Email Marketing: Enough to Make Me Good Money Online?

You may have heard the saying, “The money is in the list!” over and over until you’re sick of it. Many online marketers will tell you that your list is your most valuable asset. Come hell or high water, as long as you have your list, you can churn out money on demand. This convinces many newbies that building and having a huge list is their ticket to the “laptop on the beach” lifestyle.

Okay, so what does building a list have to do with email marketing? The answer is simple… it has everything to do with it. Without a permission-based list, you have no one to send your emails to. You have no audience for your products or services. In short, without a list you can’t have an email marketing strategy.

Does it mean having a huge list is the be all and end all to making money online?

I hate to burst your bubble, but it most certainly is not.

If you’re now thoroughly confused, just keep reading.

Email Marketing Fundamentals

For starters, having a huge list means nothing if the majority on your list are a bunch of freebie seeking freeloaders. A huge buyer list is what you should be trying to build. That is the ticket to the “work two hours a day” lifestyle.

Building a buyer list requires a ton of effort, time, money and some serious marketing skills. Most affiliates are unable to build a buyer list simply because they do not own the product… the product owner is the one who is building the buyer list. However, with some knowledge under your belt, you’ll discover that this obstacle can be overcome.

I Have My Products… Now What?

One tried and true way to make good money online, arguably the best way, is to create your own products. You can create your products from scratch, rebrand quality PLR products and sell them as your own, or have someone create the products for you. Once you have your product, or products, you have one of the components you need to build a list that responds like an ATM machine if done properly.

At this point you absolutely need to understand marketing strategies to target the audience looking for your products. After all, if no one knows what you have, how are you going to sell anything and build your list? There are many ways to get the word out and they are not difficult to learn.

You need to drive traffic to your squeeze page so you’ll definitely need to have a working knowledge of traffic generation methods. You may also want to network with affiliates to promote your products and work out an arrangement where it’s mutually beneficial to both of you.

But wait a minute… what was that about a squeeze page? What’s that?

And Still More to Learn

So now you’re thinking there’s even more to this than you originally thought. Clearly there’s more you need to learn before you can start driving traffic to your product and building a list. The fact is, without the squeeze page you know nothing about, or some mechanism to capture names and email addresses, you can’t build a list at all.

Like I said there’s still more to learn.

Basic SEO knowledge comes into play but, in my humble opinion, basic knowledge isn’t enough to run a successful campaign. If you don’t know how to perform keyword research, for example, or anything about search engine optimization, for that matter, then it’s best left to those who do.

Bottom line is you either need to take the time to learn SEO strategies, which you can do, or hire someone to do it for you. The catch… be sure whoever you hire actually knows what they are doing and be prepared to spend some money.

In addition to marketing strategies, you need to have some basic copywriting skills and learn to write captivating subject lines. You might want to do some research as many marketers have written products on writing effective email subject lines.

You need to have a good grasp of all the components required to build a profitable list in order to make email marketing work for you.

Final Verdict on Email Marketing

As you can see by now, building and maintaining an email list requires a lot of work and knowledge and planning. You will need to get into the trenches and slog through it all.

It’s nice to imagine having a huge list where you just send an email and watch the sales pour into your PayPal account. The truth is that email marketing is enough if you’ve got your online marketing act together.

Conclusion

Think of it this way… building a list is like building your body. It takes time, immense work, and patience. Until you get your “body” in great shape, your email marketing won’t exist.

Once you have a list that is big and responsive, and you take good care of it, you will be making a good living. Enjoy it because you worked hard and you deserve to reap its rewards.