You may hear some marketing experts say “It’s all about the size of your list.” But I disagree. While a large list gives you a large pool of people to market your services and products to, it isn’t ONLY about quantity. Yes, at several of the conferences I have attended, experts say that the tipping point for a truly successful email newsletter is 1,000 subscribers. But I am here to tell you that HUGE results can come much smaller lists, if your readers are engaged and you are actively working to build long-lasting relationships with your subscribers.

For example, when my client Melissa first came to me and asked me to help her figure out why she wasn’t getting the sales results she wanted out of her email marketing efforts, she was shocked to hear my recommended course of action – To STOP focusing on list building.

You see, Melissa had been focusing on steadily growing her list and had grown it to almost 3,400 subscribers. Not only was she was proud of her BIG list, but others were impressed as well, which lead to joint venture invitations, teleseminar guest speaking opportunities, and more.

But, her BIG list wasn’t producing results and her conversion rates were low, which means so were her overall sales.

Luckily Melissa was using an email marketing service provider for her ezine that offered robust tracking tools. Those tools allowed me to analyze previous email campaign reports and her list.

So what was the problem?

Melissa, may have had a BIG list, but her unique open rates and click-throughs were in the toilet. That means less than one-third of her list actually opened the emails she was sending, and of those one-third, even less actually took the time to read the content she was delivering! You see, Melissa had a high quantity list, but it was a low quality list.

My recommendation, and what she ultimately hired Bourn Creative to do for her, was to help her transition from a focus on list building, to a focus on list nurturing. Getting people to join her list wasn’t her problem, but she wasn’t engaging them and nurturing her relationships with her subscribers. She wasn’t connecting.

I told her she needed to STOP focusing on list building and instead start focusing on list nurturing.

By focusing on list nurturing, and making list building a secondary task, Melissa began to build relationships with her readers. She was focused on providing great content for her tribe and helpful, valuable information. Soon saw her conversion rates on email promotions and sales steadily begin to improve.

What do you think? Do you have any thoughts on list size? I’d love to read them!