My People Are Duds!

Marketers are always concerned with one thing--the size of their lists. I mean, don't you check your stats every single day? Let me tell you, when it comes to list building, size definitely matters, but there's one thing that matters much, much more. How responsive is your list?

When you're gauging your responsivity rate, decide how many people from your list buy the products or sign up for programs you recommend. As an example, imagine that you have a 20,000 person list. When you send an email, 2,000 of them buy something. That's a 10% response rate, which is pretty good. You probably won't see a rate that high, but I hope this example shows you what I mean. Your responsivity rate is something that you should continually strive to improve.

If your list isn't buying, then don't blame them. The fault might be yours.

Let's talk about who your subscribers are first. Before you started building your list, did you target your niche market? When you do that, response rates always improve. Let's say that you sell horse supplies. If you don't build your list around horse people, chances are that you won't sell many items. Only people who have horses will be interested, right?

Plus, are the people on your list single or double opt-in? Double opt-in subscribers are more highly targeted, and they'll be your most loyal customers. More of them will buy the things you're selling, too. They have interest in you and what you're doing online, and they proved it by confirming their subscription to your list. Single opt-ins are interested when they see what you have to offer, but when you send that first email, they may forget that they even joined your list. They may unsubscribe or in some cases, make a spam complaint. Of course, your autoresponder service should have you covered, but even though single opt-in is faster, these people will probably be less responsive.

The second aspect to consider is whether or not your list members even get your email. Does your autoresponder have a great deliverability rate? You'll find that some services are better than others. If you can't find these stats on your autoresponder's site, then email or call them and ask what they are. If your service can't or won't tell you, consider getting a new service that will. Know that your people are receiving your email. How can they buy, if they don't see your offer? If they don't see that, how can they possibly buy?

Third, consider your "From" line in your email. Will your list members know it's from you? I mean, if you send a message from ABCServices, will they know it's from you? They may figure it's just spam and delete it, or it might just find its way to your junk email folder. If that happens, they won't even see it at all! Use your own name in the "From" line and see if it doesn't increase your responsivity rates.

Fourth, what's your subject line? Does it read, "Quick, Open This Now!" or "Here's Your FREE Offer"? Those from lines will send your message right to the spam filter. Pretend that you're sending your message to a friend. Be really creative. Don't give them boring marketing pap or they'll never even open your email.

Number five is can you write good copy? Compelling messages get sales, but you really shouldn't sell anything in your message at all. Give people something interesting. Tell them a story, and lead them to your squeeze page or sales page. Pique their curiosity, don't sell.

Internet Marketing is no different from direct marketing. You have to test and track everything. Yes, everything! Try building another list that's double opt-in and see if they won't be more responsive than the single opt-in list. Try some more creative subject lines, and if you suck at copywriting, hire someone to write for you. But never try to do everything at once, or you won't know what's working and what isn't. Make one change at a time, and track to see whether the changes are working. When you see improvement, then move on to another area, change and test that. If you don't do the extra work to see what works, your response rates will continue to be dismal. Make the changes and see if your response rates don't go up.