Hi, Perry ... in the interest of open discussion, which methods do you employ and prefer for building your own business?
I don't think building a list is overrated. What it gives you, is a market. With the right Subject line and with the right content with a very good offer, they can be compelled. Something is better than nothing. John Chow and others, I think are doing it for traffic and to reach their readers. I for one am a subscriber at John Chow. He sends out a notification email for every new post he make including older posts in his archive. It gets the traffic flowing towards every pages of his site. Again, lists is not overrated. Perhaps anyone who says so just do not want to bother with lists or just didn't give much attention to its potential. Now, I have a question to the OP. How the heck do they earn from each subscriber?
As long as you provide useful information in EVERY mailing to your subscribers, people will not blacklist your mail. If they see it as spam then you may get banned. So good care is needed when handling lists. For example I am subscribed to DupeFree Pro mailing list and to SEOBook mailing list and they both send QUALITY mail every now and then. If they didnt, I would have filtered them probably.
I advertise, trafficwave. I put my ads in other webmasters' sites, for starters. I wrote and sell 3 e-books, which includes 2 softcover books, so building a list is not up my alley as practially all who would sign up for it would so for the free tips, info. This is one of the reasons why it is so overrated. So....
Well, you cannot apply the same rules to all niches. I'm coming from sales background. I'm selling people stuff... real stuff that you can touch. If you, for example, are in "information" business and trying to sell your special report on how to get rich quick, I expect the conversion rate to be close to 0%. On the other hand, in certain niches it is possible to hold a highly targeted and narrowed list that will give you more than 5% conversion... The truth is that your conversion can be anything starting from 0 to 5 or more % depending firstly on your niche and secondly on how familiar you are with the way your list is thinking. Then, how good are you at nurturing your list... it either comes together and, as Ryan told us, you earn 500,000,000 or you earn nothing...
I think a Business Model should be based on Diversification, and to use List Building as 1 Component (in combination with Other Sources).
I myself don't do lists. I do however create a free downloadable pdf (no strings attached) on my sites, trying to make it something my visitors will definitely be dying to download. Without harvesting their emails many times I get more downloads than I would if I forced an opt in at the same time. Within the report I give permission away for it to be distributed - as long as links remain. The reports go viral, the report is filled with "resource" links to affiliate products, and the profits pour in day and night. No dealing with idiots reporting your mailouts as spam and getting you in trouble with Aweber - which people will do if they think they're a competitor and they're in a nasty mood and want to drive you into the ground. that happened to a well-known friend of mine in the IM community. HIs competitor was pissed that he brought out a product in the same market, and he hired a bunch of people to subscribe to the guy's list, report it as spam, and his list provided shut him down - erasing his entire list of 10,000 people. So a list isn't necessary. Dan
I am totally surprised that you have this opinion. I don't want to start a fight, but advising people to abandon or not try list building is bad advice. My income really started to take off only after I started building lists. As an example, I wrote an ebook on how to flip blogs for profit. I took the advice in my own ebook and created a blog from scratch and flipped it. I took this case study and turned it into a free ebook. The list I generated from that has brought me over $10,000 in the last 3 months from ebook sales, blog sales and coaching. Please don't discourage people from building a list, it really is a great way to grow your income. TomG.
*Great discussion peeps.* I won't say that building a list is 'over-rated'. IF you have a targeted list in a good niche, AND you maintain a good relationship with the subscribers, you can expect to earn a good amount. I'm not saying you can replicate what others do - they've put in months of work in building relationship with their subscribers. I wonder Why he did not make a backup? If he had 10,000 people he should have been careful enough to make backups and then move to other service?
I'm not advising people to abandon or not do them, tommygadget. I don't do this here, in my e-book, or in my classes. Far from it. In fact, I say go ahead and do it. Just don't expect the kind of results one hears from BS message boards filled with clueless noobs, and, from sources where scammers try to sell their crap e-books on building lists. For the most part, it is all hype. I'm just saying they are overrated. Many say that it is "essenital," or, "you will make a good amount of money," or, in the case of this thread, "extremely important." Nope. Yes, of course you will get repeat visitors if you are doing, say, a blog. A lot? Probably not as many will come back on their own anyway. And if they don't care too much for the blog, or they get tired of it, like when John Chow talks about his freakin' dinners and what he eats, ya think a mailing list will bring them back? Many won't even open the mail. And, yes, you may make a few sales here and there, but it will take awhile to do so too, but let's not call this the "lifeline of a site," because that isn't even close to being accurate. Here is a woman who is known as a "super affiliate.'' http://www.flamingoworld.com/ She does not focus on a list because not that many used it. Of course she made sales, but they were far and inbetween, and her customers came back anyway without being reminded via a list. She has been at it for years now, and she still gets over 250,000 monthly hits. Yes, she can still get a few sales here and there from a list, but it is not the "lifeline of her site." It is not "essential" to have one. That's just ridiculous noob thinking. Okay, fair enough...when did you do this, and what is the url?
As you quoted, I said "Direct Marketers". Every niche will have it's "standard" or "expected" conversion rate. Since this discussion is about the importance of list building and list building falls in to the category of "Direct Marketing", IMO, that's what I'm referring to. When I used to sell commercial financial services, my conversion was much less than 1% but that less than 1% conversion paid me 6 figures a year. 5% would have made me a millionaire in no time.
I'm with you on the absolutely ridiculous emails I get every time someone like Mr. Chow farts, etc., but building a list has worked for me. In the interest of transparency, here is the url: www.blogflippingfool.com I gave away an ebook that proved you can make money flipping a blog, started around Sept. '08. Basically, I showed people that I could make my method work and then let them have the proof for free. Thousands of people downloaded it and hundreds bought the book after being in the autoresponder series. There is no fluff in my emails, though. All the emails provide tips and information relating to promoting and selling websites. There is no mention anywhere of my vacations, dinners or bathroom habits TomG.
yes you are right as building a list will always let you remember that who were your visitors and what they enquired for or what did they bought.......now you can tel them through email or any other ways about your new products or some changes in your website which are really helpful for the clients...
This is not a criticism.... just continuing discussion. This seems like it would be the PERFECT scenario to build a list on. If you were to ask for name and email for everyone requesting your free downloadable pdf, you would have a targeted list of subscribers that you could market to over and over again. You could do add-on sales, back-end offers, announce your new ebook when it's ready, etc... Do you mind me asking why you don't build such a list with this approach? I get the viral aspect of what you're currently doing and it's rock solid. I just can't help but think about the potential profits you may be missing out on by not building and following up with the list. I completely respect and appreciate what you are doing. Your model clearly works for you.