It’s often said the money is in the list. And the bigger the list the more money you make.

But that’s only partly true — and here’s why.

In fact it is the quality of the list that decides how much money you make. Some of my biggest and best conversion rates and sales for thousands of dollars have been made to a tiny, but top quality, list. In fact, so good are the customers on that list some of them have sent me gifts, even after paying me thousands of dollars for my products.It is an unerring natural law that quality and quantity tend to be inversely proportionate. So, given the choice, I’ll gladly take a tiny list of good quality every time!

So how do you set about getting a good quality list from scratch?

Once you have generated a flow of quality traffic to your web site, you need to retain as much of that as possible by capturing the names of quality visitors. There are several ways you can do this.

Most popular are pop-ups, which visitors hate and webmasters love — simply because they do tend to work.

Increasingly popular is the squeeze page, where you literally squeeze the visitor’s name and e-mail address out of them, before you allow them to see the web site. How effective these two methods are depends on how intriguing your copy writing and bullet points, to convince visitors to fill in the name capture form, are. Depending on how your visitor has reached your site (clicking an AdWords, reading an article, search engine result or recommendation) you could achieve conversion rates ranging from 20% to, perhaps, double that figure.

But how would you like to achieve consistently more conversions — and high quality conversions, at that?

All you need do is provide some content for the visitor to read before you demand their name and address. That way you don’t violate the first rule of marketing (don’t annoy your prospective customer). In addition, you also prove your worth, by letting them see the sort of information you are going to provide. This is far better than a headline — no matter how throat grabbing — and a list of bullet points, no matter how compelling. After all, that is self-praise, which will always have a lower credibility rating than letting them see for themselves how good you are.

Here’s a further benefit with this method. If the visitor subscribes to your list, after they have sampled the goods somewhat, it means they are more likely to be a match for what you have to offer. The closer the match, the more you’re likely turn a prospect into a customer. You don’t want people on your list who aren’t likely to ever become customers. Quality wins over quantity every time.

But the highest quality list in the world is only as good as your last mailing. Don’t imagine for one moment all the prospects on your list are so enamored with you and your web site they are sitting in front of their computers studiously deleting every e-mail that does not bear your name. You know, from your own experience, just how much you are assailed with e-mail offers from every quarter. So your task is to keep your name in the forefront of your prospect’s mind.

You want to strive to position yourself as the supplier of choice. Just as you might automatically think of Coca Cola or Bud, when you are thirsty, you want them to immediately think of you, when they have a problem in your area of expertise.

For this reason, you should be e-mailing your list at least once a week — and initially far more frequent than that. If they first subscribed for a course, you may be e-mailing them initially on a daily basis. That’s a good start. Thereafter once a week should be the target, which is why a regular newsletter is so valuable. Always remember we humans need to repeat something 21 times to form a neural pathway in our brains that creates a habit.

Once you have a built up a quality list by these methods, don’t destroy your reputation by selling something in every e-mail or offering rubbish. Give plenty of free stuff and only offer something for sale about every fourth e-mail. Even then, only offer your own products or affiliate products you have personal experience of using or from someone of whom you have a high regard.

You can also make your contacts far more personal, if you occasionally mail your list by snail mail. Send them a free dvd or cd, because that’s a sure way to get the package opened, even if they don’t recognize your return address.

Once you have your list, guard it with your life, because it is the list — a quality list properly nurtured — that will provide your amazing lifestyle. Isn’t that something worth working hard at?

Copyright 2006 Paul Hooper-Kelly and www.InternetMarketingMagician.com

By: Paul Hooper-Kelly

About the Author:

Ebay auctions made easy

List building goes hand in hand with email marketing. The two are actually the most convincing when it comes to succeeding in your Internet marketing campaign/s.

One thing you have to bear in mind, the importance of list building evolves around the notion that without subscribers – your offers, content and originality won’t matter. Though it is important to look after every aspect of your website, you need to focus on building a list to ensure that your site has an audience.

How to Start Building a List

Getting started with email marketing can mean hard work for a lot people. Then again, with the right know-how, it is actually very simple. The moment you decide that you want to market your website via email, you need to consider the fact that you need to do it properly. You may need to spend money for a decent email service and it would be a great thing to choose the right one.

With an account, you only need to add a new list and to fill up all the details. This includes the name, email address and maybe some demographics. Afterwards, you can get your sign up form HTML code which you will paste to your site.

Take note that this form is very crucial. It is your means of generating subscribers to your site. It is up to you to design it but make sure you don’t break the form submission. Never lose submissions and at the same time, wonder why nobody seems to be signing up.

If you think the rest of the process will become easier; for others, this is the case but for a majority of people, getting people to subscribe may be tricky. To help you with this, you need to know the real reason why people don’t subscribe to an open and working email list – they are not properly informed why they need to.
To work you through the list building process, you need to:

Open an account with a good email service provider.
Add a new list, fill up the necessary details and get the sign up HTML code.
Paste the code to your site.
Inform people about your list.
Give them reasons to subscribe to your site.
Let them know that it is safe and free.
Give them easy to answer subscription forms.
Make your sign up form visible.

Following the above mentioned steps can help you a great deal with your list building project. Though the steps seem easy, there are people who still get confused and mess it up. If you are new to this process, it is understandable. For your readers and possible subscribers, don’t assume that they will be able to see the benefits right away. If you don’t spell it out, they may become suspicious and think that there’s a hidden agenda.

By: Sean R Mize

About the Author:

List building is one of the most important elements of internet marketing. As there are surely hundreds of websites that are very similar to yours, it could be very difficult for you to get your potential buyers to come back over and over again. What happens if your website suddenly doesn’t appear on the top 10 search page results? Your potential buyers might visit the site of your competitors and you might lose their business.
This is the reason why you need to get their contact information. It is through this that you can easily maintain an ongoing communication with them. After they signed up to your list, you’re free to send them newsletters or emails that contain information about your latest promotions.

Getting people to subscribe to a list can be very difficult. As more and more people are trying to get rid of spam, they’re very careful when they’re sharing their email addresses. You can convince them to sign up by giving them an assurance that you’re a legit ebusiness owner and that you’ll be able to send them with high quality, useful information. You can make these all happen through article writing. Here are some useful tips that you may want to keep in mind:

Give them what they want. Write with the aim to address the learning needs of your target audience. It is through this that you can get them to take interest in your articles. Go to forums where they usually share their ideas and where they usually talk about the things that they find interesting. You can also conduct surveys or do keyword research to get their pulse. Discuss those topics that are related to your products and services.

Help your readers. You don’t want your readers to forget about your articles as soon as they close them. Make them memorable by filling them up with useful information. Provide these people with the best, compelling answers to their burning questions. Share your expertise and help them solve their pressing issues. Make them more self-reliant by giving them guides or help them do things more efficiently by giving them tips and techniques.

Showcase your expertise. Your potential buyers will only sign up to your list if they’re 100% sure that you’re a great source of valuable, useful information. So, ensure that all the articles you publish under your name are worth their time. Be very generous when sharing a slice of your in-depth knowledge. It is through this that you’ll be able to set your articles apart from the rest while you earn the trust and confidence of your target audience all at the same time.

Make your readers smile. Aside from making your articles very informative, it will also help if you make them interesting to read. People simply love those writers who can educate and entertain them at the same time.

By: Sean R Mize

About the Author:

It’s relatively easy to build an email list by driving traffic to a web page however it’s difficult to convert prospects into buyers because they don’t know you and there’s lack of trust. These barriers need to be removed for a person to buy from you. Once they’ve purchased one of your products it’s easier to sell them another product in the future.

7 ways to convert prospects into buyers

1. Follow-up

Most people won’t purchase a product or service the first time they see it. They need to be reminded several times plus receive more in-depth information. If you use a web-based autoresponder service you’ll be able to automatically send a series of email messages every few days. Simply create 7-10 messages ahead of time then load them into your autoresponder. Make sure each message is personalized and includes an unsubscribe link at the end of your content. Create short easy to read paragraphs containing more information about your product.

2. Start a conversation

Each follow-up email should be written as part of an ongoing conversation. This will engage your prospect and make them feel like they know you. Ask them questions to encourage interaction. The better you know your prospects the easier it will be to provide content they need.

3. Create separate lists for different niches

This may seem obvious but don’t send emails to unrelated lists. Instead create separate lists and autoresponders for each niche. Most autoresponders allow unlimited lists and unlimited autoresponders.

4. Build relationships

Your goal should be to build a long-term relationship with the people on your list. The longer they remain on your list the more money you can make from them as long as you’re constantly provided valuable content and products to help build their business.

5. Separate prospects from buyers

After a person has bought from you place them on a separate list (buyer’s list) so you don’t send them the same information as your prospects. Buyers have demonstrated they are willing to open their wallets whereas prospects still need to be warmed up to buy.

6. Don’t give up

It’s easy to give up on your prospects after you’ve sent them numerous follow-up messages and they still didn’t buy anything. Don’t give up on them because they may only be ready to buy after being 1, 2 or 3 years on your list. Send a bi-weekly newsletter containing your latest articles, news and product recommendations.

7. Track your results

Use the tracking service provided by your autoresponder service to see which links are receiving the most clicks then create more content targeting this area.

One of the main points I left out is taking action. It’s great to know all the theory however if you don’t take action on these 7 points the information will be useless and you won’t achieve the desired results….converting your prospects into buyers.

By: Herman Drost

About the Author:

Membership Site Script

Viral list building when used properly can grow you subscriber list by hundreds of new subscribers daily with other people doing most of the work for you. If you want to rapidly expand your list on autopilot then viral list building is the way forwards for you.

Viral list building effectively works by one friend sending a message to say ten other friends, if they then in turn send the message to ten other friends the original message is rapidly distributed to thousands of people.

One easy way to do this is go and write a really, really good report that you are your subject matter on, and I mean quality! The kind of report that you would happily pay $37 for. Now I am not then going to ask you to create a traditional squeeze page give it away. Yes sorry I should have mentioned that you are going to give the report away for free, do not even think of charging for even though you could. As every Internet marketer will tell you “The money is in the list” and that is the aim of this viral list building guide.

But as I mentioned you are not going to do this by creating and sending traffic to a traditional squeeze page that just asks for the users email address and their name. With viral list building as I described above it is all about getting others to spread the word for you, and build your list for you on autopilot. So what I want you to do is landing page that has the same look and feel as a normal squeeze page, but to download your free report the person who wants to get your report also has to enter not only their email but the name of five friends who they think would also be interested in receiving the report and only then do they get access to your free download report.

Then your email script sends out an invite to all of those five people asking them if they would be interested in downloading your report. If they are then they go through the same process as above to get access to your report, and hence other people virally help you build your list.

Now there are numerous free ‘Tell a friend scripts’ out there and I will leave it to you and Google to find one you feel confident using, also do not be tempted to buy such a script as there are plenty of free ones out there.

So if you think this viral list building tip is great then visit the link below to get more information on growing your list. Take action and visit the link today.

By: Richard Allen

About the Author:

When you create your optin option on your website or blog you absolutely must make it something that people will want to respond to. You can do this through a wealth of testing options but the bottom line is that if you would not give away your email address in exchange for what you are offering then it should probably be changed. As an affiliate marketer and internet marketer you should be very familiar with what your audience is interested in. You would not try and sell someone a diet weight loss plan when they are interested in making more money online. This simply would not work. In turn, you should not give away an optin option on your blog or website that people would not want to have.

Email marketing is completely dependent upon having a quality list, and having a quality list depends upon the quality of your optin option. For example, that you run a website that focuses on photography equipment. You will want to contact your readers regularly with affiliate offers that you come across. These offers will make you money if any of your readers purchase the product but the offers will also allow your readers to get a new product at a good deal. In order for you to let your customers know about these products they must be signed up for your contact list. One simple way to entice people to add their name to your list is to give them a graphic display of all of the great deals they could gain by being a part of your list. You could showcase how much money people have saved by using the offers that are offered through your website. You could also highlight some of the more enticing deals that people have bought in the past year. When people see that there is real value in signing up for a service they are more likely to actually do it.

Your list building efforts could also be enhanced by using an email marketing service. This service will manage all of your contacts and ensure that you can devote your time to finding the offers and taking your money to the bank. They will even allow you to use an autoresponder feature which will let you have even better communication with your readers. If you are seriously interested in growing your list then you will want to consider an email marketing service.

By: Vincent J. Valentine

About the Author:

I work with lots of people who are interesting in list building. That makes sense, it is what I’m known for. You can imagine I get asked a lot of the same questions over and over. Well one of the big questions is how can you start building a list if you don’t have a product of your own yet. Affiliate marketing can be a perfect place for the beginner to start.

What is affiliate marketing? It is where you promote someone else’s product and you get a commission on every sale that is made. Usually the person who has the product supplies a website or sales page which makes it super easy to get going. Once you have the basic page, you can start building your own list.

It is important to start building your own list…because you want to build a relationship with people who buy products…you want to keep marketing to them products that will be of benefit to them. I know a lot of people think that it is impossible to be list building when you are doing affiliate marketing, but this is simply not true–unless the affiliate agreement states clearly that you cannot, you are pretty much good to go.

Of course you want to carefully read their Terms of Service…if you find that their rules do not allow you to be list building while you are driving traffic and sales to them…drop them and move on to one that will. Plain and simple. There are enough affiliate programs out there that DO allow it–you don’t need to try to work with one that does not.

Regardless of who created the product the process for list building is the same. You will get a domain name, get web hosting, build a squeeze page, drive traffic to that page, and get an autoresponder system that will help you stay in contact with the people on your list. Bam…five easy steps and you are in business.

When you are choosing products, here are three things to keep in mind: choose products that convert well-this will increase your chances of making money, which is one of your goals, too. Also make sure the product fits your niche…the area you are marketing to. And finally, you want to know the product is good so be sure to buy and use it yourself.

Even though your main objective is to be list building, it is much better to be making some money while you are list building than waiting until you have a huge list and then start marketing to it. Why not make money as you build? I do it by looking at products that convert well, meaning they tend to sell well…I’d rather pick one that sells well and pays smaller commissions than trying to go for a big commission on a product that sells less often.

So the bottom line is…don’t wait to start list building-get started NOW with affiliate marketing! Go find a product that someone else has created, make sure it fits your niche and sells well, and then get busy driving traffic. You will have a list built AND money in your pocket before you know it and that is a pretty sweet combo that is hard to beat!

By: Tellman Knudson

About the Author:

List building is one of the easiest, most profitable ways of email marketing. The goal of list building is to attract a large amount of people and get them to join your list. Once on your list you then advertise to them.

The more people on your list, the more people you can advertise to and the more revenue you can make. There is some legitimate money to be made in list building. If you have a decent budget you could look into Opt-in list building. That’s where you pay to join into a group of other lists (or merge your list into the group), almost like a coalition of lists all combined with the members splitting the profits. Building your own mega-list from the ground up is considerably more work, but it is more than achievable.

One of the best ways to build a massive list is to offer something for free in exchange for them joining the list. Something that seems like a good deal but in reality is something that costs you nothing. Something like a free subscription to your “list building” email newsletter. You do not want to begin pitching the people on your list right away. To come on so strong is a sure fire way to lose any trust. Spend a few months sending them interesting emails once or twice a week having to due with their interests or your specific niche. These can be articles you have written, spun, gotten from similar newsletters, etc, as long as it is decent information. After a few months you should have gained significant trust with them. You can then proceed to slowly integrate related products into your weekly newsletter. Make the offers/discounts seem as if they are prizes for them being on the list. They win the ability to buy what you are selling. Keep in mind that for some people no amount of time will remove their skepticism. This is a numbers game; the bigger the list, the more potential buyers.

By: S P Schlaiffer

About the Author:

IM Success Formula

List building is an art. That’s because it takes a lot of time to complete and you can always get better at it. The more practice you have, the more you learn. You’ll make mistakes along the way but those are to be learned from, not regretted. To engage in the most effective list building possible, follow these few simple pointers. They’re sure to gain new visitors to add to your list.

1. Keep your information accurate: Everything on your website needs to be accurate and make a favorable first impression. Misspelled words and typos are a sure sign that you don’t care about your website. If you don’t care, your visitors won’t care. Double-check all of your work and see to it that all information you print is verified. Provide sources if possible. If you operate a business, it’s even more important. To convert those leads to customers, you must show them that you’re professional and know what you’re doing.

2. Update frequently: Update your information frequently. Keep your homepage current and your information fresh. If you keep the same old thing on your website day after day, visitors might think it’s abandoned. This is true even if you sell products. You’ve still got to keep those pages fresh so that visitors know you’re working.

3. Answer questions promptly: List building happens much quicker if you answer your visitors when they email you a question. The moment you get that email, use it for your list building second. The first thing to do is answer the question and retain that visitor.

4. Newsletters win the day: When you have someone that voluntarily wants to read a newsletter presented by you, you’re in the big leagues. This gives you the chance to perform list building that really counts where it matters. An opt-in newsletter subscriber is already interested in what you have to say. Now all you have to do is say it in a way that keeps that person’s attention. You’ve added a quality lead to your list. It indicates a high probability that the person will buy from you now or in the future.

These few pointers don’t mean anything if you don’t apply them. Whether you operate a business or an informative website, you’ve got to keep your content fresh, your contact with readers professional and interesting, and your on-site information accurate. Without these things, your list building efforts aren’t going to help you very much.

Research goes a long way too. When you learn more about marketing and the list building process, you increase your chances of success. You’re already reading this, so it’s a good sign that you’re willing to put in overtime to be a success online.

By: Steve Duval

About the Author:

It is certainly true that there are various types of Online business that you can run where it isn’t actually necessary to build an email list to make it work as a business – in fact I suppose you could say that this is true of just about any type of Internet business.

But, if you are looking to build a longterm business on the Internet rather than just lots of short-term income streams then you are well-advised to utilize list building as an integral part of everything you do Online in any niche market that you’re involved in.

When you make building an email list a central part of your Internet business plans, you are ensuring that you can be more proactive in your future marketing. Instead of having to constantly go out and generate new traffic to your Website, you’ll have the opportunity of speaking directly to people who are pre-qualified and predisposed to open your marketing message, just by sending them an email. As long as you’ve spent a reasonable amount of time and effort cultivating a positive relationship with them by providing good quality information in your email messages, you’re almost bound to get a higher response rate to any marketing message you send them than you would from totally new traffic that hadn’t heard of you before.

So, how do you go about building your own email list. Well, you need some sort of Website. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy – just a single page, very basic squeeze page is all that you need. This is basically a very simple sales page, selling people on the idea of joining your email list (preferably offering them some sort of ‘ethical bribe’ such as a free short report to encourage them to sign up) and containing the sign up form itself.

You will need an autoresponder account – basically an email system that allows you to send a series of sequential emails that you have pre-loaded as well as one-off broadcast emails. You can get one in two basic ways. You can sign up for a remotely-hosted service or, alternatively, you can get a script that you can run from your own Webhost.

Your autoresponder will provide the sign up form that you can paste into your squeeze page to enable you to collect names and email addresses from your subscribers.

If you want to be in a position to make money by presenting offers to your email list on into the future then it is imperative that you work hard to cultivate a positive relationship between you and your list by providing them with genuinely useful information in a large percentage of the emails you send to them i.e. you should not just send a succession of sales messages to your list. This is the quickest way to get a huge unsubscribe rate.

If you do it right, email list building can be your ticket to a lucrative, longterm Internet business venture. You would be well-advised to make learning about it a part of your Internet business education.

By: Alan J Allport

About the Author:

Your niche sites made easy