A lot of people underestimate the value of building a list. I am still learning the value and learning how to turn my list into a money making machine. Consider this. Tyler Cruz makes $1-$3/RSS Subscriber per month (and email subscribers are at least this valuable) and he has 2,000 subscribers John Chow makes $1 per RSS subscriber per month and he has 40,000 subscribers. There is a lot of money to be made. If you have just 10,000 newsletter subscribers you can easily make $100,000/year. I currently have over 600 newsletter subscribers and am learning and attempting to implement ways I can earn $1/month per subscriber. Here is the best way to get subscribers GIVE AWAY A FREE EBOOK!!! Giving away a free ebook and asking for people's first name and email address is the easiest way to get subscribers. Then market your product in forums in your niche. I have gotten 400 subscribers in the last 2 weeks....not bad seeing as it took me 2 years to get 200 subscribers. So write a free ebook and give it away and start making money from subscribers.
You beat me to it, that was my question. Are these just general estimates, as in, Tyler Cruz makes $6000 per month and $6000/2000 = $3? Because that doesn't really help all that much... They aren't selling the emails are they? It's reasons like that which cause me to give away my spam email when signing up for free offers...
Ok... I know how to earn $10 per subscriber (no lie), my only problem is that I don't know how to get subscribers. Obviously it is not enough just to stick the submission form on the site - that's what I've found so far... LOL Have you seen this $1 offer from Arbitrage Conspiracy - they claim they can teach you how to get more subscribers. Has anyone tried their offer? I was about to give it a try but then there was this thing that put me off immediately. They say they have 107 videos for us to explore... Nah! I've found that the teaching programs that gives you a s**tload of videos suck big time. I don't want to be nasty or mean but that's how I feel and that's what I think.
Getting a list of e-mail addresses is pretty much overrated. Many of them are throw-away addresses, like Yahoo and G-mail. They will give a fake address just to get something, while avoiding future e-mails that they would not want in their real mailbox. Then many who do sign up stop reading after the first few times. Chow's 40,000? How many are active...RIGHT NOW? Having a list of monthly paid subscribers to a newsletter is where it is at. Like subscribing to a magazine. 100 subscribers at $8 a month pays the rent. Other than that, collecting a list of e-mail addresses is useless, and, again, overrated.
This is good reminded actually. Quite "basic", but very good reminder. Worth the green stuff. Give away free book. Or books. (good books). Give away good stuff. Then sell some other good stuff. Use affiliates. Do direct deals with your readers... and so on...
I always found building email lists completely overrated. I completely agree with what cooper12 said. I think it is a hype list builders create themselves.
Great work ryan! My list has been growing slowly, but I'm in the process of writing a new ebook to kick things along nicely! I am not really doing anything with my list at the moment, but I plan to in the near future.
What you are doing is called "make believe math". What someone else can do has nothing to do with you. And you can't build a big list if you don't have anything worth saying. Most people shouldn't even try to build a list because they can not add any value to the user experience. Building a list means nothing unless you know what to do with it. And if you don't you won't build much of a list anyways. So turns out it might not actually be extremely valuable after all. Do you have any idea how much Winnie the Pooh merchandise is sold each year. Should everyone be making their own teddy bears?
Seriously? People are still doubting the power of building a targeted list? Let's take a look at something: Advertising is basically an attempt on the part of the company to reach the right prospects. Some of the ways we advertise include: Newspaper and Magazine ads: The newspapers are sent to their LIST of subscribers. When the newspaper wants to sell more ad space, they start by going to their LIST of previous advertisers. Television advertising: Cable and Satellite TV maintains a LIST of paying subscribers. Advertisers pay to have their offer presented to those LISTS. Entertainers that want to promote their upcoming CD, tour schedule, etc.... go to their LISTS of fans, supporters, industry contacts, and peers. When a dentist wants to book more appointments, they contact their LIST of previous customers. When an author wants to promote a book, she goes to her LIST of publishers and agents. If you've ever ... dropped a card in the fish bowl at a restaurant filled out a "win a free _____" card filled out an online survey and agreed to receive updates downloaded (free or otherwise) a pdf, ebook, software you're on a list. And why did these companies want to get you on their lists? Hmmmm....
Building list is not overrated and list is the blood of internet marketing... how can you say that? maybe you are the only one is is subscribing using fake email address because you just want the free giveaway... LOL Thank you and now I believe in you.. LOL... bye bye...
Don't accept fake addresses!!! Use aweber or phpList (you can get it free from SourceForge just in case you're wondering). If you get people to confirm their addresses, you won't have a single fake e-mail on your list. If you're not confirming the submissions you're both shooting yourself in the leg AND breaking the law. I partly agree that lists are overrated. It's because the "gurus" teach you that you can sell stuff to anyone who is on your list. LOL If you send a promotion to a list and 5 people out of 100 take the bait, consider yourself lucky. But then, depending on what you're selling, those 5 orders can make a lot of difference. So, if you have to choose between "having a list" and "not having a list" - the first option is better. Concentrate on entertaining your list - that will build your fan-base in the long term. Not any more. It is a struggle to sell Poohs. Especially the expensive ones. Don't laugh, I'm serious on this one...
*chuckles at the noob who acts like he knows what he is talking about in front of others* Viktor Drej, all you do is post, just to post. You don't even know up from down. Instead you should just go play outside. Agreed. But know that many use a secondary address, which, many times they will not go back to it after so many times. That's just one of many reasons why lists are overrated, and many times more experienced webmasters don't even bother with them (I don't even give them a second look). Monthly subscriptions, like to a magazine, however...
That's right but I have a solution to that problem too. All your giveaways should contain a clear "come-back" information. If it is an e-book, each page will have a footer with your website address, e-mail address in small print. This, I tell you, is not optional. This is essential. 1. The visitor has a straight way to come back to your site. 2. If he/she shares the e-book on P2P, you'll get many unexpected visitors (viral viral) If the give-away is good quality and it contains a link back to your site, you will be winning even though you might not see the results instantly.
Well this thread has been awesome, some great discussion Many believe in the power of lists, many don't One of my mentors Robert Allen has earnt half a BILLION!!! In his lifetime and he swear by lists. Free subscriber lists and paid subscriber lists. So if you have earnt more than half a BILLION dollars in your life time then you can argue with him. Otherwise I think I am going to side with the rich man, not the poor man.
Every experienced marketer and writer that I have met or read has advocated building a list. Having a mailing list can be beneficial in many ways, not the least of which is having an immediate audience that you can sell new products to. As far as finding paying subscribers, the only thing I can suggest is to build a site that people will flock to for free and then offer the "flockers" additional and even better content every [insert period of time here: week, month, etc] for X amount. You want them to think "yeah, this is someone who is worth paying money to read"
@ Snarke - I definately agree with you that every experienced marketer recommends lists. Great tips on how to build a paying list, which was nice. It is definately hard work though
You're kidding, right? If you send a promotion to a list and 5 out of 100 take the bait, you just got a 5% conversion rate and are the new BIG KING DADDY of marketing. Direct Marketers would KILL for a 5% conversion rate. PEOPLE ... DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS DRIVEL! if you get 5 out of 100 to "take the bait", you are well on your way to succeeding in a BIG way. 1) 5 out of 100 is a 5% response rate. 2) Your next goal is to build your list to 1,000. 3) Now a 5% conversion rate gets you 50 sales. 4) Then build your list to 5,000. 5) A 5% conversion gets you 250 sales. 6) Keep going! Keep building your lists! Anyone that tells you lists don't work is DOING IT WRONG! I'm not even trying to pitch my company on this one. Pick any of the companies you like.... but BUILD AND PROPERLY MANAGE YOUR LISTS!
Yeah, I used to read his books years ago. I like him. We can agree on that one, at least. VERY lucky. I'm not saying lists don't work. I'm just saying that they are overrated, and not all that essential. I can give you the reasons, the reality of lists, but, the heck with it. Different strokes for different folks. Like trafficwave said...build your lists.