We have all heard that the money is in the list, in fact you have probably heard it many times, but did you take any notice of this well known phrase? I am going to answer two questions in this post – 1. What Is An Email List? And 2. Why Are They Important?
If like me it took you a while to take action on building a list, or if you have not yet even considered it, then hopefully by the end of this post you will reconsider and get building. There is a reason why so many marketers have coined that phrase to people for many years now, and the reason is because it is true.
What Is An Email Marketing List?
It is a collection of email addresses collected by an individual or a company for the purpose of staying in touch with the people behind those addresses. The idea is to build a relationship and trust through useful content sent to these people on a regular basis. On top of this content the individual or company can send offers and products that they think will be of benefit and value to the people on their list.
If you have ever purchased a product online, then you will have probably had to enter your email address at some point during the purchasing process, which means that you have been added to that company’s email list. The first email they send you will probably be confirmation and other details of your order, but they will be able to email you at any time in the future (unless you unsubscribe from the mailing list) with details of offers or sales you might be interested in.
The fact that you are on their list gives them the opportunity to make more sales and more money from you as a future customer, especially if they gave you a good service the first time because the experience would have been positive and you trust in their products and service.
Internet Marketers also take part in building lists because they know that they can build an audience of people that will open and read the emails they send, as long as they build a good relationship and a good level of trust along with it. The marketer can also send offers and recommendations of products that they think the people on their list will find of value.
Email addresses are either collected through the purchasing process or through an optin form offering a free gift or regular newsletter, just like the one in the right hand column on this site. This is done by using a software platform known as an Autoresponder, and when the list owner decides to contact his list, this software sends that email to all the people on the list at the same time. As you can imagine this is very powerful for anyone that owns a list, especially when the list has thousands of people on it, one email sent to all in one go.
Why Is An Email List So Important?
I think you have probably grasped how important building a list is, which is why all companies big and small ask for your email when you decide to buy something from their website. The bigger the list, the more money that business can make from its email marketing efforts.
In fact it has long been accepted that every person on a list is worth $1 per month in income, now that is powerful. Imagine building a list of 10,000 people, or what about 50,000 people, the math is very easy, right
For an Internet Marketer it is important to build a list so they can not only serve value with quality content, but keep a flow of traffic to their websites which keeps the search engines alert to the activity and in turn helps with rankings. Apart from that a marketer can make a solid income from sales made directly to their list through offers and products recommended in the emails they send out. And if every person is the equivalent to $1 per month, the more people they have on their list, the more their income will rise, making it a long term activity of any marketer to keep building their list.
Building Email Lists
Now you know what one is and how important they are, how do you go about building an email list?
It is obvious that one of the first things to consider is getting a decent autoresponder, and although you can get a free version of this type of software platform, I recommend you consider using one of the well established ones such as Aweber or Getresponse.
Once you have your autoresponder, you can then set up a list inside your dashboard and design an optin form which you can add to your site like mine above right. This gives you the chance to collect email addresses directly from your website. You can also design landing pages with an optin form and send traffic to these pages to do the same.
I have been building a list for a while now, and I wish I had started sooner, but I did not take the well known phrase mentioned earlier as serious as I should have done, don’t make the same mistake. My list is coming on slowly, but surely and I will continue to build it, But I have come across a different way of building a list and I don’t need a website to make it work.
Sounds interesting I know, and I have not actually begun this method yet, but will be starting work on it very shortly. If it works out the way I plan, and I intend to make it work, I can build as many businesses in as many niches as I like using this method, and all without building any websites.
I am excited, but like I said I haven’t actually started yet, but when I have built my first two and start getting results, I will report back and let you know the method I am using and how well it is working. You can then consider whether it is something that may fit with your own ideas.
I hope that you see the importance of building an email list as an internet marketer and have now decided to start your own list building efforts. If you have any questions or thoughts about email marketing, then enter them below and I will respond as soon as ..