We All Want To Be Liked

(It’s All In The Mailing List Part 2)

I said in my last post we’d continue the day after but there’s been a few things going on since then. I’ve had a couple of power cuts and Paul and I have been busy working on the Site Builder for IPK sites.

Okay, that aside, let’s continue.

Many people say that the size of your mailing list has a direct bearing on your income. On the face of it this is true, but there are a number of other things involved too, and the biggest one is having a good relationship with your list.

I can tell you from experience that if you have a good relationship with your subscribers then you don’t need a huge list. I’ve certainly found this to be the case.

Thank you.

(I feel that I can make that relationship even better – I’ve already instigated a few changes for this year, and you’ll start to feel the benefit of that in the coming weeks and months.)

Apart from the comments made against my last blog post, I’ve also had people contact me separately, and the common threads seem to be…

“I’ve got a small list. How do I make it pay?”

“My list are only interested in freebies and they never buy anything. What can I do?”

The answer to these questions are as I’ve said above. It’s the relationship you have with your list that dictates how they’re going to behave to any mailings you send out. Do they like you or are they disinterested?

You know that in the offline “real” world that you like some people, and some people like you. It’s impossible for everyone to like everyone else as there are some personalities that just clash. Sometimes you meet someone and you just get on, other times it’s the exact opposite.

But did you know you can make most people like you by applying a few rules and changing your own attitude?

Think about this. If you meet someone and they smile a lot and agree with you, and then after a few minutes they smile and say “I like you”, isn’t it difficult not to like that person back?

The psychology behind it is that we all want to be liked. We’re hard wired to like people that like us and sound, look or have the same ideals as us. It’s that feeling of belonging we all want.

If someone smiles at you, then it’s hard not to smile back. If someone tells you they like them, then it’s hard not to like them back.

That’s why if you go around spreading happiness and smiles, that’s what you’ll get back. It’s obvious when you think about it isn’t it?

Okay?

So how can you apply this to the online world?

You can’t tell everybody you like them – it’s clearly false when you’ve never met them and is likely to engender the opposite reaction. But you can put a smiling photo on your blog and connect with your subscribers that way. 😉

And…

You can give them useful things such as information to help them achieve what they want.

So if you give your subscribers useful information (such as this blog post), and intersperse it with promotions for other products you recommend, and every so often a new paid product of your own that people will realise they’re getting stunning value for, then you’ll gradually build up their trust.

As their trust increases then so will your profits.

It doesn’t matter even if you have a relatively smallish list of a few hundred subscribers, it’s possible to make that list love you let alone like you, and that’s my aim for 2009. 🙂

I’ll be doing things this year that I know will raise your estimation of me. I’ll explain them as we go if you want me to, and if you want to do the same kind of thing with your own list, you’ll find it’s very straight forward to do.

But if you can’t wait and need to know this information now, there’s a short cut you can take to get started right away, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

You can have a small list and still make a decent profit from it.

How?

http://www.frankhaywood.com/go/slbp/

-Frank Haywood