building list question

Sorry ... ... I was alluding to the fact that a quantitative/speed-based approach to list-building typically results in ending up with a large but not-very-responsive list.

People who try to "opt in as many people as possible as quickly as possible" tend - in my opinion - to be the ones who end up with an open-rate of about 20%, sometimes telling themselves that "that's ok", not quite appreciating that if they'd started out differently, with a clear continuity-process in place (explained here), they wouldn't later be in the position of having put a lot of time/effort/energy/expense into building a list of the type that 80% of their own subscribers won't even open an email from them.

Time spent at the start understanding why and how lists work, and what their long-term objectives are, and on what sort of relationships the income derived from them is really based, and then starting to build them after taking all that into account and in accordance with it, really pay off enormously in long run.

I know that people very often stress the significance of "taking action", but in this list-building regard, I think that's often inappropriate. The reason I say that is that so much of the "action" I see people taking seems to me to be rather misguided and inappropriate, missing-the-point action. What matters more than "doing it quickly" is thinking it through at the start and setting off in the right direction.

Speed is the enemy of quality, and relevance, and direction.

If you need to travel from London to Paris, there's no point in setting off at top speed toward Edinburgh, however much more quickly you can leave London than the person heading South instead of North. You need to know first that Paris is due South of London, and being in a hurry to leave the train station makes it less likely for you to get on the right train. A clumsy analogy, perhaps, but you see what I mean?