How big is yours or does size not matter? ;)

The most important part of list building is actually getting people to open your emails and clicking the links and taking action

Having a big list will generally increase your chances of getting more opens and clicks but you still have to focus on making your list as responsive as you can

List building does take time but it`s the best way to spend most of your time building your business

Paul

I agree with Paul.

But for what's a "good size" list, I really can't say. On my newest project I have I think over 70 email opt-Ins. Just because you have a huge list doesn't mean they will be responsive, found that out the hard way.

My small list Is clicking all the links, opening all the emails, and Is even buying some products and I have already made my money back.

Not saying stay with a small list, always continue to grow It and don't stop. Quality matters, and that's the main thing with lists (IMO).

Just started my list, but have a 94% open rate (54 subscribers so far). So Im happy with that

Yup, I third to Paul... mailing list is like Facebook's likers and Twitter's followers... if they don't really interact with you, they're just numbers.

I have email list of 8,000 and Social Media Following of 150,000+ (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Google+ and Pinterest)

Want to build out email list more in 2013 and more Facebook LIKES for my several pages.
:-)

Minimum of 5K assuming average response, but the bigger the better.

Benjamin Ehinger

Quality > Quantity. I myself subscribe to several newsletters just to see what my competition is doing. Some of these guys has the mentality of Mass Email 24/7 and stuff like that only works when they have thousands of people. Sort of how the Nigerian scams work with them sending out millions of emails per day hoping to get that 1 person hooked.

If you value your product and your name Quality > Quantity.

Just for comparison, i used to be sales and marketing manager for a four-franchise dealership(Rover-MG/Nissan/Peugeot/Citroen) - i had names, addresses, of 50,000 prospects and customers. Turnover was GBP10million per year.

Nice title... Lol!

The answer is quite simple

Quality ALWAYS outshines Quantity. Even in War.

Well the answer is complicated in my opinion. It would depend on a few

variables to me. Such as, how invested into the business you are? If you're a

full time marketer I would say a list of a few hundred is moderate if the list is

a receptive and active one. If you have a receptive email list of a thousand or

more you're doing fantastic! That would be sufficient income to replace a 9 to 5

job.

Good luck

A great strategy is to look at your open rates of each individual email within your follow up and then see how many of your subscribers actually read your first email

It`s bizarre but it doesn`t matter how good your free offer is some just won`t open your first email

To get a good idea how responsive your list is, see how many of your subscribers are opening every email

And then also see how many people are opening each just each email not all of them

Doing this will give you a good idea where you`re at and you can quickly identify the subject lines which get a higher open rate etc

Paul

Definitely a believer in quality over size when it comes to email lists.

It makes me chuckle when guys mention their 250,000 subscriber list.

That's great. You are paying all that extra money to host those contacts and you are probably making the same money (if not less) than someone who has a tight and responsive 20,000 subscribers... and they pay a lot less to host that list.

Last time I checked, the one that I had setup just had one subscriber, me. Sad.

I like math instead.

(Size Of List * Converts Per E-Mail) = $X

Because this is multiplicative it doesn't really matter which part of the equation I change.

The real question is what is cost (time+money) required to increase either part of the equation? If it is more time/money efficient to increase the size of my list, then my time and money are better spent doing so. If taking 5 minutes and changing a font on an e-mail increases conversion by 30%, then that's probably a valuable use of time.

One key thing to think about is this though: Assuming your LTV of your customer - your cost per lead > $0, and you can passively increase your list, then it is very efficient to continue to increase your traffic (by throwing more money at your traffic method), even if all of it isn't quality traffic. Technically, you can even increase your list at a loss if you expect to make that loss back from a future offering.

As far as your other constraint ("in order to be monetarily worthwhile"), that's for you to decide. If $10/day ($300/month) comes in by you clicking the send button once a month, you might consider that good. Other folks would consider it a ridiculous waste of time since they have other e-mail lists that generate $10k per click.

I have an 8.5 inch list.

Awesome replies (and some funny ones!)...I know it was a very broad and open question but this helps me at least get some ideas.

Size is great and all, but I think the quality of the list is what matters. Who cares if you have 10,000 opt-ins if none of them ever buy? On the other hand you can have a list of 500, and if you are sending them info and ads/offers that are relevant to their interests, your odds of making money go up quite a bit.

5000 is the number I've heard; assuming it's a targeted, responsive list. I know size matters in that regard because I have a very targeted, but very small list. When I launched my first product last week I got 6 sign-ups. That, from promoting to my mailing list of just under 500, my fan page following of just under 1100 (via promoted posts) and a few tweets to my following there (around 600). Of all of these Twitter probably the least targeted, but even there the lion's share of followers are in my niche.

So based on my own experience with my first launch the money is in the list- if it's a big, targeted list. Jennifer also made a really great point about the niche itself and what part that plays in how big the list needs to be.

I have several lists in various niches my smallest being 2900 which also happens to be my most responsive.

Mine's in the 4 figures and I'm always constantly getting rid of non responsive people.

I highly recommend doing a weekly cleanup of non responsive people once you hit over 1000 subscribers.