This is a public service announcement:
Today’s marketing tip is gruesomely graphic.
Viewer discretion is advised… and if you’re easily grossed out, then, well, you’ve been warned.
Still here?
OK, then here’s the story:
Somewhere in Istanbul - oh, I don’t know, maybe within walking distance of my homequarters - is a flat.
According to unverified (but accurate) rumours, this flat is owned by a blood-relative of Yours Truly.
(My mother and sister stay there whenever they fly to Istanbul for meetings.)
Inside this flat, is a fridge.
And inside the fridge, there is a pack of minced meat.
According to widespread (but somewhat inaccurate) belief, it is deep-freezed and preserved for its owner’s return.
Except… it isn’t.
Some time last week, on an unknown day, at an unknown (and highly unwelcome) hour, the fuse blew out.
The fridge stopped working.
This fact remained unbeknownst to the stakeholders.
The superintendent was enjoying his annual vacation somewhere in Georgia.
My mother was in a different city for a meeting.
And I was abroad for a corporate consultation.
Sometimes ignorance is not bliss…
For when the cleaning lady stepped into the flat, she was greeted by a stench so foul it rivalled the Zombie Apocalypse.
The flat reeked of death, and decay, and disease.
A corpse left to rot at the height of midsummer would probably smell something like this.
And worse yet…
There were maggots crawling out of the fridge... like sickly white, wriggling, alien creatures.
(On the plus side, I have been permanently inoculated against the horror genre. Stephen King shall never be able to scare me again.)
We tried everything known to man to exorcise the grisly miasma after the maggots were removed.
The flat and fridge were professionally cleaned three times.
Vinegar was boiled - to the vociferous complaints of gagging residents elsewhere in the building.
An entire compendium of folk remedies, ranging from baking soda, to milk, to charcoal and beyond, were tried, tested and found wanting.
Disinfectant sprays from five different R&D companies were imported, applied and found unequal to the task.
All of the above activities were orchestrated by Mother from that infernal device known as Whatsapp...
Carried out by the cleaning team...
And periodically supervised by me as Mother’s unwilling lieutenant.
Until… yesterday.
At an undisclosed location, MY fuse blew out.
Not another second of my life would I spend trying to get that fridge sanitised. It wasn’t even my own flat.
I went out and bought a new fridge, arranged for it to be installed after the holidays, and ordered the old one to be sent away to be buried 20,000 fathoms under the sea.
And you know what?
It’s not only minced meat that gets infested with maggots if left untended.
The same can happen to an email list.
Will you throw your list away (like I did with the refrigerator) and start from scratch when that happens?
I don’t want you to suffer through that, so lean in and listen:
There are two ways to prevent bad subscribers from growing like maggots in an untended email list:
First, don’t put anything in there that can get infested with maggots.
If your opt-in offer (minced meat) is bringing in low quality subscribers (potential maggots), you are inviting catastrophe.
Sure… if you are there 24/7 like electricity, you might be able to “deep-freeze” complaints and keep the maggot-causing germs dormant with proactive customer service.
Heck, you might even be able to “cook” the minced meat into something savoury, transforming less than ideal subscribers into ideal clients with either education or lower priced products that really help them.
But make no mistake:
If you go MIA for a while, you WILL be greeted by The Rise of the Maggots upon your return to their inboxes.
The best way to protect your email list from maggots?
Make sure they never get in there to start with. This is the job of your opt-in offer.
Thankfully, when you follow the FAST50 system (https://fast50optins.com/ ), you automatically end up with an opt-in offer that repels these maggots, freeloaders and trolls.
Second, keep your email list “refrigerated” with consistent contact.
Because even good meat can go bad if left untended.
If your best customers don’t hear from you for months, they might forget who you are. Worse yet, they might forget ever having signed up to your list.
Then when you have something to sell and need to email them the offer, YOU will be the maggot in their spam-box.
Instead, you want to be in their minds as an expert in your niche.
This increases the chance that they’ll remember to engage your services and buy your products when something goes wrong (for those that don’t already have you on a retainer).
If you are only emailing them once a month, they’re likely to forget you, and go straight to Google to look for someone that can help.
If you’re in regular contact, and that contact is appreciated, the chances of them going “Let me dig out that email…” are increased.
If you can demonstrate that expertise while being funny and helpful (without being annoying or awkward), then that’s even better.
Regular emailing doesn’t have to be a rotten experience.
(I email you daily, and you’re still here.)
The right kind of daily emails do three things:
(i) They organically detox your list of maggots and germs;
(ii) They (eventually) nudge the fence-sitters over; and
(iii) They give those who are ready to buy the opportunity to purchase the solution to their problem.
But this isn’t always easy.
As Subscriber Jonathan says:
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“My short term goal is to help people who've made a lifestyle decision to be a solopreneur with their website. I want to be a trusted advisor, to be the person that they turn to when they have an issue.
I know the tech, I can talk about the tech for hours. I'm getting better, but still have a way to go, with how to explain that tech to non-techies.
I know that I will need to keep myself in their inboxes on a regular basis, ideally daily, at the very least a couple of times a week. I'm afraid that I'll get boring, or that the emails will become obnoxious.
Your emails have shown me that daily emailing doesn't have to be obnoxious, so figuring out how to do a version of that for my niche would be of obvious benefit to my business.”
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Jonathan is correct.
There is a right way and a wrong way to email your list.
If you want to learn how to refrigerate your list at the ideal sales temperature (without spending more than 15 minutes a day on emails), then go to:
http://trial-eureka.teachable.com/p/email-prodigy
Whatever you do, just don’t let your email list go untended.
Maggots might take over and spoil your sales.
