What's the "lifespan" of newbies in the IM niche?

I don't know the answer to this question. I don't think anybody does. But I've done studies on the average retention rate for membership sites and it's about 90 days. Most people will quit after that time, on average. Very few people join a membership site and stay with it long term. Of course a lot of that has to do with the fact that many membership sites don't provide enough value to keep a person long term because they can only crank out so much content month after month.

That's why membership sites that provide a service, like autoresponders, typically do better. If you quit, you lose your service. I've been a member of Aweber for at least 8 years now.

If I had to guess, I'd say most newbies last about 6 months to a year before giving up. But I also think there is a big portion that goes on for several years drifting from one thing to another hoping to hit that big score.

But like I said, I don't think anybody knows the real numbers. It's all just guesswork. Kind of like the "97% of all marketers fail" statistic. I doubt that's any more accurate than today's prediction of what tomorrow's mega millions lottery number will be.

It certainly seems like their is a high turnover rate for newbies in the IM niche. I think is because there is way too many different aspects, or ways they can go. Everywhere you look you have someone touting the next big thing. Or you will see someone talking about how they finally start making money. It might be solo ads, SEO, blogging, PPC, list building, article syndication, social media, etc.

Then you have all the different softwares that are recommend. Next thing you know the newbie has spent a couple hundred bucks and hasn't made any money. The other end of the spectrum is the newbie that tries to do everything without spending money, then when they don't have any traffic or sales they become frustrated and give up. It's certainly not an easy field for someone to get started as it becomes overwhelming very quickly.

Thanks guys, your replies gave me more things to thing about.

I think that there is a natural attrition that takes place, the newbies that have the right qualities of endurance, desire for success and a realistic outlook will go on to build a working business - but it is only about 3-5% of them. most come with big ideas, but all too often think there is some mysterious secret to be unfolded and the inner sanctum will be revealed to them - these go on to join the black hat forums,because they get bitter and just want some way to 'hack' their way out...no helping those ones.
It is like any business or skill area, once people understand there is work to be done, dedication, they lose interest.

I think you have it just right, Steve.

I consider myself to still be a "newbie", but when you look at the date I joined the Warrior Forum you may question this statement.

The fact is, I have made some income from IM in those years, but not enough to say I know enough to class myself as anything other than a "newbie" .. I am learning all the time, I have been burned by fellow warriors on more than one occasion and I have jumped from one shiny object to another, always in the hope that this is the one to help me break out of the newbie mold.

I am a firm believer in the fact that you can make a life changing income ....and for me, that is not thousands of dollars a month, but a mere hundreds of dollars... this is what keeps me going. Sooner or later, the penny will drop and I will see a clear way forward and head off in the right direction.

I have learned to trust a number of marketers in those years and remain faithful to their lists ..If their content is worthy and offers me good advice, I will sometimes buy through their links I also follow a number of warriors like Steven Wagenheim, because they always seem to be honest and upfront with their advice.

In my opinion, if you can build trust with your subscribers and offer good value, they will never unsubscribe. Do this and they will never be numb to your emails arriving in their inbox.

My best guess would be that the 80/20 rule applies as with so many other things. Only about 20% will most likely stick around long enough to make ANY money and of that 20% only about 20% will be able to make a living from it.

I saw some stats from clickbank two or three years ago saying that only 20% of their affiliates ever made a sale and that only 5% of those made enough money to make a living from (if I recall correctly).

Yeah i think it's about correct that most people who start internet marketing will quit because they don't see the results they had in mind fast enough.

That's why when building a list it's important to get new subscribers to your list on a constant basis. People will unsubscribe no matter what, even if you broadcast the ost valuable content as possible, only few will actually take action.

So all you can do is keep offering value and you'll be building a following of people that remain focused and listen to what you have to say.

So if you add 100 people to your list, and according to your theory only 10 remain focused, a year from now you'll have 3650 highly targeted subscribers.

So just keep focused and keep building your list.

Another factor to consider is that people dip in and out of IM. If it never becomes full time or you don't see the return you want it's easy to leave it for a while. People don't just have shiny object syndrome when it comes to WSO's; they have it in their life in general, so if IM doesn't work immediately or it's too tough they move on to the next lot of "easy money". Often people return to IM though; "it'll definitely work this time..."

i do not know . Probably i hard it is 6 moths.
lots of things are happened in that six month.

The lifespan of your subscribers depend solely on how well you deliver the quality that you claim you can. If you are in this niche just for th money then you are better off quitting.

From experience, i know that it takes within 3 months for the excitement of getting into internet marketing to subside due to challenges

First, they buy a spiffy domain name. Then, they create a smashing web site with many pages. After that, they become an affiliate for amazon. During this time they will buy many seven dollar reports full of promise. Most slowly realize they will not earn any money. Well, every month they do get a few click on sad sense. Basically, they make pennies. The great majority last about a year on average.

This really depends on what type of subscribers you are attracting. If you're bringing tons of newbies onto your list then your upfront profits might be higher, but as you said newbies have a high propensity to give up, which makes your list less quality than say people who are more seasoned and do this full time.

Also, something else to keep in mind is that there are constantly new newbies entering the market. If you attract beginners onto your list make it easy for them, give them bite sized chunks and steps they can manage. Tell them the typical pitfalls of the 90% and help them around their challenges. Regardless if your list is new to Internet marketing or not they will respect your honesty and helpfulness and if they join the 10% (more like 2% in my opinion) then they will become customers for life because you helped them make this life-changing transition.

There is no lifespan, in theory as long as you keep giving them value, they will contine subscribing..

I think the average turn-around for a newbie is a few months at best.

Internet marketing is not easy at all and I would recommend that if your email series
is longer than 7 days I suggest that you must offer the best value to create some loyalty plus a following.

Try to connect with the traffic (personal messages) that you are taking to
affiliates offers to and treat them as real humans instead of bots