2 Questions About Lists

[mikecowles]

My thought is use ad swaps for the free content. If you're doing it correctly, your partners are putting their best foot forward with their free give aways and you're building you list in the process.

I wrote a free guide on list building that you can grab at www.adswaps.info and you can also find partners to ad swap with there as well. (All free).

Talk to you soon,

~Mike Cowles. <><

[TonyShepherd]

Sterling,

Why do you want to give your list "freebies"?

Take a step back and ask yourself what you want to achieve
with your list and then think about how giving stuff away will
help you to achieve your objectives.

I'm not saying you shouldn't give your list freebies. I am saying
that you should use freebies to reward the people on your list
who take the action you want them to.

Why train your list to become freebie seekers when you can
train them to take actions that make you money?

Give freebies to people who buy through your affiliate link in the
form of bonuses.

John

Agreed! Work out exactly what you want and then work out the best way to present it - a freebie, or a 100% commission item? Maybe a blog post or a low ticket paid item.

Decide on the desired outcome first then work backwords

Tony

[Kunj K]

I would record informative videos (you could be on camera or a Camtasia/Powerpoint tutorial) and post them on your blog once or twice a week.

Then you could write emails to your list and say "Hey, check out this new video on my blog"

You're likely to build a better relationship with your list that way, and that's the way IM is going in my opinion.

Hope that helps..

[Jason Gilmore]

good question and great answers.

You guys have answered a question for me that I had plus added a few positive twist that I'm sure will help me.

[Michael Larkin]

Great posts! When it comes to giving away freebees, I find that it's a double edged sword. After all, the perceived value of something free is that old saying, "Something for nothing is worth nothing." Two things. Include a price value of the freebee, and make sure you follow up to over deliver. Meaning that if you new subscriber has taken the action you want (they signed into your program), that you send them a few follow ups indicating that you have the free offer waiting for them. This tells your new subscriber that you value them and that you are a person that follows through and that you are worthy of their trust. That's the first huge step in building a relationship of value in the long run. Currently, I am seeing these type of result in the program running this spring. Hope this helps. ~ Mike Larkin

[dacahe]

Great post, and great answers guys.

When it comes to list relationship I don't think is such a big mystery.

We are all subscribed to many newsletters, I don't know about you but I am really annoyed when a marketer just pitches once a week. There is no relationship that can be built on asking for money once a week.

Would you be my friend if once a week I knocked on ur door or call you to sell you something? Of course not. So why do people think it is different in the I.M. Space?

Give more ask less attitude, is the lists I stay the most and buy from the most and recommend the most.

Weather you are training your list this or that way mentality has a fundamental flaw in the thinking process.
You are viewing people as cattle, as your personal ATM and they are not.

People stay in any diet, program, school etc for one reason and one reason only. They receive information that produce results.

[Orlando Cassara]

Good post, I beleive in giving freebies bacause it helps build the relationship, and gives your list something to be looking forward to with out always having to buy something at that moment.

Hope it helps

[betmomma]

There is no relationship that can be built on asking for money once a week.

God, it's more like 4-5 times per week with most of the IM guys I've sub'd to in the past.. I've recently unsub'd from most of the lists I was on for the simple reason that we all have our limits and I no longer believed they might finally send me something of actual value. I've stayed on one young (fairly new) WF member's list because I though he might be different, however so far he's going down that same road.

/rant off

Kelly

[Paul Teague]

This thread is a fascinating read ... I'm experimenting with many of these things myself at the moment.

One idea to add to the discussion ... surveying your list.

I sent out a survey recently which brought in some excellent information about preferred price points for products, what they most wanted to know, what their aspirations were.

I know many people use the free version of Survey Monkey for this http://www.surveymonkey.com/ but I used Google Forms because a) it's free b) it stores the info in a Google Doc Excel spreadsheet, meaning that you can extract and manipulate the data easily afterwards.

Here's the form I sent to my list: http://bit.ly/9VUDrl

You can even add a custom message after submitting, so I added a thank you gift after the person clicks on 'submit'.

I got some great replies and it will inform what I send to my list in future.

[Dan Brock]

This is freaking awesome! More info here than a lot of the Warrior Forum posts as of late.

I definitely see the advantage of training your list subscribers to buy...

What do you guys think of providing 2 things for free right away. 1 really bad ass video or pdf or software, and an additional high value freebie on the 2nd day? Then go into your offers.

This has worked really well for me so far. It really helps with open rates. Before implementing this tactic, my average open rate was around 10%. Now its up past 30% in a lot of cases. Now working on 50% open rates