The Power Of Building A List: Why All Marketers Should Build A List? No Matter What!
A lot of people in Internet marketing do not take the time necessary to build subscribers. They concentrate all of their marketing effort on other things and completely ignore the list.
There are a lot of ways to build a list, some faster and some shorter, but this article is not going to deal with those details. Instead, the focus will be on why you must get started immediately in building a database of subscribers, and the consequences for not doing so
One of the easiest ways to explain this would be with an example. Person “A” does not want to build a list. He builds an affiliate review site, perhaps dozens of them, and then promotes his site with marketing. He writes dozens of articles telling people to go visit his site and buy his product. They do, and he is happy. He gets 2% of the readers to click on the link in his resource box and this leads to sales. Over an amount of time, while those articles are circulating, he adds more so that he is getting a larger volume of sales. He does other marketing activities as well, and does pretty good for himself.
On the other hand, Person “B” puts an opt-in box on his site for a free e-book, and everyone taking his offer agrees to be signed up to his list. He writes dozens of articles, submits them and gets a 2% click through rate. He makes less money (perhaps from subtle links within the e-book) but builds up his list. He writes more articles just like person “A” did and submits them too. His list is building up, but he is making less income currently. His older articles are still circulating, and he is adding more. His list is getting bigger, and he is getting ready to introduce some products to these people. At this point he has made few money, but he is happy because he has a long-term plan.
The difference between these two people rests in two things:
1. The 2% click through rate for person “A” will result in sales, but the conversion rate on that 2% will be lower than the conversion rate for person “B” that is offering a free product, while building up his list. A lot more people are going to sign up for a free product than purchase a product outright. People love to get things for free!
2. Person “B” has a long-range plan for continuous sales and person “A” does not. Person “A” has to have unique traffic hits in order to make money. He needs to constantly find new customers all the time, and cannot concentrate on anything else; or else his sales will drop. He has set himself up to continuously have one focus only. He can still make a lot of money this way, especially if he builds up a large amount of sites that are doing well, but the money is in the list and he is throwing thousands of dollars out the window by ignoring it.
Person “B” sets his plan in action by building rapport and trust with his list; he gives them something of value and does not hard sell during the relationship-building phase. He continues this with his existing customer base while he keeps on building up the list. After some time he will directly offer an item to his customers that he feels will give them good value and help them in that certain niche. He will get sales based on building up their trust and respect. He will probably get a lot of sales and make a lot of money. He will continue this routine, sending out good value, mixed with occasional offers of high quality; and as this list grows, so will his income.
At some point the momentum has built up so strong that he no longer has to put too much energy into building his list, it will just seem to grow by itself. At this level, he can work more on the offers he is sending out, give coaching lessons or one-on-one consultations at a very high fee, hold online or off-line seminars, participate in massive joint ventures, and be considered a respected professional in his niche. This is long-term thinking that results in pure gold.
If you have been sitting on the fence about starting to build a list, jump off and start one. Your workload will be considerably reduced once you don’t have to keep focusing on finding another customer. You can start other projects while maintaining your customer base and growing it. You can expand your site, or start something completely new. You will have more freedom to work and create your business the way you want it to grow, and even have fun with it.
Hopefully this article has helped you to rethink building a list and the power behind it. Take a moment to reflect on why you haven’t started building one if you haven’t yet; and if you have started one, think about what you can do to make it even bigger.