then give me a sales pitch.

So now we’ve looked at what turns me into an “eager” subscriber – let’s look at the opposite end of the spectrum.

What do I hate enough that makes me unsubscribe immediately?

They ALWAYS are trying to sell me something.

They don’t give me any information that is useful for my business – only what they think will make me buy their stuff.

They make the big “We’re Wonderful” mistake!

They are so busy telling me that they know their stuff, that their product is the best in the world, that they are so wonderful etc. etc. – that they forget to tell me what their product will do for me!

There is a classic story about this – is the person who needs to buy a drill.

In reality, they don’t really want a drill – what they really need is a HOLE.

This concept should permeate ALL of your marketing – “sell” the result – if I want a hole, I don’t care if the person who is selling the drill has been in business for 100 years – I want someone who knows everything there is to know about creating the fastest, cleanest, easiest holes in the world!

If you can become adept at selling the “hole” rather than the “drill” in your promotional emails, you will get a far better response.

The big key to getting your subscribers to become “eager” to receive emails from you though – is to give them great content.

If you keep the 80% content/20% promotions rule and give great content, your email list will be full of “eager” subscribers who will be hanging out to open your emails to see what they can learn this time.