The Best Methods For Building a List

You're not going to build your lists unless you get people to your opt-in pages.

So, become a master of traffic generation and you can write your own ticket.

There are numerous methods of generating visitors so get busy and determine which ones work best for you.

- Asking my current list to tell their friends might work:

Yes this works especially if you have good content and folks not in the IM niche will do it without expecting anything in return.

TL

i think the giving things away for free one would have the best results...

I built my list for one of my websites soley off of posting in Yahoo Answers and offering a free e-mail course on my squeeze page. It worked out pretty well. I got 1-2 new subscribers a day.

traffic generation takes time.
have you tried article marketing? it's good in the long run.

Push as much traffic to the page as humanly possible by creating massive amounts of niche related content and distributing it in multiple formats to many different sites:

Video Marketing - YouTube, Viddler, Etc...
Article Marketing - EZA, GoArticles, Etc...
Social Networking - Facebook, Twitter, Etc...
Web 2.0 Properties - Hubpages, Squiddo, Knol, Etc...
Document Sharing Sites - DocStoc, Slideshare, Etc... (I hate Scribd)

Never try to sell in any of your content! Just simply place a link to find out more which leads back to your site.

Have a squeeze page on your main domain such as mydomain.com then attach a blog in a subdomain such as blog.mydomain.com or mydomain/blog. The search engines will pick up on the content in your blog and index it. With the proper link building, your blog will rank well in Google and you will get plenty of search engine traffic.

The blog will help build credibility. Many people who visit the blog will chop off the "blog" subdomain part to see what the main domain is all about. (once again the main domain is your squeeze page) People will have a better understanding of who you are by reading your blog and feel more comfortable opting in (if they haven't do so already on the blog itself) (Also place an optin box on the blog itself.)

Find quality freebies to give away: Private Label Rights, Master Resale Rights, Master Resell Rights, Private Label Resale Rights, ebook, video, software and have a video on your squeeze page.

Once you've got good capture/landing pages, you're going to want to use a combination of things like:

SEO Strategies (can take time)
PPC Advertising (instant)
Social Networking (can take time)
Article Marketing (can take time)
Traffic Exchanges (can be quick but may not be the right market)
Ezine Advertsing
Safelists (can be quick but effectiveness varies with markets)

There are more but this list could really keep you busy for a long time.

As you become more and more proficient in each area, you will be building your targeted lists and your credibility. The day can come when you can ALMOST count on pushing a button to send your offer, tweet, share, etc... and see sales coming in within minutes.

A couple of things to keep in mind are that you will need to be patient and persistent.

When you see these guys talk about things like making $24K in 24 hours, it's because they have spent a LOT of time (and probably money) for a long time leading up to that 24 hours.

NOW ... after they've built targeted lists of responsive subscribers, they can push a button and see sales come in.

So stick with it ... keep learning ... keep adapting.

Article Marketing To A Opt In Page

I am sure EZA, goArticles and some other article diretories too will get more traffic to your site, Add them to your list. As well as niche related forums + niche related blogs too will help you to drive more traffic. Better add them to your list.

I used blogs, capture pages to build my list. And, keep in touch to your to your subscribers.

-affiliaterocks

You guys are putting out a lot of value. I'm glad I found this forum. List building IMO is a lot like school. Just be yourself on video, blogs, and your own website and your list will grow. Oh and an opt in page or capture page is a must have of course. Have a great night everyone!

Rellie Lorenzo

Yes twitter seems to work l been with them a year and building my followers

I think you can master almost any one skill or method and be quite successful.

Advertising can work and some of the best ways to do this are leveraging your resources. EX. take all your stats from your free marketing methods and use them to determine how to place paid advertising. Meaning you can find out for free what people want and then use paid advertising to boost it.

Paid advertising is only going to magnify the volume, it won't increase your CTR. Streamline your offer through free marketing and then do paid.

However if you have the money and can track your PPC, it can be the best source for dividing the buyers from the shoppers.

My method:
Pick one method
Master it
Streamline it
Outsource it
oh and then sell that information you learned in the process! Tee Hee!

Maybe it's just me but sometimes giving away free stuff is dangerous. You end up with a list full of people with their hands out. I guess it depends on the offer and your goal but that's been my experience.

Hey Guys,

Thanks everyone for all of your help on this topic.

This is what I have learned

- In order to build a list you need a squeeze page offering a free product when the sign up.
- You need to work on getting as much traffic to that page as possible.
- There are many ways to skin a cat, (there are many ways to get traffic), instead of trying to do a little bit of all of them focus on one method and do it really well
- Keep sending out quality emails with great content to your subscribers
- Once your income goes up outsource your traffic generation method

So I am going to focus on using article submissions to build traffic, and I am going to continually tweak my squeeze page to convert traffic as best as I can. I am sure I will update you guys on results in the near future.

I think JVs are the best free way. If you have money to spend, PPC or CPA. Those will make it grow fast... but blogging actually works in the longterm and consistently I'm finding.

I've found that contests are great ways to build your list. Just make sure you have a nice prize. Then post it on various contest sites to build traffic.

If you want to build your list quickly, my favorite strategies include:

ad swaps
giveaway events
forum marketing
Free WSO's
High-Profile Content Syndication
Guest Blogging
Integration Marketing

The key is to focus on the few activities that create the most results!

Building a list is really just a matter of two elements:

1) Create a sleek opt-in page offering something valuable for free (a PDF report, a tool, a video tutorial, etc). Opt-In Rate is the name of the game here. Anything above 35% is good.

2) Drive targeted traffic to that opt-in page. This is, obviously, the hairy bit. If you master quality traffic generation there's no reason as of why you shouldn't succeed in internet marketing as it's BY FAR the most difficult (and most important) pillar of this business.

Running a contest on your website or blog.

Ask your visitor to subscribe to enter in the contest for a chance to win.

Prize must be in cash e.g.$200.

Ask subscriber to submit an article or suggestion regarding your niche.

Choose one winner and pay him/her.

You will get many subscribers for your list.

However you need to spread the word about website/blog contest.

Good luck.

doing joint ventures
adswaps
getting your offer on other peoples thank you pages

I've tried a few of the methods here and have had great success.

I'm glad someone here mentioned yahoo answers again. I'll be going
back there tonight and answering a few questions. last time I checked
my yahoo email account, I had like 3 best answers out of the 5 I
answered.

Alot of the methods here are classic time tested strategies I think
so many people just want to avoid.

Building and growing traffic takes alot of work UPFRONT, but pays
for it self well into the future.

It's easy to think you work longer hours with less pay using these
great strategies you all shared - that;s why so many quit and
settle with getting a paycheck every week.

But it takes courage to follow through with these methods, and
keep working until HARD and momentum follows.

I would like to point out there are 2 aspects of listing building, both are equally important:
1. Traffic generation
2. Opt-in offer

Various traffic generation strategies or tactics have been discussed above.

As for the opt-in offer, there are a few that I've come across:

* Notification of updates and news
* More info on the other side
* Freebie

Besides working as a standalone tactics, two or more of the above tactics may be combined to increase opt-in rates. For example, an affiliate may offer a freebie as an ethical bride to encourage her visitors to opt-in. Upon signing up, the visitors would be redirected to the vendor's website.

I think JVs, participating in ad swaps & giveaway events are the fastest ways although you will have to have a decent list &/or good freebie to participate in these.

All the other methods mentioned in this thread works, you just have to test & track which works better for you as different people are good at different things. After you know what works best for you, stick mainly with these. Remember the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle) - focus 80% of your energy on the the 20% that counts!

All the best!