List Building 101...
Hi Everyone,
I am in the process of building a list and have been getting some great results. I wanted to share what I've been doing as well as hear what's been working for you. I'll keep posting my techniques as long as there is enough input from other readers to justify the information I am putting out. =)
Here's the first twelve things I did. (Starting with no list, no products and minimal budget.)
1. I went to a few marketers I respected and asked for a free copy of their software to promote to potential customer. This started a relationship for future JVs and gave me a product to promote AND gave me valuable information to learn from.
2. I joined several newsletters on list building and affiliate marketing.
3. I started relationships with the authors by sending them sincere comments and/or questions about their newsletters so that A. I could learn and B. They would know who I am for the future...
4. I read, listened to and studied everything in the material! (Very important).
5. I looked at the niche I wanted to be in "Affiliate Marketing" and looked for a problem to fix. In this case, it was building a list while promoting an affiliate product. The problem was if you were presenting your affiliate product to a person not on your list, then it was usually with an ad (like google adwords), article marketing or a review site. All of these send a potential client to an affiliate site where one of two things can happen.
A. You make a sale and never hear from them again
B. You don't make a sale and never hear from them again
Either way, you're sending (hopefully) hundreds of people to a sales page without building your list.
6. I created a solution to the problem. I hired a programmer on scriptlance (ScriptLance.com Custom Freelance Programming. Outsource web projects to programmers and designers.) and paid him to create a script that would cloak an affiliate link and allow me to show my own opt in form on their site as a pop up, plus show an exit pop up for a different product or one time offer.
7. I spent several months working on it while talking to the people I had buildt relationships with, asking if they'd like to sell it to their list and keep 100% of the profit.
8. I put up an affiliate program giving 75% of the profit to my affiliates to entice more people to purchase AND promote my new software.
9. I put a wso on the warriors forum (Warrior Special Offers Forum) with the following offer:
Day one, my software is free
Day two, it's $7
Day three, it's $17
Day four, it's $27 and so on for ten days.
I also made it clear that I will be selling the software for $97-$147 when the promo was done.
10. I got my programmer started on an updated version of the product with some great improvements, like different pop up options, auto uploading the new pages, showing the url you want in the status bar, etc...
11. I created a pop up on the affiliate page for updates to the product mentioning that they were in the works.
12. I signed up for a seminar in Atlanta with Keith Wellman and Gary Ambrose to meet and JV with other IMers and pass on my software in the same way with them.
I'll be posting my results within the next few weeks (after the seminar and jv partners promote my software) to give you the most accurate info.
In the meantime, please let me know your thoughts!
Talk to you soon.
I am in the process of building a list and have been getting some great results. I wanted to share what I've been doing as well as hear what's been working for you. I'll keep posting my techniques as long as there is enough input from other readers to justify the information I am putting out. =)
Here's the first twelve things I did. (Starting with no list, no products and minimal budget.)
1. I went to a few marketers I respected and asked for a free copy of their software to promote to potential customer. This started a relationship for future JVs and gave me a product to promote AND gave me valuable information to learn from.
2. I joined several newsletters on list building and affiliate marketing.
3. I started relationships with the authors by sending them sincere comments and/or questions about their newsletters so that A. I could learn and B. They would know who I am for the future...
4. I read, listened to and studied everything in the material! (Very important).
5. I looked at the niche I wanted to be in "Affiliate Marketing" and looked for a problem to fix. In this case, it was building a list while promoting an affiliate product. The problem was if you were presenting your affiliate product to a person not on your list, then it was usually with an ad (like google adwords), article marketing or a review site. All of these send a potential client to an affiliate site where one of two things can happen.
A. You make a sale and never hear from them again
B. You don't make a sale and never hear from them again
Either way, you're sending (hopefully) hundreds of people to a sales page without building your list.
6. I created a solution to the problem. I hired a programmer on scriptlance (ScriptLance.com Custom Freelance Programming. Outsource web projects to programmers and designers.) and paid him to create a script that would cloak an affiliate link and allow me to show my own opt in form on their site as a pop up, plus show an exit pop up for a different product or one time offer.
7. I spent several months working on it while talking to the people I had buildt relationships with, asking if they'd like to sell it to their list and keep 100% of the profit.
8. I put up an affiliate program giving 75% of the profit to my affiliates to entice more people to purchase AND promote my new software.
9. I put a wso on the warriors forum (Warrior Special Offers Forum) with the following offer:
Day one, my software is free
Day two, it's $7
Day three, it's $17
Day four, it's $27 and so on for ten days.
I also made it clear that I will be selling the software for $97-$147 when the promo was done.
10. I got my programmer started on an updated version of the product with some great improvements, like different pop up options, auto uploading the new pages, showing the url you want in the status bar, etc...
11. I created a pop up on the affiliate page for updates to the product mentioning that they were in the works.
12. I signed up for a seminar in Atlanta with Keith Wellman and Gary Ambrose to meet and JV with other IMers and pass on my software in the same way with them.
I'll be posting my results within the next few weeks (after the seminar and jv partners promote my software) to give you the most accurate info.
In the meantime, please let me know your thoughts!
Talk to you soon.
Roses are planted where thorns grow,
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.
–â€The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,†William Blake