LESSON #68: Building a Relationship with Your List

By | May 3, 2010

In the previous lesson we looked at a bunch of ways to build your subscriber list. In fact, we’ve now spent nine lessons learning how to BUILD a list.

Now it’s time to build a RELATIONSHIP with your list…

(Watch this video…)

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Main points:

  • Two ways to send email:

    1) Broadcast message
    2) Follow-up sequence (aka autoresponder)

  • Your autoresponder is the secret salesperson who works for you 24/7 on autopilot.

  • KEY POINT: It’s about building a relationship with your list.

    How do you provide value? By helping them.

  • Give your subscribers a piece of the solution.

    -They’ll trust you…
    -They’ll want more of it…
    -They’ll buy stuff from you.

    You need to genuinely HELP them. When you do that, it builds trust. It creates a relationship. Money will flow to you through that relationship.

  • The RELATIONSHIP is the key to long term sustainability of your business.

  • Two essential components for building a relationship while making money through your autoresponder:

    1) Provide help/education/teaching (that’s the value)
    2) Sell your product(s).

    (Can’t have one without the other)

  • Three types of emails…

    1) Emails that educate
    2) Emails that sell
    3) Emails that both educate and sell

    *See video for detailed breakdown of WHY I use each email, and how much of each to use.

  • Two ways to get the emails for your autoresponder series:

    1) Write them yourself.

    Short cuts:
    Push Button Marketer (See video for demonstration of instant email series)
    List Building Pack (Contains 280 prewritten emails)

    2) Outsource them. (Hint: if you outsource your ebook or your sales letter, outsource it to the same freelancer as a part of the job)

  • An E-course is a great way to format an autoresponder series. (see video)

  • Consistency is key!

    Send your email on a regular basis. Stick to the pattern. I recommend either daily or weekly for your follow-up sequence.

  • Always test your messages!

  • You don’t have to do all the communication IN the email.

    Bring the conversation to a…

    1) Blog:

    a) It opens up the conversation by enabling your subscribers to leave comments and interact.
    b) It gets them accustomed to visiting YOUR website as their source of information and answers.

    2) Talking head video

    a) Seeing your face and hearing your voice will ramp up the trust level FAST… IF you come across as sincere.

    3) Social Networking

    a) Ideal IF your subscribers prefer communicating through social platform.

    Action steps:

    1) Create a series of follow-up emails.

    2) Add them to your autoresponder.

    In the next lesson we’re going to cover a very important topic called list segmentation.

    As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below 🙂

    Have a great day!

  • 39 thoughts on “LESSON #68: Building a Relationship with Your List

    1. Gary Pettit

      Eric,

      I agree with you completely that building a relationship and respect are the key factors of establishing a responsive list. I’ve found what works for me best is having a weekly informative email(though a preloaded series within my autoresponder). Whenever I want to promote or give my opinion on something I’ll just broadcast that between those messages. However, I do try not to send to many messages as I know how that feels being on the recieving end of some annoying marketers…lol

      🙂

      Slaughter Your Competition with Unstoppable Targeted FREE Traffic!
      http://WebTrafficMassacre.com

      Reply
    2. Auctions In Action

      That is right Eric. Trust, faith and sincerity are the core mods in building a true business. I totally agree with you. Thanks for the tips. Though auto-responders help a lot still you need to work to give the best information to your mailing list.

      Reply
    3. stock trading classes

      Hi Eric,

      For me that was 3 lessons in 1.
      1. Autoresponders
      2. Push Button Marketer
      3. Use the products you buy! I sure am going to revisit the Push Button Marketer program I purchased. It makes life so much easier. I especially liked your ratio of email types and to see that you made it a macro already is great.

      Great video well done
      Ray

      Reply
    4. Pingback: Email Opt-in List Segmentation | Eric's Tips

    5. Angelina

      Thanks Eric for this very educational and extensive lesson in list building. Clearly relationship is the key here; obviously it will take longer to form a relationship online. As it is, it’s not really that easy to forge a long term relationship in real life especially if there’s some kind of ‘commercial’ motive behind those efforts…

      Reply
    6. Buffalo Realtors

      Eric, thanks for these very insightful tips. I always find myself coming back again and again, and often come away with a new way to look at my marketing efforts. Today was no exception! It’s always SO important to not think of your web-based customers as some anonymous figure. Instead we need to take extra effort to truly connect, and we need to be sure to over-deliver on value to make sure we can fully serve them.

      Reply
    7. dileepa

      Eric

      Very thought provoking.
      I havent as yet made any offers on the PBM.

      I am intending to target the academics – who can
      market themselves.
      Thanks again.

      Reply
    8. Timothy Leyfer

      Thanks Eric
      I find the information you share is some of the best I have found on the internet. I also find that the products I purchase from you do what you say they will do and even more.

      I joined your tips program some time ago but did not pay much attention to them for quite some time.

      However I should have been much more involved as I would have saved myself a whole lot of frustration. But I now eagerly await your next tip.

      Thanks again for all the good information you give and the outstanding quality of the products you sell.

      Tim

      Reply
    9. Dr Claude TV

      Thanks Eric for the idea of offering the sequence of autoresponder emails as a free e-course when people sign up via the squeeze page.
      I plan to use this when visitors ask Dr Claude questions about the process for creating unconditional freedom from unwanted conditions in life.
      Dr Claude Windenberger

      Reply
    10. Mike Riches

      Eric, how can you make sure that every new list member only gets those emails from the start of your pre-written email list, as in the case where each email has a certain sequence or chronological order, as in for instance an ecourse which has an order e.g. topic 1, topic 2 topic 3 etc… what if someone joins the list just when the last pre-written email has been sent to the whole list?

      Reply
    11. Eric Post author

      The autoresponder treats each subscriber individually. It does not send your followup messages to the entire list all at one time.
      It starts each new subscriber on message #1, and goes through the sequence for them, at the pace specified by you.

      Reply
    12. Andy

      Another great video Eric, My auto responder is still in need of a lot of work, this has got me thinking that its time to get busy.Thanks again Andrew Walker.

      Reply
    13. cek

      I’m a little confused. In a previous lesson you had a great diagram about how you captured emails in case visitors left your page without making a purchase. Then if they purchased the product, they were moved from a “prospect” list to a “customer” list by the responder. So, wouldn’t you need two autoresponder sequences. One for the list that did not purchase the target product..to entice to do so. And a separate list to continue to market add’l products to “customers?” If you treat it as one list, customers may get repeated emails to purchase a product they already bought. ?? thx

      Reply
    14. Eric Post author

      That’s right. In fact I cover prospects vs customers in the next lesson:

      LESSON #69: List Segmentation

      When they become a customer, they are automatically removed from the prospect list so they don’t keep getting those follow-ups.

      Reply
    15. Mady/Joshua

      Some of these lessons are too long when they could be a bit shorter.

      Reply
    16. Andrew

      Hi Eric I am slowly learning your techniques so far I haven’t set up a web site solely for affiliate marketing .You have taught me more in these lessons than all my own searching the last year or so.I purchased your product Simple List building course but haven’t as yet set up re selling it. My main question is About your Push button Marketer system Will it run on a Linux based system or is it a Microsoft only platform .
      Also here is a link to a web site i paid for a pre made on line Affiliate web site over a year ago http://solarsavemoney.com/ it is linked to Amazon but so far it only has had about 95 visitors i have tried writing articles and submitting it to search engines etc it is using the word press SEO plug in and i have set up key words and other stuff to no avail .Maybe you can have a quick look if you get time and let me know why it never comes up in the search engines . Thanks again for all your teachings even if i haven’t managed to get my head around it all. .

      Reply
    17. Micah

      Hello Andrew,

      Unfortunately, Push Button Marketer is only compatable on Windows based computers.

      The link you sent isn’t currently working in Chrome or Firefox. I saw that it is indexed in Google though. Solar power is a highly competitive niche. If you find a way to make your niche even more specific, you might see better results.

      Reply
    18. Fredo

      Well done Eric, and you are a true example of what you are talking, I feel more of a relationship being created with you and for sure I want to prosper and give you business. That’s how this works!

      Reply
    19. Nombulelo

      Hi Eric there is no match for your treasure of lessons you give clearly from your heart wishing us success. I never saw anything like this. Much appreciated – gives me hope that I will make it some day soon

      Reply
    20. Nedra

      I absolutely love learning each day. My education and knowledge has grown by leap and bounds.

      Reply
    21. aida c. suarez

      Again aida! Eric, i like the meaning IM has given to may name with an acrostic. Ha! Listen, is it true tha twe need to spend a lot of money building our website, in order to make ready to start? What’s are the bare neccesities? Carol say: “just to start with one website,” and take it from there when you became more more so adept? It work for her! But my question really is… aprox. how much money we have to invest? I know you had said before that we need to have at least $100 a month for mantainance…. and and beigining to see why. We keep looking for things free. But i know that when the money start comming in, i will buy a lot of staff. But the question is for now is: how much we need to cough up to kick up the business. Please be petient with me, because i like to ask my questions to understand better. And i love to choose the the experts, gurus like you. Uh! Thanks! I plan to read all your posts! Before i review the lessons. I already started!

      Reply
    22. Peter Boreham

      YouThank you so much for these most ineresting and informative lessons that I have been keenly following. I have just spent nearly two months in hospital and am now in a wheelchair so an on line business is ideal for me. Unfortunately I find that I have not received lessons32- 56 and nothing after lesson 70.What can I do to receive these? I would also love to join the Real Coaching Club but with the Rand/Dollar exchange the cost would be too high. It would be the equivalent of an American student paying $7814 per month! for that is what it would cost me in South African Rands!! You are doing a wonderful job, keep it up.
      Peter

      Reply
    23. Paul

      Trust is an important WORD.I allow 3 Marketers to send me stuff you r one of them. The rest get deleted or spam box.
      Be well Buddy

      Reply
    24. Larry

      Excellent post, I find providing help to my subscribers for the first week seem to help build a solid relationship. Then after the first week, I like to talk about some of the tools I am using which help me with my success online.

      Seems to work

      Reply
    25. des

      Hi Eric
      I’ve been looking for an alternative to using Aweber to keep my costs down a bit and came across this company directresponders.com. At first glance they seemed ok but then the Eric’s tips training kicked in and now I’ve got a strange feeling something might not be quite right. Do you know anything about them? Are they what they claim? Does their site look familiar to you at all? Your thoughts on this would be much appreciated.
      Des
      http:www.eurobuilt.co.uk

      Reply
    26. des

      Doesn’t matter now lesson 69 answered the question for me. cheers Eric your doing a great job on thr training.

      Reply
    27. Matthew Monnette

      Hello Eric,

      What a great post you wrote, I Learned this technique from my Mentor and it works like gang busters…

      Take care

      Matthew Monnette

      Reply
    28. Sue

      Thank you for taking the time to categorize all this great information, with videos included, into groups on specific topics. It makes it much easier to learn and implement with the way this is all put together.

      Good content and trust are key to them coming back to your site. I don’t think trust is built overnight either but is a process.

      Reply
    29. Jason H

      Awesome information, I am just starting to build a email list, I am having issues with trying to write the emails series. How many times can you use the Push Button Marketer in one autoresponder with out it sounding spammy? I realize you can cover different topics, but do the emails sound alike after awhile?

      Also, I notice that not many marketers are putting the disclaimer at the end of the email that they are affiliate marketers anymore. Has something changed that its no longer required?

      Reply
    30. graham

      Hello eric I still don’t no if I want go on I don’t have any subscribers or a business for that mater I am writing down what you send me I love your teaching and learning how to navigate through the computer, I am happy you going ok

      Reply

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