List Building 101: How to Get your List Members to Take Action

Getting your subscribers to take the action you want is what you build the list for, isn’t it? And to get them to take the desired action is what makes the difference between a virtual ATM machine and a pain in you know what.

There are several factors that affect this relationship between you and your subscribers and they take place during all of the steps of the process even while building the list. I’ll focus on the most important ones from my point of view in this article. But first let’s first identify what actions you want them to take.

There are 3 main actions you want your subscribers to do when you send them an email:

1. You want them to open and read your email.

2. You want them to understand that there is a benefit waiting for them when they click on the link in your email.

3. You want them to buy what you are selling (or promoting) once they are on that website.

So your goal is to make sales, and that can not be achieved if your subscribers don’t open your email and read your message. There are reasons you open emails from somebody and ignore those from another person. Let’s have a look at what factors interfere in making this decision.

First and before you even start building your list, the niche itself plays a strong role. Say you are in the dog training niche for example, people don’t take action earlier than 14 days from being exposed to your message.

Another important factor about the niche, if it is something you don’t really like to talk about, as in the above example you are not a huge dog lover or you don’t even have one, it will be hard for your subscribers to feel your passion because it really doesn’t exist. Being passionate about your niche transmits to your subscribers in your words and they feel it. If you are not talking to them from your core identity (borrowed from Frank Kern in “Core Influence”) you have less chances of getting your subscribers to take the action you want.

The equally important factor as being passionate about what you are selling is your history with your list. Do all the good things in the world, then send your list to a crappy product/offer and you can kiss most of your subscribers goodbye. It takes only one bad recommendation to screw your relationship with your subscribers.

So you need to do your homework and make sure you are recommending really great value. Only recommend stuff that you know will deliver more value than the money they will pay for it. And this is under your control. Even if the offer’s value is high enough, you can add more value by giving your bonuses that complement it and make the best combination since Saturdays and Sundays.

If you happen to goof about it, and its possibly not your mistake (like when the product you are recommending goes out of date the next day because of a change in a law or some rules), make sure you make it up for your subscribers. First admit it and apologize to them, then send them a free gift. If you have their physical addresses, and your niche is profitable, try sending them a physical gift if you can. Physical gifts can be visible all the time, while digital ones are only visible when you come across it on your hard disk.

The last factor for today is that you need to be clear about the action you want your subscribers to take. Ask them to click on the link and buy what you are recommending. Give good reasons for the action you are asking them to take. If you are not sure how this product will help them then it’s not a good idea to write to your list about it.

That’s it for today. Now please go back to the top and read this article again. If you think it’s a good article to share, please use the twitter button at the top to tweet about it, or share it with your social friends using the buttons below.