My email list should be bigger.  My competitor has more Facebook fans – I need to catch them.  Why don’t we have more Twitter followers?

 

That’s a common mindset with a reasonable basis, but it’s not where we stand.

 

At BombBomb, we feel strongly that who is on the email list is more important than how many are on the email list.  The idea of more as better is rooted in a broadcast mindset that must be lost in the transition to a healthy approach to email marketing, video email, online marketing, social media, and community building.

 

What we really want is more of the right people, not a mass of people built of anyone you can get to click a button by any means necessary.

 

The right people know you.  They’re interested in what you’re doing and what you have to offer.  They’re open to engaging with you and may even grow to love you.

 

More people gathered without care means less relevance, more interruption, and more unsubscribes.

 

An example – to bring it down to a practical level:

• One organization has an email list of 2,000 people. The open rate is 20%. The click through rate is 5%.
• Another organization has an email list of 500 people – just a quarter the size of the first organization. But we’ll assume it’s a much stronger list, built of the right people, rather than more people. Because it’s a quality list, the open rate is 60%, which many BombBomb customers enjoy. The click through rate is 15%.

 

The result – based on the hypothetical numbers above:

• The first organization has 400 people open an email (20% of 2,000) and 20 people converting (5% of 20).
• The second organization has 300 people open and 45 people converting.  More than twice as many conversions came from a list just one quarter the size.

 

Yes, this is a hypothetical situation.  Yes, 5% of 20% of a huge and growing number will provide impressive results.  Still, we feel that “who” trumps “how many.”

 

High quality, permission based lists are what we love to help you build (by recently adding embeddable forms to our software, for example).  They’re made of the kinds of people we want to help you send video emails (video’s personal and powerful).

 

More is not always better, so lose your broadcast mind.

Tags: broadcast, click through rate, email list, email marketing, Facebook fans, interruption marketing, mass marketing, online marketing, open rate, opt in, permission list, permission marketing, Twitter followers, video email, video marketing