Am I the Only Warrior That Doesn't Necessarily Make More Money From Building a List?

Hello,

You've heard it all before...

Build a List
Money is in the List
Money is in the Relationship with the List
Money is in the Value with the List

and the list goes on and on...

However, is list building as sexy as everyone thinks?

Has anyone ever actually tested it?

I have tested it and the results vary. If you are selling a high ticket item obviously the person buying is going to need more than just 1 contact to buy. In this situation it's smart to build a list.

However, it most of the niches I've ever entered I made less money by actually using a squeeze page.

100 people come to your site
40 of them sign up
Out of those 40 we'll say 50% open your first e-mail
And out of the 20 that open your e-mail 50% click on the link inside
So you have 10 people going to your sales page. (of course these 10 will get to see your sales page over and over again. That is if they like the e-mails you're sending.)

Whereas, sending them directly to the salespage all 100 people get to see your offer.

I'll state right now that my conversion rate with sending them to a squeeze page has usually been higher on my products. But, when only 40 out of the original 100 people even have a chance to buy your offer I've actually made less money.

So out of the 40 maybe I convert 4% to buyers... (1.6 buyers)
But out of the 100 I convert 3% to buyers so I still make more money. (3 buyers. Even if it's a 2% conversion that still gives you 2 buyers versus 1.6 buyers.)

**The above is a hypothetical example. You may actually convert 10% of your list to buyers but you may also actually convert 7% of the people coming to your sales page.

Now this isn't to say that I don't build a list at all. I do build a list but I take the...

Perry Belcher approach!

I build a buyer's list. I send people directly to the sales page and collect all off the e-mail addresses from the people that have purchased.

This way I still have the opportunity to make money and get different offers in front of them. So I am still building the relationship with a list but it isn't a freebie seeker list, it's a buyers list.

There are a few downsides to this approach.

You have to sell a cheap report and not a $97 product. Buying $7 to $20 reports is a no-brainer to a lot of people whereas a more expensive product will definitely make them think twice.

You also have to have decent copy. (otherwise building a relationship through e-mail might be better)

But also realize that building an e-mail list also requires you to have decent copy.

1. You have to have the sqeeze page to get people to join your list.
2. You have to have the email subject lines to get people to open.
3. You have to have interesting body copy to get them to read the email.
4. You have to make it interesting enough to get them to click the link inside.


Anyway, I'd like to hear your opinions on this. Am I the only one that makes more money without building a (freebie seeker) list?