Many people have an obsession over the number of subscribers they have on their mailing list, the number of people they have subscribed to their blog or the number of friends they have on social networking sites.
But do these numbers really matter?
Marketing guru Seth Godin says no. He recently caused a bit of a stir by posting a video on his blog explaining why having a large number of friends or followers is essentially worthless. You can see the video below:
My take on this? It depends on what you’re trying to do.
If for example you’re trying to sell stuff to people (which most people are), then I agree with Seth 100%. Quality is far more important then quantity when it comes to selling.
For instance, in the offline world, you can buy mailing lists for virtually any market you want. But a list with 1,000 names who have purchased something through direct mail in the past 30 days is far more valuable then a list of 50,000 people who have sent in a warranty card for something (and you can bet that 1,000 name list is far more expensive too).
In the online world, I’ve seen lists with 1,500 names outperform lists with 100,000 names…and I’ve seen it more than once. Why does this happen? Because the people on the list with 1,500 names have an established relationship with the sender…while there has been no relationship developed with the people on the 100,000 name list.
Again, when it comes to selling, quality is more important than quantity. Then again, like with all things, opinions vary.
So I’m curious…what’s your opinion on this topic?
Quality is always more important that quantity and I think the web is just going to go more and more in that direction.
Hi Dave,
I’m on Seth side!
I dislike the “Fake” stuff on the internet so much!
You signup on a “Guru’s” newsletter for listbuilding .. and your inbox is flooded with all his “fake-friends” stuff – that he happens to be an affiliate for… One email a year about the real topic “listbuilding!”.
To me – It’s doesn’t become more fake than that! (Except Facebook and Twitter) and this creates mistrust and is worse than spamming!
I like accoasionly recommandation if related to the subject … but that’s not the case.
So I’m with Seth and let’s all be more real and stick to and believe in our product instead of firing off emails every day that are so OFF-TOPIC and FAKE!
take care and God bless you
Thank you Dave… A very important post that I will share with others… Quality is better than quantity… Welcome to the cocktail party… 🙂
Most are obsessed with quantity rather than quality, which of course is the wrong way round. This is when you discover how engaged your ‘tribe’ really is >> http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-big-push/
Hello Dave, I am on the Seth Side… except when he mentions hits to a website! Surely you must monitor your website traffic and do anlyisis on visitors habits and work out your site metrics, even if they are not perfect they will be a starting point to improve on!
Hey Dave, It’s always interesting to look at both sides of an issue. I’ve often wondered why anyone would care about what I’m doing on Twitter or what my facebook update is for that particular moment of the day.
Then I started looking at what some Internet Marketers are doing and they are treating the entire social media aspect of the internet like a soap opera.
The good ones are trying to draw you into their lives, their ideas and a bit of drama. They are working on getting you hooked the same way people get hooked on the soaps. If this works, then when they make a recommendation is is more likely to be acted on.
When you look at it this way, it starts to make sense to work towards higher numbers. I’m more comfortable with small numbers of like minded people, but his concept was interesting and makes the numbers game worth it.