The fact that it happened was a big success. That fact that nothing happened afterwards was a lesson.

This was a client project from last week that I’m opening up for you to get some insight from, and for discussion…

The Challenge:
Activate a cold list (in-house) of about 30,000 single opt-in subscribers and drive them to a $1995 live 2-day event.

Oh, and do this within a few weeks time.

The Actions:

• First things first, get back on their radar. The first week the list was mailed 3 content driven emails to re-establish visibility.

• In order to accelerate the relationship we planned a teleseminar. Week two was 3 promo emails for a tele-training event.

The hooks of the emails included:

• aligning with the audience with an "us vs. them" angle

• followed by authority (proof and credentials)

• the final was very much about cognitive dissonance and building curiosity

The emails drove folks to a landing page where an opt-in was required for the details.

Things got exciting here… 2300 opt-ins from a cold list of 30,000 in a week’s time. Very cool.

In fact, the night of the tele-training all 700 phone lines were full, and folks were calling in to the offices complaining they couldn’t get on.

I’d say we were back on the radar with some serious buzz.

Now for the "un-success" and the lessons there…

Out of the 700 people on the lines, about 5% purchased their seat for the 2-day event.

Here’s why:

• this list was untrained to respond

• still a very new relationship

• client wasn’t used to promoting from the tele-platform

The magic to make things happen here is going to be in the follow-up, of course. That’s where we’re at now.

Here’s the lessons in this so far:

• people buy relationships so never let your list go cold

• if you continually just "give" without asking for a return, folks simply won’t act when you ask them

• always have a purpose for every contact you make with your list

Hope that has provided some insight for you and your marketing.