How Your Email List Can Help Make You A Better Marketer

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I’m one of those guys that get’s excited every time someone joins my list. I get excited because I know it’s a new opportunity to share what is and isn’t working for me online. And hopefully by sharing I can make it a little easier for my subscriber to reach their online goals.

I also get excited because building a list is a powerful resource for any site owner.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “The money is in the list.” Well that’s true, but there are some other great benefits to a list as well.

I’ve been reading the book “Little Bets” by Peter Sims. I’m only a few chapters in, but it’s about trying small incremental things and then adjusting in order to achieve your desired outcome.

Rather than going in with the end in mind, you kind of adjust as you go. This often creates a new path that you may or may not have planned on taking.

I had an idea that I wanted to try in an effort to get the word out about my blog.

I read a lot. And I’ve noticed that some of the marketing books I’ve read have provided more value than some of the super expensive courses I’ve purchased online.

And since I know not everyone can afford these expensive courses, I wanted to share some of my favorite books that I think provide just as much value.

So I created a post where I planned to give away some of the marketing books that I have enjoyed the most.

There were three things visitors needed to do to enter the contest.

1. Join my list
2. Comment
3. Tweet the post

Well, my plan failed miserably.

I was getting traffic to the post. But the response was pathetic.

Why?

Did my visitors hate books? Did they hate my post? Did the thought of having to join my list scare them off (it shouldn’t have since most of them are already on it)?

Well there was only one way to find out.

And that was to ask.

If you are running your own site or online business, you probably have a list. If you don’t I suggest you check out this series of posts I did on how to create an email list.

Once you have one – it can be extremely powerful.

But many marketers fail to get the most out of their list.

They only use their list to promote and sell.

Now there is nothing wrong with either of these things – if you are doing them the right way.

I’ll save my rant for marketers that promote and pitch products they know nothing about for another post.

The problem is there are so many other great uses for a list besides constantly pitching products.

One of them is getting feedback.

My goal is to share things with my list that I think they will get value out of.

And I think they can learn a lot by me sharing things that I’ve tried, and what my experiences have been as a result of trying these things.

But I can also learn a lot from my subscribers when things don’t work out as I thought they would.

So yesterday I sent out an email with the subject line “Swallowing My Pride (..I need your help)”

In that email I shared my poor results I had experienced with my Book Giveaway Post. And I asked them why they thought I got such a poor response.

Well I’m happy to say I definitely didn’t get a poor response to my email.

The feedback I received was amazing! There were so many little things that didn’t even cross my mind. But you can bet they will next time.

The key is I learned from my mistake. But I learned by going to the people that are the key to a contest post like this being a success.

My subscribers.

I asked them to be honest with me and let me know why it didn’t work. And they did.

So if you have a list, make sure you tap into the awesome feedback that you can gain from it.

If you don’t – I highly suggest you start building one.

Who knows, one day your subscribers may be as kickass as mine.

If you are already one of them – THANK YOU!

If you aren’t, I’d love to have you on board so that I can share with you, and learn from your valuable feedback as well.