How to Approach Email List

Chris Marlow delivered mainly business services. Below she provides input on how to approach email list for a business consultant.

Modern marketing experts – especially on the net – are always telling us that ‘building the list’ is a priority.

And, whilst having a large list increases the odds for getting business, perhaps sometimes we forget that the quality of those contacts is also crucial.

Conducting a Webinar

For how to approach email list, this is the information I asked of signups (those with an asterisk were required):

First name *
Last name *
Email *
Company phone
Address 1 *
Address 2
City *
State *
Zip *
Country *
Your occupation *
How did you hear about us?

Right after issuing the promo email for the webinar, one coach came to my Facebook page to politely register a complaint about having to give up so much information. He refused to come to my webinar because of it.

However, I didn’t want to spend time educating so I ignored it.

Then another, and yet another, joined his conversation. And then an email came directly into my inbox.

She said, “You ask for too much information. An email, maybe a name.”

I could see that it was growing and I had no choice but to address the problem.

DAMAGE CONTROL

So I reluctantly stopped what I was doing and spent time to respond to my Facebook and email complaints. As briefly as possible, I explained where they were going wrong.

And while my argument was accepted as one would allow a friend to have their say, I didn’t feel that I’d done a great job at convincing. I had neither the time nor the space to do an effective job of teaching.

So I vowed to write this letter… especially since my own coaching students occasionally fight me on this one.

HERE’S THE PROBLEM

Business service providers who want LEADS are erroneously listening to the marketing teachings of Internet entrepreneurs who want SALES.

Most of us who live in the on-line business world know of the “big boy Internet gurus” who brag of having huge lists.

Many Business service providers are, or want to be, Internet marketers. And they’re listening to the teachings of the big boys, and they’re getting it all mixed up with how to approach email list.

Ok, so let’s get some learning: what is the #1 obstacle of getting an Internet business going? Easy. It’s building a list.

So this is the major pain point of the Internet entrepreneur who wants to build a very large list.

His intent is to make SALES, and the larger the list, the more the sales. Therefore, he wants a low barrier to entry.

This is why he asks only for a name and an email. His strategy is to capture the name now, and analyse for demographics and psychographics later.

(As an aside, these very large lists are usually mostly made up of freebie seekers; one of my colleagues is an Internet entrepreneur with 80,000 names, but only 7% are repeat buyers).

Ok, now let’s look at the…

Coaching Model and How to Approach Email List

For the coaching side of my business, my goal in collecting names vastly differs from the mass market Internet marketer whose wants to make direct sales.

I want leads. And NOT crap leads. Good, high-quality  leads that will convert well. I don’t want millions on my coaching list!

A service such as mine would not survive millions of non-paying, low-quality tire kickers (people who want your work and knowledge for free, and have no intent to ever work with you).

Plus it would cost me a lot more to send emails to a million low quality prospects (see ~ below) than a few thousand good ones.

So the lesson here on how to approach email list, if your goal for a promotion is NOT to sell a product, but to sell your services, you want a tight list of high-quality  leads who are really interested in working with you.

This is how you convert well. And this is how you are profitable.This is how to approach email list.

Not only must my prospects give me a lot of personal information to gain access to my Webinar, but they must also fill out a probing questionnaire and supply a bio and writing sample before we can go to the next step, which includes a free consult with me.

Those who don’t want to share their information in exchange for access to a presentation that took me 40 hours to build, are not good leads.

This includes those who don’t want to complete the paperwork that gains them a free hour of time with me.

Therefore, my conversion rates extremely high, and I rarely waste time on a bad lead.

Furthermore, by capturing physical address information I can do direct mailings, which are also very profitable for me.

One final point here: If I don’t know who signed up for my Webinar, how will I make changes to fit the audience?

In order to give my best presentation, I need to know my audience.

Form Fields for Service Providers

Coaches and other business services should ask for a lot of information. Certain information is crucial. The below shows the form fields for how to approach email list.

When you gain a lead from your website, you surely want to know the prospect’s name, title, company name and website.

This allows you to go to their website and learn more about their company so you can respond to their inquiry appropriately.

How you respond starts a conversation that turns into a successful close.

Here’s the Form Field my coaching students use:

First name *
Last name *
Title*
Company *
Website *
Address 1
Address 2
City
State/Province
Country
Zip/Postal Code
Country
Comment

* = required

Now here’s something that will surprise coaches who read this: you can tell the quality of the lead by how much information they give you.

Low quality leads give you only what they must. But high-quality  leads will give you all their information, even not required info.

Use this format and over time, you will find this to be absolutely true, almost like clockwork.

And here’s the advantage. For a low-quality lead, you now know not to put a lot of effort into a response. However, for the high-quality  lead, you will study their site and carefully craft your response.

Perhaps you live in the same city. Or you did work for a similar product. Or you use their software. Or you have a Case Study that would interest them.

These days many coaches understand they will do best with an offer to their target market… something like a White Paper that shows how the business service provider can raise ROI or solve a marketing pain.