Spring Cleaning in December?…

I read a thread in a forum the other day that was discussing cleaning house of all of the various lists to which we as marketers tend to subscribe.  In a word… Unsubscribing!

The postings for this thread varied substantially in terms of how frequently people clear themselves out of the many lists we all find ourselves a part of.  Soe people were claiming they clear them all out monthly (with the exception of one or two they really like) while others claimed to do it a few times a year.

I was drawn to this post because it fit with exactly what I've been doing recently.  I've been taking myself off of the vast majority of the lists to which I subscribe because frankly I just can't handle all of the email anymore.  

In the process of unsubscribing I discovered that I have been on some of these lists for years.  Now, those are not the norm. 

The majority of the lists I was on were the result of me opting-in to one membership site or another so I could see what sort of copy they use, what their one time offer and/or backend offer looks like and what sort of emails they send out.  In short, I join so I can study them.

A few years ago it seemed that all list owners were pretty focussed on sending out content as well as promotions.  These are the marketers who see the TRUE value of each subscriber (and probably know things like the avg number of purchases their customers make, the visitor value, the optin and sales conversions for their sites etc.) and work hard to hold on to those valuable subscribers.

What we seem to be running into now is a new wave of marketers who are quite happy to make an offer (usually giving something away), build a big list of relatively low quality optins, and then mail out nothing but promotional emails to that list.  They build a big list and then beat it to death.

How many times can you do that before people get wise and stop subscribing?

One of the reasons I started this site was so I could share content of value on a wide range of topics.

Yes, you will find some things for sale here and I may promote something I believe in from time to time.

You will also find product reviews here.

NOTE: Product reviews are a great way to combine true value with a promotion

Regardless of what I share… it will always be thought provoking and provide real value to you in one way or another.

So I know by now you are wondering what my status is in terms of lists to which I subscribe.

The answer is I find now that it is to distracting to have all kinds of crap coming at my through my inbox.

I've unsubscribed from just about every single list I could.

Two exceptions are Paul Myers' newsletter www.talkbiznews.com  and Michael Campbell's Internet Marketing Secrets .  There are others as well (I'll try to pull together a list).

So there's my current mode… stick with the ones that provide true, usable content and bag all of the other "static".

I will make sure that the content of this site always remains in the first group!

Onward & Upward!

Sam