How To Break Into Any Niche Part 1: Funnel Everything Into A List
Any time you offer anything, you need to create a sublist for it. If you have a paid product, create a sublist to put customers into.
If you offer a freebie report, create a sublist for it and require your visitors to opt-in so you can send the download link via e-mail. Don't ask for an e-mail address after they get the product, this works about as poorly as if you sold someone a book and then asked them to pay for it after they're done reading it.
These all need to go to the SAME autoresponder (so you can broadcast a product launch to everyone) but have segmented sublists so you can deliver updates only to some existing buyers, or offer special deals to certain lists.
Do you want to know everything I know about list building?
- Turning existing customers into subscribers gathers the most responsive subscribers.
- Requiring an opt-in in exchange for a free product gathers much less responsive subscribers.
- Trading free information (a newsletter) for an e-mail address gathers even less responsive subscribers.
- Getting subscribers from pay-per-click traffic, co-ops and traffic exchanges gathers subscribers not worth marketing to.
Here is how I broke into the PHP niche: I created a newsletter and offered a free 30-page PDF report in exchange for signing up. This is my "main" sublist. I found some old articles of mine and filled up an autoresponder series with 6 months of follow-ups (1 or 2 messages per week). Most of the time -- especially at the beginning -- I would offer lots of free advice and information. A few weeks into the seriesI mention some of my freebie products to get them on more of my lists. Then I mention some more of my paid products.
Notice how I say "mention." I don't say I switch from articles to promoting my products. I talk about something and then say, "Here is how you solve that problem: (my URL)" or, "If you are interested in that topic, here is more information about it: (my URL)."
Blend content with sales. Too many people try to sell too early or try a hard sell after piling on lots of free info.
About filling up an autoresponder, I tend to do one per week for six months for the main newsletter. For the product sublists, I will space out messages at about one per month.
- First I would ask what they thought of the product, and sent them to a feedback form so I could actually get their response.
- In the next message I would offer a surprise bonus for being a loyal subscriber.
- At some point I would send them to a feedback form again asking for a testimonial and telling them to make sure to include their name and web site URL so they could get some free promotion from my site. (It's always about what's in it for them.)
You don't need to fill up every sublist with an autoresponder sequence because you're going to be pushing your product launches to all sublists every now and then. You also need to remember that many people will be subscribed to more than one of your sublists -- and who wants 5 e-mails a day from the same person? Not me.
You do need people to remember who you are and that's what we'll deal with next: relationship building.
Filed in: Niche Selection
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Hi Robert
Hehe. That remark about people paying after they read a book was pretty funny. I liked the comparison.
You are, again, so very right. People must differentiate their contacts. Otherwise one doesn’t stand a single chance in targetting what fits whom.
Keep up the good work. 🙂
I agree about using the same autoresponder. I noticed you use your own autoresponder, so I was wondering if you also use the same email-from?
I’ve tried using different ones (to match the domain from the opt-in), but my host won’t allow sending out those emails.
Can’t wait to read the rest.
Hi Robert,
Yes soft sell is the only way to go through email lists.
I think everyone has been turned off of most lists because after a very short time the list owner would send nothing but BUY ME, BUY ME type emails and no real valuable content. And please honor all your request to be removed from the list. I am dealing with one marketer now that will not take me off his list no matter how many times I click the remove link, and he has me on 4 or 5 lists. Can you say C.M.
Thanks for the info. Oh and because of your no fluff content I own all your ebooks and videos.
Jim
http://www.e-bookreprintrights.com
Robert,
I think you are the one that is giving me the push to stop fooling around and start geting back into the swing of things…
going to take your tips and get to work NOW!
😀
Phil: I use different e-mail froms for the freebie products but my real from e-mail for the paid product update lists.
Jim: I know exactly who you’re talking about. At a Warrior get-together in NYC he came up in conversation, how he creates new lists faster than you can unsubscribe from them. Then about 10 minutes later I met him (big scary German guy).
When you unsubscribe to a list of his he just moves you to another list and at some point was selling his list of unsubscribers. The way I have it, if someone unsubscribes from any list, it unsubscribes that address from all other lists as well. I probably lose a few people but I’d rather have a smaller list with very few complaints than a larger list with tons of complaints.
Robert > Your comment is so true, and certainly I do the same. Someone who unsubscribed is NO LONGER interested, and there is no need to tease the person. Much rather delete him/her and they come back later because they have missed your letters. 🙂
That C.M. wouldn’t happen to be Mr. Cody M., would it? I know exactly what you mean. He has all his offers for $0.00 and recurring PayPal-payments. I guess one could write PayPal, but the problem is that he doesn’t specifically violate any of their Terms of Service.
I have written about his Adsense templates and they are really amateurish. Would go for my own optimization or a quick Joel C.-template any day. 🙂
Yeah it’s Cody. At least he puts his real name and address on those e-mails, so you could always filter out any message that contains his name.
His AdSense templates do suck, and I have no idea why he keeps trying to get people to resell ipod movies… who would watch a 2-hour movie on a one inch screen?
Plus, they’re all public domain movies (because they are free) so you are stuck with films such as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”
I’m not a marketeer. I love Robert’s php tutorials, which is why I buy his articles. It gives me code I can modify to use in web building. I have no imagination, and no way to offer a product that I can market. Building client lists would be great, if I were in sales, but I’m not, I’m just happy to keep getting great tutorials on how to build things.
Eugene: Why can’t you offer a product? I remember in an earlier post you said you built web pages. What does that mean… do you do Flash, Frontpage, Dreamweaver?
You could write some quick articles or tips talking about what you do… make some videos… Dreamweaver videos are big sellers…
If you don’t have a list you are missing out on so much. Take this blog for example. The other day I posted a new blog entry and didn’t send a mailing to my list, just to see what would happen.
1 comment… I only got one comment to the post all day!
Then I sent out a quick message to my list early this morning. 28 comments spread out over a few different posts.
If I mention an existing product of mine to my list I can expect $100 within the following 24 hours. If I mention a brand new product to my list I can expect $1000 minimum within the following 24 hours.
Ha Ha. Now that’s funny.
You don’t even have to mention C.M’s. name and everybody knows who you are talking about. I think his business is drying up day by day and he keeps grasping at different junk to sell in hopes someone new will buy it.
Yes Eugene build you a list. You can start with no expense at all. You will be suprised, one day you will look at your list and wonder how you got so many people on it. Just do it. Can’t hurt.
Jim
http://www.e-bookreprintrights.com
Hey Robert,
Another very informative post. Thanks so much – it is great to hear exactly how you are doing things cause it makes everything a bit clearer.
As for Mr. C.M. I got sucked in last week and downloaded one of his $0.00 products to resell and was part way through setting it up when I realized every bonus (and there were 4 of them)the package itself would be sending my buyers to his sites!! – not mine??
So, I deleted everything!
I want to have my customers remain my customers.
Thanks again, I am really enjoying the info.
Harry Crowder
I wonder who the one comment was. 😉
(hint: someone that refreshes this page too often.)
Hi Robert,
Thanks for this one. I like the sequencing idea, especially when you have sublists. Blending content with offers isn’t really hard, as long as what you’re offering has anything to do with why they are on your list. If it’s not, then that’s a whole different game; I think you really have to know your niches and what you’re sending to them, to make sure it’s on target. Otherwise you will lose both credibility AND subscribers — neither one what you want.
Nancy
Robert,
I understand you rank the responsiveness of opt in subscribers as number 2 but is that still not the best way to begin building your list?
Also, I am building a subscribers list from optins. When someone makes a purchase I wanted to add them to a buyers list. I was going to have the autoresponder automatically delete them from the optin list so they would not get double email at times. Is that a good idea?
Your attitude has finally gotten me into motion and I now have 3 products with freebie offer squeeze pages and an upsell offer. I also have WSO pages ready to go but found out I have not made enough posts to place a WSO yet. Will get that taken care of right away. I am also changing the page backgrounds to your paper template as soon as I figure out how to edit the css page. I am strictly a HTML person.
Cody M. has got all of us at one time or another. I have seen a lot of people really upset by his tactics. Whenever you see a big ole shark fin in the water… it is Cody M.
This is a great post Robert. It reminded me of some list building details that I had forgotten about.
Glen
Plank ,
I used to make the mistake of sending all kinds of general offers and information to my main list. I was not segmenting it . This cost me sales , subscribers and some of my subscribers complained bitterly about it.
I only recently really started creating sub lists for my main list.
I am even going to remove my FREE main offer which is valuable buy not specific enough to build me specific targeted subscribers.
I will get a pop up plugin that will rotate specific targeted free offers aligning with the blog post visitors land on .This ensures i build a more targeted sub list.
I like the idea of “mentioning offers’ instead of being too pushy . I have made the mistake of being pushy when i started e-mail marketing earlier.
I am already changing that strategy to something similar to what Andre Chaperon teaches in AutoresponderMadness.
I love your blog posts..short ,straight to the point without filler.
(i need to start writing like this)
Hello Robert,
I’m so embarrassed, I have never built a list, and feel like such a newbie although I have been online for quite sometime.
Thanks for lifting up the rock, Robert, so I can crawl from underneath it. All the years of building my previous site and never building a list nor monetizing it because I thought if you build it they will come…
I’ll be sure to follow along and begin to implement some new strategies.
FYI…I find a lot of good info within all the comments as well – thanks everyone.
DigitalDave
PS: The site mentioned above with No list nor monetized, can be seen here… http://www.TheCyberHoodWatch.com
Robert, great article and very informative, like always. Your information always motivates me when I get down and think I cannot accomplish something. I would have given up a long time ago but keep moving forward. Thanks for all that you do. Breaking things down into smaller proportions makes things easier to achieve your dreams. It may take longer but at least you move forward and not backwards.