List Building I Am Ready To Tear My Hair Out!

[aaronlamont]

First of hi to those fellow Warriors who are reading this...

I HOPE SOMEONE CAN HELP.

I have had success on the internet through CPA and Affiliate Marketing and also creating a few of my own products but the one thing I keep getting stuck on is list building.

I AM READY TO TEAR MY HAIR OUT!

I have a list of around 800 minus the unsubscribers but I cant build it up any further it seems.

Has anyone got any tips for me to create a list of targeted subscribers and not just the freebie seekers, what am I doing wrong?

Can someone recommend a guide on list building or a step by step of how to go about it the right way.

Many thanks,

Aaron.

[dsmpublishing]

Hi aaron

sorry to hear that you have been having trouble building your list. I would recommend that you help out on here and post good quality replies and post a wso with your freebie to get a quick hit of subscribers. When i first my first 1,000 it felt like an eternity before i hit 1500 so please be patient.

as someone that is list building it is a must that you include a link to your freebie in your sig otherwise you are seriously missing out i know many people on here that gain 1,000 subscibers in a 6wk period just to replying on here.

Twitter is another goldmine i can add hundreds every single week without any real effort check out the wso in my sig for details of using twitter to build your list.

stay away from giveaway events as they tend to be less responsive and have no intention of staying subscribed.

writing articles is another great one and have you sent your free gift viral yet?

just a few points in consider.

kind regards


sam
X

[Nightengale]

What have you been doing so far? What's worked for you and what have you done that hasn't worked? Also, what is your product and market?

Knowing this will help us give you some advice.

Michelle

[aaronlamont]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

What have you been doing so far? What's worked for you and what have you done that hasn't worked? Also, what is your product and market?

Knowing this will help us give you some advice.

Michelle

I have built up my list in the general affiliate marketing arena.

I started really by having a landing page that showed an insiders video to whatever product I was promoting as an affiliate and I got the email addresses that way which was my main list building strategy.

The other way that I added was to use giveaway events which added subscribers but who were mostly freebie seekers.

Like I said in my first post I have been able to get a few sales out of my list for my own products but I know that it could be better.

Things that I could improve on would probably be:

Knowing how to create an irrisistable offer.
Knowing which headlines cause emails to be opened.
How to increase my signup rate.
What incentive to offer to get more subscribers.
How to communicate with my list.

And probably a lot more that I am still unaware of.

[Nightengale]

Ok, you've decided to sell products as an affiliate. Sounds good. But you still haven't told us WHAT you're selling. (Affiliate sales are just a type of marketing. It's not the product itself.) You might be an affiliate for a diet product or electronics, but those are very different products and very different markets.

So I'll ask again: WHAT are you selling?

Offering a free video for an opt-in is a good strategy. Great start!

You're right: you need to learn

How to create an irrisistable offer.
Which headlines cause emails to be opened.
How to increase my signup rate.
What incentive to offer to get more subscribers.
How to communicate with my list.

Etc.

There's a very steep learning curve in IM (though most of us are addicted to it and spend countless hours in front of our computers). Basically, you need to plan on life-long learning and always being in student mode. If you love to learn, like most of us here do, you'll love it.

Once you have a product (whether it's your own or someone else's) and a market, no matter what you're selling, you follow this basic model:

Traffic > Squeeze page (with great free offer) > Autoresponder/e-zine follow-up > Sale

It really is this simple.

Start with WHO your market is and what problem your product solves for them. Then work backwards. Create a great sales letter for your product. (If you're an affiliate, I assume they gave you a good sales letter for the product.)

Now focus on creating a good squeeze page with a great free offer which your market wants. Use that to get them to opt in to your list and then follow up with an e-zine, autoresponders and complimentary teleseminars (if you're comfortable doing those). Learn how to create an irresistible offer, both the free offer for your squeeze page and a special offer for the paid product. As an affiliate, you have no control over the product, but you could create a special offer by adding your own special bonus or bonuses.

Now it's time to get qualified traffic. The giveaway event was a traffic generator for you but it sounds like it didn't bring qualified traffic, which is what you need.

Think about WHO your ideal customer is and where you'd find them online. Look for discussion forums, associations, e-zines and hard-copy newsletters, etc. You can do PPC ads to get a quick start. Find e-zines serving these people and maybe place an ad or write an article for that e-zine as a guest columnist. Issue a press release. Offer a free teleseminar about the solution to the problem which your product solves then get the word out.

I can't be more specific without knowing your product and market, sorry. But it sounds like you need to focus on two things: creating a good offer and getting QUALIFIED traffic. There are tons of resources out there on getting traffic. Buy one or two and get to work.

I'd also highly recommend picking up a copy of Dan Kennedy's "No B.S. Sales Success." It's $10 and a fantastic book.

Hope this helps!

Michelle

[CCCAffiliate]

Great response Michelle "Thanks"

[Astounding Writing Coach]

Hi Aaron,

Here's an idea to think about for your headline. Do you know what a performance gap is? That is something that is missing in your niche. Businesses that fill performance gaps usually do pretty successful business.

So, in the subject line of the e-mail, write a topic that peaks the interest of your ideal prospect. If it is a stay-at-home single mom who is very interested in a home business that somehow makes her money while building family closeness, and your product supports that, the headline would be benefit-oriented. You might have to write the headline 100 times and test it out with friends before you really use it.

"Make Money Spending Time with Your Family at Home."

The "Make Money" part is a benefit. The "Spending Time with Your Family at Home" is a benefit. Your title needs lots of benefits in it. And keywords. These two phrases are big hit keywords.

Also, another little trick about headlines. When you know what your ideal prospect is really interested in, provide words that are useful, ultra-specific, unique and stimulates urgency. If you can hit 3 out of 4 of those keys, you've probably got a good headline.

Takes some practice but when I work with a headline, I might write it out 100 or more times before I wind up using it. I would encourage you to do the same.

Write out a headline with benefits of great importance to your niche. Say what your target longs to hear. Start from the ideal end result and work backwards.

Hope this is helpful.
Astounding Writing Coach

[Nightengale]

Ok, back. I'm now working on my new laptop after getting it set up the way that I want it to be (as much as I can do for now, anyway). Got everything from my desktop's My Documents onto the laptop's My Documents (or most of it anyway), got iTunes downloaded and all of my songs and playlists transferred as well as some programs like Dreamweaver.

Have laptop, will travel. Looks like I'll have to get used to the keyboard layout, though. :P

Ok, back to what I was saying.... My earlier post was off the top of my head based on my own experience but mostly on my research through the expensive marketing kits I've purchased over the years.

List-building is tremendously important and it's importance really can't be overstated. In fact, Andrew Carnegie, America's first billionaire said: "Take away my factories, my railroads, all my assets and wealth, but leave me my customer lists and I'll have it all back and more in very short order."

Anway, here are 11 list-building strategies for you. Pick 2 or 3 of the easiest for you to do now and work on those. Don't try to do everything at once. Once you get some success, then build on that.

1. Create free, live teleseminar on your topic.

I don't know about you, but for me, it's a lot easier to yap about a topic for an hour than it is to sit down and write a 10 or 20 page report. (Should I have admitted that? I'm a copywriter. On second thought, please just keep that between you and me, ok?)

Advertise your free teleseminar on your own Web site (it can be your bait for the opt in), in your own e-zine, in other e-zines and Web sites of targeted associations and organizations (join these orgs if necessary), and anywhere you'd usually advertise your business.

2. Turn that same content into an audio class.

Don't create more work than is necessary here. Simplicity is key.

You can record several different live teleseminars and pick the best one or simply do a recording of you talking into your computer. Again, don't SOUND like that's what you're doing! Pretend you're sitting down with a friend for coffee and explaining your topic.

Post the recording on your Web site and require that people opt-in to get access. (This will also free up a lot of your time when you're ready to move away from live calls.)

3. Turn it into a special report.

Take your call, have it transcribed and cleaned up and post it as a free report. MUCH easier than staring at a blank MS Word screen, trust me! 10-30 pages is fine. End your report with a promotion for your product or service. Add tracking links throughout the report so that you know where those clicks came from. I know 1 Shopping Cart offerslink tracking.

(See? Same piece of content, 3 different promotions. Ok, marching on...)

4. Turn that same content into a live talk.

When you're ready, you can start giving talks to your target market. But use the same info and format that you already have and just tweak it for your audience and venue.

Locate groups of your target market. Speak for FREE or $$$$. Sell your products and services at the event. (I believe the host usually takes a commission)

For those times when you're not allowed to "pitch" or promote in any way, use the GIVEAWAY DRAWING strategy to build your list. (This works best if you have a physical product with you.)

When you're done with your talk, smile and ask who would like a FREE [insert your product here]. Hosts and promoters usually don't have a problem with this (it makes them look good to their audience) too since everyone loves to get something for free.

Describe your product (to let them know what they're going to get), let the audience know that everyone who enters your drawing will be added to your list and receive a complimentary subscription to your e-zine .

Pass a fishbowl or hat around and have everyone drop their card in. Pick a card and give away your product. Someone gets a free product and YOU get everyone in the room onto your list.

5. Be a frequent teleseminar guest.

You've already located groups of your target market. Offer to be a guest on their teleseminars. If they're not holding teleseminars, then offer to host a free call for them and give their audience great free information and give the partnering organization a commission on all referred sales. If possible, negotiate to get a copy of the registration list as part of the deal. Better yet, direct their registrants to YOUR site and have the registration be an opt-in to YOUR list.

6. Advertise in other e-zines, Web sites and publications.

Too many people (and IMers in particular) simply don't spend enough time or $$$$ building their list. They're cheap and want everything for free. Big mistake. Your list is your biggest asset, the one that will feed you for life so be willing to invest in it. If you're tracking like you should be, you'll know exactly how many sales came from whatever activity and so you'll know exactly how much you can afford to spend. Direct marketing 101.

Choose publications your target market reads and advertise your free (whatever your opt-in bait is), NOT your product or service. Your primary goal is to get them on your list. THEN you can sell them.

7. Plaster your articles all over the Web.

Ask the article marketers here who know: article marketing pays. Recycle every article you write for your e-zine and submit them to appropriate e-zines and article directories.

8. Attend live events.

Look around for conferences and seminars with leaders in your industry and that your target market attends. Pay more to sponsor an exhibit and look for unique ways to get noticed. (One Internet marketer I know of planned a party at an event she attended and invited everyoine from the conference hosts and leaders to the attendees. Simply by virtue of the fact that she's planned and hosted it, she was seen as very gracious and people were very open to here after that.)

9. Give great testimonials

Give generous and honest testimonials for other people's products and services. as them if you can be featured on their Web sites, along with your URL. They may ver ywell agree to this and even though that URL probably won't be a hyperlink, people can still find you.

Remember that results-based testimonials are most likely to be featured since they sell the most.

10. Go viral for a rush of subscribers.

You might follow Scott Stratten's example and create a short Flash movie with an opt-in box at the end. He did The Time Movie (which I believe is still up) and got an insane number of people on his list in a very short time. The catch to that is that his movie (and thus his list) was very general and not very targeted. But you can get creative and see what you can do to make it more targeted.

11. Use a book to build your list.

I think that most people have dreamed of writing a book and becoming a famous author at some point (myself included). But the truth is, you're not very likely to get rich writing a book. In fact, you're not likely to make any money writing a book at all (unless you're direct-response oriented and self-publish).

But a book is a GREAT LIST-BUILDER! It gives you tremendous credibility and people don't typically throw away books. They'll throw away your business card and your brochure. They'll click away from your site. But they're not likely to throw away your book.

There are a lot of options for self-publishing. Don't believe anyone who tells you that a traditional publishing house offers an author more credibility than self-publishing. People want to know about the book, if it's any good and who the author is and what makes him qualified to write the book. Nobody ever asks who the publisher is.

Obviously, this isn't a first step for a newbie, but it's definitely something to keep in the back of your mind. There are lots of options for self-publishing: everything from going it alone (check out Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual -- a FABULOUS book (I own a couple of copies) to people offering coaching programs and done-for you services designed to help get your book out of your head and into print.

Check out Sophfronia Scott at The Book Sistah or Christine Kloser at Love Your Life Publishing Get Your Book Done I've never worked with either one of them but they were recommended to me by people I trust.

There you are: 11 list-building strategies to keep you busy and get your list growing. Just keep your target market in mind: WHO are they and what problem does your product or service solve for them?

Once you know that, you can focus on generating qualified traffic. But that's a whole 'nuther topic and I need to go to bed.

Hope that helps!

Michelle

P.S. I never claim to have an original thought. (I'm only good at repeating what I've heard elsewhere.) This comes directly from my marketing mentors.

P.P.S. If this post has typos, please forgive me. It's now nearly 5:30 AM and I haven't slept yet. I'm not proofreading it. :P

[jonbeebe]

Originally Posted by aaronlamont

I have built up my list in the general affiliate
Things that I could improve on would probably be:

Knowing how to create an irrisistable offer.
Knowing which headlines cause emails to be opened.
How to increase my signup rate.
What incentive to offer to get more subscribers.
How to communicate with my list.

And probably a lot more that I am still unaware of.

Hi Aaron,

I've actually had pretty good success in this area, but I'm in a completely different niche than you are, but I don't think that matters too much--I think the problem with the 'affiliate marketing' and 'internet marketing' niche is that while there ARE obviously a lot of buyers, there are also a vast amount of "freebie seekers" because of the fact that a huge amount of people who are interested in making money online are doing so BECAUSE of money problems.

Anyway, you've already selected your niche and are dead set with that so the above isn't really very helpful for you, just wanted to throw that in there--you probably already knew it anyway.

Well, the best thing I can do is to refer you to some of the resources I used to learn about list building and how to communicate with your list (no they are not affiliate links, in fact, not even links at all just to make sure of that).

The first one is a GREAT course on how to build a list really effectively, this course goes REALLY in-depth with a lot of strategies. The downside is you have to wait each week to get the next course, however, if you email sam marcuso he'll give you a link with the links to all 12 lessons on the page (this is free by the way):

Do a google search for: 'sophisticated bum e-course'

The next is a resource ($7) by Josh Spaulding (an internet marketer I trust very much, and focuses completely on ethical marketing) that focuses on how to build trust with your list, and in turn allow you to get a relatively small list to convert like crazy:

Do a google search for: 'new age email marketing josh spaulding'

Well aaron, I hope that helps you out. Those are the exact resources I used for building my list, communicating/building trust, and converting--and they've both helped me tremendously.

Just my two cents.

Jonathan Beebe

[Michael_burke]

Originally Posted by aaronlamont

First of hi to those fellow Warriors who are reading this...

I HOPE SOMEONE CAN HELP.

I have had success on the internet through CPA and Affiliate Marketing and also creating a few of my own products but the one thing I keep getting stuck on is list building.

I AM READY TO TEAR MY HAIR OUT!

I have a list of around 800 minus the unsubscribers but I cant build it up any further it seems.

Has anyone got any tips for me to create a list of targeted subscribers and not just the freebie seekers, what am I doing wrong?

Can someone recommend a guide on list building or a step by step of how to go about it the right way.

Many thanks,

Aaron.

Hi Aaron
there are lots of great answers here so you'll get the help you need.
working with others is the best way to go.
At the moment I cant offer a decent JV for you to get new signups but i can offer a guest spot on my blog it is also a good way to get new subscribers.
PM me if you would like to post an article to my blog.
Michael

[Marian Berghes]

one thing that I recommend and I don't see many people doing it is going lateral with your list building.

Ex: there was a guy (can't remember the name) that had a IM course for newbies, had same problems like you...didn't grow his list very much, competition was a little to hard for him, couldn't find JV's etc...

At one point he started to do this: He bought advertising on dating websites, ezines, blogs etc...

He always had an ad along the lines of "So, you want to attract women? Make more money"...and as you can imagine he did get ALOT of people on his list...he made his squeeze page around this topic and he grew his list 10x faster then he did before.

This is a nice little strategy, don't know if it would work with any product or stuff but its worth a shot I guess.

[Karen Connell]

Hi All,

Michelle, that is a great post - thanks for sharing!

Marian, Never thought of this before - good one.

Thanks all.

Karen

Good luck Aaron

[aaronlamont]

Thanks everyone who has commented so far on this thread, I have made
not of the various ideas given and have already started to implement them.

Will keep fellow warriors updated on the progress.

[guillopuyol]

Originally Posted by aaronlamont

First of hi to those fellow Warriors who are reading this...

I HOPE SOMEONE CAN HELP.

I have had success on the internet through CPA and Affiliate Marketing and also creating a few of my own products but the one thing I keep getting stuck on is list building.

I AM READY TO TEAR MY HAIR OUT!

I have a list of around 800 minus the unsubscribers but I cant build it up any further it seems.

Has anyone got any tips for me to create a list of targeted subscribers and not just the freebie seekers, what am I doing wrong?

Can someone recommend a guide on list building or a step by step of how to go about it the right way.

Many thanks,

Aaron.

Hello Aaron,

I am glad that you realize the huge importance of building a list. In my opinion (and many others), list building should be your #1 priority for long-term success.

So you have a list of 800 or so subscribers... that is a good start. Something you can consider is swapping ads with other marketers in your niche with list size comparable to yours. It is important that you check your reports to see how many subscribers actually open your emails on average, it would not be fair to swap ads with another marketer that has a list of 800 and open rate of 30% if your list of 800 has an open rate of 3%. Be fair about it and you will be setting yourself up for success. When you run an ad swap, offer a very big discount on a paid product, or a free product to maximize the list building results. A few successful swaps can double or triple the size of your list in a very short time.

You mention you have tried giveaway events but all you got was freebie seekers. That is not necessarily a bad thing! When you participate in giveaway events, you must realize that people are in 100% freebie seeking mode, so you should not expect any immediate sales from them. What you should strive for is to get people to open, read and use your free product and hopefully experience some sort of success with it. Many free products go unused or unread, so the product creator doesn't have an opportunity to offer any value to the subscriber and they end up forgetting who you are and unsubscribing.

If you are in a giveaway event, make your product super-useful/effective and setup a followup series to continuously provide value and remind the new subscriber who you are.

Say for example you offer a freebie on Article Marketing.

1) Set up squeeze page. The squeeze page should have a great benefit-oriented headline. It should focus little on the product and a lot on the benefits the person will get from using the product.

2) Your thank you page should have audio, video and screen shots explaining exactly how to confirm their subscription. You really must take the time to tell them: Open your email, check for an email with "THIS" in the subject line, open the email, find a link that looks like "THIS"... If you can't find your email, check the Spam/Junk folders, and here is how you can White-List me so this doesn't happen again.

3) Once they click on the confirmation link the new subscriber should be taken to a One Time Offer page of sorts where they are given the opportunity to get FREE access to another RELATED product by just referring friends or twittering about your original free offer. (all these can be automated). Make sure it is possible and easy to bypass this step.

4) Over-deliver on your original offer. If you offered a free report, give them access to the free report, videos that explain everything, audio interviews, etc... Go overboard in an effort to make a great first impression. Remember: "There is never a second chance to cause a first impression."

5) Follow up with your autoresponder series continuing to over-deliver and build a relationship. You can use subject lines such as: "Hey {first name}, here is how I get my articles published every time." or "An interesting article marketing question you may also have..."

Take time to build a strong foundation on your relationship with your subscriber before you start hitting them up for money. This doesn't mean you can't sell at the beginning, just make sure you provide plenty of free VALUE and that you are only soft selling at first.

As far as increasing the open rate goes, what I recommend you do is go through your own inbox. Check and see which messages you opened and which you just skipped over. Be sure to analyze the subject lines of the messages that you opened, was the subject line pertaining to something you were expecting? Was there a clear benefit outlined? Was there an outstanding claim that peeked your curiosity? Was the email coming from someone you know, like and trust?

If you take the time to really understand your own behaviors you will also learn a lot about your subscribers.

Once your list is large enough, at least a couple thousand, then you can do partial split test broadcasts. Craft two subject lines for each email and type the email twice, long copy on one and short copy on the other. You must have unique tracking ids for the links in the long copy and the short copy so you can identify which got the best results.

Set up your auto responder to send a broadcast to 12.5% of your list with one subject line and long copy and 12.5% of your list with another subject line and short copy. Let it sit for a few hours or a day (depending on the urgency) and check which subject line got the most emails opened, and which copy got the most links clicked.

Once you know the winning combination you can then blast the remaining 75% of your list with the winning subject line and copy.


Ok Aaron... this was a little too long-winded, I hope it helps you in your list-building. Let me know if you have more questions.

-G

[mikeyman120]

Hey Aaron,

Get my 10 free squeeze pages from my sig to help you build your lists. But never stop building lists. It took me a while to break 1000 people. Seemed like I was stuck at 500 forever.

Mike

[StevieHawk]

There is a lot of amazing information here on getting people to opt in to your list. I am trying to build a list of my own and sell my own product. I have done WSO and tried promoting in DP forum. I am going to start targetting similar product keywords today.

My problem is that I am coming out of nowhere. All my previous success was based on already popular keyword CPA and Clickbank products. I have done most of the stuff talked about here with a free video and ebook squeeze page.

I am not sure about Teleseminar things though because as I said I am coming out of nowhere. I would have to market myself as well as the list to do it...right? Hopefully making some valuable contributions in the right places will build up my credibility.

[James Schramko]

Build up a blog with great content and give away a free report.

Link to the squeeze page or blog from here in your sig file.

Help people with useful posts.

Piggyback popular topics and use compelling curiosity headlines.

[macD231]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Ok, back. I'm now working on my new laptop after getting it set up the way that I want it to be (as much as I can do for now, anyway). Got everything from my desktop's My Documents onto the laptop's My Documents (or most of it anyway), got iTunes downloaded and all of my songs and playlists transferred as well as some programs like Dreamweaver.

Have laptop, will travel. Looks like I'll have to get used to the keyboard layout, though. :P

Ok, back to what I was saying.... My earlier post was off the top of my head based on my own experience but mostly on my research through the expensive marketing kits I've purchased over the years.

List-building is tremendously important and it's importance really can't be overstated. In fact, Andrew Carnegie, America's first billionaire said: "Take away my factories, my railroads, all my assets and wealth, but leave me my customer lists and I'll have it all back and more in very short order."

Anway, here are 11 list-building strategies for you. Pick 2 or 3 of the easiest for you to do now and work on those. Don't try to do everything at once. Once you get some success, then build on that.

1. Create free, live teleseminar on your topic.

I don't know about you, but for me, it's a lot easier to yap about a topic for an hour than it is to sit down and write a 10 or 20 page report. (Should I have admitted that? I'm a copywriter. On second thought, please just keep that between you and me, ok?)

Advertise your free teleseminar on your own Web site (it can be your bait for the opt in), in your own e-zine, in other e-zines and Web sites of targeted associations and organizations (join these orgs if necessary), and anywhere you'd usually advertise your business.

2. Turn that same content into an audio class.

Don't create more work than is necessary here. Simplicity is key.

You can record several different live teleseminars and pick the best one or simply do a recording of you talking into your computer. Again, don't SOUND like that's what you're doing! Pretend you're sitting down with a friend for coffee and explaining your topic.

Post the recording on your Web site and require that people opt-in to get access. (This will also free up a lot of your time when you're ready to move away from live calls.)

3. Turn it into a special report.

Take your call, have it transcribed and cleaned up and post it as a free report. MUCH easier than staring at a blank MS Word screen, trust me! 10-30 pages is fine. End your report with a promotion for your product or service. Add tracking links throughout the report so that you know where those clicks came from. I know 1 Shopping Cart offerslink tracking.

(See? Same piece of content, 3 different promotions. Ok, marching on...)

4. Turn that same content into a live talk.

When you're ready, you can start giving talks to your target market. But use the same info and format that you already have and just tweak it for your audience and venue.

Locate groups of your target market. Speak for FREE or $$$$. Sell your products and services at the event. (I believe the host usually takes a commission)

For those times when you're not allowed to "pitch" or promote in any way, use the GIVEAWAY DRAWING strategy to build your list. (This works best if you have a physical product with you.)

When you're done with your talk, smile and ask who would like a FREE [insert your product here]. Hosts and promoters usually don't have a problem with this (it makes them look good to their audience) too since everyone loves to get something for free.

Describe your product (to let them know what they're going to get), let the audience know that everyone who enters your drawing will be added to your list and receive a complimentary subscription to your e-zine .

Pass a fishbowl or hat around and have everyone drop their card in. Pick a card and give away your product. Someone gets a free product and YOU get everyone in the room onto your list.

5. Be a frequent teleseminar guest.

You've already located groups of your target market. Offer to be a guest on their teleseminars. If they're not holding teleseminars, then offer to host a free call for them and give their audience great free information and give the partnering organization a commission on all referred sales. If possible, negotiate to get a copy of the registration list as part of the deal. Better yet, direct their registrants to YOUR site and have the registration be an opt-in to YOUR list.

6. Advertise in other e-zines, Web sites and publications.

Too many people (and IMers in particular) simply don't spend enough time or $$$$ building their list. They're cheap and want everything for free. Big mistake. Your list is your biggest asset, the one that will feed you for life so be willing to invest in it. If you're tracking like you should be, you'll know exactly how many sales came from whatever activity and so you'll know exactly how much you can afford to spend. Direct marketing 101.

Choose publications your target market reads and advertise your free (whatever your opt-in bait is), NOT your product or service. Your primary goal is to get them on your list. THEN you can sell them.

7. Plaster your articles all over the Web.

Ask the article marketers here who know: article marketing pays. Recycle every article you write for your e-zine and submit them to appropriate e-zines and article directories.

8. Attend live events.

Look around for conferences and seminars with leaders in your industry and that your target market attends. Pay more to sponsor an exhibit and look for unique ways to get noticed. (One Internet marketer I know of planned a party at an event she attended and invited everyoine from the conference hosts and leaders to the attendees. Simply by virtue of the fact that she's planned and hosted it, she was seen as very gracious and people were very open to here after that.)

9. Give great testimonials

Give generous and honest testimonials for other people's products and services. as them if you can be featured on their Web sites, along with your URL. They may ver ywell agree to this and even though that URL probably won't be a hyperlink, people can still find you.

Remember that results-based testimonials are most likely to be featured since they sell the most.

10. Go viral for a rush of subscribers.

You might follow Scott Stratten's example and create a short Flash movie with an opt-in box at the end. He did The Time Movie (which I believe is still up) and got an insane number of people on his list in a very short time. The catch to that is that his movie (and thus his list) was very general and not very targeted. But you can get creative and see what you can do to make it more targeted.

11. Use a book to build your list.

I think that most people have dreamed of writing a book and becoming a famous author at some point (myself included). But the truth is, you're not very likely to get rich writing a book. In fact, you're not likely to make any money writing a book at all (unless you're direct-response oriented and self-publish).

But a book is a GREAT LIST-BUILDER! It gives you tremendous credibility and people don't typically throw away books. They'll throw away your business card and your brochure. They'll click away from your site. But they're not likely to throw away your book.

There are a lot of options for self-publishing. Don't believe anyone who tells you that a traditional publishing house offers an author more credibility than self-publishing. People want to know about the book, if it's any good and who the author is and what makes him qualified to write the book. Nobody ever asks who the publisher is.

Obviously, this isn't a first step for a newbie, but it's definitely something to keep in the back of your mind. There are lots of options for self-publishing: everything from going it alone (check out Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual -- a FABULOUS book (I own a couple of copies) to people offering coaching programs and done-for you services designed to help get your book out of your head and into print.

Check out Sophfronia Scott at The Book Sistah or Christine Kloser at Love Your Life Publishing Get Your Book Done I've never worked with either one of them but they were recommended to me by people I trust.

There you are: 11 list-building strategies to keep you busy and get your list growing. Just keep your target market in mind: WHO are they and what problem does your product or service solve for them?

Once you know that, you can focus on generating qualified traffic. But that's a whole 'nuther topic and I need to go to bed.

Hope that helps!

Michelle

P.S. I never claim to have an original thought. (I'm only good at repeating what I've heard elsewhere.) This comes directly from my marketing mentors.

P.P.S. If this post has typos, please forgive me. It's now nearly 5:30 AM and I haven't slept yet. I'm not proofreading it. :P

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