One of the most important things in Internet Marketing is the list. In fact, it is THE most important thing. Ask any big name marketer (and there are 100’s of them) and they will ALL tell you the same thing. The List. The List. The all-important LIST!
Having a list enables marketers to contact people and, on occasion, market to that list.
But the list should be a two-way street and should operate on the premise of what is fair and reasonable. Unfortunately those who “own” a list and those who are “on” a list often lose sight of what is fair and reasonable.
Almost everybody with an email account is on multiple lists. Some are fun to be on, some we have forgotten we are on and some are a bloody pain in the ass to be on.
OPTING IN:
So, you “opt-in” to a list. We’ve all done it. It’s NO BIG DEAL. But it’s what happens after that point which can turn a happy marriage into an ugly divorce. Or just a boring existence.
It’s everybody’s right to opt-in to the list of an information or service provider. It’s also everybody’s inalienable right to opt-out of that list whenever circumstances change. That is, the information provider is not holding up his or her end of the bargain or you just get tired of receiving emails from that person.
OPTING OUT:
I have had people opt out of my lists for me having the audacity to offer them a FREE e-book that I have written. How dare I contact them and offer them something! At the other end of the spectrum, I have also had comments like : “Love your stuff but I’m on too many lists.” To me, that makes absolutely no sense at all. If you LIKE something, why not stick around?
Do you think that the information provider MIGHT have something else that he or she might be able to help you with what you are interested in? Chances are pretty high that they do! But if you leave then that’s it. You will NEVER know.
I have also had people opt-in to a freebie and then IMMEDIATELY opt straight back out. So, as soon as they flop in, they flip out. Even worse, I have had people buy some of my products and then – within minutes – they demand a refund. That person’s a scab, in my opinion. Somebody out to rip another person off.
Did you know that the payment processors record the details of douche-bags who do that? If you’ve been thinking it’s a good idea then… DON’T DO IT! It’s tantamount to fraud and the payment processors have sophisticated tracking devices to ban people who show willingness to do it.
Yes, there is always a right to ask for a refund but… for the right reasons. And, of course, with digitally delivered information products there is no way to stuff the digital product back down the ether to return it. The egg’s been unscrambled. You can’t turn it back into an egg again and return it. So, essentially, you are getting something for nothing. Not a fair exchange, is it?
OPT IN – OPT OUT:
I have had people do the opt-in-opt-out thing and then try to ask me for help in forums. Why would I want to give such a person anything else? Would they value it? I doubt it! Do you think that’s any way for a person to behave? I don’t. That is TAKER MENTALITY. You have to give to get in this world but so many people think only of take, take and more take.
Sure, there are some marketers who spam their lists and pimp-the-shit out of everyone and anyone. We’ve all seen emails that start with: “My good friend Bozo the Clown blah, blah, blah…” Hang on! Let me translate that from sender language to receiver language:
TRANSLATION: “I don’t know this clown from Jack-the-Ripper but I’m gonna sell his crud to you anyway.”
Personally, I will not use “my friend” now even if the person IS my friend. It’s just been so massively and deceitfully overdone – especially lately. Some people are pumping their lists every day with this shite and some even two and three times a day. The way they behave you would think that the ONLY person in the world who isn’t their effen friend is… YOU!
So, even if I were promoting Garry Parkes, Lesley Morgan, Paula Brett, Thom Swartwood, Omar Martin, Nikki Stephens or any of my many other Internet Marketing “friends” I just wouldn’t say it. It smacks of insincerity because the spammers – like they do to EVERY good thing – have dragged it through the sewerage of their tricks and traps.
Back to the opt-in, opt-out dilemma…
Doesn’t it make more sense to stay on a list for a while to see what else may be on offer?
I know, I know… some marketers just drive you bonkers from DAY 1 of the “relationship.” I had one guy – a really WELL-KNOWN big name marketer who used to email me up to three times a day. He drove me nuts but I just used to direct his emails straight into a spam folder and then, at the end of the week, just read the subject lines. Ocassionally I would open one. I remember one subject line that said – ridiculously – “only open this if you are an alien.” I mean… that was a real struggling to be credible headline, wasn’t it?
I realised, of course, that he was just split-testing headlines so I guess I was on his “burn-out” list – you know, the list that had never bought anything off him and he was seeing how far he could push that ungrateful mob. The “buy-something-or-eff-off list.” Well, I took the latter option. The only thing was, it was near on IMPOSSIBLE to do. I think I sent around a dozen UNSUBSCRIBE messages to him before he actually GOT the message. I have no idea how he manages to irritate people so relentlessly and still stay inside the relevant federal and ISP spam TOS codes. That’s got me stuffed.
So, the point to all this is as follows – you knew I would get around to it eventually, didn’t you? There is abuse on both sides of the equation. Subscribing and unsubscribing and marketing information of value versus pounding subscribers with useless shit day-in-day-out is a two-way street. Or it should be. It should be a fair exchange. But FAR too often it is not.
And just because a mountain of information is F.REE FR.EE or FRE.E doesn’t mean to say that it’s any bloody good, good, good. I could give you a matchbox full of termites to throw up in your ceiling but it wouldn’t make that a welcome GIFT now, would it?
There is valuable free information out there and there are dog turds wrapped up in pretty paper presented as a F F FR FR FREE gift (sorry about the stutter there). How do you know unless you stick around long enough to see what’s on offer?
TO SUM UP:
When the marketer abuses the relationship – it’s UNSUBSCRIBE time. Conversely, when the opt-in subscriber abuses the relationship – it’s list chopping time. In the words of Harrison Ford in “Air Force One” as he was struggling with that terrorist in the cargo bay… “Get off my plane!”
So, what are your thoughts? Tell me your experiences (please keep names out of it).
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