The money is in the list.

The money is in the list.

The money is in the--OKAY!  We get it!

Every IM guru out there trumpets the importance of building a list, nurturing it, developing a reputation with its members and marketing to it effectively.  It's the one sure route to the land of milk and honey.  If you want to make real money online, you'll build a list.  Period.

What they sometimes forget to mention is that an equally annoying mantra is just as true as "the money is in the list".

Content is king.

Content is king.

This is one of those situations where the two old cliches hook up in an important way.  If you want to make big bucks, you need to build that list.

If you want to build that list, you need good content.

Aha!  I can hear you now.  "I don't need a content-rich site to build a list!  I'm not SEOing a little squeeze page and I can use PPC or PPV or a million other different things to drive traffic there."

That's true.  But you'll want the good content once those eyeballs hit your screen.  If you want people to sign up for your list, you need to do more than give the folks a promise that you'll eventually email them with something valuable.  You can't just promise to be friendly.  You need to give them a REASON to sign up.  You gotta dangle that carrot, folks.

The carrot is usually a free report, white paper, ebook or tip sheet.  In other words, they're content.  And you're gonna need a solid gold website content writer to put it together for you.

Don't believe that silliness about using PLR-based freebies or other retread stuff to build a list.  It's less effective than the real deal in the first place and it has this nasty tendency to leave your new sign-ups less than impressed.  Sending people garbage when they sign up for your list is not the best way to make a first impression with someone you'd like to become a paying customer.

So, pony up for a good writer.  Someone who understands your business, your niche and how to create a freebie that will encourage sign-ups while positioning you as the kind of benevolent genius from whom people want to buy.

The money may be in the list, but the list comes from the content.