Beginning again

There are more than a few factors involved in answering this question. BUT, if I had to put my fingers on 1 and 1 only.. Commitment would be the deciding factor. And with this therer is a couple levels of commitment.

#1 Is this a niche you have intentions of staying in for a period of time? I think this is an obviously not so obvious question. Everyone on some level thinks they are going to stick with this and everything will be great. However, on another level we know better. So building a list is a long term play. Its not just the offer that you want to present today, its the chain of offers over time that make the effort of list development worth while.

IF you are committed to staying within the niche you have selected.. IF there is a list of posible products / services you can provide over a period of time, then build the list. An extreme example: Fidget Spinners - sell them til the fad runs out and move on... there was no need to develop a list UNLESS you are in it to win it long term, and knew in advance of other products you could push to a list that was a parrallel product.

#2 Understanding the WORK in starting a list... lets bypass the whole funnel development process for a moment, and look stricktly at the development of the sequence"s" needed once you have the e-mail address. I will flat out say this is the #1 point of failure for marketers in general Newbies and seasoned professionals alike.

You have to commit to writing a series of sales pitchs 2 letters a week for 10 weeks means 20 sales pitches. Each one building the benefit of the product and selling. each one although selling the exact same thing has to be different in context to reach the greatest variety of audience.

So what exactly does this mean? If you write one pitch.. Hey buy this because of X Y and X you are leaving out those that may buy for A B and C or H I and J. you have to diversify the messageg to reach a greater overall audience.

#3 Understanding the work to maintain the list's interest. So we have a string of 20 e-mails that sell the intended offer.. Once they BUY, they need to be placed on the buyers list and dripped content that maximizes the experience of the sold offer. maybe another 20 e-mails at the very least. And in this time you had better have a supporting product ready to pitch by about email 5 to 10 or so.. and the cycle continues

IFall of this sounds like way to much work... guess what? bypass the list LOL

Hi, Al, It's nice to meet you.

I did a little research to see where you might be coming from in the question. I think you know the answer and are looking for confirmation. First of all, after reading Optin's questions and answers in the Forum, I see he doesn't care for list marketing, but he has a list too. He just contacts them once a month or so according to one of his posts. He opposes people who make more than one email contact a week. At least that's what I remember reading from his posts elsewhere in the Forum.

In your offer in your tagline, you have an affiliate link, and then tools for the affiliates. You offer a series of 3 emails to promote your offer to their list. That gives your affiliates 3 chances to promote your offer to each of their subscribers.

When I was younger, my father, a salesman, taught me that about 90+% of sales will be made by people contacted up to 7 times. The first time gets impulse buyers or those already looking for the product so you get a fair number of buyers, but then, the numbers slowly decline over the next 6 contacts with the law of diminishing returns hitting after a total of 7 contacts.

Another "fact" that is running around the IM world, is that someone who buys from you is 10 times more likely to buy from you again over "freebie seekers", which I prefer to call "prospects".

It's funny how when Facebook became a boom, that I started receiving a series of emails saying that "email marketing is dead" and "social media replaces email marketing". LOL

You look seasoned enough that you probably understand that when buying an existing business, the price, which is much more than a business's assets is justified by "good will". Good will is the customer base of the company and it's good reputation with them. Often, if not almost always, the price of good will is 10's of times greater than the assets of the company. Also, in business, it is often repeated that it is 10 time easier to keep a repeat customer than to get a new one.

Because you are using Clickbank, I doubt you have a buyer's list, but there are ways of building one and you may be using it, I don't know. But, because it isn't obvious, let me assume you don't.

You have an affiliates list. You have a list of people interested in marketing your products. You use the list to market to them. You don't market your product, you do things like give them samples, resources and other communication related in promoting your product.

Without a list of people promoting your product, when you create a new product, what would you have? You'd be just another listing on Clickbank. But with your list, you get a jump start on making product sales because your affiliates made money from your last product.

Now, with a buyers list, you can do even more. You can communicate with your customers, find out where the weaknesses are in your product, and strengthen them through a series of emails. When you communicate with them, you find out what their needs and wants are, and they aren't the same thing. One marketer put it like this, "You sell them what they want and give them what they need."

If you have a list of 5000 buyers, and most of the time, they are talking about and asking about driving traffic, then you know to write a course on driving traffic. When you do, you notify your list that you are releasing the new course for $197, but because they are on your list, they can buy it this week for only $97. Now, suppose you have a conversion rate of only 10%. Well, that's only $48,000 dollars (leaving $500 for fees, etc.)

Let's talk about abuse for a minute. The rule of building a responsive email list is to provide value for your list. That only goes so far with your prospects list. If they aren't going to buy, they aren't going to buy.

I bought a course sold on here called "Churn and burn" where the seller promoted sending rapid-fire daily emails promoting affiliate or your own product. It was a relentless (what I called) attack on the list. I've been the recipient of those emails, and didn't like them. I eventually opted out, more sooner than later. But, after calling the guy an idiot, i learned how such a tactic can be used.

One marketer buys lists, (I think from solo ads.) and puts them through the churn and burn process immediately. If they buy, he takes the off the churn and burn list and gives them respect as a buyer.

I also learned that you can build your prospects list by giving away goodies and valuable information in your emails. But, if after a while, they are only on your list for the freebies, they can be turned over to a churn and burn series of emails because the chances of making money are better sending them affiliate offers than your own. That's better than just culling them out of your list. So the theory says.

Somewhere else, I have people who ask me questions about things I know well. My daughter buys and keep Bettas, so I answer a few questions about them, but it's not my area of expertise. Now, I have people asking me questions almost daily about keeping Bettas. While I talk more about things I know better in aquariums, my questions are centered around Bettas. So, if I were to write a book in the niche, I am pretty sure I would have a successful launch if it is on Bettas.

Is email marketing dead? "Article Marketing is Dead". Article marketing isn't what it used to be, at least not like it was practiced. But, a lot of it's practice was building blog reputations by links from high rated article repository sites. But when Google dropped article directories off the ratings, the effect of article marketing that way died. But, there are other methods of article marketing in use today and marketers who are making big money doing it. Article marketing isn't dead, it isn't as effective as it was, but it is still alive and well today.

Email marketing isn't what it used to be. people would rather meet in Facebook groups than read long emails on their phone. So, the methods of marketing by email has changed, but it has not gone away.

A well rounded marketing strategy now includes the incorporation of Facebook pages and groups, Twitter, blog articles and email.

I don't know what the stats are now, but about two to three years ago, someone figured out well over half his emails were being read between 12PM and 4 PM but the majority of his orders were received after 5 or 6 PM. So, at that time, people were reading their emails at work but ordering their products at home.

This past week I read a current conversation (It's still going on) about emails on phones. Over 50% of recipients are reading on a phone. A large number of people in the group are saying that they immediately deleted emails with pictures, long paragraphs or if they are long messages.

Finally, what belongs to you? You don't have permission to contact your FB followers outside of Facebook and you probably don't have their email addresses collected anywhere. (If you do, it's an email list.) The same with Twitter, LinkedIn, or anywhere else. If any of the above platforms collapse, you lose your followers, too, until you find them again.

But, if Aweber collapses today, everyone who has backed up their list will be back in business in 24 hours or less with all their contacts.

So, to me, your responsive mailing list is your only asset. It's the way to communicate with your buyers when anything else collapses. It's your push-button answer to getting emergency funds when needed, and it's the only list you can port with you from one platform to another.

You asked me, "DO I BUILD A LIST OR NOT?" What are you thinking?