They say that size matters. But, I think how you use it is more important, no?
Now, get your minds out of the gutter…. I’m talking about email lists here. 
It seems that many bloggers have a really bad habit of under-valuing their email lists due to size. You read tips about email marketing, or read other people’s stories of using their email lists to make good money. Then, you look at your own list…
Not so big. Maybe under 100 people? Doesn’t really measure up, as you see it. Then, perhaps, you think the following thought (which is suicidal, really)…
I’ll wait until my list is bigger to start doing email marketing.
Or, if you’re using a service like Aweber to host them, you consider canceling your account because you feel as if your email marketing work isn’t paying off.
No. No. Let’s put something in perspective here…
Imagine Them Naked
Oh jeez, Dave. What’s up with you today? It was porn a couple weeks ago. Is this a trend?
But, I digress…
It is a common trick of nervous speakers (or so it is said) that you can get over stage fright by imagining your audience as naked. I guess the idea is that it humanizes them and, all of a sudden, you don’t feel like such a weirdo.
I’m not going to tell you to imagine your email subscribers as naked (whoah!), but what I DO want you to do is humanize them.
Every single person who subscribes to your list is a real, live, breathing human being who has raised their hands and said, “I’m interested in what you’ve got.”
Now, you tell me, if you have 50 people like that, does that make those 50 people any less valuable? Any less interested in you? Any less worthy of you standing up to the plate and giving them the value they signed up for?
Those 50 people could end up being your biggest fans and brand promoters – EVER. If you treat them right.
And if you don’t think 50 people is a lot, imagine being up on that stage with 50 people sitting there looking at you. Yeah, all of a sudden, it hits you like a ton of bricks – THOSE ARE REAL PEOPLE.
I’ve heard people tell me, almost in a lowly tone, “Oh, my list isn’t that big. It is only a few hundred people.”. Yeah? That’s awesome! Imagine, now, a few hundred people sitting there STARING at you. That’d be a pretty big crowd.
Oh, did I mention they all have wallets, too? Yeah.
The Danger of Comparisons
When you hang around in this internet marketing space, numbers begin to all look the same. The only ones that stand out are BIG numbers. Especially when you read the “guru” sites and they talk nonchalantly about their big numbers. As a person still working on making it to that point, it can make you feel small and inconsequential.
Whether it be pixels on your analytics graph, or subscriber counts in your Aweber account – they’re all numbers. But, they’re actual PEOPLE.
You don’t need a list of 100,000 people to make a killing online. I don’t have a list of 100,000 people and I’m doing just fine. 
You don’t even need 1,000.
You have 50 subscribers? 25? 10? Hey, it’s all good! You’ll build it over time, but don’t make the mistake of delaying the flow of value until you’ve got the big list. You take those 10 people, those 25 people – and you take good care of them. Turn them into evangelists. Do everything you would do with a larger list.
… Because it’ll grow that way. Not to mention, you’ll build a LOYAL following, and that will beat the shit out of a big unloyal following any day of the week.
Don’t underestimate your reach.
UPDATE – 3/25, 10:52AM
So, I decided to put something cool together as a nice extension to what we’re talking about in this article. I’ll be announcing it next week. Stay tuned to your email boxes.
David has been blogging for 15 years, and generating a six-figure income at it for the last 12. He is the founder of Blog Marketing Academy. 
David Risley has been building and operating authority blogs for 15 years, and operating a six-figure business doing it for a decade.
Great stuff David, I have a small one, but I won’t let that hold me back!
Hey David,
This is totally true. I have a big list built a while back that I didn’t really connect with and it’s not very responsive. I have a much smaller list that I’ve really connected with that is very responsive. I find the smaller list is much better than the bigger list, it’s all in how you connect with your list, not necessarily how big you build it.
Right on.
As usual, your post today hits a chord with me. My list isn’t huge but they are people. I’ve never doubted that, just have felt that it was maybe too small to do a lot with. Still it’s almost 300 people that I can do something for! Thanks for the reminder. It was much needed today as I work on some new things.
So true, Dave. In the rush to try the next new online marketing technique guaranteed to skyrocket, explode or catapult my list into the stratosphere, I forgot I have a very nice group of people who get me to talk to already. Maybe the reason they aren’t so responsive is that I haven’t been focusing on them. Light breaks on dunce head!
Not only is this true for email marketing, but social media too. You can have all the followers in the world, but if no one responds to your communications, what’s the point? It’s all about the connection.
True. And social media is a whole different animal. The typical response rate is pitiful when compared to email.
Hey Dave, thanks for the post! It seems that almost all of the “how to make money online” resources such as yours tout Aweber. Do you have any opinions on the other platforms? Such as MailChimp? After a little more research, they seem to be more feature rich, have a free option for less than 2000 subscribers and have an affiliate program so marketers like you can make money for promoting them. What are your thoughts?
Mailchimp is nice, but at their core, they are more of a newsletter company than a marketing company. I prefer to work with a company who gets battered by big-time marketers all the time (with their big lists), and hence are tried and true and can deal with the load. And understand the way marketers think and don’t get all weird about it (and I’ve heard of instances where Mailchimp has done that).
But, I openly tell you that I have not used Mailchimp… I simply know people who have and they all tell me “stick with Aweber”.
Oh, and I don’t care about the affiliate program. Obviously, it is nice to be able to link to somebody with an aff link, but in the end, I won’t promote something simply because of that. I use Aweber myself, prefer it, and that’s why I recommend it.
I have an email here from someone who went with Mailchimp, and for some reason Mailchimp shut down their list without notice. They think it was because they ran a promotion and had several hundred people join within a short time. Their list is completely gone, deleted. They’re going back to Aweber, while their lawyer talks to Mailchimp…
Not the first time I’ve heard something like that.
Serves them right for building a list too big too fast. That’s spam if you ask me
Not necessarily. Whenever you do a product launch, you can build a list really fast. If Mailchimp is going to blindly call that spam, then that’s a good reason to stay away from them.
? Seriously?
What if they were giving away some nice digital product free, and driving traffic to it with a huge PPC campaign? That’s spam?
I’ve studied both Aweber and mailchimp before building my list I chose mailchimp because they have open API – I’m a big fan with anyone who allows API access. I heard that Aweber is a pain when it comes to API. I started my list and its growing without me promoting it, no ads – I made one post in one forum and my subscribers are promoting my list on facebook and stumbledupon. Sorry if it sounds like bragging. Also mailchimp has something I’m interested in paid subscriptions thru Amazon which would essentially work as a membership site. Plus they bumped the quota up to 2000 free subscribers. Everyone has they’re likes and dislikes, that’s just the way the world works.
You could say: if you like API access go with the chimp – if you’re not techy go with Aweber.
Ditto here. I first signed up for Aweber, but their API wasnt advanced as Mailchimp. I have a webapp that already collects registrations and I want users to be able to sign up for my website as well as my list in one step. I didn’t see a away to accomplish that through aweber, but it seems like it’s possible through Mailchimp’s api. I say “seems” because i’ve only read docs and not implemented it yet, but Mailchimp seems promising.
But other than the API, I didn’t have any other issues with Aweber.
I got 141 on my list and about 50 who actually open em! We’re taking over! No but seriously, thanks for this post. A good reminder. In fact, I should send an email right now!
Just a little tid-bit for you…. if those are your real numbers, your open rate is much higher than most people’s. So, well done.
WINNING! Thanks man. Where is a good place to learn which rates are good and stuff? Like what are average open rates, click through and stuff so I can always compare?
David,
This was the perfect pep talk/kick in the pants that I needed to hear today.
I LOVE your “real world” analogy. I co-presented a session at last year’s PodCamp NH. The event was fairly small, so you can imagine our surprise/shock/elation/horror when our little session attracted an audience of 50+. It was my first time speaking in front of a group of any size in a long time. We had a great time & got fabulous reactions from our audience, BUT I can totally back you up on the fact that 50 people in real life feels like a LOT!
Your advice to START NOW hold true not just for indie folks like me, but also for larger start-ups. I work w/several technology start-ups and have to combat the “let’s wait ’til we have more eyeballs” issue all the time. There’s no time like the present, people. Listen to David!
Yep. Seems people deal with their fear of failure by just not trying, but it often just gets in the way.
You know what? This is the first time I’ve read and article like this. No every talks about a seed list. I read a post of the Warrior Forum if you can figure out how you got 100 people on you list then you can figure out how to 200 etc. I have be struggling with this list building thing for sometime now.
I have found that all methods work to some degree. So, patience is the good method. And based on this article I’m going to start taking care of the list I have now even though its not A SUPER LARGE ONE.
Yeah, list building is just the basics. Make good stuff, offer it to them in exchange for the opt-in, then treat them well.
This is a really inspiring post, David. I hope you don’t mind but I have shared it with my list of internet marketers…too many people get phased by this super guru stuff…
treating people like real people, as if they are in your office listening to your every word is a very cool thing to do,
best wishes
peter
Thanks, Peter.
Hi David.
Great and timely article. Not sure if I am going to imagine my subscribers naked.. tehe.. But I think one of the effects of Social Media is that many of us has put to much emphasis on the numbers.
And we don’t realize that quality will trump numbers any day on Social Media. With quality the numbers will appear.
Great info her..
Cheers.. Are
Yeah, that’s true. Especially with Twitter, people have come to the point where large follower counts are an indicator of authority – which is BS. Some of those people with large follower counts have hardly any reaction to anything they tweet out. They’re simply not listening.
The real test is whether they’re listening and give a crap…. not how many are on the list.
So glad that you made this point. I’ve been told to follow everyone who follows me and I don’t want to. I choose who I want to follow and build relationships with them.
Hi Dave. Funny post and I think you may have written it for me?! I just started a blog earlier this year, have less than 20 subscribers and am often dismissing a lot of what the “experts” write because I feel it does not relate to “little ole me” at the moment. Thanks for reminding me that my list are significant building blocks for my business…and real life people too!
Ouch… I guess I have missed something. Thank you very much Dave for this post. I really need this one. I guess I will have to be working a lot to turn my list to evangelists…
Good point. I guess you can never underestimate anything that your readers/audience/customers give you or what you have from them. That’s value for money and we gotta live with it. I guess we gotta take that risk then.
You wrote this post at the right time for me. Great stuff here and I think we can all use a refresher when it comes to looking at those numbers a little differently. Each number is actually a person and should be treated as such just the same as if in person.
Every new subscriber wouldn’t have confirmed had they not been interested in what you’ve got to offer them so give them – each of them, your best shot.
Thanks again for the reminder here David.
Hi Dave,
One way I look at it is that I get to practice and refine my content and pitch while the list is small. When it’s big, I’ll be ready 
This was good for me to hear today! I have a small list but it’s twice as big as it was two months ago
I second the build your list early mantra. For one of my niches sites, I offered a free product about 6 months before I had the paid product ready. Once ready, the email blast went out to about 600 hundred people. Only brought in $150, but that covered my hosting for a year. Baby steps…
Hi Dave
Thank you for this, as others have commented it seems as though you wrote this just for me, as I was feeling doubtful about my small community of 40, or so, members, who have supported me well over the years of teaching. Blogging is a new role, but speaking to 50 real, live, humans I have done quite well … well, they kept coming back, so I feel I did it well
I love your writing, it reflects your wonderful sense of humour
David
I do tend to think like this every so often. This will help get me back on my horse (Shetland pony…)
Mark
Great way to look at your list, imagining them as a crowd. This is a big help as I do think that my list is too small, but you’re right, they are all potential customers.
Oh and I use Aweber too. I’m not the most technical of people and their support and help is just awesome. They talk you through how to do something with live chat. A great company.
Hi Matthew
What do you class as ‘small’, exactly…? Knowing you as well as I do, and respecting you as a business owner, I’m simply curious. Simple as that.
C
I am still working on growing my e-mail list. It will take some time for sure to build it up.
Great post David.
I used to understimate my list because they were few people, but time later i started to comunicate with each one of my list and helped them as i could, time later some of them started to recommend me and my list grew little by little, so i started the process again an so on.
Help people and your list will grow drop by drop…!
David , I need to talk to you for the money …can you send me the link?..I’m jotting down questions …
David! I like your blog.
I try to make sure every post I send out through email will be of direct interest to my subscribed readers.
Hey David,
I don’t really feel comfortable enough saying out in public how many subscribers I have (even worse that I don’t have an active form right now on the site) but I think your point is a really good one man.I have a very short list of subscribers but they all signed in exchange for updates on the site. A ‘freebie’ was never even mentioned (although I have sent them cool stuff anyway) and I think that’s the reason why they are a very responsive crowd.I get a little bit less than 50% CTRs but I’m sending mostly updates on the site for now (in other words, no money yet from e-mail marketing).I want to get out of that cycle though and I’m currently working on it.As for your article goes, TOP NOTCH as always man.I always keep finding super cool stuff here on your site. Seems like a never ending place for great information so kudos for that.
Anyway, hope to speak soon and enjoy your weekend!
Sergio