Is the $ in the list? If so how to build on a zero budget?

It is possible to make that kind of money with a good list.

Sir, blog weekly and/or publish a video related to your niche. These can be done with little to no resources. REALLY provide value and educate, and over time you will gain subscribers via the URL you leave in your video description.

The sky is the limit with your blog. You can have forms in your blog's sidebar, above each one of your posts, etc. Try not to lock yourself into a box...be creative.

You seem to be very knowledgeable in this industry - so teach us what you know. Let it flow, be natural, but post content (about what you know) consistently. Don't be a robot, focusing too much on keyword placement. Just use common sense with this being careful to NOT interrupt the viewer's flow of reading.

If you've been a part of your fitness niche long enough you will know the questions people typically ask....so provide the answers. Of course, feel free to conduct keyword research but it boils down to making it readable and valuable.

Often times when you over analyze this facet of online marketing, you will find yourself left paralyzed. Just do it.

The money still IS in the list. Try to get into an argument and deny that with a marketing figure with some of the world's largest companies.

I don't understand why most still question the importance of a targeted (interested) list. After all, having many people to communicate with that know you already will come in handy.

Hardly anyone pulls out a form of payment right away anyhow. You should expect the early steps first before you see sales.

THEY STILL USE LISTS.

Not only do many of them use TV/Radio advertising, they still find a way to end up in your mailbox or inbox. Yes...even fast food companies.

Don't panic as your list is still relatively small - and there is nothing wrong with that.

EVERYTHING is wrong with quitting (or being discouraged) when your timing is off. Keep building that thing. Before you know it that list of 200 subscribers interested in fitness will become a list of 2,000.

Keep educating them. Show them that you are human. Don't over-formalize. Ultimately this will be a game of numbers, probability, and percentages.

But you have to build yourself a list large enough for those percentages to play heavily in your favor.

Relax, though. You're in boiling hot niche.

If you were mailing to me every single day, we'd part ways after day 3.

Cheers - Frank

Unfortunately, there's you and a few million just like you all peddling the same - whatever you want to call it. It's obvious that you are only in it to make money and because of that, you probably never will.

How long before you acknowledge that and do something that might bring you even a modicum of success? Something that is rooted in you?

Good luck.

Cheers. - Frank

Although I can't claim to have found amazing success with email lists yet (I'm still pretty new) I've heard of a lot of people setting up automatic follow-up emails on services like Aweber. That way they only write most emails once, and new subscribers are taken care of on autopilot.

Also for building your list, I've been having some reasonably good success with a tool called SumoMe. It's a little widget that you add to your site via some Javascript, and it allows you to include things like pop-ups etc with an email subscription form in them. If you use WordPress, there's a nice plugin for it. Plus it's free

SumoMe also allows you to add social media sharing buttons to your site, which is nice.

Best of luck with growing your list!

The money is in the list, but the money is also in Google searches, the money is in Twitter followers, the money is in Facebook groups, the money is in natural links, the money is in this, the money is in that.

List building on a $0 budget is going to be more difficult than the other traffic generation methods though. With Twitter you've got people searching and retweeting, Facebook group members will share things to their friends and they in turn join the group, your blog content can go viral to other blogs and so on. But with your list there is none of that. You bear the entire weight of email capture.

IMHO here in 2015 you build traffic up using some combination of paid ads, SE and social media and then convince them to join your list to receive a little more meat (with the blunt of your content remaining off the list). If you don't have any of that and you want to build a list, you are pretty much screwed. I know that goes against the grain of the forum, but I'm not here trying to sell you anything.

I agree with Kevin 100%. Don't let yourself become paralyzed, and don't be "addicted to the outcome"... you want to become addicted to the process. Don't let yourself focus too much on the results for now, just become an action taker.

I have been doing daily blogs and videos for 6 months now and just from those sources alone, I am averaging 2 leads per day. Some days it's zero, and then I might get 6 in one day... but it averages out to about 2 per day.

Getting traction in the beginning is the hardest part especially when you're operating on a low budget. Just decide that you're going to take the actions UNTIL you have the results (and it sounds to me like you have made that decision already).

Focus on being a real person, and providing content and education relevant to what you're selling. Ultimately, you want to become the trusted source in your prospects eyes, which will lead to them trusting your recommendations so that they will buy what you're selling.

Kevin made a great point... I have found that my funnel converts to sales at about 2%... not a huge number, but over time when you get enough leads coming through your funnels, it can add up to a lot, and the percentages will start to work heavily in your favor.

After you've gained traction initially, then it's time to start scaling fast. Learn one paid traffic source (solo ads, PPC, PPV etc...). At this point you will be able to leverage money to build exponentially faster.

But the free methods absolutely work. Get some great content out there via videos or blogs, include strong call to actions, and be consistent.

In my opinion (and others can feel free to disagree), video marketing is one of the most powerful. Creating valuable videos is a great way to get people to know you.

I have spoken with some of my leads on the phone and they've told me that they feel like they know me already, just from seeing my videos. I think social media sites can be powerful too, but I haven't done a lot of testing there yet.

Personally, my list is bringing in an average of just under a dollar per lead per month. I know there are people who do a lot better, and there are some who do a lot worse. I'll need to work on my consistency as far as mailing out goes

But yes, that is apparently the industry standard.

Create a lead magnet (offer something for free).

I created a free wso and uploaded it to warriorplus without any kind of promotion and in two days I already have like 15 subscribers.

I did it just fir testing the waters and it turned out great.

Then, set up your sales funnel. That is the backbone of your business.

Great point John... the $1 per month thing is not a "set in stone" number. Some people make more and some make less, and some none.

The money is in the relationship with the list... not in the raw number of subs. Size matters, but only if you know how to monetize and bring incredible value to your readers.

If you are only starting with a very low budget, I suggest launching a product.
Yes, it is time consuming and you'll have to find JVs to work with, but it is abgreat way to build a big and responsive list very fast.

Also, the only upfront costs happen to be a domain name, hosting and graphics to be designed.
Hope this helps

List increase convertions.

So basically you have to do 2 things:

- Get traffic: learn very well PPC (AdWords, Facebook and then Bing), use social networks.

- Optimize your funnel: improves your sales letters

How to build a list on a zero $ budget? Go and find money to fund your internet business. Get a job for initial consistency. All of the sales that you make from your website, re-invest back into your business.

If you get a job, and the amount of money that they give you is enough to pay your rent, buy food for the house, and still give you good advertising money..... while STILL having "play money" left over.... then your budget problem will be on a course to being fixed.

Bad list full of spammed members = $0 profits

Even a small list of good subscribers that have been offered value, and educated = $ Unlimited.

Even the gurus, keep scratching their head to see why their list of 200,000 members is not doing well.

Basically they scam, and spam them.

But if they reaslised, that you educate first, and add value, and then sell to them down the track this can make you a wealthy man / women. :-) Plus the opportunites are pretty much endless.

Money surely is in the list, but to build a quality list that is responsive and opens your mail and clicks through is kinda challenging, you can try creating content article/videos and try to mass-distribute it.

If I were you, I'd split test the SNOT out of your list

Also, you might want to TIGHTEN your squeeze page to ensure that only people interest in the INFORMATION your list sends are on it ... get rid of freebie seekers.

You aren't going to be able to build a good list without some expense. I've heard that all the free list building tools have very big drawbacks, such as filling your emails with their advertisements.