Is Internet Marketing Money Really In “The List”?

Is Internet marketing money really in "the list"? It's a question asked often among people new to the Internet marketing niche. Amid numerous strategies and techniques, people are trying to find out what really works, and where they should concentrate their efforts, especially when they have limited time, limited resources or both. The answer to the question is both "yes" and "no". Yes, the money is in the list, but no not just any list. The money is in the responsive list.

To make money from a customer or subscriber list, the individuals on that list have to be responsive to you. If you are not able to move them to action, then the list is worthless in terms of building your business. Let's look at an example.

Say you have a list of 35,000 subscribers to your newsletter (if that's the case, you're very fortunate and the envy of more than a few of your peers). Let's say you have a response rate that averages 1%. Now let's say your competitor has a list of only 10,000 subscribers, but his list is a bit more responsive than yours at a rate of just 3.5%. Let's see what happens.

You send out a call to your list of 35,000 to purchase a new product costing $9.97 (Note: Internet marketers like prices that end in "7".). One percent of your list (350 people) opens the email, and just over 1% of that amount (4 people) makes a purchase. You've just made a whopping $39.88!

Now, your competitor sends a similar message to his more responsive list of 10,000, and 3.5% or 350 people open his email (the same number of people that opened your message). Nearly 3.5% of those 350 (12 people) purchase the product he's advertising for $9.97. He makes $119.64, that's three times what you made, and his list is only one-third the size of yours! That's the power of building a responsive list.

So, the moral to the story is yes, you need to build a list in order to make money with Internet marketing, but you need to build a list that is responsive to you.