There is No Quick Fix to Getting High-End Clients But...
Growing an Email List is Easier Than Ever
Even though Social Media Marketing (SMM), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) tactics remain very popular with many marketers (and for good reason), growing an email list still remains vital for your long-term business success.
Growing an email list is easier than ever but this also means that you are competing with many more businesses for the permission to communicate with potential clients via their inboxes.
You need to allocate some of your time and resources to building and nurturing a targeted email list of people who need your help with their problems, needs and desires.
"Emails may best cost efficient but it’s no excuse to not produce quality content to give to a targeted audience." - Benjamin Murray
Quality Vs. Quantity
An important part of growing an email list is remembering that each email address represents a person who needs your help.
You need to use email marketing to inform, educate and convince email subscribers to become your clients and customers.
It is extremely counter-productive to attract and retain a list of people who not interested in working from you or buying from you.
It can be tempting to buy lists but contacting the people on paid lists is essentially spam because they never gave you permission to email them.
They will eventually look for the “unsubscribe link” and your email address and your business will be labelled as “Spam”.
Think about like this, if each email you send helps your subscribers earn a dollar, they would literally be waiting impatiently for every notification about your latest email.
But those desperate, sales-obsessed and unhelpful emails…no one wants or likes them.
Unsubscribing Is a Good Thing
I remember in the early days of my email marketing, I was pretty upset when I got an unsubscribe notification, but I came to understand that people unsubscribing from my list was a good thing.
"A small list that wants exactly what you’re offering is better than a bigger list that isn’t committed." - Ramsay Leimenstoll
I have realised that it is better to have a list full of people that connect with my style, tone of voice and my message.
So, when people unsubscribe from my list, they are effectively pruning my list for me. Unsubscribing is a good thing.
It is better to have a list of 100 people who like, trust and want to do business with you rather than a list of 10,000 people who only serve to massage your ego when you talk about the size of your list.
The Money’s in The List: A Concrete Example
In his blog post: “How I Won a Two Week, $55,000 Project”, Brennan Dunn gives a behind-the-scenes look at one of his Roadmapping engagements with a Fitness Coach who used automated emails to help her build a six-figure business.
This coach had a list of 65,000 subscribers. She wanted to scale up her business and scale down her workload. She decided to create a course for 297€ that would sit midway in her value ladder between a 20€ eBook and a high-ticket offer.
Brennan Dunn expertly broke down how to help her audience, customers and clients whilst growing her business to six-figures:
"…If we can get 5% of your current list (65K) to spend $20, we're looking at $65,000 in revenue. And then if we get 10% of the initial eBook customers to buy your new course, that's another $96,525...and then we're then massively ROI positive. And from then on out, we'll have automation in place selling the eBook and up-selling the course to new subscribers..." - Brennan Dunn
This example monetisation strategy is at the heart of email list marketing.
But, before we get to this revenue-generation stage, we need to focus on getting your website visitors to sign up to your list, consistently grow your list, nurture it and (of course) prune it.
Then, and only then, can we put strategies in place to monetise your list.
Email marketing automation will accelerate this process, but you need a solid marketing system in place first.