For as long as there has been an Internet people have been saying 'the money is in the list.' In fact, they've been saying it ever since postage stamps were invented!
The reason that so many people extol the virtues of creating your own list is simply because it works. Now we have the Internet and don't have to pay for paper, printing, envelopes and stamps to send things to our 'list' it works phenomenally well!
At its heart a list is simply a bunch of people who have, by supplying you with their email address, given you permission to send them messages.
Not so long ago, when the only way to communicate with your subscribers was through the mail, it cost a bundle to send out your message. At least $1 per person was the rule of thumb back then and now it would be far higher. Sending out to even a relatively small list of 5000 could be a serious investment and so you had to sell very hard to get a return. The failure rate was high.
Now, though, things are very different. You can send out to 5000 people in the blink of an eye and it will cost you absolutely nothing. Email is still free.
That means that you need a far lower response rate to make a great profit - but if your communication and sales skills are even half decent you will make a killing!
It is not unusual to make thousands of dollars from a single mailing that takes you just a few minutes to write.
And there is nothing to stop you sending out to your list again and again.
In fact, the essence of a good newsletter is that you do email frequently. Twice a week or more is common, and quite acceptable. But there is a catch.
People may willingly give you permission to email them, but they will only consistently read what you send if you are able to catch their attention. And having caught their attention, you need to have established a trust between you so that your readers will happily follow your recommendations to buy the things you promote.
So, as the title of this article suggests, running your own newsletter is the fastest route to an online income, but only if you know what you are doing.
The old pre-Internet mail order way of selling to a list entailed sending out long, professionally written sales letters. That doesn't work in an online newsletter. Online newsletters, or ezines, are not about hard selling, they are - or at least the most consistently successful ones are - about entertaining, educating and pre-selling.
Pre-selling is the art of warming an audience up - making them desire the product you are recommending - so that they will take your advice and follow the link you provide to the product's sales page. That's where the selling takes place, not in your newsletter. The link you use to send them to the sales page will be coded with your affiliate link and so when they do buy the product, you will get a commission credited to you. In
Internet marketing, that commission is often in the range of 50% to 75%.
In some circumstances you can even get 100% commission - the entire selling price - because the product's vendor is more interested in getting a new customer than in making an immediate profit.
But as I said, your ability to get your readers to click on a link depends on the rapport you have built with them and the level of trust they have in you.
Learn how to write a newsletter the right way and online profits will come your way as fast as you can click on the send button in your autoresponder!
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