How long did it take you to build your list?

by 2d0k

Posted: 14 years ago 10 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hello Warriors,

How long did it take you (on average) to build your list?

Say, for those who have more than 2,000 subscribers in their list. I say "on average" because we can't exactly determine the definite length of time to build a list.

I just want to get a clearer picture as a benchmark for my list building efforts.

What's your favorite strategy to build this list of yours?

#build #list #long

steveniam 14 years ago

The time taken to build your list will depend on the traffic and which in turn will depend on your marketing/promotion of the list.
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- 2d0k 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by steveniam
  
  The time taken to build your list will depend on the traffic and which in turn will depend on your marketing/promotion of the list.
  
  Yes, I know.
  
  But, what I was asking was the "average" time period in numeric value (no. of days or months) RELATIVE to the things that YOU did to build YOUR present list.
  
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Roy Carter 14 years ago

Well. you can build a list extremely fast (like 2,000 in a week or two) if you first take the time to consider where your market hangs out and then get in front of them.

My sig may help with possibly the very best method of doing that.

Hope it helps.
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paul wolfe 14 years ago

It also depends on what market you are in.

In my main market I add 50 subscribers a week on an average week. On a good week it's 65 or 70. So to get to 2000 subscribers took about 9 months.

But on other markets you'll definitely do it much faster. I read on Pat Flynn's Passive Income: The Smart Passive Income Blog somewhere that he gets 50 subscribers a day. I wouldn't fixate on the numbers - just focus on getting quality content out in front of your potential audience. Your list will start to grow.
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Gary King 14 years ago

Roy and Paul give good advice. - You have to get in front of your market and don't get focused on the numbers in general.

One thing that IS certain. Targeted will win every time.

Would you rather have a list of 10,000 that signed up for free makeup (cosmetics) when you're selling male muscle building products? I mean *maybe* - the free makeup (mostly) ladies may want to get it for their husband/boyfriend, but a list of 100 wanna-be body builders might get you better results.

So get in front of them (don't post body building stuff on a makeup forum).

When you do, *entice* them. Think of it like a seduction. Be honest, but you are absolutely looking to persuade them into something.

To keep the thread rating to P.G., that something in seduction is a nice dinner and a bottle of fine wine. In your case, you're wanting them to sign-up and confirm their email.

Put yourself in THEIR shoes - why would YOU give some person you've never met YOUR email address? There's where you get your ideas for the seduction.
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- JohnMcCabe 14 years ago
  
  I understand wanting a benchmark to measure yourself against, but the time it takes to reach a certain list size isn't the right one.
  
  I have had lists that never reached 2,000. I got lucky a couple of times and hit that in one day, although I haven't been able to repeat it since. So if I answered your original question straight up, the average time would be somewhere between one day and never.
  
  The numbers you want to look at are the value of a subscriber and the value of a visitor. I've seen $1.00/month/subscriber bandied around as a target value for subscriber value, but I can't verify it. It depends on your market and the responsiveness of your list.
  
  Let's say you have that list of 2,000 subscribers, and you send out an offer. You end up clearing $2,000. After that first promotion, you average value per subscriber is $1.00. If an average subscriber stays on your list for a year, and you run similar offers four times per year, then your lifetime value of a subscriber is $4.00.
  
  You can now spend up to $4 to get a new subscriber and still make money.
  
  Now we go to value of a visitor.
  
  Keeping the numbers simple, let's say you get 10% of your visitors to subscribe. If the value of a subscriber is $4 and it takes you 10 visitors to get that subscriber, the value of a visitor would be $0.40. You could pay up to 40 cents to get a visitor.
  
  Once you get your own baseline for that list, you can work on increasing the value of a subscriber and driving down the cost to acquire that subscriber.
  
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  jbsmith 14 years ago
  
  I know these all sound like cop-out responses, but they are correct!
  
  I have had lists that built to 2000 within a week, other lists have taken more than month to reach the 2000 mark.
  
  It does depend on focused traffic generation and having a hot incentive.
  
  Then comes the important part - making sure that you convert those subscribers into buying customers...most people fail miserably - they put all of their energy into building the list and then don't know what to do with the 99% of people that don't buy during their first few follow-ups.
  
  Concetrate on...
  
  1. Knowing your audience & what result they are trying to achieve
  2. Know how you wish to monetize that market (your own product, as an affiliate)
  3. Develop a strong incentive that targets the result your market wants to achieve and is DIRECTLY related to the end product(s) you want to sell them
  4. Work out a back-end follow-up sequence that hits all the important aspects of pre-selling (interest, curiousity, proof/credibility/, samples of paid product, some testimonials, show results, etc...) while asking for the sale.
  5. Continue to drip on your list for weeks and months to come
  6. Make sure you measure it all and get additional product ideas from your subscribers
  
  Jeff
  
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Dean Jackson 14 years ago

Thanks for that insight jb.

I would also like to say that you should be very creative. I have gotten a few hundred subscribers in other niches by way of sending as much traffic as possible to a squeeze page.

Things like really short reports with a compelling call to action at the end (no opt in, people are even hesitant to get things for free now, ftw?). Getting twitter blasts to thousands of people (very very cheap), placing up classifieds and in forum sigs.

After I had a few hundred subs it's easy to get partners to mail out for you in exchange. You can also pay a few hundred to get your offer blasted out to lists of 20k+.

It is important that you have something great to give away, as well as have a good autoresponder series too so you can funnel them into your website.

Hope this helps,

Dean
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~kev~ 14 years ago

My main site is a forum, so I look at it as building a community and not just a "list."

My site has been online for about 4 1/2 years. During that time I have gotten about 38,177 members. My monthly newsletter goes out to about 26,000 people - and it increases by about 1,000 every month.
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2d0k 14 years ago

I appreciate all your contributions to answer my query..

As of the moment, one of my squeeze pages gets an average of about 10 subscribers every week. There's a lot of work to be done I know, especially with the numbers that each of you gave. I haven't fully monetized it yet. I just give some free stuff every now and then (I do that to all my lists), hoping they'll get warmed-up for a big sales pitch.

Thanks to all..
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