One of the most common dilemmas email list marketers face involves the question of personality. A lot of people are under the impression that they are not going to be taken seriously if their emails tend to be personal in nature.
If you believe this, let me be frank with you. I’m not going to mince words with you here. I don’t know where you got that idea from because if you were to market to your list marketers in a robotic, lifeless, dull and impersonal way, you are going to fail.
The worst part to all of this is you deserve to. Why? You have to understand that the core of list marketing is all about developing a relationship. When people enter their email address in a squeeze page, it means that they trust you enough to have you continue talking to them. They’re giving you explicit legal permission to talk to them.
In other words, they want at least a one-way relationship with you. They’re interested in what you have to say when they give you their email address. You end up betraying this trust, at some level or another, when you send out flat, generic, dull, almost mechanical emails.
Let me tell you, such drivel and generic garbage are a dime a dozen. In fact, tons of marketers recycle the same “swiped” files amongst themselves. How credible do you think these people look in the eyes of their target audience members? Do you think their list members love getting such stuff?
Eventually, people tune out. In fact, a lot of people develop the attitude that once you’ve seen such emails, you’ve seen them all. This ends up poisoning the well for a lot of marketers.
The way out of this is to stop sending out flat, generic, dull, mechanical-sounding and looking emails. Instead, it’s all about selling yourself. I can’t even begin to tell you how many marketers, regardless of intelligence and educational attainment and experience levels, are scared stiff of selling.
I don’t want to sound harsh, I don’t want to seem judgmental, but let me be clear. If you are a marketer and you don’t want to influence, persuade or otherwise get people to change their opinion, then you’re in the wrong business. Seriously. You have no business calling yourself a marketer because that is the art of marketing. It’s all about persuasion. And a key ingredient to all of this is your personality.
When was the last time you showed up to a public speech and a robot gave the speech? I would venture to guess the answer would be “never.” People show up to hear another human being because they want to see a personality. Stop denying your personality. Infuse your emails with your distinct personality.
Now, you may think that you’re the biggest nerd in the world. You may think that you’re so ugly that you scare dogs off moving pickup trucks. It wouldn’t matter because you are the product. Even if you’re butt ugly, there would still be people who will become your followers because that’s what they’re looking for.
Don’t hide your personality. Celebrate it. Embrace it. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for failure. This is due to the fact that most of your list members are probably subscribed to at least one other mailing list. In other words, there’s a tremendous amount of competition out there.
Forget about objectivity. Forget about keeping an arms length and maintaining some sort of professional demeanor. Own your list. Remember that your product is your expertise. Your personality and your distinct persona is the product. Embrace this fact. Associate your persona with key values.
Do you want people reading your emails to think that you are an expert or you’re credible? Focus on these. Do you want people to trust you or think you’re reliable or that you’re able to produce proven results?
Whatever the case may be, associate your persona with these and other key values. That is what will make your list stand out from the competition.
Sell your personal brand, not just a set of solutions. Believe me, if people only need to join your list to learn about certain solutions, they can do that with other lists. They’re a dime a dozen. Instead, use this unique opportunity to sell your personal brand.
Get in there. Become part of the conversation. Make them miss you the moment they switch to another list. They should be able to instantly tell that there is something missing. The “flavor nugget” of your personality is too obvious so it becomes easy to miss.
Your personality is the key ingredient to mailing list success. Stop denying your personality. Stop setting it aside. It plays a tremendous role in your ability to persuade other human beings.