Comments on: List Building Keeps You Guessing

By: Norm

Norm — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:49:51 +0000

Hey Mick
Thanks for stopping by. I haven’t been here myself very much lately. Been doing some other stuff with a friend from Malta. We are working on a joint venture. Don’t know yet if we will be able to pull it off or not.
I have still been doing giveaways. I bit the bullet and upgraded to a top level on one that I thought would generate a lot of traffic. Turned out I spent almost a hundred bucks and didn’t get any more click thrus and opt ins then with just the minimum upgrade. I have discovered, without a long list or some other way to promote the event you join you almost have to at least do the minum upgrade to get any traffic at all.
My lists are still slowly building but have a long way to go to have the 1000 to 1500 that Alex recommends as a minimum.
A good giveaway book to get is JT Martins JV Giveaways Unleased.
I think I have a link to it so you can get it for free on my main blog page. If not here is a link where you can get it.
http://perfecttrafficstorm.com/links/8819

Cheers back to you. Happy blogging
Norm

By: Norm

Norm — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:42:49 +0000

Hey John how are you doing?
Sorry I haven’t been to my blog for awhile. Shame on me. I’ve been working with another on line marketer friend that lives in Malta. We have been working on a joint venture and I just haven’t spent any time on my own blog.
No I haven’t gotten anywhere with the Comet. It’s still in my son-in-laws garage. He was supposed to put the tail lights back on it so we could drive it over to my garage so I could work on it here. But like most son-in-laws he has other priorities. I guess I should just go over there and do it mayself.
Anyway thanks for the look see. Appreciate the visit.

By: Mick Fallon

Mick Fallon — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:08:50 +0000

Hi Norm hope you have finished your housemind yo a mans work is never done
only just getting into giveaways , still not quite sure how they work
cheers Mick

By: John Tanner

John Tanner — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:14:04 +0000

Hi Norm,

Thought I stop buy to say hello and give you my thoughts;

After attending the Alex Jeffreys course, I did seem to sign up to a whole host of lists. As a result, my inbox was really taking a pounding every day and I was spending too much time reading mails which were distracting me.

As a result, I decided to start unsubscribing from lists simpley to follow my own plans.

Anyway …
Hope you are keeping well. Have you made any more progress restoring that car?

Keep in touch
John

By: Norm

Norm — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:01:56 +0000

Rob
Thanks for stopping by. I haven’t done much here lately, just been busy with other stuff. We’ve been working on our house and at my age I run out of energy after spending a few hours up and down a ladder. I guess I shouldn’t wait for some significant thing to happen before I blog.
I’ve have kept active with Giveaways and am still picking up a few opt ins daily.
One of my most successful giveaway products is about energy conservation. It does quite well for opt ins and downloads but I think those folks are mostly not internet marketing people.
Their interests are quite different from us folks that are trying to run an line businesses. When I develop my followup messages I try to keep the context in the “green” area of interest in an effort to gain some credability. I also have a blog on that subject.
Not sure why I’m telling you all this, just talking, no real point I guess.
Thanks again for the comment
Norm

By: Rob Canyon

Rob Canyon — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:27:50 +0000

Norm,

You just believe that opt outs are not normal… I remember looking at one of Alex Jeffreys videos and it showed something like 30% of his list opted out…

Personally, I haven’t had an opt out for weeks… And I send a ton of emails. But it takes a whole lot of care to make that happen, although my goal is not to stop opt outs.

I sometimes take a day to write an email. Yep… 8 hours…

Now, I’m sure I’m going to get people opting out maybe even today, but the main way I keep opt outs to a minimum is to treat every name on my list as real people, with real problems, looking for real solutions… not more animal fodder.

Keep plugging away, it will get better.

Rob

By: Paul Norwine

Paul Norwine — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:18:51 +0000

Hi Norm -

You have pretty much already touched on this above but it’s my personal feeling that you are always going to have opt-outs after people just sign up to receive something for free. Your lists are your opportunity to build a relationship FIRST, then monetize second. Sending relationship-building emails / broadcasts should just be viewed as a pre-qualifier for a future relationship. If they opted out, they weren’t willing to build a relationship in the first place and most likely were just there to get something free. Hope this helps!

Paul

By: Paul Lear

Paul Lear — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:17:02 +0000

Hi Norm,

Speaking from my own experience, before I started building my own list… I would join someone’s list from a giveaway event, and if I didn’t hear from them for a while I wouldn’t be able to remember how I got on their list, and I’d unsubcribe when I got their next email.

I would also unsubscribe if all I seemed to be receiving was info about the latest giveaway events, as I only stay on lists that I’m learning something from.

Sometimes you just have to put yourself in their shoes, so to speak… You’ve just signed up for someone’s list, what do you want that next email to be?

I hope that helps a little? In fact just thinking about it, I think I’ve actually helped myself a little here with the info I’ve come up with..:D

So I guess it’s… Thank you Norm, for helping me, help myself..lol

Take care,

Paul.

By: Tom Harvey

Tom Harvey — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:10:15 +0000

Norm

I too have experienced similar trends with one of my lists when I have forwarded broadcast messages. I think that I hadn’t built enough of a relationship and they were put off by the ‘offers’. Somewhat frustrating when all you are trying to do is provide useful resources or opportunities to sign up to giveaways so they can build their lists, but evidently not everyone looks at opportunity the same way!

I think a lot of the problem is coming across as too pushy and the art is developing a regular contact timeframe and judging when to try and sell and when to just provide more content. Interesting to get some of the other MWA2.0 students ideas and experiences….

Tom

By: Norm

Norm — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:09:55 +0000

Hi Rod
Thanks for the comment. My normal mode of operation is to have at least two followup messages to people who opt in to a list. These followup messages are just a “thank you” or “welcome” message and asking if they were successful at downloading the free gift that was given in the giveaway.

The broadcast messages that I have done are invitations to additional giveaway events. Consideration everyone who has opt’d in to any of my lists have come from giveaways, I guess I assume they might be interested in addional giveaway events. As you know the giveaway event owners require you to promote the giveaway so I sometimes do that with a broadcast message.

I understand what you are saying about not jumping on your opt ins too soon with a sales offer. I was observing that most opt outs come either the same day or the day after a new message. And it became obvious to me that their receiving a message of any kind reminds them they have the opportunity to opt out of the list they got on.

Had they not gotten a message, they would probably completely forget about the list they are on. That was my double edged sword comment, catch 22 if you know what I mean.

Building that relationship with your opt ins seems to be critical to keeping them on a list until such time they are willing to take a look at something you have to offer.
Tricky stuff.