Recently at a well known Internet Marketing Forum, I was reading a post from Dr Mani. He has brought an interesting point about Email Marketing, and different strategies for using your mailing list, which he identified as 2 Styles of doing business online.

Style #1 - Get a BIG list of transits. Sell hard to them - any way you can. Milk them for all they are worth. Then monetize what’s left in any way possible - then move on to build the next list.Style #2 - Build a list of FANS - doing it steadily, even if that means slowly. Establish credibility and trust. Then let the fans do your ’selling’ so you ATTRACT new clients who are ready to buy.

This was a thought provoking post and I was compelled to respond. Here is my response…

Dr Main,

I have always believed in being honest with your list. I see lot of marketers, some big
name, big-money makers use the shotgun approach, and hammer their list with offer after offer, sometimes several offers in the same email.I think people are smart, and can read through that. If you bombard them enough times and they will eventually unsubscribe.

I may be a list building expert, but I have managed to build some pretty big mailing lists. I have started a hardcore IM list that I sell to most every day, and that’s the purpose of the list. I get a lot of unsubscribe’s, but that’s OK I want to weed out the crybaby’s and get down to list of hardcore IM buyers.I have subscribers to another list in a specialty niche market that have been with me for 6 years. Every once in a while, I will hear from people who started with me back in 2001, and it’s surprising to see they are still there reading me emails.