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Yes, in some cases Building a List is not adivsable and can hurt your business !

by discrat
8 replies
One of my top Blogs for a number of years was a Site that was centered around free money via work from home opportunities.

It did great with CPA banners for free sign ups and Adsense.

But it was horrible for building a responsive List. One of the few times where I actually lost Money by building
a list ( an anomaly).

"Free Money" was in fact in the domain.

Kind of a double edged sword. A great name to attract Visitors but miserable for having long term customers who whip out their wallets.

They were just interested in free stuff.

So it kind of spit in the face of the traditional Mantra that the Money is ALWAYS in the List
In this case, it definitely was not !



- Robert Andrew
#building #list #lose #money
  • Profile picture of the author Tom Addams
    Some markets are great for targeting "free" (online gaming, for instance); others, as you discovered, not so cracky. Good thing is : every failure teaches us something!

    Tom
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Hess
    When you have a site called "free money" why would you expect anything more from people looking for "free money"?

    I mean is the result really that surprising?
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      Originally Posted by Mark Hess View Post

      When you have a site called "free money" why would you expect anything more from people looking for "free money"?

      I mean is the result really that surprising?
      Not at all.

      Just wanted to present an example of when Building a List is NOT always prudent and throw that out there to get people to ponder
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom Addams
      Originally Posted by Mark Hess View Post

      When you have a site called "free money" why would you expect anything more from people looking for "free money"?

      I mean is the result really that surprising?
      A lot of people have made a fortune by using the word "free" in their domain. I can think of at least 2 ways the "free money" domain could be profitable; extremely actually.

      Tom
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      I Coach: Learn More | My Latest WF Thread: Dead Domains/ Passive Traffic

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      • Profile picture of the author kilgore
        Interesting example. Proving once again that every niche, every business and every set of customers is different and what's best for one is not always best for another.

        That said, I wouldn't want to enter a niche where list building was not an effective tactic. To me the best, easiest and cheapest way to find targeted customers is to work on making your current customers repeat customers. And very often a great way to reach and retain current customers is by building lists. It's definitely a tool I want in my belt when building my business.

        What you've essentially described is a business model wherein it's very difficult to retain customers. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad model, but I personally wouldn't have any interest in one like that.
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  • Profile picture of the author eac113
    Well there are a whole lot of freebie seekers out there, I would agree that would be a tough slog.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Thomson
    You are right. I Know now that building a list is not always profitable but I do think that you missed the first step which is the niche. when choosing your niche you should always know that the profitable niche is the one that have people with money ready to pay to get value. that is what I always teach my students.
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    • Profile picture of the author myob
      In my own experience, the greatest success in marketing is overwhelmingly the result of building lists of buyers. If you’re trying to build your business without building an email list, you’re making the biggest mistake ever and it would be very hard in the future to grow.

      With rare exceptions, the most valuable asset of any online businesses is the built-in goodwill of customer lists. There may be external branding models for example, offline retail stores not dependent on customer lists, but the OP has not made much of a case to show how building a list will actually "hurt your business".

      To be fair, Robert did say losing money through list-building was an "anomaly", which requires much more of an emphasis beyond the glancing mention given in the broad stroke generalization of his premise. But it's hardly a "spit in the face" of a proven and basic marketing fundamental.

      Consider that there are only 3 types of traffic; that's it - only 3 types:

      Traffic that you OWN (ie lists of your buyers, lists of your site visitors, lists of "targeted" prospects)
      Traffic that you CONTROL (ie articles, paid traffic, solo ads, PPC, online/offline media ads)
      Traffic that you DON’T CONTROL (ie free traffic, SEO)

      Again with rare (and perhaps highly publicized) exceptions, every person who has been substantially successful online has built their business around strong relationships with their customer lists.

      The biggest goal for marketing successfully on the internet is to continue collecting email addresses and other contact information. Whether you choose to get traffic with "traffic that you control" or "traffic that you don’t control", always – always drive traffic to a funnel system so that you can build your email list, which is "traffic that you OWN" for the future growth of your business.
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