I have said on numerous occasions that the money is in the list. The mailing list is the foundation of every big money-making blog. It’s also the reason I push Aweber so much. They’re the best email service available, with an unbeatable feature set.
Not only can a targeted mailing list make you a ton of money, but it just might win you re-election campaign for President of the United States as well. President Obama seems to have figured that out because he recently turned his Whitehouse.gov website into a giant squeeze page!
Instead of being greeted with the normal White House site, visitor to Whitehouse.gov are now greeted with a squeeze page asking for their email address. This should give Obama a big leg up on the Republicans running against him. When election time comes around, the President should have a list in the millions.
While I think it’s cool that the leader of the free world is using a classic Internet marketing method for his re-election campaign, I’m not sure how the American people feel about it. When I go to Whitehouse.gov, I expect information about the President’s work to improve the country. The last thing I expected was a lead capturing squeeze page. Still, I give Obama marketing points for doing it.
What do you think? Is it OK for Obama to turn the White Site website into a squeeze page, or should he have left the site as a pure information site?
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Imagine referring that account to Aweber for 30% commissions!
@moneyreign If Obama signed up Aweber on my ID, I would vote for him!
@John Chow@moneyreign Yet another way to buy votes, I guess. Can’t say I’m surprised about the WH website being turned into a squeeze page, since squeezing money (while demagoguing wealth creators) out of taxpayers is what he does best.
I have been trying to figure out how to capture people on my site for ages, I have a joomla site and need to get an appropriate module. also when starting out if you are not making money yet, does it make sense to pay a monthly fee to aweber from the get go?
@DogTreat Guy If you do it right you’ll be able to make more than enough to cover the monthly Aweber cost. I always advise starting the list from day 1. You should consider it part of the blog’s running cost, like web hosting.
I don’t think its right for obama to do what he is doing but i also beleive its a pointer on where the internet is headed.
yes, for me its okay, as long as it for campaign.. long live obama
I’ll contact Obama for a list swap deal
Maybe for the purpose of statistics, YES!
may be useful
Looks like the list is everywhere, even the President uses it.
obama looks good in that photo.
I think its best to leave it as pure information site 1st, like after 30 secs or so comes the pop-up squeeze page.
@left2dollars If he does that, the opt in rate wouldn’t be nearly as high as the set up he has running right now.
Obama is an intelligent leader and White house website must be a pure information site and there should be a squeeze page as well.
Obama is an intelligent leader and White house website must be a pure information site and there should be a squeeze page as well. http://www.couponcodesindia.com/Myntra.com/
Obama is a very intellegent leader, I thinks his decision must have some logic behind it. http://www.couponcodesindia.com/Myntra.com/
What I don’t get about the list with Aweber is that if you sell a product (ebook, videos, membership) to your subcribers once, you have to get more subcribers to keep selling that product, hence your email list costs will rise up hugely.
Let’s say I start with 500 subscribers (aweber gets 30$/month = 360$/year). The average conversion rate is around 1% so only 5 out of my 500 suscribers buy me something. I have to charge 360 / 5 = 70$ on average per person ONLY to cover the costs.
I want to start but I don’t get the numbers. What am I missing?
You missing a lot. The list isn’t for just selling one item, one time. It can be used over and over again. You can use a list to promote anything. Build a new site? Use the list to promote. Find a great affiliate deal. Use the list again. The possibilites are endless. I have never failed to make at least 100X what my list cost.
@John Chow Thank you John
A list can turn into gold!
That’s a great example of where internet content is going … people recognizing the value of a squeeze page.
How come your homepage isn’t a squeeze page like that?
john your on awebers dick
Thought you might be interested in my Wordpress plugin that creates a squeeze page like the White House page?
There is a sales page for it which you can google. I suspect it is bad form for me to add lots of links. When I last looked it was appearing in the Search Engines fairly high. Otherwise it can be found at presidential list building (all one word) dot com.
Really pleased with the plugin so far and we are just about to release a brand new version which takes it up a notch or two!
This is definitely true. I don’t have a problem with Obama using the White House Website as a squeeze page. I think it makes sense and as far as squeeze pages go I particularly like the format!
So much so in fact that I created a Wordpress plugin that gives you the same effect. I think it is linked too by my user name, but I am not sure. Anyway if you are interested let me know!
What I am interested in though is when Obama is no longer President, who keeps the email list? The new White House, or does Obama get to take it with him?