An Unconventional Approach to Email List Building

tags:: #source/article Marketing
author:: The Modern Marketing System
Source

Then get the best people onto your email list (in a way that pulls them towards you — which almost always rules out “bribes” and lead magnets)…

Strategy of Preeminence (SoP). SoP is an esoteric philosophy that can be boiled down to:

An attitude where you look at everybody out there that you want to do business with, and that you make it a point of deciding you're not going to wait for money to change hands before you start contributing, guiding, counseling, advising, and protecting them. When this is your default way of doing business, you establish yourself from the very beginning as the only viable solution — to a problem, a challenge, an issue, or an opportunity in their life.

Counterintuitively, if you break down the entire system and optimize each component individually (like the process of capturing leads), you'll lower the effectiveness of the system. The insight is to optimize the entire system instead.

I prefer email lists (an audience, or pocket of people) that are ultra-targeted and hyper-responsive

There's an offer (cool report).

But, there's no real DESIRE to be on an email list per se, other than to get access to the report

The Unconventional Approach

One that connects with hearts and minds and influences through empathy, not persuasion through coercion.

It ends with a barrier-to-entry — a little hoop to jump through — in the form of an opt-in form. Which is now framed as an opportunity to hear more from us. To hear more of the story and to get more of the high-value content and insights.

prospects no longer feels bribed to cough up their email address

Targeting

In my experience (all) other list building products ultimately fail to teach the most important component of creating hyper-responsive email lists.

They don't teach how to define exactly who you want to target as your ideal customer. As in: who do you want to do business with?

And just as important as it is to know exactly who you want to attract as a customer, you also want a clear idea of who you don't want as a customer.

The goal is to create better prospects, not as many leads as possible. The distinction is important. It's everything.

The process of creating better prospects is your opportunity to make an emotional connection with the people you seek to serve (your ideal customer) by demonstrating to them that you have the potential to solve a problem they care about solving.

The key persuasion factors at play here are curiosity and a bribe. And it pretty much attracts everyone who just wants the carrot, the bribe. Especially people only wanting the freebie offer (armed with their fake email address).

The secret is to demonstrate preeminence before you ever ask for anything in return. I give prospects stuff they can sink their teeth into and extract value that is meaningful to them, before I ever ask for anything in return.

When there is a disconnect between what you are saying and what your visitor wants, needs or desires … then conversions will be low (or non existent).

You need to understand that your ability to target your ideal audience will require an element of trial and error and time and effort.

Traffic is not where you start. You need to first have a clear idea of who you want to talk to and do business with (and who you don't).

Then you craft your message and story. You build a process that creates better prospects.

Traffic comes last.