Increase Website Traffic With List Building

Welcome! This guide is everything and anything you ever needed to know about list building. List building is a popular subject these days, especially in the world of online marketing. So if you are looking for current, up-to-date information you came to just the right place!

If you are new to list building, this chapter contains everything you need to know to get started in the industry. One of the first questions that pops into people’s heads when someone mentions “list building” is what is it, and why do I need it?

The answer is simple. If you plan to grow your business, you need to create subscriber leads. These are leads to people who may be interested in buying your products and services. Most subscriber lists are nothing more than lists of prospects interested in buying the products and services you have to sell.

You can gather leads automatically by creating your website in a way that requires everyone that visits sign up for your newsletter to give you their email address. While you can’t force anyone to sign up, you can gently encourage him or her to sign up by showing him or her the benefits of doing so.

For example, if you plan to give away a free bonus report for subscribers signing up to your list, let them know that. Tell them how your free bonus will help them succeed or achieve their goals. We’ll talk more about this in greater detail later in the chapter.

Back to the purpose of this chapter. The purpose of this chapter is to help you learn how to create powerful and effective mailing and subscriber lists (two terms we will use interchangeably). What is the point of these lists? The point is to encourage people enthusiastically to take advantage of all the benefits you have to offer them through your website. When you build a successful subscriber list, you essentially lay the foundation for a successful business.

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her…” - David Brinkley

When building your business, you will experience many challenges. You may find as Mr. Brinkley suggests, that people oppose you. You may find the competition fierce. You may find you have to overcome your own fears about success to succeed.

You can however, overcome any challenges presented to you with perseverance and strength. Throughout this book you will find many ways of collecting subscriber leads. These leads will prove to be the lifeline of your business. So let’s get started and find out how you can build your subscriber list for pennies on the dollar.

Here is a short preview of what this chapter includes for your benefit:



Simple Ways To Build Your List
In this section you’ll learn simple tools you can use to build your list. These tools include subscriber leads, opt-in leads, survey leads, affiliating and more.

Mailing and Subscriber Lists
This will help you uncover even more ways to build your subscriber lists automatically. You’ll learn the pros and cons of buying or renting a list, and key factors in deciding whether you should do so. You will also learn how to create your own powerful mailing and subscriber lists while avoiding the top 3 mistakes newbies often make when creating their mailing lists.

Learning The Ropes
You’ll learn how to design subscriber pulling web pages and how to convert cold prospects into paying customers.

Double Opt-in Lists
In this section you will learn what double opt-in lists are and how they can help protect your list and uphold the integrity of your subscriber list for years to come. Using double opt-in lists, you can ensure you are working with a highly targeted group of professionals interested in the products and services you have to offer them.

Maintaining Your Opt-in List and Subscribers
In this important part, learn how to preserve your list and keep your subscribers as your own. Learn how to succeed and keep in touch with your prospects and subscribers constantly to avoid losing potential customers.

Are you ready for the journey of a lifetime? Then let’s begin building your foundation for success in your industry…
Simple Ways To Build Your List

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises” - Demosthenes

To win big, you have to start out small, as Demosthenes suggests. Small opportunities will often lead you to great successes. The process of creating a list leads to the potential for greater success and wealth, regardless of the business you are in. In this section we’ll talk about some simple tools you can use to build your list. Let’s look at each method independently.

Sometimes it is best to rely on simple tools and small opportunities when you are just starting out in the industry. You will have much time to grow your business and expand your customer base if you follow the simple steps outlined in this guide. So let’s begin first by talking about subscriber leads.

Subscriber Leads
One easy way to build your list is by collecting subscriber leads. This is one of the best ways to expand your business. There are many ways to acquire leads, but the best way to collect leads is to gather them automatically, through email or by your website through various forms. In the next few sections, we will go into greater detail about the ways you can grow your subscriber list and maintain your list over time.



You will find as you run your business that your subscriber leads prove vital to your businesses success and ability to grow and expand over time.

Opt-In Leads
Like subscriber leads, opt-in leads are a good tool for building your business. Opt-in leads are leads you get when you invite someone to enter their information into your database. When they do this, they are granting you permission to contact them in the future about new products or updates to your site.

For example, when you create your website, you can set it up so each person that visits has the choice to sign up for a newsletter or some other type of routine e-mailing. By signing up, visitors are “opting in” to your list. Setting your site up this way allows you to gain visitor’s email addresses. While you can never force someone to do what you want them to, this approach often works if you encourage people to sign up by describing all the benefits your site offers. You can then reap the benefits of gaining important subscriber leads.

Survey Leads
Another way to produce automatic subscriber leads is by conducting surveys on your website. This is a simple way to increase the number of subscribers to your list. You can place survey ads on your website so they pop up when a customer checks out.

How do you get someone to fill out a survey? It is not as hard as you think. For starters, some people enjoy filling out surveys. For those that don’t you can employ some simple tactics to encourage them to offer their information to you. For example, tell your customers what benefits they will reap from filling out your survey. Don’t assume your customer’s know what benefits they will gain by filling out a survey. You have to tell them. Maybe they will gain access to your website, which contains thousands of free articles on the topic they are researching. Maybe you will enter them into a contest to win a free gift. Giveaways are a great way to encourage people to sign up for just about anything.

It’s funny how quickly people are willing to give up their personal information, including their name, address and email for a gift. We’ll talk more about gifts later in this chapter.

Make sure you offer them an irresistible reason to fill out your survey. Tell customers how they will profit by signing up. This is a very easy and successful tool marketers use to produce new leads. Most times visitors are willing to offer their email address for a survey.

Let’s talk now about the next simple tool you can use to build your subscriber list.



Affiliating
One way you can collect leads for your subscriber list is by affiliating. Affiliating means joining in or offering an affiliate program. When you take part in an affiliate program you immediately realize the benefits of getting leads that an affiliate will create and then forward to you.

For this process to work you need an opt-in program and an auto responder programmer. We will devote an entire section to auto responders later in this chapter. Using these programs you can gather information and instantly send out confirmation emails to new subscribers on your list. Don’t worry about having people fill in their address fields or phone number. Most people are hesitant to provide this information, but very willing to provide their email address. There is much less pressure involved when you are collecting email addresses instead of personal information.

Top Two Ways To Profit From Your List
Once you start growing your opt-in list, you’ll want to ensure it is profitable. There are many ways to go about doing this. You want to make sure all your hard work is for a good cause, so you have to find ways to profit from your list. There are literally dozens of different methods you can employ to achieve results, but two seem to work better than all others.

The top two ways to profit from your list are also the easiest, so let’s look at them:

    1. Build trust and loyalty among your customers. Your customers will not buy from you unless you are able to prove your worthiness. So, you have to spend notable time working to build their trust. You can do this many ways. You can join forums that talk about the products or service industry you have an interest in, and look for experts in your field to offer their advice and recommendations to your subscriber list.

Also, make sure your website is clear and offers your visitors relevant and important information they will find helpful during their journey. If you are practicing affiliate marketing, and even if you are not, make sure you tested or tried any products you plan to sell so you can provide your subscribers honest reviews of them. This is the #1-way to build trust, and trust always leads to higher profit margins.

You should also build a user-friendly website, one that has a navigation bar placed in a prominent location. Make sure you provide your customers with a contact us page and always respond to customer or visitor inquiries within 48 hours if this is possible. The sooner you get back with your visitors, the better reputation you will build.

When responding to customer’s that contact you through your website, make sure that you remind them to sign up for your free newsletter if they haven’t already, which will contain more information on the subject they are looking for. Don’t automatically assume they want to be subscribed to your newsletter just because they asked a question on the topic.  Tell them what your newsletter offers, and how they can subscribe.

When you build trust and loyalty, your customers are also more likely to refer your business to their friends and their family. Some web owners design a page after the order page that allows the customer to input the names and emails of two to three of their friends that might also be interested in your products. This is another simple way to build your list. Make sure you provide them an incentive for checking you out, in the way of a free report, book, checklist or newsletter subscription.

    1. Fulfill your subscriber’s needs. Everyone has needs. The whole point of doing business on the web is to fulfill the needs of people surfing the Internet. If you want to make money selling a product or a service, you first have to find out how that product or service will fill your prospect’s needs. How will they benefit from the product or service you offer? Have other people benefited? If so, how and why? Providing your customers with this information will help you create a profitable opt-in list, one that will transform visitors into paying customers.

One of the simplest ways to tell your customers how you can fulfill their needs is by listing the ways you do this on your landing page, or on another prominent place on your website. Make sure you bullet each benefit and explain to the prospect exactly how you plan to serve them, and why your product or service is better than that of the competition.

The more content you provide, the more secure your customer will feel about their purchase. They are also more inclined to believe you are fulfilling a need they have.

Let us take a moment to look at the first bullet, trust. Many people fear that building trust among strangers will prove difficult. Realistically speaking, anyone can build trust easily. How do you build trust?

First, run a legitimate business that you know something about. Don’t try selling aromatherapy to someone just because it is a hot trend. You have to know what you are selling to sell it well. Next, if you want to encourage your customers to buy, offer them some form of guarantee. You can for example, offer them a 90-Day money-back guarantee on any products they use on your site, provided they use the products in the time frame appointed and have a legitimate reason for returning them.

Statistics show that even when customers do not feel satisfied with a product they will often not return it because they either (1) forget about it or (2) are too busy to mess with it.  Nonetheless, when you build a guarantee into your sale, you put your customer’s mind at ease, and they consider their purchase less risky.

Lastly, provide your customer’s helpful hints and guidelines that will help them get the most benefit from your product. This shows your customer you have a vested interest in helping them succeed. This builds trust and loyalty, and converts subscribers to buyers. That is your goal to begin with.

Quick Tips For Creating A Great List

We covered a lot of information in this section about building and maintaining a high quality list of subscribers. Let’s review some of the most important steps you need to take to ensure you build a profitable list:

1.    First, make sure you put up a good landing page. It should be well-designed and professional looking. If you don’t have any design skills then hire someone to do this for you.

2.    Next, put a web form on your landing page and offer your customers the opportunity to opt-in to your mailing list. Give something away free to encourage them to opt in.

3.    Make sure any freebies you give away are of the highest quality, because the subscribers on your list will judge the worthiness of your products and services based on the freebies they get.

4.    Include a lot of professionally written content and interesting information for your visitors. Your customers will want to read interesting things and want to look for more than just a sales pitch. Content sites are a great way to build trust and loyalty. You can build a content site jam-packed with articles and helpful information, then link to your sales page from your content site.

5.    Make sure you keep your customer’s information private. If you tell your customer’s you will not share his or her personal information, then don’t share it with anyone. You will ruin your reputation, and word spreads fast on the Internet.

6.    Take some time to try the product you offer yourself. Make sure it is something you consider worthy of buying. If you are selling a book you wrote, make sure it has mass appeal and will benefit the target audience you plan to market it to.

7.    Provide top-notch customer service. This is THE number one way to stay ahead of the game. If your customers are happy and you resolve their questions and complaints immediately, then you will win their loyalty and trust.

8.    Reward customers that refer others to you. This is a simple way to build trust and loyalty.

9.    Respond to your customer’s complaints or inquiries immediately, with the goal in mind always being to satisfy your customer.

10. Remain truthful and honest in all you do. A customer will sniff out a scam faster than a dog will a bone. Don’t lie, don’t trick and don’t steal. Be honest and be who you are, and you will do well working on the Web and building your opt-in list.

Now you know everything there is to know about building a terrific list from the ground up.

Summary
There are many simple ways to build a list. You can build your list using subscriber leads, opt-in leads, survey leads and through affiliating. When building your list, you want to ensure your list is profitable. The best way to achieve this is by building trust and loyalty among your customers, and by fulfilling your customers needs. If you don’t know what your customers needs are, then step back, take a moment and ask. Find out. Survey. Do what you have to. Because if you don’t know what your customer needs, you won’t know how or what to sell to them.

Lastly, make sure you are always honest and sincere in all your business doings, and you will always make a good impression with customers.

In the next part we will talk more about mailing and subscriber lists.


Mailing And Subscriber Lists
In the last section we talked about some simple tools you can use to build your subscriber list. There are many possibilities and opportunities to expand your list if you are willing to put in the time and effort. Once you have a solid list, you are positioned to sell your product or service more efficiently on the Web or off the Web.

In this chapter we’ll look at some more ways of building your subscriber lists. Many people decide to build their mailing list by buying a mailing lists or subscriber lists. There are many places you can rent or buy mailing lists. Generally however, these lists do not work as well as collecting leads on your own. Sometimes buying a list causes problems. For example, many subscribers on these lists are people that didn’t want their personal information sold, so they may end up resenting you for contacting them, and even report you for Spam.

While you can use these lists and they might work, you have to consider whether the price is worth it as they are very expensive. If you are short on time and have some free capital to spare, you might start with a rented or bought list and then work on building your own subscriber list.

Building Your Own Mailing List
You can’t rely on others to build your mailing list for you. If you want to succeed you must do everything possible to create your own success.

Building your own list is the best way to earn the trust and loyalty of subscribers and to ensure your personal success and satisfaction. While you are building your subscriber list using the tools we talked about in the first chapter, you can also use the information you gather to start building your own mailing list. Some new business owners are


afraid to ask their customers for personal information to include on their list. But for many, a mailing list can make or break a business.

A mailing list is a must have if you want to create large-scale sales and realize significant profits on the Web. Want to know why a mailing list is important? Here’s why. Typically the average customer will visit a website seven or more times before they buy something. As long as you give your customers a reason to revisit your site, they will. That is why you need a mailing list

You can mail a newsletter to your list to encourage your customers to visit your site and look at recent additions or updates. There are many statistics confirming that customers repeatedly buy from email advertisements, so don’t think you don’t need a mailing list. You do. And you need a good one at that.

How To Avoid Mistakes When Creating Your Subscriber List
Before we talk more about the steps you should take to build your subscriber list, let’s make sure we are clear on what you should NOT do when building your subscriber list. Many newbies fall victim to scams or programs offering free traffic that will boost their sales. Unfortunately many of these programs are nothing more than scams and may end up costing you more money than they make.

They can even prevent you from restarting your business and achieving the success you deserve. So let’s make sure you do not make these common mistakes.

Let’s start by looking at some things you should avoid when trying to build your list.



List Building No No’s
There are certain things you should never do when trying to build your subscriber list. The #1 mistake list builders make is buying bulk emails. Here is a tip:

NEVER BUY AND SEND BULK EMAIL TO PEOPLE

You won’t make any money sending bulk emails to people. Why? Because they are garbage. They are worthless. By now you must have done some research on list building or you wouldn’t be reading this book. You may see ads that promise thousands of email addresses for less than $50. If you see ads like this, know you are working with a bulk mail company.

While having thousands of subscribers would be great, it isn’t great if you are getting your names from a bulk mailing list. Bulk companies get their email addresses by using automatic tools, including robots on the Web.

If you buy the list, there is a very good chance you are buying a list of names of people that don’t want to be advertised to for the product you are offering. You risk being labeled a spammer.  If no one asked to subscribe to your mailing list and you send them an email, what are you doing? You are spamming them.

Spamming people is the number one way to fail at building your subscriber list. Bulk mailing ads are useless. Avoid them at all costs if you want to run a successful campaign.

Bulk mailing lists also are not targeted. Targeted lists are lists that have the names and contact information of people that would have an


active interest in buying what it is you have to offer. If you buy a bulk list, you run the risk of trying to sell a female hormonal cream to a man interested in sports gear. Not a good combination.

Now let’s look at another popular scam used on the web to pull new business owners in and trick them into spending their hard earned money on traffic and list building programs that don’t work.

Guaranteed Traffic Scam
Many new business owners are tempted by offers of “guaranteed” traffic for a very low price. Now, these companies may send 100,000 or more visitors to your website, but you may not get a single subscriber or make a single sale.

Why? Traffic is generated by pop up windows appearing on other websites. Your website is loaded into a pop up window. So, someone may be surfing the net and your website pops up below the site he is searching. This results in sending out your website to thousands of untargeted customers. The key to success in list building is creating a list of TARGETED customers.

Targeted customers are customers that are most likely to be interested in buying your product. They have, in some way, offered their information and stated that they have an interest in a product. Let’s say you sell beauty products. You want a targeted list of consumers, mostly women, interested in buying beauty products on the Web. If you get a list of untargeted customers, your business will go nowhere. Most untargeted customers won’t buy anything, and they don’t want to be hassled by traffic generating pop ups.





Summary
In this chapter we learned even more simple tools for building your subscriber lists. Many people use their subscriber list to build their mailing list. While there are many places you can buy mailing lists, you have to look long and hard to find one that is worthwhile. In addition, if you do find one that is worthwhile, it will cost you a LOT of money to buy a list.

Most of the advertisements you see that offer cheap lists will not benefit your campaign. Yes, for $39.99 ABC Company may send 100,000 visitors to your site. However, the chances are high these visitors are not targeted. They likely have no interest in your product at all.

There are some legitimate companies that do offer targeted lists you can buy, but generally these are very expensive for that reason, and when starting out you probably do not have a lot of capital to spare.

That is why it is so important you work on building your own targeted list of subscribers and a targeted mailing list. A targeted list is jam-packed with people eager to hear what it is you have to say and what you have to offer. So make sure you work diligently on creating your own mailing lists. With time, your lists will grow well into the thousands.
Learning The Ropes
To build your own mailing list, all you really have to do is learn the ropes, and be willing to put in the time and effort needed to make this work. Let’s talk now about ways you can build your mailing list and subscriber list effortlessly.

How To Design Successful Subscriber Pulling Web Pages
You can quickly and easily encourage visitors to turn into subscribers on your website by converting frequently visited web pages on your site into subscriber-pulling pages. These are nothing more than web pages that encourage visitors to subscribe to your mailing list.

How can you do that? One way you can do this is by using a pop up window that appears when a visitor goes to your web page. The pop up window should ask the visitor for their name and email address. Another tactic many successful marketers use is simply placing an opt-in form on all pages of their website for visitors interested in subscribing to your online newsletter or ezine. This is a simple, subtle and indirect way to encourage people to sign up for your ezine or your newsletter.

Opt in lists are a great way of building your list because in essence you are asking your customer for permission to contact them in the future by email about new products you may offer or updates to your site. Many customers will return to your site once you have their permission to contact them.

A great way to encourage customers to remain on your list is by sending them an email confirming their agreement to subscribe to your list. Then send them a friendly welcoming message.

A Word On Personalization

Customers like to feel wanted and appreciated. Be sure when prospects opt into your mailing list, you treat them like customers, whether they bought something from you or not.

You should consider sending them a personalized welcome message and ensure all communications to them contain their name or other personal information.

Personalization is a simple trick many marketers use to get closer to their prospects and customers. The closer a prospect feels to you, the more likely they are to buy from you repeatedly, as well as send friends and family to your site to buy from you.

Offer A Free Gift
Who doesn’t like a free gift? A sensible way to build your mailing list is to offer a free gift, report, newsletter or other object of value to your visitors when they opt-in to your mailing list. You can create a landing page for example, where customers can immediately download a free gift or report in exchange for their email address. This is a great way to pull in more visitors and transform more visitors into buyers.

The key here is making sure whatever it is you offer your customer has real value. You don’t want to give away a shoddy product, because they will assume everything else you have to offer is pretty shoddy too. So make sure you invest a little time and effort in your free gift. And be creative.

You may for example, offer them a free one hour personal coaching session. Or you may review the first ten pages of their marketing plan and offer advice. Give them something they will value and need, and they will gladly accept your gift and opt-in. You will also build trust and loyalty by doing so.

Honestly this is one of the best ways to pull people to your website because you are offering them something free. You will get targeted traffic going to your web page with little effort. The best part? You are proving what you have to offer is valuable, so customers are likely to return. And, even if they do not return on their own, you now have their email addresses or other personal information.


Offering Your Ezine
You can also easily build your ezine list by taking advantage of ezine marketing and advertising. For those of you new to this, an ezine is simply an online newsletter. Generally, most ezines sponsor one or more paid advertisements. You can use an ezine to grab your subscriber’s attention many ways. The best way is by offering a free or risk free product offer in your ezine ad.

When a subscriber clicks on the ad, offer them the choice to opt into your mailing list as an exchange for receiving the free offer. The free offer can be a free report or trial service.

This isn’t hard selling, just an easy and low pressure way to encourage members of your list to sign up for your mailing list. In exchange they get something free. It’s easy to build your ezine list by placing an ad in other ezines that require the user to opt in to your list to receive their free product or service.

The Subscriber Pulling Web Page Part II
You will find there are many ways to create a large subscriber list. As you know, one way you can create a great list is by creating a solid landing page. Let us look at the landing page more deeply now however, so you understand how to design the best landing page possible.

A good landing page will, as we mentioned, offer visitors a free gift of some kind. Everyone wants a free gift. The key here is offering something that has value for the customer. If you are selling beauty products and you offer your customer a free shoe, why would they want to opt in to your list?

But, if you offer them a sample of your finest moisturizing lotion, there is a very strong possibility they will opt in to your list.

Aside from offering something free, you must have your landing page professionally written. A good landing page is much like a sales letter. While you may be looking for subscribers at first and not a hard sale, you should have a page that is good enough to entice your visitors to offer their email addresses.

You also want your web page to look good, so if you have to, hire a god web designer to help you build a good looking web page.

Good landing pages have some key features:

è Eye catching headline that grabs your visitor’s attention instantly and compels them to read on. Many refer to this as the hook. Does your headline have a hook? If not, work on it. You may find you have to test a few headlines to find out which one pulls in the most people.

è Brief introduction. Tell your customer who you are and what you are offering them. Don’t forget to list the benefits of what you have to offer. You can do this using a simple bulleted list.

è An offer, whether you are offering a free product, newsletter or guide in exchange for an email address.

è You shouldn’t have any links on your opt-in page (except for links to your privacy policy and other disclaimers) so your visitor is not distracted and freely offers their information.

è A reminder that your visitor is receiving something free, that there is no charge, no risk and nothing to lose (provided you offer something free as one of your tactics to build your list).

è A privacy statement to assure your visitors you will keep their information personal and private. Many visitors will not enter their information unless they know their information will be kept private and confidential.

è Include your handwritten signature, which again builds trust and a personal experience for your visitor. Make sure when you include your signature it is legible. Signatures that are not legible usually suggest the author has something to hide.

è Make your free product offer look as professional as possible. Consider getting an eCover for it even if it is free, so your customers assume the free gift or product is worthwhile.

When you design a simple web page in this fashion, you have a very high possibility of transforming customers into subscribers. You may find up to 80% of visitors subscribe when you create a great landing page.

And, if you are not good at web design or even writing, contract others to do the work for you. Just go to Elance.com and you’ll find hundreds of people capable of setting up your page at a reasonable price.

Convert Cold Prospects Into Paying Customers
You can convert a good portion of your new subscribers, the people that have already opted into your list, into paying customers immediately using one simple technique.

How do you do that? It’s easy. It’s called the “One Time Offer”. What you need to do is create a one time offer sales landing page between your primary landing page and your thank you page. Historically the one time offer deal has generated the most profits in the online industry. How does it work? It goes something like this:

Thank You Page Or Order Confirmation Page

Here is how the process actually works. Your customer enters your site on your landing page. Your landing page may contain a link for them to sign up for a free gift. They sign up for your free product or gift and opt in to your subscriber list.  They are immediately directed to your one time offer page before they go to the thank you page or confirmation page confirming their free gift is sent.

Your customer has to go through the one time offer page before they receive their free gift, so you have to make this very clear on your one time offer page. You have to let your prospect know that this is the ONE time they will be able to take advantage of the offer you present them with.

You can start with a simple headline like, “You HAVE to read this before proceeding to the next page to finalize your free gift.”

What should your one time offer page look like? Your one time offer page should look like any other sales page. You have to reemphasize throughout to your customer that this is a one time offer, so they can only take advantage of the opportunity you plan to present them with this one time.

By highlighting this statement, you create a sense of urgency. You want to make the customer feel like it is absolutely essential they take advantage of your one time offer or they will miss out on a life changing opportunity.

Your one time offer page should be dynamic, charged with energy and provide multiple calls to action.

Here are some other tips for spicing up your one time offer page:

è Let your customers know they will not find your offer anywhere else.

è Let them know the product you are offering is being offered at a special discounted price this one time only.

è Consider offering your customer a bundle of products they can buy the resell rights to.

Your one time offer will give your prospects the opportunity to (1) take the offer or (2) say no and continue to download their free report. It’s that simple. You can include the link that says “No Thank You” on the bottom of the page if you want to prevent the prospect from clicking on it immediately without seeing what it is you have to offer.

Either way you have gained a new subscriber and have nothing to lose by trying to sell them something right off the bat. You may be surprised to find out how many visitors are willing to buy something after you offer them a free gift. Just make sure you set up your site correctly so if they do order a special one time offer product they still receive their free gift.

If your prospect does end up taking advantage of your free offer, you should send them to a different thank you page where they can acquire their products as well as the free report or gift you offered when they opted into your list. Make sure you personalize this message and follow up with your customers to ensure their satisfaction. This will instill loyalty and trust and help you build long-term relationships with your customers.

Summary
In this section you “learned the ropes” of successful list building and web page creation. Your goal when trying to build your mailing list should include designing subscriber pulling web pages. These are web pages that encourage visitors to opt in to your mailing list. There are many ways to create these types of pages. You can for example, use a pop up window asking the customer to sign up for your newsletter or ezine.

A more common tool is the use of the free gift. You can create a landing page that offers your visitors a free gift. To receive their free gift, they must enter their email address and name. Remember, your free gift must be something of value to your customers. Make sure it is of high quality, because your clients will rank your site and your reliability based on the quality of the free gift they receive.  If you aren’t sure what to offer, consider taking a look at the competition. Find out what they are doing. Are they offering free e-books? Free samples? Find a way to provide your visitors with something unique and different. This will help you beat out your competition easily.

Another way to build your list and convert visitors into paying customers is by creating a one time offer page. This page should be placed between your landing page and your thank you page. On this page you can let your visitors know about an offer that you are presenting one time only. By creating urgency, you will find you are more likely to win over many customers.  Remember when creating all your web pages they should be eye catching, simple and direct. Protect your customers by including a privacy statement.

Lastly, don’t forget to personalize your messages as much as you can. Add your handwritten signature at the bottom of your pages to encourage your customers to trust you. These are just a few simple ways you can build successful mailing lists and win over new subscribers and paying customers.




Double Opt-In-Lists - What They Are And How You Can Benefit

In the last segment we talked about creating your mailing and subscriber lists. Now we will focus on a new topic, the double opt-in list.

Double Opt-In Lists Defined
A double opt-in list is nothing more than an email newsletter or ezine that allows people to sign up using your web page or by sending an email to the software that manages your opt in list.

Why is that different from an ordinary opt-in list? The difference is anyone who subscribes through a double opt in list must confirm their request to subscribe to your list twice.

The first time a subscriber usually opts in is when they give you their name and email address from a web based form. Once the initial request to join is received, software or your opt-in list management system like Aweber.com sends a confirmation email to the address the person entered as their email address. Users must then confirm their subscription by clicking the link provided in the email to affirm they agree to join your newsletter or ezine.

This is why the process is called double opt-in. People literally opt into your list twice. Once as an initial agreement to sign up then again to confirm their desire to be included on your list.

Why have people opt-in twice? Many marketers feel this process is mandatory to a business owner’s success. The double opt-in list confirms that someone entering his or her email address is genuinely interested in receiving your newsletter or other publication. The extra confirmation also verifies you have the correct email address.

By confirming a consumer is really interested in signing up for your list, you can rest assured the chances are very high you are getting high-quality prospects. These are people that are very likely to buy from you in the future because they have a solid interest in what you have to offer.

When you don’t offer a double opt-in option, a person can go on your website, enter another person’s email address and leave. Then the person receiving your confirmation email and following ezines will think they are being spammed, and may report you for spamming.

You don’t want to upset someone accidentally, so your best bet is to protect your interests and those of your clients by providing the double opt-in list choice.

It’s also important you confirm people signing up genuinely have an interest in your ezine or newsletter. If they don’t you will not sell anything to them. A single opt-in list leaves more opportunity for subscribers that won’t respond to your ezines because they will think they are Spam.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of The Double Opt-In
The point of an opt-in email list is attracting people to your list that are good, solid prospects. Good prospects are those likely to buy products from you in the future. A double-opt-in list will almost guarantee you get a high quality group of subscribers on your list. This will include people that want to receive the information you have to give.

You may have a smaller list of only 5,000 people if you do a double opt-in list, but chances are very high the people on this list are very eager for the information you have to offer. They are more likely to respond to advertisements posted on your ezine, which may result in more residual income for you.

Having 5,000 high quality prospects is much better than having one million general prospects that may or may not have an interest in your product. You want to spend 80% of your time focusing on prospects that are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. You can spend the remaining 20% on leads that may result in some sales.

The biggest advantage of a double opt-in list is it reduces the number of complaints of Spam your host receives. You don’t want to be charged with Spam accusations too often, or major ISP’s may ban your domain name. So make sure you always set up a double opt-in list when you can. You can do this easily using most of the common software programs available for mailing ezines and newsletters.

Not sure what these are? Check out Aweber.com. This is a great site that will help you set up an automatic opt-in list. All you have to do is click a button to turn a single opt-in list to a double opt-in list. You don’t have to know anything technical about how to set up an email ezine.

Another handy site to check out is GetResponse.com. They too offer a double opt-in facility you can use to reduce the likelihood your messages will be considered Spam.

Summary
The double opt-in list is a good alternative to the traditional opt-in list for many reasons. The most obvious reason is if a customer chooses to confirm their subscription to your email list, you can rest easy knowing they will not consider your emails Spam. It also prevents the likelihood that someone else may enter your site and enter someone else’s information as their own. If someone receives a subscription they did not want, they are more likely to report your actions as Spam, and you want to avoid that at all costs.
Maintaining Your Opt-In List and Subscribers

In the last section we talked about the advantages and disadvantages of having a double opt-in list. Now that you have a firm idea of how to create a good solid subscriber list, it’s time to talk about maintaining your lists.

Today there is so much competition on the Web, you have to be aggressive and work hard to keep your customers. Fortunately there are many simple and easy tools you can use to maintain your subscriber list. This section will focus on many tools you can use to succeed. Let’s start by reviewing the use of auto responders as a means of keeping in touch with your clients.

How To Use Autoresponders
One of the best ways to keep in touch with your customers and prospects is by sending out a series of regular and updated auto responders.

Online marketing wouldn’t succeed today without auto responders. These handy tools allow marketers to contact their prospects, customers and affiliates effortlessly. If you want to keep in touch with your customers and subscribers the best way to do so is by using a paid and professional responder service.

An autoresponder is often a primary ingredient of many successful business owners’ toolkits. Autoresponders are nothing more than computer generated emails you can send to your affiliates. You can write a dozen at a time, load them into your database or the professional database you are using to manage your leads, then designate a time frame when each should be sent out (weekly, monthly etc).

You can use an auto responder to send out sales messages or to announce new developments in your product line. You can use them to send out special offers to your customers or simply to help provide a means of communication with your customers and establish greater trust and loyalty.

A mailing list and an auto responder often go hand in hand. Once you have your subscriber list, make sure you keep in touch with your subscribers regularly by emailing them. Most marketer email weekly at the very minimum.

You may also create separate lists, one list for paying customers and one list for prospects. You might decide to email your paying customers more frequently because they already bought from you. Once somebody buys from you, it’s twice as likely they will buy again. So save your best efforts for paying customers when using auto responders.

Create E-Zines To Maintain Your List
Yet another way to maintain your list of subscribers is to create online newsletters or ezines you freely distribute to your list.

These emails are easy to create and provide your customers with a wealth of important and targeted information. You can either automate the process of sending ezines to your subscribers (which I recommend) or send them out manually on a set schedule.

What benefits will you enjoy by sending out an ezine? The same benefits you might if you were to send a newsletter to your target audience. You can expand your marketing influence and your knowledge as well as your base of subscribers. You can connect with your subscribers on a down-to-earth level so you get to know them better.

This in turn will allow you to offer them products that better serve their needs. The only thing you need to start an ezine is an auto responder and broadcast feature. The broadcast feature allows you to reach out to all subscribers on your list, or just to a select group of subscribers.

There are many sites that allow you to easily create ezine or auto responder messages online and send them to your customers. You can choose from various professional looking templates. One of my favorite places is Aweber.com. Here you can create unlimited ezines for all your subscribers.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Ezines
The advantages of ezines are obvious. You are able to reach out to your subscribers and encourage them to take an active interest in your products and services. You can use your ezine to build trust and loyalty.

However, one disadvantage many people associated with ezines is the work involved in creating an online newsletter. You have to be able to create good content, and that process can be extraordinarily difficult if you are not already a writer, or a writer too busy with other projects. The good news is you can hire someone to create your content for you inexpensively.

There are many contract sites like Elance.com where freelancers and other professionals post their profiles and bid on projects. You can put your ezine project up for bidding, describing your needs and the content you want, and sit back and watch as dozens of people offer to write your ezine. You will find by going through sites you get very competitive bids, so you will not have to pay too much to create your ezine.

Another way to tackle the content problem is to create as much content as you can in advance. You can for example, create one month’s worth of content and place it in your autoresponder, so in a few days you have prepared all the ezines you need to for an entire month – or even longer if you wish.

Another place to check out for help when creating ezines is Rentacoder.com. Here you will also find independent contractors capable of taking on your writing projects.

How To Choose An Ezine Topic
How do you choose an ezine topic? You should always focus on creating content that is not time sensitive. You want topics that provide universal appeal regardless of the season or time of year. Otherwise someone may receive your autoresponder at the wrong time or place.

Things that work well for ezines include quick and simple tips your subscribers can adopt, mini stories your readers can enjoy and interviews with other professionals in the industry. Think of the kinds of subjects you would enjoy reading if you were to read an online newsletter and go from there. A great way to come up with ideas for content is by brainstorming. Just sit down, get out a piece of paper and create a list of a dozen or more topics you might like to talk about.

When thinking of great topics, look for those that have a solid market and demand. You should look for topics where a demand always exists for the topic. Relationships and dating for example are topics that are always in demand, so you can usually create an ezine or product on this subject and generate good income. You may look for a niche within the primary topic category you select to narrow your focus and your target audience.

You also want to look for topics that will allow you to create a steady stream of affiliate income by promoting the products and services of others. You can endorse products that you are an affiliate for through your ezine and subscriber list and make a lot of extra residual income.

Summary
In a perfect world all lists would maintain themselves. Unfortunately we all live in an imperfect world. That means you do have to put a little effort into maintaining your lists and ensuring your subscribers remain loyal to you.

Because the Web is filled with competition and new entrants into the market, you must continually work to not only create but also maintain your lists. There are many simple and effective ways you can maintain your lists.

One of the easiest ways to maintain your list with little to no effort is by using an autoresponder. Autoresponders are automatic email newsletters or emails you can send out to your prospects or customers in an organized fashion. These tools allow you to keep in touch with your clients on a regular basis.

Many companies, including Aweber.com, allow you to create enough autoresponder messages to last you a month or more. You can then sit back and watch what happens as your prospects receive their weekly, monthly or even daily messages. The use of email newsletters or ezines is also a good way to maintain your list and keep your prospects up to date on new trends in your industry.

Final Thoughts
List building is an excellent way to get more people to visit your site and buy your products. You can create powerful and effective mailing and subscriber lists using the tools provided in this handy guide. When you work hard to build your subscriber list, you are setting up the foundation for future prosperity and a successful business.

While list building does take some time, in the end you will find if you build your list slowly and carefully, then maintain it, you will end up with a much more loyal group of customers that are more likely to pay you money to buy your products and services.

Remember, a good list builder is someone who builds loyal and trusting relationships with customers. A good list builder also fulfills his or her subscriber’s needs. Find out what your customers want and need, then tell them how you can fulfill that need better than anyone else and live up to your promise. Simply doing this will ensure your long-term success as an entrepreneur on the Web.

Feel free to review any one section of this guide at any point in time to refresh your memory.  If you follow the tips provided in this guide, you are well on you way to list building success.

Recommended Resources


List Building PLR Collection


List Building Income Plan


List Building Class

List Building Automated System - Send Button Profits


Web Hosting




Payment Processors


Paypal