When anyone talks about email marketing, you will almost always hear the phrase – “The Money Is In the List.”
I have to imagine that anyone in online business, whether it be internet marketing, or affiliate marketing , has to have heard this phrase at least a few times.
It seems to imply one of 3 things:
1) that all you need is a list, and you will make money
2) that if you have a list, you will make money for sure
3) that if you don’t have a list, you won’t make money
Well let’s look at it as it relates to email marketing.
1) Online, all you need is a list and you will make money.
This one could definitely be true. If all you have is a list and you know how to maintain it and keep it dynamic and market to it, you could absolutely make money.
But how did you get the list in the first place? Unless you outright bought it, you had to gather those email addresses from someone and in some way. So that may not be all you have.
2) If you have an email marketing list, you will make money for sure.
Definitely not true. Especially these days. As Internet users become more and more savvy, and even more skeptical, they are not as easy to sell to as they used to be.
Also, if you have a list, but you don’t engender trust or develop relationships and give subscribers a reason to stick around a) no one will buy and b) everyone will unsubscribe.
3) If you don’t have a list you won’t make money
Absolutely not true for a second. There are so many ways to make money on the internet – and for some of them a list doesn’t even make sense. If you have traffic you can make money without a list, just fine.
So this doesn’t quite seem to be a fact, and it doesn’t quite seem to be a myth. Like most other things.
The magic of an email marketing list is in the relationships that can develop between the list owner and the subscribers. Even if there is never one personal, one-on-one conversation, there is still a relationship.
It all begins and ends with the list owner. If a list owner can maintain a list where most of the subscribers believe that the list owner knows what he or she is talking about and they are interested in the subject matter, and messages are sent out regularly, then that is a thriving list.
If someone has a thriving list and they know how to recommend timely, quality products in a non-hard sell way, then that list will more than likely make money.
And, here’s the big one, nothing can take those email marketing list subscribers away – not a website crash, not a forum loss – nothing.
When people say “The Money is in the List” I believe they are talking about the money magic that happens within an active, thriving list when quality products are routinely introduced to it. The revenue possibilities from an email marketing list are absolutely limitless.
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