ListBuilding: Is this a good idea or ?? Warrior's Input needed!

As long as you offer them something of high value in exchange of their email address, I think it is a good idea.

List-building should be your main goal/focus with your business. Anyone who's studied business for any length of time knows that it's much less expensive to make a second sale to an existing customer than it is to go out and try to convince a customer who's never heard of you and doesn't trust you to buy from you the first time. The first sale in generally the hardest one to make.

Please don't misunderstand: you should ALWAYS be trying to expand your customer base by getting new customers. And if you're just starting, you have no choice: you don't have any customers, so you have to go out and get some! But as you grow and expand, you'll be able to rely more on your existing customers instead of trying to get new ones.

Bribe them to opt into your list? Absolutely! This can be done very ethically and with class and style. In fact, you need to focus on giving something away -- of value! -- for free to get people to part with their contact information (name and e-mail address). You can do this by offering a free audio or report. This can be delivered electronically or you can offer to send them a hard copy of the report of audio on CD by mail.

This is done all the time. To get your past customers onto your list, you might want to offer them something extra special to get them to opt in. Send out an e-mail with your offer and see what happens.

Hope that helps!

Michelle

I think list building is the absolute BEST way to make sure that you will have a sustainable online income. I mean, think about it, (after you've built up a sizable list of buyers) what other marketing method can you just hit send and see hundreds, even thousands of dollars pour in?

Plus, I think the hardest part about having a list is getting them in, afterwards it's smooth sailing (I don't think they would opt in unless they liked you/cared about what you say or whatever.... especially if they just bought your product, that means they REALLY care about or like you/your product, enough to spend their hard-earned money).

Christian