The Money Is In The List!
Building Lists and Monetizing Them
The Money is in The List
This is a phrase you hear a lot in digital marketing.
And…it’s true! For every $1 spent on email marketing you get back $40 (on average.) That is a 4000% ROI, insane!
How do we get those kinds of returns? Best way is to offer and bring value, value, value and more value. Then we add a little extra value as well. Value is always relevant to the list you build (or want to build). Always go above and beyond your list’s expectations. You need to convince them with every email that you are bringing the goods.
Ok I am in! So, how do we create a list?
There are lots of ways to build a list. We are going to approach the how from a few different angles cold, warm and hot traffic.
Cold Traffic
What is Cold Traffic? Well it is traffic that is unfamiliar with you and/or unfamiliar with your brand.
People and Brands
At this point, I feel as though people are brands and brands are people. Hot take? Maybe, but for this writer they both go hand-in-hand. For most unknown brands, you are buying from the person and not the brand. Thinking about it another way, you walk into a store for the first time and are greeted by the owner. He or she is very polite, knowledgeable, helpful and makes you feel comfortable. Needless to say, they leave you with a positive experience about them, and in turn, the store itself. Your people, no matter what role, are your brand ambassadors. People = brand, brand = people representing it.
To sum what Cold Traffic is, regardless of what you are marketing, anyone who does not know you or your brand.
When you are building a list with Cold Traffic, we need to offer people an ethical bribe. An ethical bribe is when you offer something of value for their information. It is the same as making a sale except people are more likely to give you their email address vs their credit card. Ethical bribes are usually specific to what you are selling and the people or audience you are trying to sell to.
Understanding your market and your target audience are mission critical to solving the questions of what content or resource you will offer plus who you will be targeting. Identifying both will allow you to figure which platform you want to buy traffic on — LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google, etc.
The Ethical Bribe — Exchanging Value For an Email Address
Now that we know who we are targeting and where we are going to find them, we need to figure the ethical bribe or the bait. You could offer a book (maybe one you wrote for this purpose), a how to guide, a resource list, a toolkit (similar to resource list), a report, a grading tool, freemium software, tips and tricks, etc. As you can see there is no shortage of possible content to create and offer. The only limitations are our imaginations.
Setting it All Up
To start you only need an Email service provider or ESP. Unfortunately, you cannot use Gmail or any other off the shelf consumer email client. For this, you need an ESP that accepts emails compliantly and will send emails at scale. There are lots of ESPs you can choose from. Two examples are Mailchimp and aWeber, etc. Mailchimp has a free level (2000 subscribers and 12000 emails per month) before they ask for money.
The one problem with ONLY using an ESP is sending traffic to the ESPs opt-in page. These pages are not customizable. This limits the amount of copy and color on the email list signup page.
Our suggestion would be to use a website builder to create your landing page and connect the ESP or install the ESPs opt-in code on your landing page.
At this point, you have a buyer persona, an ethical bribe (lead magnet), and a landing page for them to opt-in on. Now you need traffic.
Traffic
When building your buyer persona you would have decided where you are going to run campaigns. So, we will not get into that important element. Now, you need to setup your campaign. One rule of thumb (we use) for landing page conversion rates is we need to achieve a 33% or higher conversion or opt-in rate. Obviously, you want to keep your costs as low as possible. So, keep tinkering with ad copy, naming of the ethical bribe, and landing page copy. If you can get leads or emails for under $1, you are doing an awesome job.
Warm Traffic
What is Warm Traffic? I consider it be traffic that has come to your site, blog or social media page(s) for your content. They know you and/or your brand. Perhaps they follow you on social media. This is traffic who are interested in the content you put out and maybe even want to consume it regularly. Again, enticing them into getting their email should not be as difficult as Cold Traffic. Tactics here would be different than Cold Traffic tactics. Maybe you offer them something specific like daily [industry or vertical] tips and tricks delivered to their inbox every day or week, exclusive access to a community, content as soon as it is published or you could offer all of the above plus bonuses. Again, the ethical bribe (or offer) for their email needs to be something your readers would consider valuable.
How Or Better Question Where
This bribe or offer should be everywhere. All of your social media profiles, on all of your posts, all of your emails, on the site you post your content on, your business cards. When you put it on your site you want to have it as a pop-over or within your content (like an ad).
If you are an online store you want to offer a discount or coupon to incent people to join your list. Perhaps a contest could work best for them to enter your list. The ethical bribe needs to be something they cannot or should not want to say no to. However, the ask should not affect user experience. Be careful how you use popovers or exit pops on your content. Make sure they are easy to escape from and load quickly.
Hot Traffic
Hot Traffic is someone who has bought from you or has used your service before. They know you and like you. Perhaps when they have already agreed to receive emails from you. If they did, perfect! If not, then you want to get them on your list.
The ask (to get them on the list) would be an email explaining what you are sending (content), when, why they need it and where they sign up.
Something like:
Hello (Name),
Incredible offer for you.
We are sending out the best discounts and coupons we find on the internet, almost daily.
In the last few days, we have found offers for [product x] at a 60% discount. Something the average consumer would never be able get in any big box store or website. The products could be anything, but we mainly focus on electronics.
We thought you may be interested.
Want us to include you? Let us know here ->
If they open the email up how do they say ‘no’ to this offer?
I Have a List, Now What?
You email the list with relevant, valuable content. And you email them when you say you will. If you told them you mail to them every Thursday, then mail every Thursday.
The best time to mail sales and promotions is between 8am and 9am. If you are mailing content to a highly engaged list then you can mail them at any time. Time will not matter, as they are waiting on your every word. Once you get started, you can play with the times you send your emails for optimal results.
Content For Your Emails
You should be sending them your content, pitches for products (yours or someone else’s), and relevant content from other content producers. Content options are endless BUT remember the point of building a list is to monetize it. Build trust first, then make money.
Making Money from Your List
This completely depends on what you do or what you sell. If you sell services, sell your services. If you sell products, then sell your products. If you produce great content and want to monetize your list there are a few options here. One, you could sell your content, think paywalls or Patreon. Under the umbrella of selling your content, you could create an extra layer of content for your hardcore fans. You could also sell other people or company’s programs or products. Another option would be selling advertising space within your email.
With anything, make the content authentic, ensure the product adds value and try everything you are selling before recommending it to your list.
In conclusion, your list is where a lot of your profit lies. For example, some online stores lose money or break even all year building their customer lists for Q4 Black Friday and holiday sales. They know they can generate a ton of money from their list on promotions especially in Q4, so they risk losing a little bit of money upfront (on customer acquisition) for the opportunity to market to them year-round. These smart companies play the long game with their lists.
Happy Marketing
-Michael
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