Building 1M email list target

The title alone rings alarm-bells for me.

Of all the issues in internet marketing, list-building is perhaps the most classic example of quantitative approaches being "second-best" (and I'm putting it very tactfully, there).

Methods/plans that rest on "building a list of 'X' size" tend, overall, to be somewhat missing the point, in my view. the biggest lists, in reality, are almost never going to be the most income-producing lists, when you're sending them promotions - and of course there are many reasons for that.

Ok, I hear you ... nobody was born knowing how to do this stuff.

I'm just urging you not to start off with the idea that the objective is to build the biggest possible list. Not only is that untrue, but it can lead you dramatically astray in all kinds of other ways, some of them far more apparent and obvious than others.

How are you going to incentivize the opt-in?

A "sponsored offer" once a day?!

You've already decided that this is the correct mailing-frequency before starting, and before doing any testing at all? (My own guess, if you want one, is that that would be far from optimal for "sponsored offers". I might be wrong, of course, and so might anyone else - which is why you need to test, and not decide before you start!).

I make my living by email marketing, and that isn't what I need. I need it to be something responsive, not something big.

It's all about quality.

No way of knowing at the outset, and it depends what you do and how you do it. But I'm concerned for you that as your plans stand now, you may be looking at a desperately low figure.

Absolutely no criticism intended, needless to say, but I really think it may help you to "assume less and test more".

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hi Alexa

Thanks for deep input on this.

I understand the testing part. I just wrote what i had in mind to get started. Ofcourse i want to optimize the list as much as possible and even planning to send them email on time when particular subscriber checks their mail usually ( i will write some program for that). and keep logging their interest level as well.

When i say 1 Million... That is a target.. I am actually planning bigger. However it does not mean I want to start with 1000s a day. I am ok to test 100 or few 100s.. and check their behaviour and optimize email frequency.

Incentive for signup: I thought "A Daily Joke" was an incentive.. however i can find out some giveaway or something.
Big: When i talk about Big, it is actually about Money..

So I want my "Quality" list to grow by exponential level while starting slow.. While writing this, i am planning to hire somebody who will just keep optimize list so we get MOST of them and subscribers should be happy with us.

I just need to start somewhere and have some projections in mind.

Regards
AB

First off it's a great idea to start big, the only problem I see with aiming that high is that you might get bored when you don't see conversions in the first few months.

When I first started email marketing I was lucky to get 10 sign ups a day and even after a few years I still only get around 200/300 per day with good quality sign ups. (In my niche)


Personally I would be focusing more on content and getting a site with good, high quality jokes that bring people in and then on the back of that you can start building a mail list.

Also you have to know what you're going to sell "Insurance/ Health/ Home Improvement/ Education"
it might be hard to get a good conversion rate.

If you're looking to make money then it's always better to be in a niche and sell stuff that's niche related: Joke books, top 10 comedy movies on amazon, How to bring out your inner comedian. Things like that. (just my opinion.)

Tips:

- Give a free ebook or product away with sign up.

- Split test with multiple landing pages.

- Use Facebook advertising to get traffic to you squeeze page (loads of great tutorials online)

- Join you competitions mail list and see what their doing.

- Give people a reason to forward to friends.

- Be 2x better than the competition and work on improving every day by trying new things.

- It wouldn't hurt to start small and just give it ago right now, there's no need to employ people to do a job that you can do, I've employed loads of people online and in honesty with something like this you're better off doing it yourself and just test loads like Alexa said.

I am able to think about BIG list only because .. Most of people love joke. and a small joke in email every morning will not hurt. Idea is to engage them daily and clearly let them know that we make money with sponsored offer which probably will be triggered only when joke is read.

As i want to plan best possible to start with.. i still have questions before starting

1. As i will be investing $$$$ into this, along with efforts and time, i should have a projection of ROI.
2. My idea of ROI is $1 per month per subscriber. If we get 2 clicks ( on ppc offers) from every subscriber every month, i think thats achievable.
3. I dont want to sell anything on my own. I want to make it for affiliate business only.
4. what about sales funnel, what kind of offers i should have in sales funnel.
5. How much budget i should have per subscriber for such niche.
6. I want to build a company on this. I can start other ezines like " business Quotes" , Astro, Yoga, Health, finance ... LATER. Probably 10s of millions of data to collect while reinvesting into acquiring subscribers.

7. This is possible only if lists keep giving some kind of ROI.
8. I understand, doing it will teach me more. BUT starting it right way will be better start.
9. IS IT DOABLE?
10. Anything i am skipping here.
11. Where can i get more help.

Regards
AB

$5k-10k won't get you even close to 1M subs.

I agree with the post above I wouldn't optin for a daily joke and I'm sure as hell I wouldn't stay around (unsubscribe) if I was getting blasted random offers every day as well.

Your list even if targeted subscribers, you won't even see great results with this because you are blasting random offers like you said above.

You should be promoting offers like:

If you have people optin to your list to learn how to market on FB then you should be promoting offers that are related to FB etc.

You are doing the opposite.

I think that you should start by studying what your financial goal is. What is so important about getting 1M emails?

Also, how much money are you expecting to make per customer, per email, per 1000 emails? You can't decide on how much to pay per email unless you know how much you can earn per email first. Otherwise you will not make a profit.

Figure out your profit first.