Email List Building Strategies

2010 July 30

tags: email marketing, internet marketing, list building

by striker

If you’re going to be successful in internet marketing, you need to build a list. It’s the one thing above all else that matters most. Once you have a list built, you can market to it again and again. It’s like a renewable resource that allows you to make money on demand.

So, how do you build a list?

There are 3 factors in list building you need to consider:

Your Landing Page
The Incentive
Your Confirmation Page

Your Landing Page – The squeeze page is the first thing your visitor is going to see. It’s the page where you ask them for their email address. So, obviously it has to be well designed. And it needs to be simple to see how to opt in. And your call to action must be clear!

The biggest mistake you can make is not having a clear call to action. This is a definitive message that tells your visitor what to do. Without this your opt-in rate will plummet. It’s strange, but if you don’t tell people what to do, they won’t do it.

One way to really spice up your squeeze page is to add a video to it. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. And you can repeat the call to action several times int he video. And after the video, you can make it just say “fill in the form now”.

If you don’t know how to make video, don’t worry. You can hire freelancers to do this for you for a few hundred dollars. Or you can get email list tools that give you squeeze page templates.

The Incentive – The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. People need a good reason to part with their email address. Most people are very protective of their email address. This means your bribe needs to be very attractive.

The key to a good bribe is that is has value. That means you make it something people would actually want to receive. And something from which they can derive a benefit. It could be:

A report
Some useful software
Videos
A multi-part email series

Basically, you just need some content. Something that’s useful and helpful to your visitors. It goes without saying it must be free. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

Once again, don’t worry if you don’t know how to create the freebie. You can just pay someone else to make it for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. For example, you could have them write a 5-part email course. Each email will cost between $20 and $25. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

You can also get email list building tools that include the premium. Two critical aspects of using a follow up series. The first thing is that it delivers value to your subscribers. And second, it needs to make you money. Mixing some affiliate products into your email series is a great way to do this. Affiliate products are easy because you don’t have to do anything at all. And you can earn some commissions immediately from your emails.

Your Confirmation Page – The last bit is the thank you page. This is where your visitor goes after opting into your list. A great thing to do here is provide some immediate value. Then they feel good about giving you their email address. It also helps to build the relationship. Then they’re more receptive when you email them.

This is another case where you can get a complete marketing package. You can also put the whole thing together on your own. You can either write the content pages on your own. Or have someone ghost write for you.

Final thoughts

It doesn’t matter if you do all of this yourself. Or if you hire people to do this for you. Or if you get a ready-done package. The key is to start building your list. Because as soon as you’ve got your own list . . . You’ve got a license to print money!

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