The more we think about it, the more we are drawn back to the business fundamentals put forth by mail order gurus of past decades . . . self-made millionaires like Joe Karbo and Melvin Powers. While each one had his own marketing techniques and closely guarded secrets, the one concept that you could be sure to hear from each and every one of them was, ‘The money is in the list.’
That is no less true today, for those of us who do our business on the bandwidths. Since our business is conducted by way of an impersonal, if not anonymous medium, it is up to us to personalize our business relations and dealings in a manner that best suits our customers and ourselves.
Enter the Opt-In mailing list of the 21st century.
The only difference between our lists and the lists of Karbo and Powers is that we collect names and email addresses, rather than street addresses and postal codes. For the most part, the underlying marketing techniques haven’t changed.
Gratefully, the cost of launching a large email campaign is only the merest fraction of the cost incurred with a similar sized campaign by traditional ground mail.
But we still need to conserve our time and energy by sending our information and offers to people whom we know are interested. In other words, they have ‘opted-in’ to our list by expressing a predetermined interest in our products and promotions.
We still must contact our prospects on a regular basis, to let them become acquainted with us, develop credibility, and set the stage for relationships that are conducive to doing business. It often takes several contacts to convert an interested prospect into a paying customer, a near impossible task with one-shot advertising.
Our opt-in list allows us to do specific research, and test the market for perceived needs. We can survey our customers and prospects to determine what their problems are, what it is that they want/need, and how much they feel a solution is worth.
By doing this sort of research, we can develop highly specialized ‘lists-within-the-list’ that are comprised of highly targeted prospects for a particular offer. You can bet that this type of list targeting was used whenever you hear one of the Internet gurus crow about making $20K from a single email campaign.
Unlike any one-shot advertising venue can ever do, our own well cultivated opt-in list can guarantee us a monthly income into the future. This is what is meant by ‘The money is in the list.’ If we care for our list members, give excellent service, and cater to their needs, the list itself becomes a means to financial freedom.
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Dan B. Cauthron runs several websites and publishes his 100%
original and highly opinionated *Revenew QuikTips* online
whenever he has something significant to say. To subscribe
please visit: http://DanBCauthron.com Dan also operates:
http://Earn-Revenew.com and http://SlideInADSGenerator.com
