Hey Moses! Hahaha thank you.

Definitely start building a list now – even if you’re just sending people to a landing page. My list is more important than my blog, social media pages, YouTube channel, pretty much anything else. Without it I’d hardly make anything.

If you need help, let me know alright? Thanks again Moses!

Hey Kim! It’s definitely valuable.

Really I think the most important thing is that we have systems in place to deal with and make the most out of every situation. The autoresponders can handle almost everything but once you reach a certain volume of people you’re interacting with you need something to further keep track of people. We can only remember so much about so many people and we all know how much easier it is to sell to somebody you know – and somebody who feels like you both know each other.

Too many people you can make up for poor conversions with volume but in my opinion this is a bad way to go about handling things. Then again, I invest a bit in paid traffic so ROI is very important to me.

Let me know what you think of Insightly, or another CRM if you decide to go with one. I’m just now really starting to get the hang of it!

Thanks Kim!

Hey Richard!

You know, I definitely see that being a huge advantage because so many internet marketers forget that there are actually real human people behind the numbers. It’s easy to forget when you’re working with so much data but you have to think of things from their perspective.

I agree that it makes more sense to offer solutions. People buy products to solve problems, even if the problems aren’t obvious. People buying $100,000 cars have different problems they need a solution to than people buying junkers. Selling benefits only really works if the benefit itself is going to solve the buyer’s problem. Identify and solve the problem first, then add all the other benefits on top. That’s how I see it anyway.

And hey, it’s never too early to start automation. It doesn’t have to be extremely complex at first – even something as simple as moving people to another list and promoting a different product when one is purchased can cut out a lot of the work. When you get personalized emails though… those go in the CRM for me!

Thanks so much for adding value to this post Richard, it was very nice to hear from someone who came from an offline background because I went the other way!

Hey Tom!

Sounds like you’ve got your priorities straight. Far too many people think that their blog itself is their business. I know that I’d be just fine with only my list and a squeeze page – the blog just helps move people onto the list, and move people on the list closer to a sale. It’s all a huge system and these systems have to work together to achieve an end goal.

You’re absolutely right about call to actions in emails. I swear many people seem to be building a list just for the sake of building a list – because they feel like it’s something they’re supposed to do. Maybe they throw in a little bit of value and a little bit of promotion, but they don’t really go far beyond that. And then in their minds the solution is always more subscribers because they do not know what they’re missing.

I think to really thrive you have to have a clear of understanding of who you’re trying to attract, how to attract them, and how to make the most out of everybody.

Oh, and absolutely! Thank you so much for sharing, I always appreciate that.

Good talking with you Tom!

Hi Donna!

You’re absolutely right and it’s something so many bloggers ignore. It’s not enough to simply have a list. If you want to really make the most of it you need to have a system in place to deliver targeted messages to specific sets of people who have specific sets of problems. This is especially true if you’re investing in paid advertising. Even a small increase in ROI can blow you up way quicker just because of the compound reinvestments.

I’m glad to hear you took advantage of that opportunity to sell them your video presentation. I’m always looking out for these opportunities becuase you know if somebody’s emailing you they’re already engaged with you, so it’s fairly straightforward to sell to them once you identify their problems.

You’re on the money when you talk about automation. But automation without personalisation is counterproductive.

The fact that you communicate directly with subscribers who reach out to you is the ultimate personalization tactic. People love it – they see you as a real problem solver who has their best interests at heart. When that happens more income is usually the end result.

I also agree with your stance on list size. To me, the size of the list isn’t nearly as important as the quality and responsiveness of the list. I would rather have a list of 500 engaged people than a 50,000 subscriber list with low open rates and as a consequence, little or no engagement.

Keeping track of info is another important point. I must admit I’m a bit weak in this area so will check out Insightly – thanks for the head’s up.

Good one, James!

Kim

As most of my years of sales and business experience has been off line (that’s how old I am), this means that I still look at ‘leads’ as people rather than traffic. We were always taught to sell ‘benefits’, but now we offer ‘solutions’ instead, which makes much more sense to me. But of course, in order to offer solutions rather than benefits, we have to be even more specific in our research and targeting.

I am sure there is still some advantage to this off line marketing mindset I learned, which still applies at this time in on line marketing. We still tend to see people rather than numbers. The disadvantage is the need to learn that we can be become just as engaged using software. That has been the learning curve for me.

I have always taught people that one personal ‘warm’ lead is worth 100 ‘cold’ leads any day. As you said in your post, “…a list of 200 is nothing to be embarrassed about” as long as they are engaged. In the end, most of my high ticket conversions have come through good old-fashioned one-to-one interaction, which only works if we use it from the first time we contact that person.

I don’t yet have the volumes that require massive automation, as my list is only about 450, but I can now see how CRM is a must with blogging and I’m sure this is the best time to start learning to use it.
Thanks for this insightful post, James.

Best wishes
Richard

Your post and examples you’ve included in it, prove so much why building a list from word “Go” is so important. In fact, I started my list before I even started my blog. Do this helped me discover what my blog’s real niche and message should be.

I blog about Blogging in the main, which is such a huge and crowded niche. But starting my list and engaging with list members really helped me discover what would make me and my blog stand out.

Now, I have an engaged audience that is really getting a lot of great results from what I teach about taking the frustration out of getting traffic (and everything that goes with it) and it’s all because of my list, the people who’ve joined my list and my engagement with them.

The biggest struggle people have with list building is knowing what to send their list members by way of emails. You’ve given some great examples of what here to start them off.

Btw, I saw a question on Quora from someone asking they can keep track of buyers. I’ll give this post’s URL to them so they can find out, it’s that okay with you, James? I think the info about the CRM will be especially useful to them.

– Tom

Our Email lists are the most important part of our business. We do have to get up close and personal on them. Each one is different if we are doing various things. And yes, we do have to segment them otherwise no one is going to open an email we send them.

I do a thing on Fridays called Friday Focus on one of my lists. I have received more action there than anything. It’s getting so great that I have done very similar things as you have in your examples. Give Give Give….. I once had a question from an email subscriber and I knew I had a video presentation done from last year to answer it. When I sent it the feedback was amazing. This person purchases loads of things needed in the area of business.

And that’s the thing, we need to know who on our list is selling what or needs particular information so that is why we need to segment. I will check out Insightly because things are growing. Thanks for the heads up.

-Donna