Pains of no list...

It's funny - I see all the time people coming here and proclaiming how building a list is the holy grail of IM.

I generally don't bother. Never really have done. Sure I have lists, but I don't like sending a lot of emails because I hate the amount I receive.

So - I have adopted the less popular strategy of building a massive network of sites that generate traffic on tap for me so that I never need to spend time writing emails to a list.

My network is diverse enough that it's almost impossible for any generic changes to kill it and turn of my traffic tap, so I still don't really focus much on building a list.

Maybe I should - but it's definitely NOT essential like everyone makes out. It's just a popular model that I certainly wouldn't disagree with the value of, but just not as important as some people make out.

Andy

This is absolutely true. PREACH IT.
I've seen it time and time again through personal experience: Sending an email = making $$

The thing about building lists and sending emails is that is is time consuming especially if you don't want to use automated tools. Personally i don't like sending emails because the ones i receive, i usually don't read them i just delete.

While I agree with you that a list is important, I think that your hypothosis is completely wrong.

I wouldn't say that the reason they lost 95% of their business was because they didn't have a list, the reason that they lost 95% of their business was because they were relying on just Google for traffic.

if they had banner ads out there on blogs, and forums, and other sites related to their site then Google can change it's algorithm all it likes but they will still be getting traffic from these other sites.

or if they had access to a network of friends who had their own lists, and they were doing JV's with those friends, again Google can change their algorigthm but the person can still get traffic through those JV's.

My point is if you just rely on Google for your traffic, then yes when they make a change to their algorithm it can have a very dramatic effect on your business.

if you have a variety of traffic sources along with Google then you won't be as affected as much.

The other thing that you weren't talking about is what was this business doing wrong or that Google didn't like that caused it to drop so drastically from it's original rankings?

It's easy to blame the big bad "Google" but alot of times it's the site owner's who are doing this to themselves by trying to "game the system"

And you have to ask yourself, if they weren't trying to "game the system" would they have been affected at all or as much by Google's algorithm changes?

Just some thoughts

if we had no list to send our offers to our 7 figure company would not exist. having a list and sending the right offer (valuable offers) to the list can make serious $

I still fail to understand why there is such hype abound building your list. Yes, yes I understand that you absolutely need to have it if you're serious about IM, yet, the majority of the sales I made was because of my marketing strategies, and all the people are making me sales at the start, i barely have anyone buying anything or signing up after a period of time.

I don't know, maybe I'm not doing it right. Building list IS important, it's just not a holy grail to me.

I agree with list building. I think it is a very important tool when handled properly. Value is key here. If you are always bombarding your list with junk, just trying to sell, then your list will not be valuable to you, however, if you nurture your list and provide constant value to them, then you may have loyal followers.

List building is the lifeblood of not only online marketers, but ANY business in general.

Good post. I made the same mistake when I started out. I actually built a list but I didn't bother using it and it went stale. All part of the learning curve.

Good copywriting Marcus.