The money is in the list.

The above quote is a popular internet marketing saying. I’m glad in Vittorio’s guest article two days ago, he talked about the importance of building an email subscriber list.

There is so much to keep track of in online business. I had forgotten about the list. I think it’s easy to forget about building a list because it’s a strategy that doesn’t provide profits quickly. However, in the long term, nothing can beat the earnings that come from having a big list.

Blogs have gotten a lot of press in the last couple of years, but I still think email marketing trumps blog marketing. Here are 5 reasons why.

Email is much more familiar than RSS. The general public still doesn’t know what RSS is. There is a learning curve with using RSS and RSS readers. However, everyone (even my 80 year old grandma) knows what email is.

Email is checked more often than RSS readers. Most people go through their email religiously. They open every email message. But many people don’t read every single post on their RSS reader. I know I don’t. It’s not a big deal for me to skip my RSS reading for the day. However, I have to check email everyday because I could be receiving important information for my work.

Email lists are easier to maintain than blogs. Anyone who’s written for more than one blog knows that blogs can be difficult to maintain. However, with email lists, there is less pressure to send your email subscribers regular content. If you do, great. If you don’t, not many people will complain. But with a blog, if you don’t update consistently, your blog will look old and you won’t have a good rep in the blogosphere.

Targeting different parts of your audience is much easier with email than with blogs. This is similar to the previous reason. You can communicate to different segments of your readership through different email lists. For example, let’s say you have a magic trick site. You can have your readers sign up for different lists depending on their skill level. Sure, you can do the same thing by setting up multiple blogs, but it’s a lot easier to maintain email lists.

Email uses your older content more effectively than blogs. It’s hard to highlight old content on blogs, because blog visitors are always looking for new content. However, through autoresponders, email lists can reuse your old content over and over. Your old but quality content doesn’t have to be lost in the blog archives. Build a list and each new email subscriber will be exposed to your old content.

Conclusion

If you don’t have a list, start building one today. Here are two reputable autoresponders that can help you get started: Aweber and Get Response.