Every marketer wants a big list. With a big list, any marketer should be able to make big money. With a small list, every marketer has to work harder. Web sites have to convert at higher rates. Testing is harder to do.
With a huge list, testing is easy to do. Think about it, you send out an offer to 500 people. One or two buy. What does that tell you? Nothing. When one or two people do anything, there is very little information in the action. Sure, you know your link works. That’s it.
When you mail 5000, if you get one sale, you know you have a problem. But if you get 50 sales, you have something duplicatable. Even any number in between contains information. Numbers don’t lie, when you have a big list.
A huge list allows you to test everything you do and get statistically significant results. Imagine testing 5 different headlines in one day. You can do that with 5000 on your list, but not with 500. Imagine testing 5 different email copies. You can do that with 5000 on your list, but not with 500.
So how to do it?
First, although numbers are important, it is senseless to get non-responsive names. Don’t buy your list, build it. Don’t join lead-swap programs where everybody has to read everybody else’s emails. Sure, even if yours gets read, so are 400 others. Talk about non-responsive.
Second, decide what is your target list group. Are there several? Only market to groups you can successful reach and sell. Your conversion rate will be much higher when the group is tightly targeted. Consider building several tightly targeted lists and writing a separate email campaign for each, rather than one loose list that gets mailed every offer.
Third, be consistent. The only way your testing produces repeatable and valuable results is when you are consistent. Do not change your opt-in page every hundred subscribers. Do not change your email campaign every week. You must have at least 200 subscribers in every list and receiving every email before your results are truly significant. That is at the very lowest end. Stay consistent.
Fourth, put an opt-in box on every page on your website. Give every visitor multiple chances to get on your list. If they leave your site without buying and without opting in to your list, you have likely lost them forever. Give them a free book, a free sample, a free course, a free coupon, anything to get them to subscribe. Think about the difference between a 10% opt-in rate and an 80% opt-in rate. If you are getting 100 visitors a day, that is the difference between 10 subscribers and 80 subscribers per day. That is 300 a month or 2400 a month. Do whatever it takes to get opt-ins.
Fifth, send them useful content. You can include a link to a product or your site on every email. But don’t make every email a sales letter. Send them valuable information. You must keep your unsubscribe list small, or your huge list won’t stay huge long.
