Let’s discuss “How to Create Strong Trusting Relationships With Your Audience” You’ve heard me and others talk about “nurturing” your list before because that’s one of the keys to building good relationships (which in turn results in reader loyalty and higher conversions).

Indeed, having a big list means absolutely nothing if you don’t also have a good relationship with this list.

Question is, what does it mean to “nurture” your list, and how do you build this sort of strong bond? That’s what you’re going to discover inside this lesson. Check out these tips…

Nurture Doesn’t Mean “No Selling”

Sometimes you hear list marketers saying they’ve created an initial autoresponder series that’s focused on “nurturing” their list. And then they go on to say that they don’t promote any offers during this time, because they want to focus on helping people rather than advertising.

That’s a problem, for multiple reasons…

1. First off, if you don’t promote offers early in the welcome series of emails (including in the very first email you send), you’re training your subscribers to expect content only, NO offers. So, when you do promote an offer, some of your list members may feel like you did a “bait and switch” on them, and they’ll unsubscribe. (More on that in just a minute.)
2. The second problem is that sometimes the BEST way to help someone is by recommending a specific product to them. As such, if you withhold product recommendations because you want to “nurture” your list, you’re not really helping them. Indeed, a subscriber may end up going to your competitor, where they can get better help (which may include recommendations for paid offers).

Let me give you an example…

Let’s suppose you run a weight-loss newsletter. And let’s suppose you decide to run a two-or-three-week series of emails where you nurture your list by sharing weight-loss tips, but you withhold the very best solution simply because it’s a paid offer.

Consider this: you are actually wasting your subscribers’ time if you’re not offering them the BEST possible solution. You throw out breadcrumbs in the form of tips for two or three weeks when you could have promoted something that would have solved their problem.

A dieter could have already lost several pounds during those two or three weeks. Someone who’s housetraining their puppy could already be done with the deed if you gave them the best solution. A person who’s struggling to get traffic to their website could have already started enjoying real results had you offered them something like a traffic course rather than emails with tips.

So, the point is this: yes, send out emails that nurture the relationship with good content. But don’t be afraid to promote something from within the very first email you send if you think it will really help your audience.

Here’s the next point…

Set Expectations Early

As mentioned above, you don’t want subscribers to feel like there was a “bait and switch,” such as if you send all content for weeks and then suddenly start promoting offers. That’s why you want to set expectations upfront on your lead page as well as in the first couple of emails.

Here’s what to address:

• How often you’ll send emails. Will you send emails daily? Weekly? Twice a week? Whatever your schedule is, let subscribers know up front – and then stick to it.
• The types of emails you’ll send. Many marketers say they’ll send “tips and tutorials,” but after the first few emails it becomes 100% pitches. Pitching offers is absolutely fine – just make sure your audience knows what to expect, which means telling them they’ll receive recommendations (and then following through and recommending offers, right from the first email).

Next…

Provide a Mix of Content and Pitch

Unless you told your readers that your newsletter is all about reviewing and sharing recommended products with them (which is a completely legit focus for a newsletter), chances are each email is going to be a mix of good content alongside a promotion for a related product.

Here you walk a fine line…

If you advertise too much, some of your readers will turn away if they were promised tips and advice. (Again, the key being what they were promised: if you promised free tips, then you need to provide them.)

On the other hand, if your newsletter is all good content and no product recommendations, then you’re doing your readers a disservice by withholding a solution.

So, here’s what you do: create emails that are about 80% content and 20% pitch.

For example, you might share a list of five tips in the email, and then at the end you promote an offer that provides the full solution.

Of course, you can also send emails that are 100% pitch, such as a solo email promoting an offer, or even an email series promoting an upcoming product. That’s no problem, as long as you are still providing what you promised elsewhere in your emails (e.g., maybe you send out a content email once per week, and then send out an offer once per week as well).

Promote Offers Honestly

I mentioned this elsewhere, so just a quick reminder: promote offers that are best for your READERS, rather than what’s best for you. This pays off handsomely in the long run as your subscribers will see that you have their best interests in mind.

In other words, if you view your list subscribers as an ATM, they’re going to know it. And they’re going to react accordingly by unsubscribing or growing cold.

Ask, Track and Test

Don’t guess about what your list really wants. Instead, do two things:

1. Ask them. Be sure to ask open-ended questions, as this will give readers a chance to make suggestions that aren’t artificially limited by multiple choice answers.
2. Test and track your emails. What people say they want and what they actually want can end up being two different things. That’s why the very best way to figure out what your audience wants is to track your email campaigns. You’ll want to keep track of which emails get a good response, as well as which ones tend to create an unusually high number of unsubscribes.

When you find content that your audience loves, deliver more of it (to see if they keep loving it). When you find content that consistently creates unsubscribes, ask yourself why. For example, did you send something to your list that’s not targeted and/or a type of content that doesn’t fit into the expectations you set up front? If so, be sure to correct this issue to see if you can boost responsiveness and decrease the number of people unsubscribing.

TIP: An unsubscribe isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you send out an email that fits in with the purpose of your list and fits your audience’s expectations, yet you get some unsubscribes, just consider that the untargeted people are weeding themselves out.  That’s a good thing because it creates a list with a higher response rate that’s more profitable.

Your Turn

Your assignment for this lesson is to answer the following questions:

• How often will you send emails to your list? (Don’t forget to consider both live broadcasts and autoresponder emails.)
• What types of emails will you send?
• Does your lead page set the right expectation?
• Does your thank you page set the right expectation?
• Do your initial emails set the right expectation?

That’s it for this time

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