List Building….5 Lessons from the Accidental Marketer

For the Frank Kern’s and John Reese’s of the world, list building is easy. People with large lists don’t have to worry about engagement because they will most certainly make sales via volume.  Plus, these players have the respect and credibility and are entrenched in their niches.  But what about the rest of us who have lists in the hundreds or thousands?  Connection is the name of the game and the better you are able to connect to your list, the richer you will become…but is it really as easy as that?

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 A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of working with a local business owner that would make most email marketers aka list builders go green with envy. The owner, a non-internet guy (and not much of a marketer either), had managed to build a really impressive list of 30,000 people…and his response rates (open rates) were astronomical!  And the funniest thing about this was that the owner of this business actually has no idea what he is doing! So what was he doing?

 

First, let’s review what most of the internet marketers say about how to build a list and how to market to that list….I want you to pay close attention to this because I have found that the “common” methods of list building are kind of flawed.  I will explain why in a second….

1. Offer something for free such as a free report or video or newsletter (something that the person who is subscribing will find valuable)
2. Make yourself credible by showing how you are an authority on whatever subject you are in.
3. Give free tips, items ect. to make the list responsive and actually open up your email.
4. Finally, start to promote products that you think that they may like.

That is it.  That is what most teach.  And in a way, it makes sense.  The only problem is that most marketers who promote this way have atrocious open rates (I read on one forum that open rates of 25-30% were impressive….WHAT????)

To circumvent and manipulate open rates, the list builder gurus suggest to make a great headline that will somehow foster curiousity.  In other words, don’t giveaway what your email is about.

Then there is the whole click through problem after the open….

Once again, the gurus and teachers have the solution….don’t make your email too long and pepper the links through out the email.

I am going to go on record and say that I have a problem with this.  Here’s why…

Most email marketers have little to no credibility going in and never actually gain credibility in their list’s eyes.  They are so focused on sales that they never bother to foster a connection between themselves and their readers.

The reason?  I belong to 30-something lists currently and for the most part, once you have read one, you have read them all.  Not to sound cynical, here is what the common autoresponder series is like:

• Day 1- Hey {name}, thanks for joining my list…as promised, here is your free download…{insert download URL}.  We will be in touch…
• Day 2 or 3-  Hey {name}, I was just wondering how you liked my {name of product}.  If you liked that…you will love the next one…keep a lookout for it tomorrow…
• Day 3-4- Hey again {name}…here is a great tip on how to {insert whatever}.  As usual, it is free.
• Day 4+- Hey {name}…yadayada yada….buy this product…yada yada yada…

The irony to this approach is it is exactly what you, as an internet marketer are told to do.  And it would work…IF….the person on the other end only belonged to one or two lists.  Unfortunately, it is the belief of this author that most people belong to more than one list AND because everyone is doing the exact same thing, the signal to noise ratio is very high.

Now, I don’t have the answers to this problem.  But what I do have is a little insight on this…based on my first newsletter…

The Case of the Accidental Marketer

My first foray into internet marketing came at a time when I had no idea what I was doing.   Strangely enough, in hindsight, it seemed like I did everything right.  In a period of a year, I had built a list of 10,000 people who wanted to read my newsletter.  No joke.  My open rates were close to 60% on average weekly.  And this was despite the fact that I had no clue what I was doing…..

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was an accidental marketer.  I had a large list and didn’t even understand what I was sitting on.  My mailing weren’t contrived.  They weren’t thought out, at least in the sense that traditional marketers would think things out.  They were just emails from a normal yokal local dude who thought that what he had to say would interest those that were interested in what he was interested in.

And what I have found is that most of these so called accidental marketers actually have something to teach those of us who consider ourselves to be professional marketers.  

Most internet marketers get so focused on what we should be doing and what rules and case studies tell us works, that we almost forget that there is a human being that could be reading our newsletter/email on the other end.

We spend more time trying to figure out how to manipulate in order to achieve sales when actually we should spend less time on that and actually do what the greats do….find ways to actually connect with our audience….

Below are some theories I have as to how to actually provide something real and engaging for your list rather than sounding like every other marketer out there….

First Principle-  People shouldn’t have to be bribed to join your list.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t offer a free bonus.  What I am saying is that the free bonus shouldn’t be the only reason why they signed up.  They should want to hear what you are saying.

In hindsight, the reason why my first newsletter did so well, open rate wise, was not because the people on my list thought they were getting anything for free.  Well, they were…they were getting insider information in a niche where the insider’s normally charged.  At the time, I didn’t see what I was doing as revolutionary or out of the ordinary.  In fact, I thought that building a newsletter was just a fun thing to do.

The reality for most email marketers is that the retention level is so low (I’m not talking about the unsubscribes…I am talking about the open rates because that is a better metric since most won’t bother to unsubscribe…they will just ignore your emails) because the subscriber not only doesn’t care what they have to say…they just want the free report/video/whatever it is.  

Some have gone so far as to have a “junk” email account set up so they don’t have to listen to you.

My email subscribers almost always opened my email back then.  It wasn’t the fact that there was less email that they had to sift through.  It was because what I had to say interested them.

And this is something that list builders sometimes forget.  If you aren’t engaging or entertaining and if you can’t make the connection, it doesn’t matter whether you have 100,000 people on your list…the fact is you simply won’t be able to leverage yourself into someone that they want to listen to.

And no amount of FREE stuff will make this any different.

Principle #2- Length of your message is not important…what you say is….

So many email marketers want to live by some rule that your email should be no more than XXX amount of words or else you will lose them.  The reality is that if your email is just 50 words, you still could lose them.  Alternatively, if your email is a short novella, it could be read from start to finish.  Case in point….Paul Myers.

Who is Paul Myers?  

For those of you who don’t know Paul, he is yet another internet marketer.  He has a list.  He sells stuff to his list….blah..blah..blah…

The difference between Paul and multitudes of other marketers out there is that Paul’s approach to email marketing is completely different than most.  He circumvents the rules.  You don’t see the same link nestled in the email 5 times between paragraphs.  He also doesn’t spend his time worrying about the supposed rules of list building.  

What Paul does is he writes long, INTERESTING articles for his newsletter.  They are so long that sometimes I have to break them up between reading sessions.  But they are entertaining. And Paul has the gift of gab in his storytelling.  In fact, he is so good about it, that most of the time, you forget that he is pitching you.

All that said, I would imagine that Paul has a pretty high open rate for his newsletter.  I would also bet that his click through rate for his ‘pitch’ is equally as high…..

Long…Short…it doesn’t matter…what matters is the actual engagement…if you can engage your subscriber, then they will open up your emails more often than not….

Principle #3 Marketing Headlines are for marketing suckers….

Tricks are for kids.  Marketing gurus will tell you that a headline will be the difference between someone opening or not opening your email.  I wonder if the same applies to you opening a email sent by a friend…probably not.  The reality is that this is only true if the person on the other end is not that interested in you.

Headlines can be fun.  The can arouse curiousity, sure.  They may make for a random click (I kind of liken it to rubber necking on the freeway).  But the reality is that just because they click on your email, it doesn’t neccessarily mean that they will like anything on the other end.  And what if you trick them into clicking your email….do you think you have them then?….chances are that if the person isn’t interested in YOU, your email will be quickly discarded. 

Case in point…email marketing guru, Frank Kern.  List builders and internet marketers alike have flocked to him and eat up whatever it is that he throws out there.  They try to analyze and duplicate his headlines.  If you subscribe to enough lists, you will spot these copycats that for one reason or another seem to think that if they do what Frank tells them to do (or is doing), that they will get the same results.  Huh?  Aside from John Reese (who is his ‘lex lugor’), I would be willing to bet that he is the creme de la creme as far as marketers go..a real life guru.  As a subscriber to his list, here are some of his “breakthrough” email headlines…

 

• FYI
• Get This…
• Did You See This?…
• Unfortunately
• Watch this (new video with my weirdo cousin)
• ect.

As an aside, my first newsletter with the high open rates didn’t have cutesy headlines.  To be honest, I didn’t really understand ad copy at all.  I was just a normal dude doing his newsletter without a care in the world.  Hell, at that point my “headlines” could have been written for my mom or my list…you honestly couldn’t tell the difference because I was ignorant to how I should write and effective ad copy…

Now, I am not saying that my headlines are better than Kern’s but most internet marketers dismiss one key ingredient to the list building puzzle….headlines may get the random open but overall if the subscriber wants to hear from you, they will read it regardless of what or how cute your headline may be.

I am not discounting ad copy…I am just trying to illustrate the one ‘gotcha’ factor that I believe is vital to working a good email list. Connection and internet marketing go hand in hand.

Marketers get so caught up with trying to trick their subscribers into clicking their email when really they should instead be focusing their efforts on providing an experience that makes the subscriber want to view what you have to say.

After all, would a friend of yours need to trick you into clicking their email?  Probably not….

Principle #4  List builders should spend more time thinking like their list and less time thinking about what is best for themselves…

What I mean by this is that for most list builders, the end (or what they think the outcome will be) will almost always justify the means (which is yet another crappy email from another crappy marketer trying to sell you something).

One of the primary rules of marketing period is the WIIFM factor (what’s-in-it-for-me).  Conventional wisdom states that if you can provide enough cannon fodder to make the person see what is in it for them, then they will buy…

Internet marketers haven’t forgotten this rule.  After all, most IMers don’t have a problem suggesting the next best life changing thing to someone on their list…day in and day out in some cases.  But after the umpteenth email of the next best life changing thing, it becomes painfully clear that it isn’t about the subscriber/potential customer…

….it starts to look as though the WIIFM factor is more about the marketer and less about the subscriber…..

If you are going the Shaun Casey or Ewan Chia route and just trying to make sales through volume (these guys have huge lists of 100k+) then I suppose that connection isn’t that important…they will get sales through volume.  But for the rest of us…we should apply some common sense here…there is no need to spam your list with one “great” opportunity after another.

I know it sounds like common sense, but marketers should start thinking about what they would want if they were on the list.  How would you pitch your sister? (or would you pitch her at all?)

The irony to email marketing is that I have seen more marketers complain about being marketed to on some of the popular internet marketing forums than regular folks.  And although marketers on the whole tend to be a bit more saavy than the mother of 4 who is just trying to find out more information on child rearing, you have to think that 80 emails in 3 months that is all sales and no connection is a bit much.

Yet, still they do it (and the wheels on the bus go round and round).

If you as an internet marketer get annoyed when the same guy keeps shooting you his sales pitch day in and day out then why on earth would you consider doing this to be a good strategy?  Really?

In the spirit of actually being social first and selling second, all internet marketers should examine their sales platform and see what makes them unique from the next marketer out there.  Are your conversations engaging or do they read like every other email you would expect to read?

Principle #5 If you can’t connect and engage your audience, you are doomed…..

Connection and engagement is more than trying to bribe your audience with free stuff.  Everyone gives free stuff away.  I hate to tell you this, but if this is your idea of engagement, you are in for a battle (every marketer gives stuff away). It is more than trying talking AT them about how knowledgeable you are.  Marketers think that if they can prove to the person how much of an authority on a subject they are, that connection fall by the wayside.  In a lot of ways, the signal to noise ratio is off the charts.

In this day and age, proof isn’t enough…people need connection.  You connect and both parties win.  You connect and the road to credibility is not so rough.  You connect and you will find your list working with you, recommending you to their friends, and opening your emails more often.

I have figured out that there is nothing new or original on the internet.  If someone wants to know how to build traffic, all they have to do is google it and they will have so many blog posts and articles on the subject that they could read it for days.

That’s right..somewhere out in the blogosphere there is likely to be another post or article floating around that is very much like this one.

And it is easy to suppose that if nothing is truly original, then what do you have that will separate yourself from the pack?  How do you make yourself stand out from all the other posts that are predominately the same?

The answer is in how you say it and how you convey your message.  The answer is in how you make that connection.

Email marketing is no different.  No matter how hard you may try to be different, the real litmus for success is in how you manage to connect to your audience.

The way I look at it, there are only three ways that an audience will want to connect to you:

1. They like the way you write/speak…you have managed to speak in a way that makes them want to listen to you.  Your messages/newsletters resonates with them in a profound way.
2. They want to be like you..this is the Frank Kern’s and Shoemoney’s of the world.  You hold up a 6 figure check and suddenly you have a horde of followers that want to discover your ’secret’…(ahem)..
3. You are teaching something that they really want to learn but have a different spin on the same old same old-  This could be part of number one but if you are an actual authority (which, these days, is far and few between) and have a different spin to the same old, same old, then people will follow you.  The reality is that in this world of sameness, every once in a while a true renegade will stand up to the status quo and say “hey…guess what?…everything that everyone else is telling you is wrong.”

Obviously, this is all theory and conjecture…nothing more, nothing less.  But I have to tell you that we, as pro marketers (or wanna-be’s) could learn something from those who are successful but aren’t doing it in the ways that are traditionally taught.  

Those accidental internet marketers have something that most of us have lost in the pages somewhere of “case studies” and “marketing rules”….Those accidental marketers haven’t figured out something groundbreaking or new…they are just being regular dudes and gals speaking to people who are truly interested in what they have to say.

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