How NOT To Build A List
How Not To Build a List
Trying to build a list can become your worst nightmare if you do not take care to do it in the right way. Here’s several ways to destroy your own business while you’re trying to build it.
Your first mistake would be not having a niche, or target market. Do not try to address the entire online world with your list. Instead, focus on a group of people who want the information you have. Why would you send your message out to any others? That would be like standing on a street corner, wearing an advertising “ sandwich board” to promote your products.
Next, if you do not create and nurture an online, personal relationship with your customers you won’t have any customers. People who are hungry to buy your products want to know who they are dealing with…that would be you. There’s so much hype and false claims online today that the average customer doesn’t believe most of what they read. They want to trust you. Give them reason to do that and you will have a customer for life.
If you don’t allow your customers to become part of your virtual world, you will lose them. Ask questions that you want your list to answer. Use surveys. People don’t like it when they feel like they are just bodies with a credit card. They want to believe they are an important part of your business and asking for responses from your customers will have more than one benefit for your business.
The major benefit for you when asking your list members to help you with something…survey or just one or two questions…is that you will probably get multiple answers that will identify exactly what your readers want. Fill that need and you will create major loyalty that translates to sales.
One thing to remember here is to always identify and thank the list member who submitted the question you are addressing. If that happened to you, how would you feel? I would guess the answer to that question is “Special.” It might be a good idea to get permission to use real names, if your customer isn’t using a screen name.
One last way to ruin your business is not to include an unsubscribe link in your emails. People want to know that they can get off your list easily, if they want to. Make sure you respond to that unsubscribe request immediately, without any hesitation, or set it up on an autoresponder. Believe me, you do not want to be branded a spammer, unless you are tired of having a successful business.
Here is a sure-fire method to be a successful list builder. You should check out Dan Thompson's Boomerang List Building software. It is extremely easy to use and very effective building highly targeted lists.
