You may have a decent-sized list, but they just don't buy. Could you have the wrong list? How did you come by the folks who joined? Are they from sort of free advertising, or did you build them by placing ads in ezines? Do you know what they want? How do you know which items to sell them? All of these questions are important.
We'll discuss them in order.
First, how did you come by the folks who joined? If you're building a list from free traffic sources, chances are that your list won't be very responsive. Most people who use these are complete newbies, or they're just people who jump from program to program, looking to make their first million dollars. They don't buy because they bought into the myth that people find overnight riches, with no investment. They aren't business people and don't know that the first rule of business is that you have to spend money to make money. You're better off building a list somewhere where people are serious about building a business.
Organic traffic is also free traffic, but it's acquired in a different way--through search engine optimization. When you're on the first page of results at Google for an important keyword in your niche, you'll have a much higher caliber clientele. They're not just other Internet marketers all selling to each other. They're already in your niche. You own them. They came to your site from the search engine because they wanted to. They were looking for something and if they spend any time on your site, you obviously have what they were searching for. If they like you, they'll buy something, sign up for your list or both.
But what kind of products are they? I mean, if you have a list built around horses, don't try to sell the people on it a musical instrument. That would just be silly. They'll scratch their heads and it's almost 100% certain that they won't buy, unless of course, you have a horse-riding guitar player. I think that went out with color TV.
It's also important to have an idea of what your list wants and needs. If you don't know this, how do you know if you're selling them the right products? You need to ask them. Either use software to set up a poll or just use a simple broadcast message, and ask them what they want: "What's your biggest question about______?" Then, use the answers to figure out what to sell them.
How much should your product be? Well, that really depends on you, and you should really think about this even before you start list building. Here's the important question to ask yourself, "How much do I want to make?" It it's $5,000 a month and you're selling a $5 product, you have a very long row to hoe, my friend. You'll need to make 1,000 sales in 30 days. Now, I'm not saying this isn't possible, but also ask yourself how hard you want to work. If you only want to sell 10 items a month, then your product should cost $500.
If you already have a list, you'll have to test and track to see how much they're willing to spend. Start with a product in the price range of what you want to be selling. I mean, if you want to make $500 per sale, then try a $500 item. If that doesn't go over, try a $250 item, and if that works, then try a $400 item, and so on. Keep testing the water until you know what your list is willing and can afford to spend.
These are all important list maintenance considerations. If you haven't started building a list yet, decide how much you want to make, and find the people who will pay for what you want to sell. Try some ezines and look at how much the products advertised there cost. If they're similar to your product price range, then advertise your squeeze page in them and get those readers onto your list. If you find that you can't sell what you want to make to the list you already have, start over. Or, sell them products they can afford and then, create a new list for the products you want to sell. It's just that simple.
Tellman Knudson is a Master List Builder and a well-known Internet marketing personality. Visit his popular list building site, My First List at http://www.myfirstlist.com/