I’ve been hearing that for years. I have always ignored it. Lists are a big hassle to keep clean. You need to have unique material you want to share with your list on a regular basis. A list is a commitment to publish good content on a schedule. I have been a newsletter editor for a paper newsletter and I know how much you can come to dread the approach of the next publishing date.
Our websites have done well with nothing but organic traffic from search. In fact, we don’t have any products to sell so a list just hasn’t seemed important.
For some reason I recently found myself asking “If we lost our presence on the search engines where would we be?” The answer is not attractive. We could sell stuff on Ebay or one of the other auction venues, but life would look much better if we had a list to work with.
Fortunately, while we have procrastinated, the tools for building lists have gotten much better. They are more powerful and easier to use. We recently discovered AuctionSound.com which combines Ebay sales management with list building and consignment sales. We are testing it now and it may be the tool that finally turns us into active Ebay sellers and list builders.