Build a forum or collect emails ? Which is more effective?

So a Vbulletin forum or Email marketing ? Any help plz?

They're both effective.

There are people who'll join a forum and provide their email address in the process, who would never opt-in through a squeeze page (or other type of opt-in page), and there are people who'll sign up on an opt-in page who don't like joining forums.

Each can attract some people whom the other would miss.

There are also people who'll do both.

I have a forum, in one of my niches, and find the membership-list a highly valuable form of email marketing.

Sending out email through the forum admin functions is essentially a form of "broadcasts": I don't think you can do "autoresponder series emails" that way, without people opting in separately for that (not without using self-hosted sutoresponder software, anyway), so unless you do a lot of fiddling about "by hand", you're effectively limited to sending emails which all members receive on the same day. It can still be very worthwhile, but in general, you need to handle it differently from what you'd normally do, for email marketing.

You could do it either way, but the most hassle free way would be to just send traffic to your capture page by giving away something of value in exchange for the subscriber giving you their email information. I would assume a forum is a bit more tedious. I could be wrong though.

Personally, I would build a email list first.

Anyone can start a forum, but it takes allot of time and effort to get it rolling in the beginning so people will be engaged.

Because once you get those people on your list then it will be much easier for you to send out a email and say "Check out my forum".

That will help give the forum the jumpstart it needs to keep it active.

Here's an idea: Give away a free training program with a nutrition plan, and the nutrition plan requires supplements. This way you can immediately start making sales.

In order for people to sign up you'll need to test different positions of your opt in form. You want it to be prominent but not overdo so it becomes a distraction.

Email list building every day of the week... Even if you start a forum too.

Never leave the list building part out of it

Why don't you do both of them???

Sending traffic first to your opt-in page and then you provides your subscribers with forum. Only your subscribers can joins.. I guess it can be very powerful plus you'll give a much values for them. They then can interact with you and your other subscribers..

If building a forum seems a lot works for you, you can simply change it to facebook/skype group..

I have 7 years old scForum... believe me, it's very hard with forum, so my advice is to you try on the other way.

Hi, good question.
There are big advantages for both:
- Email Marketing; Getting someone to sign up to your mailing list is the ultimate sign of trust. It shows they are interested in your work and are willing to receive information from you. DON'T miss use this trust, only send them informative emails and DON'T spam them. However, its a great way to encourage return visits to your website.
- Forum; Adding a forum to your website is a great and easy way to massively increase content creation on your site, it will be more or less on autopilot. We all know that Google loves content creation! In the long run, this will improve your standing in Google.
Also, if you keep receiving emails from people which include the same old questions, post the question answer once in the forum, and direct people to that answer. This will save you hours in the long run.
So all in all I would say, do both
BUT, I would start with the email list, and then, and only then, when you have a big enough list, add a forum to your site.
Hope this helps

If you have a forum your already collecting emails so the question doesn't make much sense.

Your #1 goal should always be to build your email list if you are marketing online.

If anything why not build a forum in order to build your list ?

Even if you did that the actual process of building a forum can be challenging and very time consuming.

If I was you I would instead participate in popular forums relevant to your niche, and focus on helping others out.

In turn you save time and headaches of actually building a forum, and you build your list!