Most marketing blogs I see online talk about building an audience list.

“Secret to getting 1000 subscribers in 30 days.”

“How to build an email list, easy”

In fact, you can watch my tutorial where I teach you to get your first 100 email subscribers.

BUT – very few people talk about what to do AFTER you’ve collected some subscribers.

The mistake most businesses make.

So what do most businesses do? They scan through emails in their promotions box – and copy the style.

Unfortunately, a lot of these emails look a lot like an online flyer.

So they finally throw their hands in the air and say, “Yup, I don’t think email marketing works.”

Email marketing still works.

Email is simply a communication medium.

If you have built up an email list, great. But start treating your audience as people.

Here’s my best tip: To figure out what to send them, ask them! Don’t guess what your audience wants to receive.

Here are some examples:

1 – Probe for pain points.

Seriously – just ask!

I prefer using the simplest way to ask questions. And that is simply by asking subscribers to reply to me, like how they would for a normal email.

Of course, you could build a more sophisticated way to get responses. However, I found that the closer your email looks like a personally written email, the more responses you’re going to get.

Pro tip: When asking questions, always give examples of what you would expect to receive. This is an anchoring effect, that helps your audience to think.

2 – Ask your subscribers for advice.

I call this the ‘skin in game’ strategy. By asking my subscribers for their advice, and expecting a reply, now they become part of the conversation. This creates a sense of ownership that would make them want to engage more in the future.

Send an email to ask your subscribers for their best advice. You’ll be surprised at what they’ll tell you.

3 – Ask for feedback.

How would you know if your subscribers like what you’re putting out? You wouldn’t – except to guess from your email open rates & click rates.

The best way to know is to ask.

I like the concept of using a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey. But instead of putting out a scale of 1 to 10, I sometimes dumb it down to a simple yes or no.

Send the email and wait a few days. After that, ask audiences who answered ‘yes’ to give you a review/comment or simply ask them what you did correctly.

Ask the audience who answered ‘no’, about their advice (tip #2) for you to improve. When you ask someone for their advice, they will usually be inclined to give it to you.

Build an audience today.

Take this advice seriously: There is more noise than ever in the market and social media, these days. As businesses, we are but a moment in our customer’s life. If we are able to get 3 minutes of our customer’s time – that’s a bonus.

That’s why it’s important to have a system to build an audience automatically. If you want to get your first 100 email subscribers (everyone starts somewhere), I want to offer you a video training and guide that I’ve put out: Email marketing for beginners – Get your first 100 email subscribers.