Missing the Secret to Online Success?
This week I sent an email to my subscribers and two people wrote back to me.
The email was a notification about Michael Rasmussen’s free videos on how to manage a list of subscribers and write emails that are opened, read and acted upon.
Thousands followed the link and grabbed the free videos, many (after seeing the quality of the content) decided they needed to learn more from Michael) and upgraded to own the full set. However it was not necessary to upgrade to gain some valuable information au gratis.
Here’s part of the email I sent out:
It is in the top three questions I get every week about working from home…
“How do I write to and manage a list of subscribers for profits?”
Well Michael Rasmussen (who recently brought in over $30,000 from a single email promotion), has created a series of videos that he’s allowing me to pass onto you for free. (plus you’ll get a handy little redirect script, also free).
Email marketing secrets about:
* the subject line
* the call to action
* the body copy
* the P.S.
* plus, my personal favorite, common mistakes new email marketers make!Go check it out now in case he changes his mind and starts charging for these or before too many people find out and crash their servers…
Now let me tell you about the two people who wrote back…
One subscriber wrote back and said, “I’m just starting my business so I didn’t sign up. I can’t spend money on everything that comes along. Please tell me if I really need this…”
First of all, the time that it took to write that email to me could have been invested in signing up for free and watching those videos – moving forward in your business instead of wondering and treading water. Secondly, I don’t send my subscribers anything that I don’t use, haven’t seen or reveiwed, or believe in myself…
It’s okay, I know we’re all skeptical and worried about handing over our email address for free products and not wanting to be subjected to enticing offers and upsells. Let’s use our heads here. Get yourself a free email account and use that address to subscribe for the free offers. Or, once subscribed, if you feel like a number that is just being pitched to, unsubscribe from any follow-up emails once you’ve received your free offer.
“Personally I spend an hour of every day reading other marketer’s emails. Why? To stay on top of the new product offerings but also to analyze and learn from the wide variety of email copywriting that sells. I don’t envision that time as being pitched to, I see it as an educational experience.”
Now before I run off on a tangent, let me tell you about the second subscriber who wrote back to me…
“Laura, I’m unsubscribing from all marketing related email lists. Everything is written to sell me, nothing is purely to help. I’ve ordered some of the products and I’m always left knowing I have only been given the tip of the iceberg, that there is something more I need to succeed online…”
I promise to share my response to this gentleman another day in a comment to this post, but in the meantime I’m wondering what action you would have taken had you received an email like this from your subscriber…
Would you:
- Just let them go because obviously they aren’t a good match for you and your business?
- Realize that they are one of those people who spend hundreds or thousands on products and never put them to use (and therefore are a lost cause anyway)?
- Think that here’s a guy that once spent money on marketing projects and probably would spend money again IF you could find the product that met his desires, or shared the secret he thinks we’re all holding back from him?
- Analyze that if one person wrote an email like this it’s quite likely that another 99 had similar thoughts – and take action to create a product that will suit their needs?
- Or _____________?
You don’t have to answer me here, you don’t even have to email me your answer, but I do suggest that you think about what your reaction to an email like this would be.
Why?
Your reaction holds the keys to your future online business success. Let me say that again: “Your reaction holds the key to your future online business success,” because the internet, and the surfers of it, and your subscribers are changing. As they change, the way you market to, interact and react to your customers and readers will change – if you want to survive.
How do I know this?
Next month I celebrate 9 years of working online from home. No boss, no paycheck. Just me and the world wide web.
- Nine years ago I was fortunate enough to work with the longest running internet marketing expert Marlon Sanders for about 4 months – but I wasn’t smart enough to ‘get’ what he was trying to show me.
- Two years ago I was fortunate enough to co-author two books and launch 3 websites with marketing legend Dr. Joe Vitale. I was nearly smart enough then to glean many of the secrets he shared with me.
But this is the first year that I’ve matured enough to stand back and look at where we’ve been, how we’ve changed, and where we’re heading. I’ll disclose my insights, my projections and predictions in following posts.
In a few days I’ll disclose my action or reaction to my gentleman subscriber who has bought hundreds of dollars of marketing products and thinks that marketing authors aren’t disclosing all, that “there’s something more I need to succeed online.”
In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you.
This is one of the clues to where online business – small or large – is headed…
This is, in fact, the other response to the distrustful subscriber who thought we were all untrustworthy and weren’t disclosing all the secrets. The ’secret’ is you have to apply what you’ve learned. The secret is you actually have to put an effort in. The secret is, at some point you have to stop reading, watching and looking for scapegoats and just get down to it. Get started.
Laura
The part we’re holding back from you… “… it’s a state of mind and you can be handed the keys to the kingdom but if you’re full of distrust and uncertainty you’ll always be sitting on the sidelines saying “I don’t have it all.” There is only one way to succeed online and that’s to get busy and put the knowledge you have already gained/learned/bought or been given to action. From there you grow – in income and knowledge. No one else can do this for you.
At the end of the day, it is not our job to do all the work for our subscribers, nor is it good business to give everything away, we have to live as well, but if you were to take all the free pieces and put some energy behind them (i.e., work), you’d find you had a legitimate and lucrative business. Most marketers are running businesses aside and apart from teaching or sharing with others, which is how we learn what works so that we can pass this information onto you, our subscribers.
In Michael’s case – with his free videos – they took weeks to create and he’s happily giving them away to new people. Yes, he’s hoping that some will see the value he offers and buy the big package, but again the free version is more than most $40 courses supply. It’s a great gift he’s offering. But again, all we can do is pass the information – it’s up to the ‘receiver’ to make something of it.
I’m curious, what information do you feel you aren’t being given? Perhaps I can answer your questions. An online business requires a domain name, a hosting account, an autoresponder, and your effort (to perform keyword research, to stay on top of current events in your target market, to create content for your website, write emails to your list, drive traffic to your website) – there’s nothing more to it.
Feel free to write me back with any questions you have. You are unsubscribed from my main list, and will not hear from me again if you don’t reply, but I thought I’d write back from my personal email address if you needed to chat.
Laura Childs”
Laura:
My 2 cents?
My first rule online and off is don’t associate with negative people. I’ve always just unsubscribed them or let them go. Life’s too short to hold people’s hands or carry them to success. I’ve got my own success to worry about. Plus these negative people are never thankful when you do try to help them.
I’m interested though in what you think the internet is coming to. I have noticed a slight drop in my online sales.
Alice
The secret? What’s the big secret that all us ‘how to make money online’ marketers are holding back?
Yah it’s a big conspiracy. We all get together every year at a big conference and announce “Here’s the big secret. Remember, don’t share it with any newbie! Make them buy all your products with your enticing offer but don’t tell them how to really succeed…”
LOL. Sad thing is there are hundreds of people thousands maybe who think this.
I’ll tell them the secret for $2. No wait! For free. “Launch a freakin’ website and DO something instead of complaining, whining and saying making money online is a hoax!”
Whining that internet millionaires don’t give anything that truly helps. Whatever. There is more free information about how to get an online business rolling then there is about where to get free samples from pill manufacturers.
Thats how I started. With the free stuff. The rest was work. Trial. DO!
Sam
p.s. So how did YOU react?
I like your style and insights.
By the way Joe is awesome.
Al Diaz
Book: The Titus Concept Money For My Best and Highest Good
Website: http://www.soar2006.com
Seminar: SOAR 2006 The Titus Concept Live Event
It’s all about the upsell. Of course marketers will give you information. FREE information to send you down that flower path to riches on the internet. Of course I guess I’m one of those types that sees things a bit differently.
This strikes me as a bit cold and condescending. Of course they could have watched a video and ohhhhed and ahhhed through it. Of course the difference here is “doing something” – you can complain all you want / they want. It’s about working towards something – if you don’t try – you don’t succeed.
I’m not sure why this article bothers me as much as it does. Is it because I don’t think many of those “make money now – here’s a free ebook” sorts – who push the free, then the upsell – irk me. There are many out there who sell each other’s products – like a nice tidy collective. And we as subscribers to their newsletters – get the same email from 3 or 4 different marketers.
… I’m afraid I go – UNSUBSCRIBE.
I do appreciate however that you say that you try the product first before promoting it. I think that’s a bit more above board – especially when blogging about the topic.
[...] … I was reading through my RSS feeds as I normally do and I ran across “Missing the Secret to Online Success?” and it really bugged the shit out of me. I’m not sure why it bothered me that much – maybe it’s the lack of sleep… insomnia (but that’s another post). [...]
Hmmm, seems more than a few people read this post and missed the point. Or should I say points?
Again, I’m not blaming a soul (says Laura covering her bases) because mis-communication is just as much the writer’s responsibility as the readers’.
I messed up my end of the communication by writing about two subscribers – the the skimmers of the world lumped both of them into one person.
And I messed up by not disclosing the history I had of hour long conversations with the first subscriber. Or specifically state that I did not write those words back to her (only vented them in my blog – which I must start remembering is no longer a personal space).
Worse yet is that the entire meat of the piece was written to try to inspire people to contemplate where we’re all headed as marketers, about how the pulse on the web is changing, and how on earth we’ll be able to meet the needs of our future customers – and THAT point was completely missed.
Laura Childs
P.S. Besides all that, my ‘tough love’ stance – “just darn well DO something!” – has been known to push many into action.
“Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.”
- Author Unknown
Yesterday one of my loyal ’start up’ readers wrote back to me on a related series to the post above…
He’s been asking me wordpress and search engine optimization questions for the past month or so, but had neither a website nor WordPress nor a page to optimize for the search engines.
Still, I kept answering his questions (some of them rather challenging to explain via an email) as I know that some people like to get their ducks lined up before they type one word.
Anyway, he sent me one line of text in the subject of the email and he literally MADE my day. “I’ve decided to stop talking about it and just dive in.”
Had he read this stream of “Just darn well do something and stop second guessing yourself!”
I’m not sure and I don’t care, I’m just happy that someone, somewhere served up a little tough love and one more start up entrepreneur is on his road to success.
Over and out and grinning ear to ear,
Laura
“While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes becoming superior.â€
-Henry C. Link