4 reasons your list isn’t buying from you.
Your newsletter gets compliments all the time. Your friends and clients keep telling you they like it. They are inspired by it. You give good ideas. You send it regularly (more or less).
And still, it’s not really bringing you business.
What gives?
When you’ve got a list that isn’t bringing your business, here are the usual suspects:
1) Your numbers aren’t big enough yet. Maybe you’ve got 100 people on your list. That’s a good start – but it’s not enough to support your business. Yet. The thing about your newsletter list is that it’s a longer-term business growth strategy. You’ve got to keep doing talks – and ask to add your audience to your list. You’re a guest writer for a blog? Great. Make sure you drive traffic over to your website, and get people opting in to your list. Everything you do leads back to getting the right people on your list. Before long, you’ll have people joining your list that you don’t even know. It really only takes a few hundred people on a list for you to start getting business – but you have to get past that threshold to start seeing results.
2) You haven’t trained the people on your list to engage. Most people aren’t going to fork over their credit card on a $500 program first. They need to know, like, and trust you. One way to do this is ask your readers a question. What’s your biggest challenge around ______? Then tell them to hit reply. Most people don’t actually take good care of the people on their list, so you’ll stand out as a real professional who is listening and responsive.
3) You aren’t using email campaigns. A lot of experts talk about monetizing your newsletter – but in my experience, a newsletter is for building relationships with the people on your list. When you ask for business, do it in an email campaign. What’s the difference? An email has ONE call to action. Say, inviting warm leads to do sessions with you. A newsletter might have 3 or 4 links – which dilutes focus. Email campaigns don’t have to be complex to work, either – in the Writing That Sells production lab, I teach 3 different 3-email campaigns – one for getting sales conversations, one to get people on your next teleseminar, and one to “warm up” people just joining your list. A link in a newsletter is easy to ignore. A single email is easy to ignore. Instead, write a little email soap opera sequence – if you do it right, it will work way better.
4) They don’t know you sell something. A fellow just sent me his email sales sequence for his info product for potty training. It wasn’t selling, and he wants to know why. The reason is, his ask is so buried in content, people are completely missing it! You need to be clear with your reader that you are inviting them to do something, and then actually explain to them what they need to know to say yes. That’s what good sales writing is. Thinking about what your likely buyers need to hear to take you up on your offer.
If you’re sending content but are wrestling with transitioning to asking for business, here’s one other thought for you. Are you feeling bad about asking for business?
If you’re in this boat, just notice it. And look in to why that’s happening. I’ve watched so many people who are quite generous in their content suddenly get all weird when it comes to asking for business. It doesn’t need to be this way. In fact, it CAN’T be this way, if your copy is actually going to move people to click and buy from you.
Love this article — and want more practical tips about building and strengthening your relationship with the human beings on your mailing list? I’m teaching an all new copywriting and messaging training call TONIGHT at 7pm EST called “They’re Just Not That Into You: 3 reasons your list isn’t clicking your links or buying from your emails – and how to fix it” – it’s free and you can sign up here.
Mighty thanks to Rennett Stowe flickr photostream for the lookout.
