Let’s face it, we all love to see a nice big mailing list.
We get to work with a good number of clients who are aiming to build an email list to help with marketing their services and selling their products. Everyone has their own view on the way to gain subscribers and what that may do for them.
Above all channels the list is still the highest value item to build your numbers on. Subscribe ! Review me ! Friend me ! Like me ! Follow me ! Nope.
…. from here we can communicate better, offer list members access to all of these other platforms plus news, discounts, product announcements, memberships… you name it.
Big Numbers
Most people who have a message to share are keen to see it spread to as many people as possible. Sometimes though, the numbers seem to take precedence over the quality of list members. It’s a short-lived moment when the over-keen list owner hoovers up members from their LinkedIn contacts, everyone who’s ever emailed them and anything else that comes to hand, to arrive at their uber-list.
List Effectiveness
As we work on gaining list growth for our clients there are a few interesting pointers that make us take a keener view on mailing lists and their size. The usual modest list that people have at the beginning of a project is usually good for open rates, as they’re made from real people who actually know the owner. Not so good for clicks and sales as the members have often heard it all before and have already bought the book.
So what happens as we begin to build our members? Generally, people who sign up have very specific interests and less commitment to reading all of the details we may be sharing. We make sure that opportunities to capture new members are not lost by integrating our client lists into their web sites, product sales pathway, their social media, their ticket sales etc. So list sign ups increase, but open rates and clicks can take a down turn. Up in terms of the numbers of real people responding but down in terms of percentage.
Engagement
Older list members (or all of those contacts from LinkedIn who never gave permission for you to spam them with your latest great idea) may begin to desert the ship and unsubscribe as they find it no longer serves them, or they’ve just put up with it for too long. This may seem discouraging (or even annoying when the parting shot by an old list member, like a bitter ex, is to tick the box labelled Spam Content on the exit survey) but we always try to emphasise engagement and effectiveness above volume. There’s just no point in those large numbers if people never even open your mails.
We want mailings that entertain and serve good content to their subscribers. This will ensure that members stick around and respond positively when the product announcements appear.
Effectiveness and engagement in the end trumps mass and superficial numbers.