Yes creating content takes time and it offers a slower process to building an online business than building your list. Building a list can be expensive and if you are just starting up it is worth trading some time and using some money. Depending on your budget, you will either spend more time building your own content, (or paying someone else to create it for you), or building your list. What most online entrepreneurs will tell you is that building the list and building a good relationship with your list is the number one thing you should be doing.
So if the fastest way to generate an online income (which is sustainable and dependable) is to build a large list of subscribers, how to we so that, and what does it cost?
There are various methods for list building and you can see a couple of them on this website. I have an opt-in form on the top right and a drop down bar at the top of my website. This gives the opportunity twice to opt-in on my website. I am also going to add a pop-up opt in on this article to give you another opportunity of signing up to my incredibly valuable information ;)!!
Giving readers multiple options to sign up is a proven way to increase your website or blog conversions and get people to actively subscribe to your email list. Other methods include paid advertising, of course and this is probably the fastest way to build your list, if you have the money to do it! You can set your budget at whatever you can afford and when your returns are greater than your advertising costs, you can then scale upwards accordingly. Other methods include blogging to increase your reach through Google, and by sharing your blogs through social media.
Video marketing is however probably the best way, at present, to build a low cost marketing plan into your daily activities. Blogging is all well and good but there is far less competition on YouTube than there is on Google. People also are tending to prefer watching videos now to reading blogs. Under your video you should place a link to a landing page, (not to your blog) where the visitor has the option to enter their email to get more information about your particular product or service. I have created a few videos on YouTube and these generate a continuous flow of free subscribers to my email list. You can check out my video channel by clicking the YouTube subscribe button on the right of the page.
Blogging takes a lot of time and energy and you are competing with thousands of other bloggers for the first page on Google which is where you need to be in order to get any visitors from the free search engine. You can still use this tactic of course but it takes a lot of time to build up enough visitors to generate subscriptions using only this method. Using multiple methods to build your list is the safest option. Relying on only one method leaves you open to disappointment if for some reason something changes and you can no longer use it. Google is a good example of this and many would-be internet entrepreneurs have felt the wrath of Google when they thought they were free and clear only to have their websites knocked off the search engine completely due to another of many algorithm changes.
Take a look at my videos for some more methods of generating opt-ins to your email list.
If you are starting an internet business, have already begun, or wish to learn how to build an income from your laptop, take a look at the free videos series offered here which will show you why now is the best time to start your own flexible and independent online business.  You will soon see why creating content takes time, the money is in the list!