The Value of 1

It totally varies. It seems like the Standard that people these days spit out is $1 a month per subscriber.


But like I said they 'spit' this out with little to back it up.

I know its more for some people, though



- Robert Andrew

Let me get this straight.

1) You give something away to get an email address.

2) Then you blindly try to sell to that person without knowing why they downloaded your freebie?

In a nutshell, that's spam marketing...ignore the subscriber's needs and send them whatever offer you happen to think of each day. And in those cases, that email address is worth absolutely zero because you end up in a spam folder and never thought of again.

Which brings me to the question- why give away a freebie if you're not going to try to build a relationship with your email list and learn about their specific needs? Why wouldn't you get to know your subscribers, learn about their needs, and split up your lists so that you're educating them on specific things they want to learn?

When you just send product offers because you captured that coveted email, you're saying that each subscriber is essentially a brain-dead zombie that will love your brand forever. And it just doesn't work like that in marketing....you know it yourself from how you handle your own in-boxes. If companies don't genuinely care about you and respect your privacy, then you're definitely not going to care about them or their sales offers.

Now, I'm sure there will be those who chime in and say that it's a numbers game where you can still squeeze out 1-2% conversions even when you do everything wrong and treat people like pond-scum. A reputable marketer can easily see 20-40% conversions, however, which means their average customer is worth twenty times more than the guy who spams his list without second thought of how he's making his brand look to consumers.

Hopefully that helps.

When you are starting out, you will end up with low value list. You should not invest money into building that, or at least minimum possible if you opt to build it using paid ads. But I would not waste time and money trying to convert them too hard. This is list you grow with forum ad sig, posting in FB groups oriented at work from home, etc.

Your REAL list is one you want to grow. In your case, that's one you move people to from first one, after they buy something. Person that bought something once, will buy something again. Whether its from you, that depends on your own marketing skills and how happy they are with whatever you sold them already, so I suggest only selling quality, not going for quick cash now by moving products that give you more in commission but that will end with people having buyers regret.

Anyway, that first list has next to no value for me at this point as I use better system to build buyers lists right away with my own products, but as thats whats making me solid cash right now I am not going to discuss it in detail. If you are starting out, go with two lists, freebie first, then buyers after they buy. If somebody has been on your list for a year and bought nothing, and you are paying for that list (ie, over free minimum at Mail Chimp or Mad Mimi) I'd remove them.

Thing about affiliates is that more than 99% are utterly useless. They either sign up to try to manipulate system into obtaining a discount for themselves through their own affiliate link, or sign up but cant sell a thing. I would not count on affiliates selling anything you have to offer when starting out. Later, when you have whole mailing list of bloggers who will affiliate for you, its a different story.

One good affiliate is worth lot more than all freebie lists you'll build throughout your career. So when you find those, keep them happy. Give them over 50% cut, scalable (ie. start at 25% for 1-10 sales a month, but give them something like 55% if they can sell 1000+ a month).

Justin, you started off by saying you were trying to focus on list-building. In that context, one subscriber isn't likely to be of much use.

If you're now thinking of a possible JV or mentor, you'd be better off concentrating on networking or approaching someone directly. You could be forever waiting for a suitable candidate to subscribe to your list.


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How would you know what my subscribers are worth to me? They are not anywhere near $5-$19 I claim? Well my data says otherwise...

Obviously $1 per subscriber per month is a great goal for most newbies to aim for but I was explaining some of the main differences that make a $1 per month subscriber become a $5+ per month subscriber.

Regarding what you said:

"And people like me will not find it worth to waste time trying to convert freebie seekers by giving constant value for nothing in hopes they eventually buy something."

Why are you trying to contest what I have said when so obviously you are new to list building...that quote above is one of the most obvious "signals" of a "newbie" I have seen on this forum.

It's not worth your time to try and convert freebie seekers and give away value in hopes they will buy something?

That's because you don't know how to put a correct and efficient system in place into your funnel that will almost convert freebie seekers into buyers with ease.

I immediately (as in right after someone opts in) convert 10% of the new optins into buyers. I double that after they go through the first month of relationship building.

It's the same thing Frank Kern, Ryan Diess, Eban Pagen, etc. do.

All in all best of luck to you.

I see this analogy quite a bit in marketing circles but it really is inaccurate. Unless of course you charge your date $7 to go for coffee with you, $47 for dinner $97 for a adult encounter. Which most don't.

If come from an old sales training of comparing the scatter gun approach of door to door salesman with a young man going into a nightclub and asking every girl the @#£% him. Ask enough people and someone will say yes. In that original context their is a lesson but expanding the metephor fails.

The whole sales funnel also disregards important items like market and positioning. Car dealers don't try and sell you a car smelly first. Now I'm not saying their isn't a place for these but I think its important to highlight that the people doing well with this tend to have big lists and lots of affiliates.

You'll see people just being scared of selling their core product and would rather sell a *******ised version for pennies. Its likely that they will sell more and make less.

With regard the op in financial terms you will likely loose money to begin with but if you start small and test having a few people on your list can allow you to work on the customer journey. Test each part and refine it so that you have an optimised system in place when you start to get more people on your list.