Not to mention the time you need to spend creating things to write about. Nowadays I used Glyphius to help me out.

If you are simply building your list and sending them nothing but offers, offers, offers and not providing them any value, they won’t remain on your list for long.

Thanks for the information on lists and other IM concepts – I’ve been perusing your site for a few days now, and every entry has proven invaluable in helping me understand the concepts and methods required to succeed. Wish me luck!

Yes…I agree. There’s money in them their opt-in email list.

Like a good burial insurance policy. Every IM should have one.

My Best 2 U,

LindaC

Thanks for the examples. To use file recovery, it is something that there is a huge demand for and even though the people who buy the software might be fairly un-related in most other aspects of their life, there’s still a benefit to following up with them after the sale.

After someone recovers lost file, what’s the next thing they want to do?

Back up their files so they don’t have the same problem again.

I agree that you don’t want to go out and start giving away an ebook or free report to build an opt-in list just in case someone happens to possible need your software sometime in the future, but you still want to take advantage of the email addresses you collect.

There are a lot of people who I’ve come across in my coaching program and other areas who have been selling online for a year or two part-time, but they haven’t kept the email addresses of any of their customers, nor have they followed up with them at all.

That’s money left on the table.

Yes, with internet marketing a list is a lot more valuable than a lot of other niches, simply because there is a huge market, with tons of products and unlimited possibilities.

You don’t NEED a list, but you should have one, even if it’s only keeping in contact with past customers, but yes, LEVERAGE and TRAFFIC is more important than a list is.

I guess the main point of the post, was that with a large enough targeted list, you can do extremely well and not need to worry much about traffic generation when you launch a new product or put up a new site – and yes, it was written from the perspective of an internet marketer marketing to other internet marketers and will not be as applicable to other non business niches.

Thanks for the comments,

Justin Michie

I’m not knocking list-building at all.

It makes me a lot of money as well, and it’s great for actual niche-markets where customers are going to be a niche-prospect for longer than a day or two.

The only way to paint the picture clearly here is to give a product examples…

Examples:
——–

* File Recovery

* Registry Repair

And so on.

Those are HUGE markets. Anyone who’s had experience in those niches knows that there’s a lot of traffic at stake there, especially the Registry niche.

And for obvious reasons – the majority of internet users are on a Windows platform.

Anyway, the other attribute here is that, other than the immediate, pressing PROBLEM – the client base is actually quite untargeted, aside from the fact that they have a PC.

So, yes, obviously it’s important to try your best to monetize the backend (client-base) and so on, but as for building opt-in lists of “freebie” subscribers, in niches like these it would be pretty well useless in COMPARISON to focusing on your front-end sales and recruiting affiliates.

And that’s because the existing, “need it NOW” demand is so huge that all of your VRE needs to geared at getting the front-end sales without losing people due to timing issues.

The demand is huge, but it’s quite tempermental on a user-by-user basis. Here one day, gone the next.

UNLIKE other niches, where the “demand” almost always exists in the overall user-base.

Such as internet marketing, for instance. We’re all potential customers of anything that will boost our business or teach us how to do __________ if it’s gonna help our bottom-line.

The trade-off, however, is that there’s less demand in the IM niche that’s easily accessible. In order to capture the REAL traffic in our market, you need to put together huge JV’s, tap into other people’s lists, cause a controversy storm, etc. etc.

Now, the other thing with list-building is that it is a GREAT idea in markets where there’s not that much search-traffic or otherwise traffic you can (easily) capture through conventional means.

In this sense, list-building is practically imperative. It actually BECOMES your traffic source. You NEED your list in markets like that – literally.

So in conclusion, it’s not an argument of “you need a list” and “you don’t need a list”.

What you need is LEVERAGE and TRAFFIC.

And those can take different forms in different markets.

That’s all

Cheers,

-Chris

And you certainly don’t want to sign someone who’s ready to buy up for an email course — opt-in boxes on most sales pages are big no no’s, as most of the time your sales / conversion rate will actually decrease.

However, that being said, you can still have a list of buyers and send them info and offers for similar products, upgrades, backend sales and so on. Yes, there are niches where you may not make any or many sales, but you’re not loosing customers by sending them and email or two after their purchase for an upgrade, upsell, cross-sell etc.

Mark, there is more than one product, service or saleable something in every niche, unless by chance you’ve happened to stumble into something that no one else has and you’ve created the only product available to that subset of people. If that’s the case, you should work on creating something else for backend sales.

Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t think of a single niche where there isn’t more than one offer you can pass along to your prospects or customers and why not give them some valuable info in the meantime?

Justin Michie

In many niches, list-building is absolutely the best way to leverage your traffic for repeat value, time and time again.

And I can also relate to not understanding the value of this at first, and it’s also “cost” me quite a bit in a few niches.

However, lists aren’t ALWAYS the best course of action in every niche. In fact, in some niches, they’re a terrible idea altogether and you’ll actually be *losing* profits by sacrificing your traffic to what could have otherwise been a sale.

For example, there are some niches where people buy an INSTANT fix to a one-time, isolated problem.

So the backend opportunities are vague and only slightly targeted at best. And you’d also only have about 3 or 4 days MAX to try and monetize a new subscriber before they fall out of range based on their “demand cycle”.

Sounds like a terrible niche, right?

Wrong. These niches include some of the most high-demand markets where it’s possible to sell more than a thousand PRODUCTS (or more) per day.

(In fact, even as an affiliate I’m selling 40+ units per day for one type of product like this and that income stream alone accounts for about $200,000/year for my web business.)

The volume is huge, and it’s best not to get in the way of that volume by trying to build relationships, etc.

Again, this is because the prospect is trying to figure out how to solve their problem as FAST as possible, and they won’t wait 7 days or whatever to go through your email-course.

Just a thought.

So, I think the point I’m making is this:
—————————————–

IF your niche caters to a life-time customer relationship with multiple sales per user, etc. then you would have to be INSANE not to build a list.

But,

IF your niche is one in which millions of people have a one-time problem that they need to solve NOW, then list-building may actually hurt your overall profits.

Sincerely,

Chris Rempel

Message received. I’m putting in an opt-in on my blog today.

Now almost all I build I include signup form – though not for every single offer. I’m getting quite many subscribers in various niches.

Stay focused, get results!

I must agree with you about the list — but it does also depend how you “treat your list”. By that I mean people who have been on your list for 5 years or more should not be treated like the ‘newbie’ they were when they joined 5 years back. I get a little upset with those who still think their subscribers don’t learn as much as they seem to over the years and refer to that on my blog here: http://www.johnlongmore.com/where-have-all-the-real-guroos-gone/

I also feel that you shouldn’t ever regret too much like harping on about how much money you are loosing each month because you didn’t start soon enough. The message MUST BE — GET STARTED TODAY — EVEN IF YOU KNOW VERY LITTLE — You will grow into it! BUT YOU MUST DO IT!!!

Fully agree with you. If you are not building a list you are seriously compromising your online earnings.

However, I also see a lot of people, with lists, getting it wrong. Subscribers like to receive information – There is a huge difference between a newsletter and a sales letter…

You are so, so on the money.

I look at it in this way.

My day job is sales. To make a sale, I have to develop a relationship with a customer. I generally do not make a sale with first contact. I need to follow up with calls, visits etc.

An email list is the same thing. You may not make a sale the first time someone visits your site, but if they sign up to your email list, you can turn them in to customers buy developing a relationship with them through useful and interesting emails.

Get an autoresponder and start your list now!