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Everyone knows that they need to build an email list. An email list is where the money is.
When you have an email list, you can promote your own products and services as well as other people’s products and services for a commission.
It is said that for every dollar spent on building and maintaining an email list, you should earn back somewhere between $38 and $48.
Many of the big email marketers, Anik Singal for one, says that for every person on your email list, you should be earning at least $1 per month. I think Anik said recently that everyone on his email list is worth $2 per month to him.
So that means for a list of 5,000 people, the list owner should earn at least $5,000 each month. In Anik’s case, that would be $10,000 each month.
Let’s be honest here, most people would be happy to have an email list of 5,000 which earned them just $0.50 per person each month.
Who would say no to $2,500 per month from an active email list?
When it comes to building an email list, there are two schools of thought here. Putting all different methods of list building aside, there is really only two main ways to build an email list.
1. Give something away for free in exchange for an email address.
2. Collect email addresses when selling products.
Giving something away for free is a fantastic way to build an email list because people love to get something for free.
You can give away:
· Short reports
· Ebooks.
· Video workshops.
· Video courses.
· Webinars or live online workshop.
· Newsletters.
· Email courses.
· Templates.
· Checklists.
· Printables.
· Audio recordings.
There is a lot you can give away for free in exchange for an email address. You can build a large email list giving away stuff for free.
Trent Reznor from the band Nine Inch Nails gave a lot of new music away to his fans as part of an email list building campaign when he left his contract with a record label.
He even gave away a full album of new music. He gave fans the option to donate what they thought the album was worth ‘if they wanted to’. There was no obligation to pay for it.
Yet even though he gave away tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars worth or music away for free, he still managed to generate $750,000 in sales in a very short period of time by offering an exclusive never-to-be-seen again book and vinyl package to his email list.
Fans are collectors, they like to ‘own’ stuff and because he had a huge fan base of loyal fans who wanted to ‘own’ that exclusive package, Trent made a small fortune.
Trent Reznor already had a following thanks to years in the music industry and so building an email list for him was relatively easy. He was already known.
For other people, it’s not going to be that easy.
Giving stuff away for free makes sense when no one actually knows you. It is a way of getting people to find out more about you. It is a great way to build trust and confidence in you.
People can learn more about you, they can see what you do and what you know and they get ‘to know you’.
Giving stuff away for free builds a relationship with potential clients and customers.
However…
And this is a big however…
You can build a list of freebie seekers who are not really interested in taking the relationship further.
I’m not saying that they will all be freebie seekers who will never buy from you, but a high percentage of them will be. And while they are on your email list they are costing you money.
So the people on your email list which you have built by giving away free stuff could be useless and costing you a lot of money.
The other option is to…
This method is favoured by big online marketers who are serious about finding the right clients and customers from the get go.
The reasoning behind this model is that by selling a product first, you build an email list of ‘buyers’ instead of potential buyers.
One could argue that an email list built by giving away free stuff is a list of ‘potential potential buyers’.
When a person buys a cheap ebook from you, they have already made a ‘buyers decision’ and decided to take out their credit card and risk spending money on you.
This means that they have already spent money on you and are more likely to buy from you again if they like what they have just bought.
A second reason some internet marketers prefer this form of list building is that it gives them unlimited (paid) free traffic.
That seems a little confusing and contradictory, but how do you get free traffic by paying for it?
The product which you sell purposely to build your email list is not the main product in your sales funnel.
It is a lead magnet, one which has been created specifically to attract new customers or clients onto your email list.
Yes, it needs to be good. You are going to sell it anywhere between $4.99 and $27.
With this form of email list building you run paid advertising sending people to your product sales page.
But here is where the magic happens; the money you spend on adverts is earned back from the sales of the product and any offer-bump/trip-wire offer you have at the time of purchase.
Imagine that you had to spend $100 to start running Facebook ads to start sending people to your landing page and that within a few days you had sold $100 worth of products.
That money pays for the adverts turning your paid traffic into free traffic.
Remember, this product and any subsequent offer-bump/ tripwire-offer that you have as part of the purchase is not your main product. It is essentially your free giveaway lead magnet but a whole lot better.
The object here is to not make money from selling this product but to build your email list and reuse the money you spend on paid advertising.
You are not paying out thousands of dollars for traffic; you are simply recycling one dollar thousands of times.
This product is an extra one created specifically to run a campaign of paid traffic to grow your email list with ‘buyers’.
Buyers are qualified leads.
They are hot customers.
Because you are reusing the money earned from the sales of this lead product, you can get a tonne of traffic FAST and really ramp up the list building campaign.
This funnel will have several other products set up ready as part of the email sequence so that your new buyers will be exposed to the products you initially intended to sell to them.
Many people may not buy any of the additional products at first. They have your ‘lead’ product to read or work through first, remember.
That ‘lead’ product, whether it is a book or course, will also point to your other products or services and so buyers may buy your other products or services later.
Everything is geared up to point people towards your other services and products while at the same time, building a relationship with your buyers who will begin to trust you and have confidence in you and your products.
Everyone has their own opinion, some people prefer to give away free stuff and others prefer to sell a cheap product to grow their email lists.
It’s up to you to decide which you want to use, but here is a quick recap of what the pros and cons are for both.
Free Giveaway Lead Magnet
Pros :
· Can build a bigger list for free.
· Free lead magnet doesn’t need to be outstanding.
· You can offer a whole range of freebie items.
Cons:
· The list can be full of freebie seekers who have no interest in buying anything from you.
· Costs you money to have a list of freebie seekers.
Paid Lead Magnet
Pros:
· Build a list of qualified ‘buyers’ who are more likely to buy from you again.
· Can get a tonne of free traffic FAST by investing and recycling the money made from the first one or two products back into paid advertising.
· Can make a lot of money with the follow up products if you set your funnel up correctly.
Cons:
· Is likely to be a smaller email list.
· Requires a bit more work than a normal free giveaway campaign.
· Your lead magnet needs to better than 99% of the free ones available.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Come and connect with me over at Twitter and Instagram.
[Free Video Tutorial] Learn how to write a profitable sales letter in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee (or two) here: The Coffee Break Sales Page
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