Do you REALLY need an email list?

11 years ago

I don't think it should be a debate of "an email list or a better website"...both are important and central to Internet Marketers. Like you have said one can do with an email list and without a website and still make money and vice versa, so ultimately its for everyone to choose what they are comfortable working with.

Think of email list and website like tools in a toolbox alongside many other tools - naturally some tools will be used more than others, depending on the person using the tools, the purpose and so on.

Some people will never own websites and would prefer running their businesses using email lists forever, that's just them. Others like you don't need email lists and you have accomplished everything with your website, again that's just you.

I think its a good thing that people can get to pick and use whatever tools they want whichever way suits them so long as they get the results they want. After all it should be about the results, not the tools.

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TerryX

11 years ago

Agree I see is as more of a piece then the only way to reach my audience.

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Jerry Higgins

11 years ago

Both philosophies seem to work depending on how you like to run your business. I would be concerned about traffic drying up to a site that is dependent on organic search results due to circumstances beyond my control.

With a list, especially a buyers list, you have the very best traffic source that will never dry up.... as long as you have built a solid relationship with your subscribers, just as you are now doing with your website visitors.

Why not have both methods working for you?

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blackli0n

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Jerry Higgins

Both philosophies seem to work depending on how you like to run your business. I would be concerned about traffic drying up to a site that is dependent on organic search results due to circumstances beyond my control.

With a list, especially a buyers list, you have the very best traffic source that will never dry up.... as long as you have built a solid relationship with your subscribers, just as you are now doing with your website visitors.

Why not have both methods working for you?

I have both methods working for me right now but the organic traffic blows away the newsletter list. I guess my point is to tell everyone to go for organic traffic because it's so much more effective than the newsletter lists alone.

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tpw

11 years ago

Originally Posted by blackli0n

I have both methods working for me right now but the organic traffic blows away the newsletter list. I guess my point is to tell everyone to go for organic traffic because it's so much more effective than the newsletter lists alone.

I have made good money with both.

The list allows you to keep getting sales, even when Google turns on you.

And, most of us have had Google turn on us at some point, at a certain level.

The list generally delivers consistent earnings, and Google is like a yo-yo that has higher highs than a list and lower lows than a list.

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sweepnet 11 years ago

Seems to me it is also a matter of time. Most of us, especially starting out, cant get a bunch of traffic to a site right away, but can build a list quickly.
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- An Al 11 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by sweepnet
  
  Seems to me it is also a matter of time. Most of us, especially starting out, cant get a bunch of traffic to a site right away, but can build a list quickly.
  
  Umm...how are you gonna quickly build a list without traffic?
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  Devilfish168 11 years ago
  
  sometime I also confuse about email list:confused:
  
  for me I do received a lot from other marketer ...
  
  most of the time in fact 100 percent I don't even bother to see
  just see the header you will know is from other marketer
  
  some will claim ..your paypal payment approve to "force" you open up your mail and see
  
  Thanks
  
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garyt

11 years ago

If you have a really useful site with lots of traffic, then you can make it even better with an email list, no doubt about that. There will always be a % of people who don't visit so often so you have to reach out to them.

Even Facebook sends notification emails to draw traffic back to their site.

Of course, if you are already raking it in, then maybe you can do away with an email list but not everyone is so good.

Actually, the most important thing is you must have access to people, be it an email list, a FB page with likes or better still, if you know many people with big lists, then you are made

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ViralMediaBoost

11 years ago

Yea I agree. It's actually worked for me & my business alot. I now have over 120K contacts alone. I think it's very important. It help's you build a clientele. Your own network. An it's targeted.

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xohaibx

11 years ago

Whether or not you need an email list totally depends on the niche you're targeting and at the same time the kind of goals you have with your website. For example, if your site is about reviewing software products, you may very well stick to getting as much organic traffic to it as possible.

On the other hand, if your website is a blog where you regularly post updates in the form of good content, then you should probably own a newsletter so that you can convert more of your new readers into regular ones, and also promote relevant products to them.

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Moneymaker2012

11 years ago

Building a list and an attractive Site with keyword targeting name is always important and recommended.

What's BETTER than the email list is to build an amazing website (usually something to do with passion) that is essential to people's lives. Something that they will check EVERY SINGLE DAY,

People check their horroscope daily, but this isn't enough, you need more than that.

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Lokahi

11 years ago

If you have a good site with content people want to see, they will go out of their way to bookmark your site and check back regularly and you won't have to chase them down.

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Alexa Smith

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by Lokahi

If you have a good site with content people want to see, they will go out of their way to bookmark your site and check back regularly and you won't have to chase them down.

Some of my competitors seem to think so, anyway - I just wish they all did.

For the most part, this isn't true, of course. The simple, prosaic reality is that if you don't build a list yourself, you'll just lose most of the potential business to another marketer who does. (But hey, that might well be me, so carry on, if you like!).

Like almost all successful affiliate marketers, the majority of my income comes from three main sources ...

(i) Building credibility and trust-based relationships with people so that they come to rely on the strength of the recommendations I make, and buy products through my links rather than through those on the websites of all the other places they've also (like most prospective customers) visited;

(ii) Keeping traffic returning to sales pages (because very, very few people buy anything much at their first visit to a sales page);

(iii) Regularly making further sales - typically at increasing prices - to the same audience of people who continually trust my recommendations and are gradually more willing to buy more expensive things because I'm the person who's recommending them.

It's all about credibility and trust.

I need to do all three of those things to make a living. Without list-building, I can't do any of them.

That's a big part of the reason why there are a few hundred threads in this forum with titles similar to "What's The One Thing You'd Do Differently If You Were Starting Again Tomorrow?". Take a look through a small sample of them, and you'll find that one of the things they all have in common is that they're full of replies from long-established, successful Warriors almost all of whom give the same answer: the thing they'd do differently, with what they know now but didn't know when they started, is "start to build a list on day 1". There are reasons for that, and they're very good and very valid reasons.

Yes, there are also one or two people here who claim to be making a living through affiliate marketing without list-building (I think literally one, or maybe two), but when I look carefully at their other posts, and what they're promoting here, it always appears to me, skepchick that I am, that they might be making their livings mostly from selling "information" to beginning marketers rather than from affiliate marketing themselves.

Of course, I'm not for a moment suggesting that affiliate marketing is the only way to make money online, and I'm not for a moment denying that there are ways of making money online without list-building, but if anyone wants to see what a whole group of successful affiliate marketers (and plenty of product vendors, too) have to say on this subject, these threads will surely help ...