List Building Should Be Your #1 Goal
Not spending time on list building has cost me money and time. When it comes to making money online, building an email list is the one area I would have concentrated more of my effort from the beginning.
Why Build a List?
Email is king. It is the best way to build an engaged audience, sell a product online, or create hype around your next big event or service project. Without it, you will really struggle to get the kind of traction your message deserves.
Even though the statement, “the money is in the list” has probably been beat to death – It’s Absolutely TRUE!
A simple goal should be to build a list of at least 1000 responsive subscribers. Beyond the mechanics of setting up squeeze pages and content that drives traffic to those pages, the real secret is in building a relationship with your list and providing them with relevant helpful information related to your niche.
My advice is to create opportunities for your target audience to join your list as often as possible and everywhere possible. Some places you can place opt-in forms to build your list are:
- Your Blogs which may require the Top Blogging Tools
- Web 2.0 properties
- YouTube videos
Your free offer (a.k.a. or “ethical bribe”) can be a PDF Report/Guide, software, or a video tutorial that shows your target audience how to solve/overcome a problem related to their niche. The most important thing is that the free offer needs to provide real value to the end user.
You do not have write an exhaustive guide – just use the formula “one problem, one solution”.
Providing real value will bond you to your subscribers. They will look forward to getting your emails as they know that they will learn something that will help them in move forward toward their goal.
How To Start Building Your Email List?
First you must know why you want to build a list and the purpose of your list building efforts? This is beyond the obvious answer of to make money.
- What problem(s) are you solving?
- Are you creating free info newsletter just to keep in touch with your audience?
- Or… are you selling a product/service? (you own or as an affiliate)
- What is your free offer?
The above are just examples of what you need to know from the start.
Once you have answered basic questions about the “Why”, you can move forward. Below are the tools you will need to start the list building process.
A Squeeze Page
At the heart of building your list(s) is the ‘squeeze page’ (a.k.a. landing page, opt-in page).
There has been a lot written about the kinds of squeeze pages that are most effective but in the end it comes down to testing a tweaking to find the sweet spot for your niche.
The kinds of squeeze pages that are proven to be most effective are:
- Video Squeeze Pages
- Above the fold ‘Headline Squeeze Pages’
- Pop-up squeeze pages
The Autoresponder
An auto-responder is a service (i.e. Aweber, GetResponse, etc.) or software that allows to you to create forms that allow visitors to leave their contact information and more importantly it automates your email responses once they have signed up to your list.
Your Autoresponder Series
An autoresponder series is simply a series of marketing emails sent over a scheduled period of
time with the intent on selling a product or service.
This series of emails are referred to as “autoresponder” series simply because of the mechanism
that is used to send the emails—an email robot or autoresponder.
Again, autoresponders are able to send a series of emails on a set schedule—like every other day—
without further input from the sender. These scripts have revolutionized email marketing and
every internet marketer uses such a service—or at least should be using such a service.
Get my inside tips to how to get 1000 subscribers fast…