Anyone who is interested in internet marketing, no matter what their experience level is, has heard the saying, “The money is in the list”. But in reality, this should actually say “The money is in the responsive list”. Why? Because you could have thousands of subscribers on your list but if very few are buyers, that list will be worthless. On the other hand, you could have a list of just a few hundred subscribers, but if that list is made up mostly of buyers, that list could be a goldmine.
What most people don’t realize is that list building has two parts:
1. Physically building a list
2. Maintaining that list of subscribers.
While most people will concentrate on building a huge list of subscribers, it is just as important to maintain that list.
In order to build a responsive and thus profitable list, you will need to develop a relationship with your subscribers to convert them into customers. However, this is not something that can be accomplished overnight. It takes time, effort, and lots of work to get your subscribers to trust you and your product recommendations. But, once you have built a responsive list, you can make money any time you want just by sending out a few emails.
The formula is really simple:
Get Leads + Build a Relationship + Send Promotional Emails = Money in the Bank
So as you can see, you need to not only get leads (subscribers) but you also need to build a relationship with them if you want to make any money from the emails you send.
However, interest in what you are offering is at its highest point just after someone subscribes to your list. Because your emails will become less effective as time progresses, you need to start promoting to your subscribers as soon as they join your list.
On the other hand, you do not want to send just promotional emails as many of your subscribers will quickly opt-out.You will need to provide high quality information on a regular basis so your subscribes don’t forget they joined your list and also to keep them reading the messages you send. You will also want to promote your product or an affiliate product in every email you send out.
Some marketers believe you should never start promoting as soon as someone subscribes to your list. They think you should send your subscribers a lot of high quality content before you start promoting to them. However, the only thing this accomplishes is to make your subscribers expect everything for free. This is counterproductive as your goal is NOT to build a list of freebie seekers, but to build a list of customers.
Yes, you do want to build a relationship with your subscribers, but you can do that as well as send them promotions, just include your promotions along with your content. This could be in the form of product reviews, suggesting a product related to the topic of your article, including a link to a product before your signature, or suggesting a product in a P.S.
