They say - “The money is in the list”.
I couldn’t agree more. Take an example of my friend who has a list of abour 4,000 in the IM niche - a few days back Google Cash Detective had it’s launch, made some good bank for everyone. It was a $1,997 product and the commissions to affiliates were about $1,000. The friend sent a simple e-mail to his list promoting the product, and around 12 of those people bought the product through his affiliate link. Mind you, the conversion rate wasn’t pretty, about 0.3%, but he still raked in approximately $12,000 with just one simple email. That’s the power.
Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s cut to the chase. It doesn’t matter what someone else did, what matters is what you do, what you make and what your results are. So today I’m going to talk about how you can build a responsive list, which actually makes money for you.
First, we need a few tools at our disposal. An autoresponder and a website to get people opt-in to your list are two basic things you must get. For autoresponder I’ll recommend Aweber. I’ve been using it, and have had nothing but pleasant experiences with them. There are a few others like GetResponse. Aweber has varied rates depending on number of subscribers, starting from $19 / mo. Getresponse had a fixed rate. Whichever you choose, you’ll have to setup a list, your contact information and other formalities. Once your done with it, you can grab the opt-in form code and setup a squeeze page. If you need some help with it, just search for some videos on youtube.
Now, the most important part - traffic. Without traffic, you ain’t gonna get anything. You need to drive targeted traffic to your opt-in page and then convert the traffic into opt-in subscribers. You can always go for conventional methods for generating a bit of traffic. In the past, I’ve extensively used Adwords, article marketing, blog promotion and similar methods to get a bit of traffic. When it comes to posting on forums, blogs, writing articles and such things, I prefer to outsource; simply because they are just not for me.
Being a little creative won’t hurt. 
For an example, I ran a small contest between my subscribers when I had about 500 or so. What they had to do was to refer three people (used a script, some of you may know which one ) to my website to download a free eBook. The information in that eBook was top-notch, and I got around 3500 visitors to that website in a couple of days and around 1,000 new subscribers. When you’ve got a list above 1,000+ you can do ad-swaps with other similar sized lists and from my experience, they can give you around 200-500 subsribers. There are many more ways to increase your subscribers list, but it goes beyond the scope of this post. You’ll get to see a specific post on traffic generation in the coming days.
Once you’ve a decent sized list, you need to monetize. How though? Well, as with any business, the better relationship you have with your subscribers; more will they buy through you. You should pass on good information regularly, so that your subscribers expect your emails for good information. In between a few emails, pitch an affiliate offer. One technique I’ve found works really well is buying PLR rights to info products and giving them away to my subscribers. This is even more beneficial if the info product is well written, and helps the subscriber in any way.
There are a lot of product launches every now and then. Very recently, there was Google Cash Detective, before that there was Mass Control, before it Arbitrage Conspiracy. Lined up I think are PLF 2.0 and a few others. All of them were $1997, which means the commissions are big. You may make a very good profit if you happen to promote it to your list. There are people who will say a $27 product (or something in that range) will sell a LOT more. I tend to disagree with them, not because they don’t sell, but the end profits - from my own testing - has ALWAYS been higher when promoting high ticket items. It needs quite some work to sell 35 products at $27 commission, when you can sell one at $997. Try the second option once, it won’t cost anything. 
Wrapping it up, I’d like to add that lists in different niches, lists build up using different methods is going to give a highly varied response to your emails. Say you’ve build up a list of 1,000 giving away freebies. From my experience, a list of just 100 buyers will outperform the first one by a mile. Why? Because most of the subscribers of the first list are looking to just grab freebies etc. Similarly, a list in the Internet Marketing niche is kind of acquainted with all these emails when there are product launches. So, the response may be a bit less comparative to say a list in the Dating niche, where if you send an email using personalized subject lines, and the text, the end person may think you send the e-mail SPECIALLY to him and thus the response rate may be higher.
If you’ve any questions on list building, want to add anything, just leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you possibly with a good answer.
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April 10th, 2009
Great informative post. I will definitely try to hand out some freebies. How do you create an Ebook?
April 10th, 2009
Amazing post Swastik. Thanks a lot. Hope to see you around!!!
April 10th, 2009
Great post, Farrhad!
I loved it.
I am considering to start my own list now.
April 10th, 2009
Awesome post Swastik. List building is one of the most important things a blogger must do to become successful. It helps is lots of times. Even in probs I suppose.
April 10th, 2009
Rocking post, Swastik.
The title is very very good.
I like your writing style
April 10th, 2009
Great post there, Swastik, very detailed
We are certainly hoping for more great content from you 
April 10th, 2009
Hmm….This is good. I do not have a site. Is it ok if i still create a list?
April 11th, 2009
Swastik–
Lots of information … I’m swimming a bit. I frankly had no idea the internet spin on the mailing list had become so sophisticated.
Thank you.
April 11th, 2009
Nice post! You did it once again!
April 11th, 2009
Great post swastik.
Running a newsletter on your blog has lots of advantages.because with time your list will grow and you never know which one of your affiliate post and link will go viral.
April 11th, 2009
Cool Post, Very well written Swastik !
April 11th, 2009
Lovely post!
List building can really really help.
You should have a subscribe to comments box.
April 12th, 2009
I have tried building a list, I guess I am just too lazy to do something like that. I do have plans to give a few ebooks away free though, nice post and you hit the nail on the head here - it was a great read!
April 13th, 2009
Hmm…I think I must start a list. You have inspired me.
April 13th, 2009
Lists are expensive but worth it
April 14th, 2009
The biggest mystake a new blogger can make is not to start to build a list from day one!
Great post mate.
Michael
April 15th, 2009
How much does a list generally cost?
April 16th, 2009
At TBP we have a list, which has really helped us promote our blog.
April 17th, 2009
Thanks for the useful post swastic. I was planning to use Awber for one of my upcoming project.. few more reviews and I will give it a try..
meanwhile if possibke change your font to make it look some thin ore simple.. It will make it readable and more friendly..
Harsh Agrawal’s last blog post..Now receive adsense checks in India for free with bluedart
April 18th, 2009
I have a list of 100, is it worth any good?
April 20th, 2009
That’s an amazing coverage Swastik, do you also make your own products sometimes (ebooks) or do you always rely on commissions?
Who are your favorite partners for this?
And thanks for the tips to get traffic! Much apprreciated.
Nic.
April 20th, 2009
Sorry I entered the wrong e-mail address in my previous comment, could you fix that? Thanks.
April 10th, 2009
Hey,
Creation of an eBook, or any product can be done either yourself or by outsourcing the complete process. The first one is cost saving, and the second on time saving.
If you’re outsourcing, you can pick up some good writers from Digitalpoint, Warrior forum, Elance type of websites. If you’re writing yourself, you should have a good knowledge of what you’re writing. Then, for the writing process you may use OpenOffice.org’s writer software. It makes PDF conversion a breeze.
A list build by handling out freebies may not be as responsive, as you’ll get a large percentage of freebie seekers. I’ll price the report at $7 (assuming it passes some value); that will REDUCE the number of subscribers, but the quality will be a lot more and thus whenever you plug your products in emails you send, you’ll see a better response.
Swastik
April 10th, 2009
Ye, I’ll be around more.
April 10th, 2009
Thanks dude, really appreciate it!
April 10th, 2009
Glad you liked the post, Roshni.
But Swastik wrote this post. xD He is a great writer
April 10th, 2009
Oh! I see. My bad
Lovely post Swastik. Keep it up, my friend.
April 10th, 2009
April 10th, 2009
Yeah, it’s one of the things I’d tell any IM’er to do from the word go.
Have you started building your list yet?
April 10th, 2009
Hey thanks Rohit!
You’ll see better posts coming your way! Stay tuned!
April 10th, 2009
Hey Keshav,
Thanks, you’ll get to see much better posts.
April 10th, 2009
Thanks for the comment Keshav!
April 11th, 2009
Ye, but how will you get people to opt-in, in that case?
April 11th, 2009
Hey Daniel,
It’s not at all sophisticated. Just that to be above the rest, you have to be at the cutting edge of the industry. The conventional methods are tried by everyone, if you be a lil’ creative - you’ll do much better.
Thanks
April 11th, 2009
Thanks dude! Great to see you here.
April 11th, 2009
So sad I had not started building one yet. Will be into it soon. But I know all the pros and cons of it and may be I am also ready to build a big list soon.
April 11th, 2009
I can use Twitter, right sir?
April 11th, 2009
Thanks for the comment Rishial.
I just added it
Thanks!
April 11th, 2009
You are welcome, btw you spelt my name wrong hehe
April 11th, 2009
Sorry for that
April 11th, 2009
I just came back to say I started a list with Awber, thanks to your post.
You should have used your affiliate link.
April 12th, 2009
Thanks!
April 12th, 2009
You’ve the same last name as me.
Yeah, and maintaining a good relationship with your subscribers, you can make a bank!
April 13th, 2009
Yes they are real money makers.
April 14th, 2009
Thanks dude!
April 15th, 2009
Awber charges 19$ a month as the minimum I think.
April 15th, 2009
Awww. That’s a lot.
April 15th, 2009
But it is really worth it