The Money is in the List
That’s old news, right?
Gurus, both genuine and alleged, have been saying for years that “the money is in the list”. And so we collect email addresses to build a list of people interested in hearing from us.
And it works. Our emails roll out, and—as long as we offer the right thing to the right people at the right time with the right price—their money rolls in. That’s why there are heaps of ebooks, systems, teleseminars, bootcamps, and other digital hoopla on email list building.
But relatively few gurus go beyond list building to talk about list mining. Which is a shame…because that’s where the rest of the money is.
Two Things About List Mining
List mining is exactly what it sounds like—digging through the everyday ore of a list to find the gems: special people to offer special stuff.
But just like we probably won’t find diamonds by digging in our backyard, it’s wasted effort to search our general mailing list for anything special.
For one thing: You can’t mine what you don’t have. Obvious, but worth mentioning because I’ve had employers and clients demand reports on data they didn’t collect. Duh.
In this case, a general subscriber list doesn’t have enough detail to mine. We might have a subscriber’s first name, but odds are we only have their email address and sign-up date. Those are great for determining the growth of our influence over time, but not for much else.
Another thing: You need to ask your questions where the answers are. Another obvious one, but important to note. Like, if we’re wondering what product to offer next, who is better to ask: a list of subscribers who’ve only promised to listen or a list of customers who’ve proven that they’ll buy?
It’s smart to ask either group, or both, but while the current subscribers can tell you what they’d like to see, only your past customers are qualified to tell you what they’ll likely buy.
The Good News and the Bad News
The good news is — If you sell products online through PayPal or another payment processor, you’ve already got a detailed list of sales you can mine for profitable answers to well-formed questions.
The bad news is — If you don’t sell products through PayPal, your sales data may be tricky to get to and even trickier to read, you might have to wait for it, and you might have to pay for it. Which isn’t really bad news…it’s more like inconvenient-and-sucky news.
Really good news for PayPal users — 1) it’s easy to get to your sales data whenever you want, 2) you can read it with tools you already have, and 3) it’s totally free.
Finding the Rest of the Money: Step 1 of 2
It starts with downloading a list of transactions from PayPal. It’s super easy, but the result isn’t something you’d want saved on a public workstation (like at a library or an Internet cafe), so only do this on your personal computer—
1. Log into PayPal.com.
2. Under My Account in the main menu, click History.
3. On the History screen, click the CSV link at the top right of the transaction table. The Download your activity window will appear.
4. For Choose the file type, select Comma delimited – Completed Payments. Click the Download button and wait.
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What you see next will depend on which browser you’re using, but you’ll be prompted to either open or save the CSV file. Save it, and then open it using Excel, Google Docs, or whatever you use for spreadsheets.
Voila! A list of your PayPal transactions from the past 30 days.
Tip: For older transactions, change the date range above and click the Show button. Wait for the transaction table to update before clicking the CSV link.
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Finding the Rest of the Money: Step 2 of 2
First, look at the Gross column. Generally, if the number is negative, that’s money you spent. If it’s not negative, then that’s something someone bought.
Next, look at the other columns for details on each of those non-negative transactions. You should at least have—
- The name (or company name) of the person who bought something from you,
- The exact date and time they bought it,
- Which product or service they bought,
- How much they paid for it, (along with how much went to PayPal fees, and how much was left) and,
- Their email address
Now. What can you do with that?
What you can do with that
You can sort and filter and total and otherwise futz around to find special collections of people you can serve in a special way. Because after you’ve made sales through your general list…
…that’s where the rest of the money is:
in the list of people who’ve already bought something.
But for the love of Ben & Jerry, don’t be like large charities who presume that a donation means we’ll want to receive a packet every other week. Absolutely do not do that.
It annoys, it’s expensive, it can be counter-productive, and besides, a single purchase doesn’t make a donor or customer particularly special. Valuable and valued, yes, but not special. Like, valued customers get a thank you and a coupon toward their next purchase. But special customers…?
Well, they may get advanced notice, private sales, and surprise gifts. Maybe a personal email. Maybe a handwritten card carried hand-to-hand from your door to theirs by a real-live person—a deliciously tactile and semi-personal service priced at 2 for $1 here in the U.S…it’s called the postal service.
So schedule some time to mine that free and easy list of PayPal transactions you downloaded for customers who rate special attention, like—
- The customer you discover is always the first to buy your products,
- The 10 (or 50) customers who spent the most last month (or last quarter, or last year),
- The 20% of customers who account for 80% of your sales,
- The customers who used to buy all your stuff, then suddenly and inexplicably stopped (!),
- The customers who’ve been with you since the beginning,
- The customers who buy everything you sell, no matter what it is or how much it costs,
- …and on and on.
What you say to them, offer them, or send to them depends on you, your products, and your business. But it’s safe to say that they deserve something.
Right?
Warnings and disclaimers
I would suggest you do not use your newfound list mining powers for evil.
Specifically, verify your email marketing service’s policy on sending email to people who have purchased something from you. It may be that a sale is implied permission for continued contact, but it may not.
In my opinion, I’d say “not” if you’re going to send a large mailing of something general to a unfiltered list of customers. That smells spamalicious.
But what about a very small send of something intensely special and interesting to a select group of customers? Hmm…
It’s still email marketing, for sure, but does the size and nature of the list change the rules? The answer to that question is way out of my scope. That’s between you, your email marketing service, and the FCC :-D
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Hope this helps, and (as always) your comments and suggestions are welcome below,
Update/sidenote: I overheard that if our email marketing service tracks who opens emails and who clicks on links, we can create special groups based on their interest (or not) in our mail…a great thought! (hat tip to Ericka Hines)
Photo credit: Cessna 206
