Giving in and building a list...

Probably the best decision you could have ever made ...

Just why didn't you do it earlier?

What exactly do you have on your amazon site? In simple terms, if visitors come to your site, and like what they see, then (good) chances are they would like to know more about it via newsletter

How a certain item can help them
Why it's beneficial
Maybe experiences you had with using a certain item
Comparisons
Etc

Use stories as well when you talk about the above.

Example

"Heck I bought a new blender from Amazon and my damn cat knocked it off of the counter and it broke! It's alright though, that blender was good that I didn't even hesitate to buy it again."

Better late then never..

One huge step in the right direction. Start by building a relationship with your subscribers, ask questions, let them know who you are.. give them same value and then when the time is right, send them offers where you can make some money from.

i would personally build a list with a specific squeeze page and focus on a particular niche and hammer it

You can still build a list from your amazon site but it will be slow unless you get a boat load of traffic to your site

Give them a buyers guide as you said with some tips and helpful information

You can then send them a new article and review 1 new product each week

You will make sales but i would rather sell my own products when it comes to list building, either that or choose specific products in niches with good payouts that are worth your time

you can offer them a review of the the products and then provide your link to it, or review several and offer them up in order of "best" to "worst"

I'm doing the exact same thing i never bothered building a list for ages and recently decided to try and build a list it is going slow but slowly building it up ran solo ad awhile back but to be honest they weren't much good most unsubscribed after getting there free stuff so I'm in the middle of creating new squeeze page and then start split testing it

This is a huge step in the right direction!

To build your email list - like mentioned above I would create a 1 page website (squeeze page) then offer a FREE gift to entice people to opt in.

Once they are on your email list, you then need to provide value to them. I have found the best way to go about doing this is look at forums and see what people are asking.

Once you know what your customers are wanting to know, then write a short article - or create a video with a response to the questions you keep reading. This way you know you are giving great value that your list will want.

Can't you just create an auto responder sequence with top sellers + broadcast for christmas, black monday etc ?

You want something more appealing. Yeah, an Amazon buyer's guide might work but your conversions won't be that high because, to me, it just seems boring. It isn't worth me giving up my name and email.

Perhaps if you do something more along the lines of, "Learn how I made $x,xxx on Amazon", and write a report on that, you'll have more opt-ins.

Just my two cents.

What do they need?

As mentioned above, if it's just some generic Amazon site with no real focus, then list building will be tough.

If you have a focused squeeze page like Paul said then there is some problem you are trying to help them solve. There is rarely only one fix for any problem and you can promote different things that might be what they are looking for.

I have a guitar lessons list. Obviously these people all want to learn or improve their guitar playing. There are many different products and services that might help them accomplish their goal.

Focus on one market and come up with clever, profitable (for you) ways to help them solve their problem and you will have no shortage of content to provide them.

A lot of my thoughts here are mentioned above but I think you need to focus on what type of Amazon site do you have? I have niche sites using Amazon and my list from those sites would be VERY different than my list I created with my Amazon FBA WSO earlier this year.

For niche lists, I would build a relationship and send them offers from time to time about whatever the niche is. In my case, electronics and jewelry.

If it were my FBA list, I would still build a relationship and send targeted Amazon offers to them. I did survey my list after I built it to find out what struggles they were having and have created new products and sent targeted offers based on that survey.

Hope that helps,

John

I push list building at every chance but, I could easily be wrong, Amazon doesn't seem like the best choice for one. If I am wanting something Amazon would have, I don't even use Google, just straight to Amazon.

While I could easily not be your target, I just don't think you could come up with anything interesting enough to keep me waiting on your next email.

For me, email marketing works best when I can build suspense. It would be hard to build suspense about the next great green widget without having to sell it in the same email. Nothing wrong with that but the next email will be a harder sell to get opened.

Especially since you sent me to a site that has all kinds of things that might interest me. Your first email may have gotten me there but I doubt I will need your help to find them again.

I don't work Amazon so I could be bad wrong.

Troy

For all those asking, and if it helps, its the amazon site in my sig.

Don't look at it as 'giving in!' Lists can be essential. Think about all of the people that were on the verge of buying, but weren't willing to make the purchase. Maybe they would sign up for the newsletter instead and give you the opportunity to build trust and eventually sell them on the product?

If you sell in ear headphones, send a monthly newsletter out about the newest in ear headphones that have been released, short reviews of them, and link to the longer reviews on the website.

It's tougher to build lists for niche product pages, but there is never a reason not to at least attempt it. If it works, its a valuable asset.

Don't give too much information, drive their curiosity to your opt-in page and collect their email.

OMG! you are thinking about listbuilding now.

1) My 1 regret with IM was not building a list. The best time to do this is YESTERDAY! Seriously do not think about it twice, it changed my life.

2) When you learn about your list, ASK THEM what they WANT and GIVE IT TO THEM, watch out!, you will soon never have to work a day in your life again! DOing this is that powerful.

3) Then when you learn and study more about list building you will realise having a list of 100 buyers on your list, is better than 10,000 freebie seekers. I mean comon seriously I have done this stuff several times over to know this.

4) When you look after you buyers and help them more, and more, and more, watch what they do when you say, hey awesome stuff here is $xxx product or $xxxxx product to help take your business to the next level.

Again its all to do with studying what works, understanding how you list reacts and also helping them. Watch what happens if you do this properly, you will be writing your warrior posts from teh back of your 50ft yaht. And when you buy your yaht please remember us, and come and post where you are going on your next voyage!

1. Make it entertaining and unique.
2. Address your subscribers like human beings.
3. Consider doing Q&A.

Dont do auto follow ups, they're impersonal and crap.

Send them an upsale!

New content, better material, and $

Just don't over do it.

Prepare a series of e-mails, and auto send it via auto responders timely.

There are a lot of topics you can write:

1.where to buy
2.what to buy
3.how to buy
4.when to buy
5.how to save money when you buy
6.recommend other related products
7.prepare some reviews of different products
etc.