Saturday, December 6, 2008

To Make Money Online You Have To Build Your List Now. Here's How

By Daniel Hatcher

Most Internet marketers do not realize the importance of building a huge opt-in mailing list. They figure it is good enough to be making affiliate sales from their website. If you fail to build an opt-in mailing list, you will lose a large percentage of potential customers.

Obtaining a list allows you to keep in contact with your visitors and build a relationship with them. If properly done, this can convert a high percentage of your prospects into customers. So what does it take to build a great list quickly and easily? Here are some useful tips:

* Offer an incentive, when possible, for people to leave their email address. This is one of the best ways to get people to sign into your list. I like to offer a special report or free Internet marketing training. For optimum results, it is essential to give them something for signing into your list. This tip alone can easily double the number of sign-ups you have.

Many people try to accomplish their list building without offering any kind of incentive for signing up which can be a huge mistake. Finding quality incentives is so easy it only makes sense to offer one.

* Include a privacy policy. One of the main reasons people do not opt-in is because they are afraid they will be spammed. This has been a major problem on the Internet for years. Everyone abhors spam. If a prospect has any reason to suspect that you will sell their email address to others they will simply not sign in. Give them a guarantee that you will not share their email address with anyone whatsoever. This will end the worries of people who are concerned about that. After I added one I saw over a 60% increase in the number of sign-ups I was receiving. It's amazing that a simple thing like this can make that much difference.

* Create multiple, tightly targeted lists. Very few comprehend the power of this tactic. By offering multiple lists on one site you drastically increase the chances of people finding something that interests them enough to sign up for. One of the lists could be for general updates, another could include tips your market would find useful, while another could be a monthly newsletter. No matter which option they choose you get their email address.

Think about what lists your market might be interested in, then offer those options on your site. A website visitor may have no interest in your generic mailing list but have a much greater interest in your newsletter. If you had not provided multiple options that person would have signed up for nothing. Usually three options are enough. If your visitors have not found something that interests them after three choices they are generally not worth going after.

* Make all your lists double opt-in. Double opt-in allows people to first sign up on your site, and then activate their subscription via a confirmation email. There are plenty of good reasons to have the double opt-in format. Number one, it will take away any chance of being labeled a spammer and secondly, you can show proof that people actually did request your emails.

Additionally, double opt-in will give your a significantly higher quality list of readers, as opposed to those from the singe opt-in method. The reason is because since these people are interested in your offer enough to verify with the confirmation email, they tend to be much more serious about what you offer. If that is the case, they will be much more responsive to your offers compared to those who sign up for your list on a whim. A high quality list is critical to making sales.

By putting the methods mentioned in this article into practice on your website, you will be able to build a huge, high quality list in a relatively short period. I have used all of the methods mentioned here and they work very well. If you use them, you will find they will work for you as well.

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