Why you need a mailing list if you want to sell online

I see so many business owners pouring their time into low price point offers. Ebooks. An online course. A one-off teleseminar.

They think that the low price is a selling point.

If it’s just $37 (or $27 or $147), more people will buy it. Right?

Well, maybe.

But maybe not.

Because you’ve got to ask yourself: who’s gonna buy this?

Where are the buyers going to come from?

Often, when I ask a business owner this, they answer something like, “we’re going to buy a list” or “facebook.”

And I guess that can work.

But I prefer a strategy that’s more reliable. Because it’s simple, time tested and proven to work, where fancy tech-based strategies fail.

Grow your own house mailing list.

You don’t need a lot of buyers.

You don’t need a big list.

You just need to tend to the relationships you’ve already created.

Now, I say this, and some business owners will say, “That can’t work for me.”

Or “I don’t like to write.”

Or “I’m too busy.”

Or “I’m a bit nervous about doing it wrong. I’d better not. I’m not ready for people to see me here, warts and all.”

Okay. That’s fine. But for everyone else, here’s the thing – cultivating real relationships through regularly sending a newsletter is the secret to having an audience that loves to buy everything you do.

So many business owners are looking for the get rich quick thing online.

So many business owners are looking for shortcuts.

I get it. We’re all busy. None of us want to waste time. We want it to work.

Well, human relationships are way more reliable than any “buy a list” or “buy friends on social media” strategy.

Especially if you aren’t looking to build a gazillion dollar empire with clients who mortgage their homes to work with you.

Take care of the people you meet – and resonate with – at networking events. At your talks and workshops. At conferences. Who you do sales conversations with, but end up not buying from you.

Keep talking to them. Keep giving them good ideas. Keep the conversation going.

Read: ask their permission to add them to your mailing list. And then, send them good ideas. Generously. And without expecting anything in return.

I grow tired of all the entrepreneurs who treat business like a one night stand.

I grow weary of strategies that treat people who don’t buy from you like they’re dead to you.

What happened to service?

What happened to less is more?

There’s this quote I like to remember, that gets attributed to MLK, but seems to have originated earlier (to minister Theodore Parker). “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

With apologies to them both, I’d say that the arc of relationship is long, but it bends towards connection. Even online. Even with marketing.

What happened to, I will show you through my actions that I am here for the long haul, and you can count on me to do what I say I am going to do?

I say: you take care of your mailing list, and they take care of you. Sending a newsletter regularly becomes part of your habit. Just like spending quality time with your kids or your friends or your beloved is part of your habit.

The right to sell your stuff online is earned. Earned through you doing the work of hosting a meaningful conversation – through your newsletter, yes, and also through your sales pages, promo emails, and teleseminars.

The relationships you cultivate through showing up, committed to being of use through sharing good ideas in your newsletter, earns you the right to ask for business. This works, where list buying, friend buying, and one-and-done online ads fail.

Mighty thanks to Floris Oosterveld’s Flickr photostream for the line in Rome.