‘They’ Say, The Money is in The List — But WHY?
Ask any experienced online marketer, and they will tell you that the most important thing you can ever do when you are building an online business is to create lists that you are able to send out content to. It doesn’t matter what niche you are targeting, you need to have a list of people that content to.
Build a list, build a list…the money is in the list…you need to have a list of hungry buyers.
But WHY?
Today I am starting a series of posts on list building. In the coming posts I will be covering topics such as WHY you need to build a list, a few of the different methods HOW you can go about this and then into some of the various techniques you can use to be successful in your list building efforts.
So, let’s dig in:
In the beginning, every name on any list you build will be a potential customer. Once you know how to ‘work’ that mailing list properly, you will quickly start to turn some of those potentials into customers.
No matter what kind of online business you are running, it is important to understand that there is a huge difference between making money online and building your business.
For example, there are thousands of people who decide that they want to make some money online. They begin their ‘Internet Marketing’ journey without a product, without software, or without some sort of service of their own to offer to potential customers.
Consequently, they start their business doing something like promoting products as an affiliate marketer or by featuring paid advertising on a webpage.
In both of these situations, this person might be making some money but they are not building their business. At the very heart of the business building concept is the ability to coerce information from the people who visit your website.
In this case, the specific action that you need to ask them to take is to provide their email address and their name. You in turn need to provide something of value to them in exchange for this, whether it be an ebook or a piece of software or a collection of graphics. Whatever that ‘ethical bribe’ is, having them take this action and confirming their email address will add them to that particular mailing list.
Doing this gives you permission to send them additional information in the future.
When people chose to subscribe to your list, they make a small commitment to your business. However, at this point, they have not made the most important commitment, spending money with you.
By using the tactics and strategies that you’ll read in ‘List Building From Scratch’ and by coming back here and reading the content that I provide in these posts, you will be able to convince some of your prospects to spend money with you, and when they do so, they become your customer.
Isn’t that what we all really want?
The commitment that they have now shown to your business is far greater and more important, for several reasons.
Firstly, they have demonstrated that they trust you and are happy to do business with you. This is important because every business person (whether operating online or offline) wants to build a list of loyal customers to whom they can sell products and services on a regular basis.
By becoming a customer, that person has indicated that they are willing to pay you for more valuable content. That content is either offered through your messages that are loaded into your autoresponder and trickled to them at specific intervals or through blog posts like this.
Alright, so we have some basics of ‘why’ you need to not only have a list of people that you can mail out to, next time I will ‘how’ you are going to start getting these people on to your list.
Til then, check out ‘List Building From Scratch’, you’ll have a better handle on what I will be covering…
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Tagged with: Affiliate Marketing • Email Marketing • List Building
Filed under: List Building
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I’ve seen the power of building a list this past year. While far from a mammoth list, I made significant progress this past year and am now seeing $100 days on a regular basis. No where near where I want to be, but the progress has been directly tied to growing my list. I fear I wasted too much time learning other aspect of the business, and while some of it was necessary, I could have and should have focused on list building earlier. Looking forward to your new series.
Earl Netwal´s last blog ..Creative Use of Clickbank as a Free Marketing Intelligence Tool
The money is in the relationship you have with your list. When they know, like and trust you and only then is when they are likely to spend money with you.
Of course you have to get them on your list to build that relationship.
Mike Paetzold´s last blog ..Zig instead of zag – changes for the new year
List building is one of the most important things any business can do. It may take some time upfront to learn and start using it, but it will pay off. Thanks for the reminder Ron.
Joel Osborne´s last blog ..Avoid Bad Quality PLR Material by Nicole Dean of Easy PLR
Good post, Ron. You are right on. Taking the time to build a list and then building relationships with the people on that list is how I earn a living.
Thanks,
Peggy
You are right, you list is comprised of potential customers and that is why the money is in the list. But until you build a relationship with them so that they trust you and decide to buy you don’t get any of the money. So, in the end what Mike said is true, “The money is in the relationship you have with your list.” You must work on that.
Lonnie Minton´s last blog ..Affiliate Marketing PLR Bundle with Private Label Rights
Hi Ron,
List building is what I want to learn this year. last year I leanred all about product creation, building a blog etc etc but how do I sell the product if I have no list to see too!
Will be signing up to learn from you!
See you back here soon!
Jacinta
Jacinta Dean´s last blog ..John Thornhill’s Internet Marketing Master Class Coaching Program Week 19!
List building is important and you have done a good job talking about it. Part of the why is that your list becomes people that you build a relationship with and then there is a potential for them to become customers. A list of subscribers is nice, a list of people that trust you is profitable.
Lonnie Minton´s last blog ..Keep Building Your Affiliate Marketing Business By Building Your List