The Product or The Mailing List?
The Product or The Mailing List?
If I were to say to you, “Choose the most important of these – the product to sell or building your list. What would your answer be?
You might say, “A product to sell so that I can make some money online.” And that is important and you will have to have something to sell if you want to make money online.
However, almost any internet marketer would say that “Building your list is the more important of these two efforts.” Why?
Because if you are going to make money online, you need someone to sell your product to. True, you could put your product on a web page and get some sales. Internet marketers do that every day. They create a website for the product and drive traffic to the website and make sales.
But, if you have an opt-in list, you can promote you product to you list and some will buy. Then later you can promote it to your list again and more will buy. Most internet marketers will tell you that they make most of their money from the list.
One of the keys is that they depend on building their own list and they also depend on leveraging off the lists of other internet marketers. This latter effort is call Joint Ventures.
Also, when you develop or obtain a related product you can promote that to your list.
One of the key things about having a list is that it’s there for the next product that you develop. It is true that you must develop or acquire products or affiliate programs to sell. But if you do not start your list building efforts your marketing opportunities will be limited. With your list of the lists of JV partners you will have someone to market your product to.
You can even use your list to help create demand for you product. You can tell them that you will have something new for them in a few days, weeks, etc and keep adding a little bit about it in each email. This creates interest and demand. Your list in essence creates demand for your product and they will be looking forward to its appearance.
A mailing list is necessary for all internet marketing efforts. You need one if you want to establish Joint Venture efforts. You need to be building your list if you are running a membership site so that you can continue to get new members.
You can make money online from your list by selling your own products or by selling other people’s products. But, if you don’t have a list, you will not have a list of potential customers. In that case you will have to go looking for customers. By constantly putting effort into building your list, you will be increasing the number of future customers.
So, work on building your list first. Or, you can start building your list as you develop or obtain your product. But, make list building a priority in your online efforts. Your list will continue to make money online for you as long as you maintain your affiliate internet business online.
To Your Online Success,
Lonnie Minton
Tagged with: list building • make money online
Filed under: list building • make money online
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Hi, Lonnie!
Great info, as always – a powerful list provides the 6 & 7 figure incomes, makes an affiliate into a super-affiliate, and helps people continue to grow through Joint Ventures, Seminar speaking gigs, etc.
But just as selling your first few products, building your list quickly depends mostly on your ability to drive targeted traffic – the more traffic you can drive, the greater your sales and the faster your list-building.
Initially traffic generation must take a slight lead over list-building in your focus & time allotment, with your list-building taking precedence once it’s big enough to drive traffic on it’s own.
Doug Champigny’s last blog post..Best Blog Installation Software Is Free!
Very good post and necessary for people to succeed. The list and the relationship with that list is the key to generating ongoing business. Something I avoided like the plague when starting but once I embraced it my income increased.
Mike Paetzold’s last blog post..Week In Review – February 28, 2009
Lonnie,
You explain it very well. The money is in the list. No list the there is no need for a product. So the focus must be in building the list. During that process you must define the product(s) you are going to offer as well. Try to optimize the list building to the niche products you are going to offer.
Fred
Fred Lotgering’s last blog post..The Traffic Giveaway JV Partners Search
What about a hybrid of the two… build your list of buyers to buy your new product?
But your right, new marketers need to focus on list building, as that’s just about the most hands off money making tactic around.
Joel Osborne’s last blog post..2 Valuable Blogs to Read
Very well put Lonnie,
A list is critical if you really want to build your business. If you don’t have a list then you are only generating income off of one time traffic with no way to try and sell them anything else in the future.
It really helps when you can take that list that you have and continue to provide them with good information on an ongoing basis and in the process you can point out some products or services that will help them out.
You will be making money off of these offerings of course, and your list knows that, but as long as you have provided them with great content they will be much more willing to purchase through your links.
Thanks for making sure people are aware of this.
Brett McEllhiney
Brett McEllhiney’s last blog post..Build a Niche Marketing Business – Step 14: Launch Your Site!
Hello. Great job. I did not expect this… This is a great story. Thanks!