Phrased a little differently: do you try and build a list for every niche or just for the ones you plan on sticking with? I see a lot of people in here testing out new niches (being promoted by publishers) and just wondering how you folks test out a new products or niches. Do you test w/o list building to get a feel for the product and just put out a few articles, videos, etc...and see what happens.
Even if you don't think you're going to stick with a particular niche you should try building a list for it in case you want to come back to it at a later time. Or if a great new product launch comes out within the niche. This way you don't have to spend time building up campaigns to test products in the niche later down the road. Instead you can push out a promotional email to test the waters. Much quicker and efficient for figuring out if a new product will convert. Lists are gold. Make them.
I love lists and agree you should get one as soon as possible, also if you are even remotely serious about a product you should setup landing pages, even if they are just blogspots and sending a couple of hundred visits to them to see how they work for you before doing something more substantial. In the past I have been lazy and just linked / redirected straight to the vendor just to test conversions, but conversions are usually better if you make a landing page, a list, your own mini site anyways so I wouldnt really recommend this too much as if you were to develop your own squeeze page then doing this initial test wouldnt be an accurate test of conversion for the future anyway.. hmm, waffle aside, I would say yes - do build unique squeeze pages
Well ... You need build a list if the products you promote something like golf, reiki, which you can sell anvanced products
I would say / recommend that you can build a mailing list for almost anything, I think the only exceptions might be embarrassing medical problems - like who wants to get emails about that sort of thing every day? But then even a list more generally on all areas of health type products would work I am sure.
Good stuff to know. Now to take it the next level. Do you guys make your squeeze pages solely for -well, for squeezing- or do you build it as a resource site right from the start? Thanks everyone.
I think everyone will have a different answer to this and is mostly personal preference and depends on your overall vision for your sites, and also other factors such as how big the market is, if there are many other products you could recommend to the same list, how much time you have to work on the niche etc.
^^ Exactly. Personally if I think I'm going to stick with the niche itself for a while, I'll build a content site around the niche and have an opt-in to build up a list for it. But others will build lists solely for one product. To me, that seems like a waste of time because you could be building a list for the broad niche and make loads of cash with it later down the road with other products. But, again, the opinion of others on this matter will vary greatly.