Talking with the List Owner

Then you talk about what you want to do. In this discussion (and this can be done via email, Skype, telephone, whatever) you’re going to find out a few things. How many subscribers do they have? If someone has 7 subscribers, you probably don’t want to mail their list. Here’s a sample conversation:

“How many subscribers do you have?”

“Well, I have 1700 subscribers. I have 7k subscribers.”

“How many clicks or opens do you normally get?”

Now, when I’ve taught this in the past, people sometimes ask me, “well, what’s a good open rate and good click-through rate?” It doesn’t matter. It’s not relevant, I don’t care. Somebody could have a 2% click through rate and I could make a lot of money on that mailing. Somebody else could have a 30% click-through rate, but the people on their list are not buyers. I won’t make any money at all. For me to give you a click-through rate, or an open rate as a guideline would just lead you astray. I’m not going to give you one. There isn’t one.

You’re just going to listen to what’s happening for the person you’re talking to is saying: if the person says, “well, normally I get 4 clicks per email,” that’s probably not somebody you want to mail to.

If they say, “I get 50 or 100 clicks per mailing,” that’s more what you want to mail to if you’re just getting started.

If somebody says I get 2k clicks per mailing, that may be somebody you want to mail to, but if it’s your very first solo ad, you probably don’t. Here’s why:

A 2k click solo ad is going to be much more expensive than a 50 click solo ad. And if you’ve never done a solo ad, you have absolutely no idea if your offer is going to convert when you send it out. So you really need to get some 50 or 100 or 200 clicks under your belt just to find out if your offer converts. If you’ve just written a squeeze page, and you’re not experienced in the business, you have absolutely no idea if it’s going to convert.

If the 2000-click list owner happens to be the first person you talk to, you could suggest “Well, let’s just mail a portion of your list, and see how the offer does.” Tell the truth: “It’s a brand new offer, I’m not sure how well it will convert, why don’t we just mail 10% of your list and see what happens, if it goes well, hey, we’ll ramp up and mail the whole thing, or we’ll mail 50% of it, or whatever the case is.”