I didn’t transfer any of that list when I started using Aweber, and although my list is a fraction of the size, I am seeing much better sales results.

I used to panic when people unsubsribed from my list, but now I at least get an email from aweber stating the reason the person gave for leaving my list and I amend my opt in forms appropriately so people know exactly what they are signing up for.

I also tell my subsribers in each message, that if the don’t find receiving my information valuable they should simply unsubscribe.

My list now contains people who have an interest in the content, so everyone is happy.

Sally

In the internet marketing niche a very high percentage of emails entered in "squeeze pages" are false.

You enter email addresses to take a look inside these sites why would you think your visitors would be any different.

Ultimately you’re far better off having a list where you can send an email and know that 20% to 80% of your subcribers will click through to you site.

I’ve worked with clients with massive lists where they were lucky to get 1% of his subcribers click through from a link in an email.

It’s important to note that list quality is determined by many factors and you should have a strategy if you’re selling products to your list so that quality is maintained.

For example you might give two emails with links to high quality information, audio or software before you send one email to a page where you’re offering a product to buy.

The prospects and clients on your list likely to be the most responsive to your offers are also the ones who will unsubscribe very quickly if you breach their trust.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Thanks for the article!

I absolutely agree about putting audio your thank you page. We have some interesting stats coming out shortly about the affect of text, pictures, audio, and video on thank you pages.

Split testing is always your friend.

List size is also the easiest thing to measure, especially with a smaller list that is not big enough for percentages to be statistically relevant. I’d rather have a list of 200 than 50, but both are small enough that it’s quite possible to make no sales mailing to them.

I think this is a bit like dieting, where people are "obsessed" with their weight, rather than harder-to-measure but more important things like body fat ratio or overall health.

On unsubscribes, I don’t agree that people only leave because they don’t like what you send. People leave for all sorts of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with your messages. I’ll bet the most common reasons are that they are getting too much email in total, or lost interest in the general topic you write about. Of course if you are giving a gift for subscribing, most of your unsubscribes will likely be those who left right after getting their gift.

Its very easy for people to signup to your list, and it needs to be *as* easy for them to unsubscribe. I used to think I was doing something wrong if I got unsubscribes. But what your post reinforces, is that its OK to get unsubscribes as long as your newsletter remains consistent to the theme you set out with, or alluded to, with the squeeze/signup page.

People will only unsubscribe if you’re not providing what they want, and if they don’t want what you’ve got, then you don’t want them on your list anyway (because they’re never going to convert to a sale).

What I’ve learned is that a list is only as good as its conversion rates. If you go into a JV with someone, and tell them you’ve got a list of 10,000, and yet you only give them 100 signups (0.1%), and 10 sales (0.01%), then they’re alot less likely to work with you again (or return the favor), than if you have a *quality* list with a click through rate of 25% delivering 500 signups (5%) and 100 sales (1%).

Successful List Building, of a Quality list, is all about the relationship you build with the people on it. All you can do is be yourself. You’ll never please everybody all of the time so unsubscribes are inevitable, but as long as you remain consistent, and show some personality, you will succeed in keeping those who will be most responsive.

Thanks for the post Justin – it was good and highly thought-provoking