The most common “Rallying Cry” from second rate I.M. “Guru” mentors is the all too common phrase, “The Money Is In The List”. What the second rate mentors don’t emphasize is that while that phrase is partially true, the members of the list in question must be categorized, as much as possible as “Hot” members before the list will become a source of dependable income. In this blog, I will explain in more detail what I mean by each of the three categories, which in I.M. talk, are known as “Cold”, “Warm”, and “Hot” members.
After initially attracting people to join your email list of potential subscribers. your second job is to put into action what is probably the second most used phrase in Internet Marketing, after “The Money Is In The List.” This phrase is commonly called “The KLT factor”. “KLT” stands for “Know”, “Like” and “Trust”. That is what you are trying to achieve when you try to “warm up” your list, through the three categories of “Cold”, “Warm”, and “Hot”. You must try to get every member of your list to know, like and trust you. The more each member of your list gets to know, like, and trust you, the more likely they are to buy from you, whatever it is you are promoting.
The rest of this blog, is set out to ensure that everybody understands what is meant by a “Cold” list or “audience”, a “Warm” list or “audience”, and a “Hot” list or “audience”.
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Imagine that you need to buy a new watch, and you wander around a jeweler’s shop looking at the watches on display. But you don’t see anything in your price range that takes your fancy. So, eventually, you give up, cross the
road, and enter a pub where you order a pint of beer while standing at the bar. Unknown to you, a stranger has followed you from the shop and stands next to you at the bar. He too orders a beer. After a few minutes, he turns to you and says, “I saw you looking at watches across the road but you didn’t buy one”.“Didn’t see any I fancied,” you reply.
“Have a look a this,” the stranger continues as he pulls a newish looking watch from his pocket. You quite like the watch, and the price he asks for it is reasonable, and is within your price range, but the stranger says that he has lost the box it was in when it was new.
“Is it still under guarantee?” You ask.
The stranger pulls a crumpled piece of paper from another pocket and shows it to you.
You notice that the guarantee is very vague and is undated. This is the final nail in the coffin for the stranger’s attempt at a sale. “No, sorry mate, it’s not for me,” you say as you give him back the watch and the supposed guarantee. The stranger tries to argue, but you ignore him, quickly gulp down what’s left of your beer, and rush out of the bar.
To the stranger, you were, what is known as a “cold” customer. You didn’t know him, you didn’t particularly like him, (although you didn’t particularly dislike him either), and, given the lack of a box and dated guarantee, you certainly didn’t trust him. So he did not get the sale he was trying for and you did not buy the watch. Perhaps, if you were desperate, and you had to buy your brother a present for his birthday the following day, you may have made the purchase, but that would have been very unlikely indeed.
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Now let’s assume that the stranger wasn’t a complete stranger, but was somebody you knew at school 15 years ago, but hadn’t kept in touch with. This time, the watch he produced from his pocket was in its, presumably, original
box, but the guarantee, although better than the one the stranger produced, was still undated.“Didn’t we go to school together, a long time ago?” You ask as you continue to study the watch while trying to remember what you thought of him in your school days.
“Yes, I believe we did,” he replied. “I expect you have forgotten my name, it’s Peter Smith. You’ll have to remind me of yours,” he stated.
“Phil Ramage,” I replied as we shook hands. We then continued to chat about our school days and what we had done since over another few pints of beer. The subject of the watch was almost forgotten. Just as I was finishing my fourth beer I announced that I had to go. “Sorry, but your watch is not quite what I was looking for,” I added as I returned it to him. “Maybe next time.” “Keep in touch,” I said as we shook hands for the second time just before I turned towards the door, knowing that there was no way that we would keep in touch.
Now my old classmate had a much better chance of selling his watch to me than the complete stranger did. To the stranger, I was a “cold” customer, but to this ex-school friend, I was a “warm” lead. I knew him, though not very well after all those years; liked him a little, but not as much as the four or five school friends I had kept in touch with and saw fairly regularly; but did I trust him? The missing date on the guarantee was a bit suspicious, and what he told me what he had achieved since leaving school, all seemed a bit too good to be true. So, although he was closer to making a sale than the complete stranger, he too failed on the basis of trust.
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Now for the third scenario. After you had bought your first beer, you turned on the swiveling barstool with your back to the bar. You immediately spot two of your best friends sitting at a corner table. They happen to be
twins. You pick up your beer and start to weave your way between the tables to the far corner. As you got nearer your friends you could hear that the twins were having a heated debate. “Okay you two, calm down and let me help you settle this argument,” I said when I was close enough to be heard. “Who’s going to tell me what you two are arguing about. In all the twenty or so years I’ve known you, I can’t remember hearing you in such an argument. Tim, you start, what’s the problem?”“Okay,” said Tim. “It’s not really an argument, more of a heated debate about who is going to pay for what has just happened.”
“Carry on,” I said.
Tim started to speak again, after taking a large gulp of his beer. “You know our brother Harry, he’s just over two years younger than Tom and me.” I nodded. “Well it’s his birthday tomorrow, and Tom and I decided to go separate ways to buy a present for him, costing around Fifty Dollars. We agreed to meet back in this pub when we were finished.”
“Sounds sensible enough to me,” I said. “Show me what you bought for Harry, Tim.”Tim took a brand new watch box from his pocket, opened it, and showed me a beautiful men’s watch. “It cost me Fifty Two Dollars and Fifty Cents, from the jewelers around the corner,” he added.
“Okay, Tom, what did you buy for Harry?” I asked.
Tom fished in his pocket and brought out an identical watch box, and opened it to reveal an identical watch to the one Tim had bought. “This one cost Fifty-Five Dollars, from the jewelers across the road,” Tom reported.
I laughed and laughed until it hurt. Finally, I managed to blurt out that, over the years, I had seen them do similar things, in reaction to the same set of circumstances, as twins everywhere did, but that this one had to beat them all. Buying identical watches while apart, was unheard of. Finally, I regained my complete composer. “Is that your second beer, Tom?” I asked.
“Yes, how did you know that?” Tom replied.
“Well, I must have gone into the shop across the road minutes after you left, looking to buy a watch, but nothing took my fancy. The one you bought would have done, that’s why I guessed that you had been in there only a short time before me. Did you get the guarantee filled out and dated properly? If so, I would be happy to buy the watch from you for Fifty Five Dollars, and you two can go out and buy something else for Harry. Quickly, the deal was done, and the money and the watch changed hands within minutes.
To the twins, I was a “Hot” prospect. Indeed I was so hot that I made the sale for them They literally didn’t need to do any selling at all. Now that’s an extreme example and, usually, there will still be some selling to do. But the hotter you can make your list the easier it will be for you to make real sales. I knew the twins because we had seen other on a daily basis for years, obviously liked the twins because you don’t keep up a long-term relationship with people you don’t like, and I trusted them because I knew them to be trustworthy. Getting people to know like and trust you is easy when you see each other, face to face on a regular basis for years, but achieving the same result with email list subscribers who live all over the world is a different prospect altogether. How to “Warm Up” your list and get them all to know, like and trust you, will be the subject of future blogs of mine. So watch out for them.
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