Are You Building A Great Relationship With Your Email List? 
So far, when it comes to traffic, we’ve been focusing on getting traffic to our squeeze page. In this most basic scenario, the squeeze page is at the center of the campaign. We drive targeted traffic there (people who already want what we’re offering – on convincing!), they leave their email in exchange for a free report (full of EPIC content).
Within that process, we have our headlines and copywriting, that makes sure the visitor stays on the page.
But then what? There are a lot of marketers – successful ones – who prefer to make a sale and move on. Instead of offering a free report and building a relationship, we could just hard sell the product right away. If we’re not looking to build a relationship then we would need to get the sale right there and then.
It’s a strategy that works. It takes some more advanced copy, for sure. But it works. If you’ve got a knack for that, that maybe try that route on for size.
My problem with that is that it leaves a lot of money on the table (potentially). The reasoning goes like this:
If we build a relationship based on giving away quality content up front (free report), we don’t make money up front, but we’re building trust.
- People are more likely to buy from someone they trust.
- If we continue to build a relationship, this means that a higher percentage of prospects will buy from us down the line.
- We continue to build a relationship with them, even after they have bought from us
- People are also more likely to buy from someone they have bought from BEFORE.
Are you starting to see the big picture? The time put into building a relationship up front results in more sales – more money – in the long term. From the same group of people.
Put into numbers. Hypothetically, let’s say we have 100 prospects sent to a data capture page. In the first scenario, we hard sell them on a $40 product. Let’s say 5 of them purchased. You just made $200.
Not bad. 100 leads is not that hard to generate, even with free traffic. But let’s say you spent $50 on marketing. You made 4x your money back. Pretty solid investment right? (note, I’ve keeping the numbers conservative).
Building a relationship generates this scenario:
We have the same 100 prospects. This time, they’re sent to a data capture site. Instead of hard selling them on buying now – we are relating to them. Their pains, their concern over xyz. We’ve been through the same and we have the answer.
And it’s in a FREE report. Just for them. Just leave your email so we can send it to you ASAP. No strings attached.
The prospect is skeptical. But after reading through the report, it blown away at what they’ve just gotten for free. You are now not only an authority, but legitimately trustworthy. Not only that, but the next two emails you send them will be filled with more free content.
See the relationship you’re building?
When you do finally send out an offer for a product or service, instead of 5 people purchasing this $40 product, now there’s 10. (It’s really killing me to be this conservative here….! I want to say at least 15 but I won’t do it. I won’t do it….)
You’ve just made $400 instead of $200. Off the same traffic.
Wait! Not done yet. You continue building that relationship. You continue sending them quality content. For free. And then you send out another $40 offer. Those first 10 people, say half of them are repeat buyers. Plus another 10. That’s $600 from the second offer.
AND…. that second offer is all profit. You didn’t need to spend any money to generate the traffic because you maintained the relationship.
So, would you rather make $200 off of 100 leads or $600 with a little more time spent upfront?
Try and understand how this works in your favor. First, we’re talking about a $40 in this example. Not $100 or $200 – and not a recurring program that pays you monthly.
Second, we’re stopping this example at two offers. I’ve been on a couple of lists for 5 and 10 years. Why? Because they have earned my trust and I’m constantly benefiting from what I receive from them.
You’re going to be putting the time into marketing and generating traffic anyway. Don’t just throw those leads away once you’ve made a buck. Build those lists. When you have a list of hundreds or even thousands of responsive leads, you can pretty much write your own check. Think about that for a moment.
What this all leads to is incorporating an auto-responder into your business. It’s not practical to sit at your desk and type every email individually to every person. (Almost all email providers will black list you anyway if you send out mass emails on a regular basis. But again, who wants to do all that work?)
An auto-responder (AWeber is my preference) takes care of all that. You type up all your emails up front and load them. You specify how many days apart the emails get sent out. And you’re done. They provide you with stats and reporting. You can see how many people opened each emails. You can see how many people clicked on the links in each email.
And of course – test, test, test! These stats allow you to test different headlines. Different copy. Different offers. Different styles. And see how it affects your response rate. It’s a beautiful thing.
You do all that work once. Then every time a lead is generated on your website, they automatically get plugged into your auto-responder sequence and the first email goes out. You don’t do anything.
I typically load 10 emails when I start a campaign. Then from there, I’ll add more along the way so the relationship is constantly growing 😉
We’ll be starting a detailed auto-responder course over at www.RecruitingForMLM.com.
Head on over there and subscribe now!
To Your Success,
Adel Refai
Adel (‘Oddle’) is a longtime internet marketer and online marketing coach. Far from perfect, he has spent many years (and many dollars) learning just about every mistake there is to know when it comes to online marketing... all just so you, dear reader, won’t have to suffer through that same agony.
He now works online full time, doing things the right way. You can visit his newest blog – www.RecruitingForMLM.com – for more helpful information, to contact him or to add his Facebook page and follow him there!
