Make Money From Your Tiny Email List

“Bob, listen…”

“I know what I’m doing, Joe!”

Bob was famous for two things: making the best apple pies and never, ever listening to anyone.

So, Bob decided to bake his famous apple pies for the town fair. He was there… baking and baking. The kitchen was a mess, flour everywhere, apples piled high. Bob was in his own world, humming and mixing.

The next day, Bob loaded his car with dozens of apple pies. He drove to the fairground.

To his surprise, there wasn’t a single soul to be found.

He scratched his head, puzzled.

“Where is everyone?” he wondered.

Just then, Joe walked up. “I tried to tell you, Bob. The fair’s been moved to next week because of a big storm coming today.”

Bob’s mouth fell open. He looked at all his pies, then at the sky. And guess what?

Right at that moment, it started to pour rain! Apple pies, rain, and a very confused Bob… a sight to see!

Bob learned a funny but important lesson that day:

Always listen, or you might end up with a car full of pies and nowhere to go!

How is this story relevant to you?

Because you don’t wanna be a Bob.

Recently, I posted about how Tiny Little Offers are my current favourite method to monetize tiny email lists and add more revenue to big email lists.

A nice DM popped into my inbox “How do you KNOW what offer to create?”

So here’s the answer:

I ditch my Bob ego and ASK + LISTEN.

How?

1) Right at The Sign-up Form

Add an extra question to your sign-up form with a question + options.

This is also my favourite (easy) way to segment your list, and it does two things:

1. Tells you WHO is joining your list so you can create offers specifically for them
2. Creates friction for people who you don’t want to be on your list

For example, if the options show ABC and XYZ, but someone is LMN, they’d think for a moment, “Oh, maybe this isn’t for me”.

So, to an extent, this also brings exactly the people you want on your list.

You can ask anything you want here that gives you more information about your target customers and helps you segment your list.

💡 Tip: Don’t ask more than 2 questions. One is the email, and the other is the question. 3 at max, if you also want to ask for the first name.

2) On The Thank-you Page

This is your prime real estate.

I embed a 3-question form on the thank-you page to learn more about the subscribers. Each of those three questions has a purpose:

1. Tells me about where they’re in their customer journey
2. Tells me about their exact struggles
3. Tells me what they’d be interested in learning about most

Question 1 is a single-choice question. (Low friction)

Question 2 is a multiple choice question. (Low friction)

Question 3 is a text-based question. (High friction)

Because of this I get 70-80% response rate on the first two questions and a little lower on the last one.

You can make all three questions single-choice + multiple-choice for a better response rate.

The form gets autosaved with each answer, so it doesn’t matter if they don’t answer the last question. I’m more interested in answers 1 and 2 anyway, and I’ll tell you why in a moment.

But, before we move on, keep three things in mind regarding your survey forms:

• Don’t ask more than 3 questions (or your response rates will drop)
• Make the questions multi-step (they only see one question at a time), no matter what form builder tool you use
• Specifically mention on the page that “there are just 3 questions”

💡 Tip: I use Formaloo for the survey forms. Our clients get it (+ a bunch of other tools) as a bonus for working with us, so they don’t have to spend any extra penny.

3) Welcome Email

If somehow you don’t have the privilege to use a survey on the thank-you page, this is your best option.

Ideally, you want to do both to be on the safer side (just like I and our clients do). More data never hurts anyone.

But the problem with asking in your welcome email is that you can only ask one question. Otherwise, your response rate will be low.

Here’s how I get the most responses:

I give them choices and ask them to reply with a number.

I have tested and analysed multiple ways, and by far, this one works the best.

Remember, your only goal with this question is to find out what’s the #1 problem that they’d like gone away IMMEDIATELY.

You can also try giving an incentive to get more replies. (If you’re in the early stages of your list’s growth. This will get harder to manage as your list grows faster)

💡 Fun Fact: This also improves your email deliverability. So always shoot for more responses.

What About The Offer?

Look closer, you have the answer.

1) The question on the sign-up form + question 1 on the thank-you tell you about WHO your offer should be for

If the majority of people on my list are creators between 1000-2500 subscribers, I’d create my offer for them. And so should you.

2) The question 2 on the thank-you page + question in the welcome email tell you about WHAT your offer should be

If the majority of people are struggling to write emails that convert their subscribers into paying customers, I’d create my offer about that.

That’s how a democracy works, doesn’t it?

So… once again, how do you know what Tiny Little Offers to create?

1. Don’t be a Bob
2. ASK + LISTEN
3. Go with the majority rule

You’ll soon have $$ rolling into your bank account.

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