A sensible question:
Hey Ben,
I’m a big fan of yours and I listen to your podcasts repeatedly at the gym.
I am currently trying to pick a strategy for content creation for my business…
-5,000 people mailing list
– 54,000 subs on YT and growing
– starting on other social channels as well
My question – on YouTube would you treat it like a daily email and pitch my program at the end of every video, or use the videos to build my list?
Survey says:
Use the videos to grow the email list.
My opinion is ALL roads lead to the list.
I have no blessed idea why anyone screws around trying to get people into social media, to their podcasts, to their YouTube, or to anywhere else, when all those sites should merely be vehicles to move people from other platforms onto YOUR platform, not the other way around. Unless, I suppose, you want to give the algorithms a quick shot of juice in your favor (which I do at times). And yet, send leads to other platforms instead of their own platform/list is exactly what a lot of people do.
Screw that.
If you are one of them, then tattoo this onto the back of your hands:
All roads leads to your emails list.
Or should.
That’s the “alpha and omega” of everything online if you have an email-driven business. It’s why, for example, my only website/blog’s purpose is to build an email list. It’s not to build trust. It’s not to demonstrate credibility. It’s not to educate, establish legitimacy, give value, show my writing, or to promote my “brand,” or anything else. All those things serve building the list, not the other way around. And the reason why is because the list is the beating heart of an email-driven direct response business online.
It all starts from there, flows from there, takes over from there.
This leads into another, related question that rolls in here on the regular:
“Ben why don’t you use tripwires to build your list”
Personally, I don’t do them.
For one thing, there is nothing new about them.
The concept has been around for probably 100 years. The whole “send a dollar for postage and I’ll send you xyz” thing in magazines and comicbooks were essentially that – which was a way to get people on a mailing list to offset ad costs. It’s just been updated with a name that gets people thinking it’s more exciting than it is. And, to be fair, if you have your numbers dialed in it’s not a bad thing to do, just like the wise use of more expensive self liquidating offers can be great. For example, one of my old clients back in the day hired me to rewrite all the sales letters for his info products. And he eventually stopped even collecting opt-ins and instead drove all traffic to a $80+ SLO, then only sold to those buyers with email.
And that’s fine.
Especially if you have 10,000+ visitors per day like he did.
And you have a kick ass back end in place like he did.
And you know all your numbers cold and run a $30+ million biz like he did.
But most of us don’t have all that going for us.
In fact, the vast majority of people reading this email are probably like me:
Kitchen table-entrepreneurs (I literally work on a wine barrel table in a detached guest house kitchen) with no employees, everything possible outsourced, just want to write, make money, and move on with life. For us’n regular folk, I suggest getting ‘em on a free opt-in list. Then, you can mail it daily using what I teach about writing emails (force) and what I teach about strategy (leverage, far more profitable than force), build a relationship while you sell, and in every single case I’ve ever seen, witnessed, or experienced… potentially rake in as much as 5 – 10x+ the results over time.
Plus, have a much stronger relationship with those buyers.
Which means they are probably far more likely to consume your offers.
Fare more likely to probably use your offers.
And, yes, far more likely to probably benefit and then tell everyone about your offers.
One more thought about this:
Last year I talked a lot about Psychological Marketing vs Sociological Marketing.
The client I mentioned above was pure Psychological.
And that’s fine — for a guy like him, with his kind of operation.
Me?
I’m a Sociological Marketing kinda guy. I invented that term about 5 years ago when writing my elBenbo Press book to describe the approach I use to my book and newsletter publishing model.
And doing what I do is more for Sociological vs Psychological Marketing.
Something I’m not going to go into here, as it is in the above book.
I just leave it for you to think about.
In the meantime, to check out my paid Email Players newsletter go here:
Ben Settle
