Does List Building Work?

Does List Building Work?
By Matt Lenzie

Many internet marketing gurus will tell you that building a list is an important part of any internet marketing approach. Here we will look at why this is the case.

So list building what is it? Well, for the purpose of this article we are talking about building a list of people's email addresses who are opted in to receive emails from you. There are various laws around ownership of emails, and we won't go into the particulars of these in this article, but if you are going to buy emails make sure that there is no conflict with your local law(s).

I have spoken to many people around list building and the most important part of any list that is owned is the relationship with that list. You could have the largest list in the world with millions of subscribers, however if you are not engaging these subscribers it is unlikely that you will generate any revenue through this list. If you have a smaller list, but have a great relationship with this list you will be much more likely to generate revenue.

So how do we build this relationship? The way in which many list owners do this is through a combination of things. Demonstrating their expertise in a particular area is key. If for example your subscribers have subscribed to a list building list, then if you are continually able to offer great information that is relevant to this area then your subscribers will be happy, and may also recommend subscription to this list to their friends and contacts.

Giving things away always helps! People love free stuff! Therefore if you can give your subscribers regular free gifts this will definitely help to further build the bond between the list owner and subscriber. This will further encourage people to recommend subscription to your list.

All list owners will promote offers to their list, and this is the revenue generating part of the process. You need to make sure that these offers are firstly relevant to your list, but also that you have a strategy as to the types of offers that you will promote over a period of time. Being a subscriber of many email lists I think that it is generally accepted that you are going to receive affiliate offers being promoted to the lists to which you subscribe. However, there is a thin line between promoting relevant offers and spamming your subscribers. Even some of the most successful list owners sometimes get this wrong.

Also, if you are expressing your opinion then it is likely that some of your subscribers may disagree with your opinion. This can be good to stimulate a reaction from your subscribers, but can also annoy your subscribers! You definitely do not want to this too often as you will see people unsubscribing!

Make sure that you plan what you are going to send your list. There is no harm in adding occasional additions, but if you engage with the list too often then that can sometimes further cause friction. It has been suggested that you should not include more than 1 affiliate offer to your list a month, and this is based on a weekly email to the list. Hopefully in this way you will continue to engage the list whilst also generating the most amount of sales.

There is a lot of thought that goes into when emails should be sent out. It can make a big difference in the click through rates that are achieved. Also the sentence structure of emails has been proven to have a big influence. Then we can get into whether images should be included or if plain text emails are best. There is lots of research into these areas, and most people will have their preferred way of doing things. Ultimately it all comes down to results. The higher the click through rate the better!

Once you have established a relationship with the list that you have built and have demonstrated your expertise in the area in which you wish the list to work then there is no reason that you cannot make lots of money through owning a list. Frank Kern the internet marketer is one key person in this area who makes lots of money through his relationship with his list. Check out his materials and approach for more information.

List building and relationships through lists definitely work and is great way of building a residual income for the future. It may be a slow process to begin with and will definitely take lots of fiddling to get things right, but once you have then there potentially is serious money to be made!

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