The List
You have doubtless heard about the benefits of building and maintaining an email list to make money and keep making it, as the list is the foundation of your online business.
"The money is in the list."
That much-used phrase is the successful Internet marketer's mantra that holds true whatever else happens in the world of online traffic acquisition.
Let's look at why you should be in possession of a list as an Internet marketer and what it represents in terms of income generation.
What is "The List?"
The list is an asset that successful marketers build and nurture to ensure their prosperity and growth in a competitive virtual world.
I am of course referring to an email list, or a collection of email addresses that you have collected and stored in an autoresponder from people who have opted in to an offer you have placed in front of them of some description.
Building an email list is subject to some rules that must be adhered to that protects the owner of each email address from exploitation as well as ensuring that the owner of the list conforms to certain laws governing such things. I'll cover the most important of these aspects of list building in this article.
Obtaining an Email Address
One thing a marketer must be aware of is the laws regarding how an email address is legitimately obtained for inclusion in a list or catalogue of addresses.
For example, it is not permissible to simply copy just any email address and add it to a list and then send unsolicited emails to it, whatever the contents of the email may be. This is commonly known as spamming and that is illegal in most countries around the world.
The right way to obtain a person's email for inclusion in a list and then sending emails to it is to first obtain the owner's consent to do so. This is commonly done by offering something that a person might want in exchange for providing their name and email details in an "opt-in form."
An opt-in form is used to create a legal exchange that the email owner agrees to receive emails from you to receive whatever it is that you are offering. It is also quite common for this to be something for free, like for example a free report or document containing useful information or training on a subject that is of interest to the person who is therefore motivated to opt in.
The opting in process is a way of providing agreement to receive emails from the marketer legally and legitimately. An option to opt out (and be removed from the list) at any time is also a part of this provision.
The Acquisition of Traffic
The lifeblood of a marketer's business is what is known as "traffic" or quite literally members of the public who visit the marketer's website and potentially become customers of whatever they may be marketing.
Traffic comes from many sources. Online, this is generally from paid advertising, organic search, social media or direct marketing. All these sources are liable to fluctuation depending upon the decisions made by the controlling members of each company as well as current consumer trends.
A high profile example would be the current state of search traffic and search engine optimization (SEO) where changes to search index algorithms can greatly affect the amount of search traffic finding a website. Most notably Google, since it is by far the largest search engine and therefore controls the highest number of potential search visitors to a website.
When Google releases changes designed to alter the search results, many website owners find themselves suddenly cut off from their main traffic source. This can ruin a business built on this particular foundation of sand.
Another popular example is advertising on certain social media platforms, where a business bases its success on the how well an advertising campaign goes. It can all come crashing down when the social media platform arbitrarily shuts down the advertiser and all traffic is cut off.
Why a List is So Important
However, there is another source of traffic that is not affected by outside influences. The list!
A marketer that has been actively focused on building a large email list has at their disposal a traffic source that is not affected by anyone else's destructive changes or apparent whims. The list is theirs through their own efforts to build, grow and nurture and the people on that list are generally very receptive to buying from the list owner because they have built up a good level of rapport and trust over time.
It is not enough to simply collect email addresses and then continually blast them with offers to buy something, day in, day out. This will just result in a high level of opt-outs from people that will not tolerate being treated like cash cows!
And quite rightly so, too!
However, collecting email addresses and communicating with those people like building a community of friends and dedicated followers will be much more fruitful. This is done by sharing useful knowledge, tips and helpful snippets of information for free in the majority of the emails you send out.
Then, every once in a while, you can share a new product or service you have come across that would be helpful for some people on your list. Because there is more trust and acceptance of you and what you are sharing, some people on your list will buy and you can make money as an affiliate of the offer or if you are the product creator, as a sale.
Summary
Many new marketers, especially those that focused on SEO and search traffic to begin with often avoid building a list to begin with.
And that includes me in my early days in this business. However, a series of Google search changes back in the day taught me to not be so reliant on a single fickle master but to spread my wings and work on alternative traffic sources, including building my own list.
You can (and should) too.
A list is Google-proof, social media proof and advertising account shutdown proof. That means whatever happens in the online world out there, you can still make money online with your own targeted traffic source that has a much higher chance of buying from you if you build your list and manage it the right way.
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