What do you consider to be big lists?

Strangely the famous saying applies here... It's not the size, its how you use it. You could have 1000 subscribers and they could be insanely loyal to you, trust you, respect you and foam at the mouth at every word you speak. They could be really responsive and buy anything you sell them. On the other hand you could have a 100000 list where most of them couldn't care who you are, don't open your emails and just skip over them.

It's not the size, its the relationship which matters. I will take 1000 subscribers who trust me, respect me and are excited to get emails from me over a 100,000 list which isn't responsive.

Pretty much what Butters said.

But I would add that it really depends on the niche that you're in. Let's assume that you have a pretty responsive list... It's not too difficult to build up your list to 10k+ in the make money online niche. But if you have a list size anywhere that size in something like selling marketing advice to a group like a chiropractors, then you're doing really well. So it's all relative to the niche that you're in a lot of the times.

A big list is one that makes lots of money. Could be 1,000 subs or 500,000 subs.

But, that retort aside, if I'm to play ball with your question, I consider 100,000 subs a big list. And no, I don't have a 100,000 sub list ... not anywhere close.

why would you want to sell solo emails or advertising. Suppose you do want to sell solo ads and you only want to send out 3 solo ads a month.

If you get $75 per ad, that would only be $150 a month. but if you promote your own product and an affiliate product to your list and you only made $15 per sale, it would only take 10 sales from one mailing to equal that $150 dollars you would make for the whole month.

Selling advertising will really limit what you can make with your list.

The next day you could send the same email with a different subject line and make another 10 sales. Now you have doubled your income with just 2 mailings instead of the 3 you would have done selling solo ads.

It is my belief that any mailings sent should be sent at least 3 times with different subject lines to make sure every one on your list gets a chance to read your email message.

With filters and mass deletions if is a challenge to get your messages through. I have found that the 2nd and 3rd mailing produce more income that just the first mailing.

I have several autoresponders with over 100,000 people on them. The secret is to not build just one list. I have over 200 different lists. You must build multiple highly targeted lists.

So it is not the size of the list, it is the quality of the list. I have a small list that makes more money for me than most of my big lists. That list has a little over 325 members. But when I mail to that list, almost everyone buys.

That is because those people have signed up to get new products with some kind of resell rights, and when I get one done I tell them about it. That is a list that is pre-sold because it is highly targeted.

I hope this has been helpful,
Steve Yakim

The list size is secondary to the trust built and profit made from my lists.

What good is 5000 subscribers if the fundamentals are not in place.

I make a reasonable income with 3 smaller lists ranging from 800 to 2600. Each list knows who I am, what I offer and how I can help them.