Multimillionaire marketer and copywriter Justin Goff recently described his uniquely profitable email list.
His list has fewer than 1000 subscribers.
Even so, he’s managed to get hundreds of customers from it, all of whom have given at least $2k to Justin, and some of whom have given $10k and above.
One way he did this was by making people fill out a form to get on his email list, and (presumably) rejecting those who aren’t a good fit.
Should you do the same? Well, here are 7 reasons in favor of such an approach:
#1. It makes people more eager to get on your list
I’m on Justin’s list. Before I was on it, I was just so curious. What do his emails talk about to make them worth protecting in this way? It was probably one of the two main reasons that made me sign up (or rather, apply) in the first place.
#2. It makes people on your list pay attention more
One of the conditions for joining Justin’s list is to make a commitment to open his emails and read them. And commitment might just be the most powerful motivator of human behavior.
#3. It makes for better prospects
Like I mentioned above, fewer than 1000 subscribers… hundreds of thousands (or possibly millions) of dollars in earnings.
#4. Fewer trouble makers
I recently got a flood of new subscribers to my own email list from some unknown source. Inevitably, I got some spam complaints as well. You reduce the odds of that happening if you make people jump through hoops before subscribing.
#5. Your emails get delivered instead of flagged as spam
Just a consequence of #4 above.
#6. Your emails get delivered instead of flagged as promotion
The more that people open, read, and engage your emails, the more likely it is that your future emails to all your future subscribers will also land in prominent places rather than in the promotions tab.
#7. It’s cheaper
Many businesses I’ve worked with have email lists in the hundreds of thousands… and some in the millions. It’s not free sending all those emails, even if you’re doing it from your own servers. And if you don’t have your own servers, then a constant drain to pay for email sending you will never get anything out of.
And there you go. 7 reasons. There might be others I’m not thinking of.
So am I saying to stop growing your email list?
No.
It’s just that in this situation (as in so many things), there are two objectives you need to simultaneously optimize or meet.
One is the number of new subscribers…
The other is the quality of those subscribers.
It’s possible to create a business doing just one or the other.
But as an increasing number of marketers (even those like Justin, who cut his chops on converting cold traffic) are finding out, it doesn’t pay as well per unit of work invested.