It’s a bit tough to be so transparent in discussing with you how I’m going to run my business. Most marketers don’t do that. Most just do what they do and not let on, because once they let on, the cat’s out of the bag, the tactic is perceived, and the effect of the tactic is neutralized and defeated.
But I perceive my role in your business life as bigger than that. You may or may not agree, but that’s how I see it.
The real purpose of my transparency is LESS about letting you know what I am doing, and MORE about helping you with your business — either by my successes or my failures.
So I was pleased to get at least a few comments from readers who said they would try what I was suggesting. One person, Jonathan, who is travelling the world with his bride while supporting themselves with their Internet Marketing business, wrote me to say that he started to email his list more often, and made an extra $1,000 in sales in the last 5 days.
Now THAT was the purpose of my original post.
Jonathan didn’t mail his list every day, but he started to mail his list more often.
And that’s my goal, really. My advice to you is…
1) Communicate with your list more often with helpful information will help both you and them.
2) When you hear this kind of advice from me, please try not to think so much about our relationship (yours and mine), but think about your relationship with your own list.
THAT is the important relationship.
You know, as I write this, I can see how the term “list” and “customer” and “prospect” all sound so impersonal. For lack of a better term, I’ll continue to use those words because of their accuracy.
The truth of the matter, though, is that I don’t think of my list as simply a “list” or a mechanism for profit (which, by the way, it very much is for me, and should be for you). I think of the individual people on my list who are trying to become more successful in their online business.
* I know there are moms and dads, both single and married, who are trying to support their family with their day jobs, and help make ends meet by working on their internet business at night.
* I know there are retired men and women who have always provided for their families, suddenly find themselves without the safety net they’ve always had, and are turning to the internet to not let themselves or their families down.
* I know there are wide-eyed, driven, youngish entrepreneurs who will try anything to make a buck.
* And I know there are some very astute entrepreneurs who have successfully migrated from their offline jobs to their online businesses, and are already successful, but are looking for even more.
And I know there are many, many people in between.
I hope you know your customers as well as I think I know mine.
I get it. And the very last thing that I want to do is to pollute your inbox with “drivel,” as one reader put it.
But I do want to help you, and teach you the things you need to know in order to become more successful with your online business.
I do private consulting for a few select online entrepreneurs, and one day I’ll maybe introduce you to a few of them. One of them (who has also turned into a good friend) recently had an $86,000 launch — a good week for him. He credits me with his success, but none of what he’s accomplished would ever happen if he wasn’t the kind of guy who gets things done.
I also have access to some of the best courses and materials to help you grow your business — many of those $1,000 and $2,000 packages you wish you had, but don’t buy.
I get to hang out with people like Perry Marshall, John Reese, Eben Pagan, Jason Potash and lots of other brilliant marketers, who tend to say things in private that they don’t necessarily put in their courses.
And it’s these kinds of things that I plan on sharing with you.
If you don’t want to know this stuff, that’s okay.
Here’s the thing: “writing frequency” and “writing quality” are not mutually exclusive.
You can decide for yourself how quickly you want to grow your business, which tactics and strategies I share with you are ones you want to implement, and which ones you want to ignore.
I may not write every day, but I will commit to only write about things that I think are truly helpful to you. Sometimes, it will be in the form of a quick tip, a tool I use, a course I believe in, or just something I do to save time every day, or make big chunks of dough.
I’ll never intentionally waste your time, though. And I wouldn’t expect you’d do that with your list, either.
Let me say this one last thing on the topic, before I finish.
What I’d done in the past was mail only when I had an offer to promote. I think that kind of INFREQUENT communication is the real problem, as evidenced by the relatively low response I often received, and the unsubscribes that followed.
My advice to YOU is to write frequently enough, and respond to your list, so that you can get to know your people as well as possible. You’ll discover magical things happen for both you and your readers when you can actually “see” the people you are writing to, as you write.
…just like I see you.
And that’s a tactic that, so far as I can tell, just can’t be defeated.
To Your Success,
–Mark Widawer
P.S. There came a realization for me in all of this that I’ll share with you.
YOUR JOB, as an online marketer, is to communicate. It’s to share what you know, to get your customers and prospects to know, like and trust you, and for you to provide goods and services and information to them that helps them have what they want.
The way you do that is to WRITE (or speak, or video).
In other words, writing is not a part of your job, it IS your job!
Have a great day.
–M