Today I wanna tell you about a free database of list swap partners, and how to actually use it to get others to promote you, even if your list is tiny.
First off, the database:
You’ve probably heard of it, because many list owners have promoted it over the past few months. It’s called List Match.
I’m late to the game of promoting List Match, but I will aim to make up for it.
Because since February, I have been signed up for List Match myself.
Thanks to that experience, I can tell you the good and the bad of List Match, and how you can turn the bad into great for you.
The good of List Match:
The people behind List Match keep promoting it. That means the platform is full of list owners who have said they want to run a list swap, and who have even gone through the trouble of signing up for an account and creating a profile.
The List Match database is fresh and more people keep getting added every week.
There are some whales on there, but most of the people on List Match have small audiences. (That fixes the problem of, “my list is too small for a list swap.”)
The bad of List Match:
List Match is hosted on Circle, which is community platform, and simply not a fit for a database tool like this.
People are supposed to “like” your automatically generated profile post, and then Circle is supposed to notify you, so you can somehow pick up the interaction.
I never get notified. Plus discovery of potential partners is inconvenient at best.
(I’ll tell you in a second the only decent way I’ve found to discover relevant newsletters on List Match).
How to turn the bad into great:
Like I said, the people behind List Match keep promoting and expanding the database. That means new people sign up, expecting others to reach out to them (that’s the official promise).
But because of List Match being on Circle and the tech problems around that, few if any of these list owners ever get any possible partners reaching out to them.
That becomes your opportunity, because this is effectively a starving crowd of people who have expressed interest in an outcome (list swaps), except nobody is satisfying that hunger for them.
My advice:
1. Get on List Match yourself
2. Once you’re on it, don’t just scroll through the hundreds of list owners on there. Instead, search the database using the search function for terms relevant to you.
(I just tried “email marketing” and found dozens of good people, including ones I have already done swaps with, bought ads from, have inside my Monetization Mastermind community, etc.)
3. Instead of relying on Circle’s unreliable “like” notifications, hoping that if you “like” somebody they will reach out to you, you reach out to them, and you do it off Circle.
(Yes, you have to be the one to take 100% of the initiative. But that’s precisely where the gold is, not just in this particular case, but everywhere else in life.)
List Match gives you the website of the person who wants to do a list swap.
Go to their website, find their contact email, or barring that, sign up to their list and then hit reply when you get the welcome email.
This bit of work is super likely to pay off. Again, these aren’t random list owners that you are cold-pitching for a list swap.
Instead, they are people who have expressly stated they are looking for list swaps… who have shared their list size so you know you are in the same ballpark… and who you have something in common with (you are both on List Match).
You can use these facts and your own copywriting or networking skill to craft a short outreach message to encourage these people to respond to you and to agree to a list swap.
Or if you like, I have a ready-made and proven list swap outreach email I’ve used in the past with another, earlier database of list swap prospects. You can use my outreach message instead of writing your own.
I used this outreach email to do a buncha list swaps for my now-dormant longevity newsletter.
Almost every list owner I reached out to with this message got back to me, and most people said yes, including when I had just a few subs.
My deal to you:
1. Sign up for List Match using my link here (it’s free): https://bejakovic.com/listmatch
2. Forward me your account confirmation email (mine had the subject line, “Your account is ready”)
3. I will then send you the list swap outreach email I’ve used in the past, plus a templatized version you can fill in the blanks for and send out yourself