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Seriously, what should i do to build list? its been a hard one and half year...

by he_august
24 replies
Hi, Warrior...
i've struggle in IM world for at least a year and half by now...
I did try many ways to build my list, but i'm not sure what went wrong,
for these one and half year, i only collect about 250 list.. (1,5 year :<)

I tried to give a free ebook, and i think it not went well, so i change the offer into free minisite template, it give a better result, so i keep it with this offer..

but, still, up until now, i think i only got 1-5 subscriber for every week...
is it normal with this only small number? if that, what went wrong?

I tried
** paid traffic (something like "paying $12 for 1000 visitor" kind of traffic... not really well, i almost got nothing from this 1000 visitor, i think its kinda bit BS? not sure),
** article submitting (not too good),
** WSO (nice! :> i got 7-25 subscriber each post, but with a $20 lol)
** submit my url to directory...

Can warriors help me with a other nice suggestion how to build the list?

SECOND, with a 250 list, is it good enough to send offer to them already?
or should i wait until it reach a higher number? maybe like 1000 list?
#build #half #hard #list #year
  • Profile picture of the author dsfaewezc
    it seems your problem is traffic...and it seems you didnt have succes with article marketing...did you try to rank for longer keyword phrases with less competition?
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  • Profile picture of the author jafris
    Not sure if you have a blog?

    Consider Blog like an Oil rig, where the rusted pipes miles under the sea starts enticing small fishes within a short duration of time, and later the congreggation of small fishes attract the big Sharks. I think the momentum of small fishes of 1 to 5 per week over a consistent period of one year through a blog should have attracted big fishes by now.

    So have a blog, if you already have one, then become more visible through your posting and comments on others blogs to attract people to your own.
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    Ali Jafri
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  • Profile picture of the author SeanSupplee
    WOW this is what everyone needs to learn your last part here....

    "SECOND, with a 250 list, is it good enough to send offer to them already?
    or should i wait until it reach a higher number? maybe like 1000 list?"

    Even if your list is 5 people you should be sending them a new offer once in a while and keeping them active on your list. If you have not mailed them in over 2 weeks your list is running cold and honestly don't expect any of them to read your emails.

    Managing your list no matter what size it is, is more important then building it.
    You just spent how much time and money building the list and now your not going to send them an offer to make some of that money back?

    PM me if you want a free copy of my list building ebook I cant post it on here sorry
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    Sean Supplee -Expert Insight of an Affiliate Marketer (Blog)
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    • Profile picture of the author Lance K
      Is your copy geared toward an English speaking audience? If so, do you write it yourself? If you do, that could be part of your problem. I had a hard time reading past your first couple of sentences in this post. Not trying to be rude, just honest.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adam Sandford
    You will definately have to keep on top of building that relationship with your list. As sean said if you have not contacted your list in 2-3 weeks they are already staring to go cold and will not even consider opening your emails.
    Also personaly I stay away from paid traffic as there are so many great ways of generating targeted traffic for Free.
    You say article marketing did not work for you, How long did you give it a go for and how many directories where you posting to and which ones. Getting traffic from writing articles can take a bit of time you just have to keep doing it over and over again and make sure you are submitting to the top directories. It does work believe me.
    Adam
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  • Profile picture of the author JennSpencerIM
    I would not WAIT to start sending your list emails and offers...you never know how many people will lose interest or change their email address if you keep waiting! Keep following strategies to drive more traffic so you can build your list. You might be in a really competitive field and need to narrow it down to a niche audience.

    Also, it would be helpful to have someone else write for you. You have good English but it would be difficult for me to buy something from you since I'd think I wouldn't really be able to understand it well. You want someone with EXCELLENT English and punctuation, etc. to write copy for you.

    Hope that helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonl70
    random thoughts:

    1) you do not need any magic number of opt-ins before you promote. load up your autoresponder before hand with several emails, and promote to everyone from day 1.

    2) what is your optin rate?

    3) are you using a squeeze page, or just an opt-in form on a page of content?

    4) as pointed out - if your writing your own copy and it's an english speaking crowd, you may want to have someone help you.

    5) IM is all about targeted traffic. You either know how to generate it yourself, buy it (ppc, banners, etc), or borrow it (jv's, etc).
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    -Jason

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  • Profile picture of the author Joe Benjamin
    What I'm about to share with you quicky doesn't
    apply to everyone. It's my experience, and it looks
    like your going through the same problems I had.

    After learning almost everything there was to
    know about driving traffic. I came to a solid con-
    clusion after weeks of testing...that driving traffic,
    even if they ARE interested in what you have to
    offer...is boderline "useless".

    Why do I say this?

    I've tried every marketing trick in the book. Even
    most paid marketing methods and, although with
    hard work I got most to work for me...the leads
    I was generating were : Freebie Seekers.

    The problem you have right off the back is a list
    of freebie seekers and, the backbone of online
    business is to build a list of freebie seekers hoping
    they'll buy "something...anything" down the line.

    It's a catch 22 because you're expecting people
    to buy something they only expressed interest in,
    but haven't been proven to BUY in.

    I can be interested in learning to play the guitar...

    doesn't mean I'll go out and buy one.

    I can be interested in running for president...

    doesn't mean I'm interested in actually BEING one.

    See the difference?

    In the online business world, your ability to make
    money online is to learn the excruciating process
    of converting just a "slither" of those freebie see-
    kers...into buyers.

    It's almost certain that if you have enough freebie
    seekers, a small percentage of those people WILL
    be buyers...but this would take thousands and
    thousands of those kinds of people.

    Buyers on the other hand...is where the money is
    at and...since your IN business, you should be
    selling your products -- not giving it all away to
    build a list of buyers.

    It's okay to give a taste of what you offer, but
    even that you want to

    Forget about the "technical" aspects of the reasons
    why your struggling. I've been where you were, and
    I learned from it almost as painfully slow as you have.

    What you do with this...is up to you.
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    • Profile picture of the author mlord10
      Originally Posted by WhoIsBenjamin View Post

      What I'm about to share with you quicky doesn't
      apply to everyone. It's my experience, and it looks
      like your going through the same problems I had.

      After learning almost everything there was to
      know about driving traffic. I came to a solid con-
      clusion after weeks of testing...that driving traffic,
      even if they ARE interested in what you have to
      offer...is boderline "useless".

      Why do I say this?

      I've tried every marketing trick in the book. Even
      most paid marketing methods and, although with
      hard work I got most to work for me...the leads
      I was generating were : Freebie Seekers.

      The problem you have right off the back is a list
      of freebie seekers and, the backbone of online
      business is to build a list of freebie seekers hoping
      they'll buy "something...anything" down the line.

      It's a catch 22 because you're expecting people
      to buy something they only expressed interest in,
      but haven't been proven to BUY in.

      I can be interested in learning to play the guitar...

      doesn't mean I'll go out and buy one.

      I can be interested in running for president...

      doesn't mean I'm interested in actually BEING one.

      See the difference?

      In the online business world, your ability to make
      money online is to learn the excruciating process
      of converting just a "slither" of those freebie see-
      kers...into buyers.

      It's almost certain that if you have enough freebie
      seekers, a small percentage of those people WILL
      be buyers...but this would take thousands and
      thousands of those kinds of people.

      Buyers on the other hand...is where the money is
      at and...since your IN business, you should be
      selling your products -- not giving it all away to
      build a list of buyers.

      It's okay to give a taste of what you offer, but
      even that you want to

      Forget about the "technical" aspects of the reasons
      why your struggling. I've been where you were, and
      I learned from it almost as painfully slow as you have.

      What you do with this...is up to you.
      I get your points, and while I see where you are coming from, I do not agree with you. List building is one of the fundamental principles of creating a web based business that is built for the long haul. Can you make money online without a list? Sure. Can you make a good living without a list. Sure. However, in my opinion after you build a list it becomes much easier.

      By saying that list building is ineffective you are dismissing the results of several big time marketers: Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern, and many others. Why don't you try to go tell these guys that list building does not work!

      A portion of the subscribers that you get on email lists are going to be freebie seekers, that is just part of the internet marketing profession. However, by caring about your list, and presenting them with a lot of valuable information on a consistent basis you can turn some of them into buyers.

      And... Saying that traffic generation is borderline useless? Please don't speak in generalities for people on this forum. Just because you have had a negative experience with generating targeted traffic does not mean that it does not work.

      Maybe it was your offer? Maybe your niche? Maybe your traffic sources?

      I would rather have 50 targeted visitors per day opting in @ 45%, and lead them into a proven sales funnel than have 500 untargeted visitors with a squeeze page that converts poorly (With no sales funnel in place).

      I am by no means a master at generating traffic, but the traffic that I generate opts in @ 40-43%, and some of them definitely buy both low priced and high priced products from me (Even 1-on-1 coaching).

      Even if 90% of your list contains nothing but freebie seekers, you can make a darn good living off of the 10% that respects and trust you enough to buy your products and services.

      So... in my opinion list building is very important for the LONG HAUL.
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  • Profile picture of the author Philok
    Have you tried adswaps? if not tried out.

    Philok
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonl70
    ^^ some good points there from whoisben. That's why you don't want to be afraid of promoting to your list - as a marketer, you want to sift through them and find the buyers. Do not cater to the vocal freebie seekers at the expense of the buyers.

    Now, the number of freebie seekers you get is totaly dependent on a combination of various things: the niche, how you got them to opt-in, and so on. You can't dismiss all lists as being 100% full of non buyers - Mike Filsaime will tell you otherwise List building was the center of everything he did...
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    -Jason

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    • Profile picture of the author Gary J Martin
      OK, my man. 250 subs right now is fine. Remember, most people never get to 500 plus subs. And you're halfway there
      The problem is the 18 months it took. Either your traffic is too low or your conversion of visitors to opt ins is bad.
      You need to get all the traffic you can in a consistent way. And over the time you've been doing it, it should be increasing by now.
      If you never email them offers, then you should! I got my first sale from my list when I had 43 subs, so never wait to start promoting offers.
      It gets them used to you emailing them, them opening and hopefully clicking your links.
      Previously someone mentioned freebie seekers. Even if you have lots of them, you can still make money from them by sending them to pages with adsense or CPA offers.
      Someone else mentioned adswaps. I think 250 is a tad low to try that yet, personally.
      But get a few more subs and I would recommend doing that.
      As for the $12 for 1000 visitors. Its garbage. Likely very untargeted, so a waste of money.
      Article marketing should work. It does depend on how targeted they are, keywords, how well written.
      How to get more traffic depends on what budget you have. If its low then its mostly free methods. If you have the budget, then its also paid. I'd need to know that before I suggested what to ones to target.
      Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author Orla Kelly
    Hi there, look I am really sorry things haven't been working out as well as you liked. Unfortunately as time goes on you are probably losing interest in addition to losing heart. Ok today do things differently-if the last 100 pages of your online career can be seen in an unfortunate way, make sure the next chapter is a successful one. My suggestions are as follows:
    Get professional unbiased advice on how your site looks, good points, bad points, would they buy from you.
    Do you cover features and benefits (most important to appeal to the emotional level of a potential buyer)
    Look at the "whats in it for me" as seen through the eyes of the buyer
    Do you offer money back guarantees, give testemonials etc?
    Make any recommended changes and use tracking software to see what gets best results.
    Next make out a list of what exactly you are and are not doing to drive traffic and go with your strengths and what gets results faster and more consistently. Again use google analytics for tracking. I have something on my blog that may help you. It is a free 1hr webinar that should really tie all loose ends together for you. I find it works for me all the time so I am in no doubt as to what works. Hope this helps.Orla
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  • Profile picture of the author GeezerXtreme
    Try writing, or having your messages written for you, in proper English if you want people to take your marketing messages seriously instead of coming off like some equivalent of an e-telemarketer.
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  • Profile picture of the author Profolegy
    Originally Posted by he_august View Post

    Hi, Warrior...
    i've struggle in IM world for at least a year and half by now...
    I did try many ways to build my list, but i'm not sure what went wrong,
    for these one and half year, i only collect about 250 list.. (1,5 year :<)
    Just keep on going dont give up. Loads of great posts in this forum to help you and I would also consider doing adswaps if you have a list of that size. I have more info in my resource section about that. All the best, Cheers.......bruceS..........

    Don't give up - there's nothing else to do anyway
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
    I had a mentor say "find out what works and do more of it" which ticked me off at first because if I KNEW what worked, I'd be doing it all day long!

    The point is, if you've tried a few things and got differnet levels of success, try WAY more things. Find out what people need and give it to them. That's marketing.

    You can go the free route where you give them a free report or you can charge a few bucks for it. If it's a decent enough report, the money won't be a big deal.

    This mentor I speak of got his start with a simple little report that wound up selling $1000 per day for the first couple of weeks...he makes 7 figures per year now....do NOT give up!

    Mike
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  • Profile picture of the author he_august
    Woow, warriors...
    Thank you sooo much for all the feedback... sorry for the late reply...
    overnight, and all this feedback..
    i really appreciate it...

    @ Sean... yes, definitely interested in your report, i will PM you :>

    @ Productcreator... my WSO is in this link

    @ Lance K... yes i wrote the thread myself lol.. bad english, i know

    @ Adam... its just around 2 month with article submitting (5 article with 15 view in total lol), and, yes, to be honest, i think i need to submit it to many more article directories (for current moment, i just submit it to EA, and ArticleBase... )

    @ Jason.. thank you for the feedback, i definitely will start to manage my list from now on...

    @ WhoisBenjamin... thats really a nice feedback, thank you... I'm pretty aware that the list i build now is a freebies seeker, and that's really bothers me, but after read warrior's feedback here, my confident is back :>

    @ Philok... Adswap? i heard that's very expensive... :< i heard someone told me if you want to do adswap, you need at least $1000? i don't know if its true or not, but definitely, i cannot afford $1000 for just an ad...

    @ Orla... thank you for your suggestion...

    @ geezer... its not that i don't want try writing, but frankly, my english is bad plus i also do a minisite design, and thats why i hardly find a time to do writing... thats why i use a ghost writer to do my articles...

    @ Kronus.. thank you for your feedback :>

    @Profolegy, Mike... definitely, "Give Up " will be erased from my dictionary !! :>

    And to all warrior who participate in this thread...
    THANK YOU!!
    would like to hear more feedback ! :>
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    • Profile picture of the author Gary J Martin
      Originally Posted by he_august View Post


      @ Philok... Adswap? i heard that's very expensive... :< i heard someone told me if you want to do adswap, you need at least $1000? i don't know if its true or not, but definitely, i cannot afford $1000 for just an ad...
      $1000 for an adswap...? I don't think so. Long as you got a decent sized list. You arrange to send an offer to a list of similar size and then they do the same to your list. Hopefully both lists should benefit with an increase in subs and money made. It does help to have your own product.

      As for freebie seekers. Only a tiny portion of a niche ever buy anything anyway. So I don't see the problem, personally. As long as you use other ways to monieize them, as I mentioned earlier.
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  • Profile picture of the author he_august
    @ Flexy... yes, thats definitely what i will do from now on :>(research, emailing, etc).

    @ Kronus... oooh... i see.. so basically we offer the one who has a equal list to ours...
    yes..yes... thats make sense... :>

    Thanks of the reply...
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    • Profile picture of the author theemperor
      Hi he_august,

      Here are some of my tips from my experience:

      • Have multiple lists (either the same niche or different niches) - will help boost your confidence and also see which lists really pull in the punters, then you can work out why this is.
      • Try a delayed popup box - My opt-ins on a product site increased by 400% when I implemented a popup. Aweber provide this feature out of the box, or you could find a script to do it. See my site "www {dot} regace {dot} com" and wait 20 seconds to see what I mean.
      • Putting the opt-in on the side bar = NO NO - You have it on the side, and stupidly I still have a page with it on the side, and it hardly pulls in any punters. Your opt-in needs to be central. You need to sacrifice other elements of your page if you want people to opt-in to your list.
      • Pretend your audience are 10 year olds - you need to instruct them in big bold letters what to do. I.e. opt in and download your templates. I am not insulting your audience, but if you make it very clear that they should opt-in then they are more likely to do so.
      • Look at other people's squeeze pages. Look at the squeeze pages YOU opted in to - what made you opt in?
      • Learn to sell - Getting someone to opt-in is like making a sale. Read up on copywriting (see the Warrior Subforum) and learn. It will help you get more opt-ins.
      Hope this helps.

      Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author entrepreneurjay
    Give away free stuff software, ebooks, better yet both... The more the merrier! You can even give away other marketers stuff it works out for the both of you. They will get free signups and you will get free signups sort of like a JV.

    Start a self hosted Wordpress blog based around a niche that you know a lot about, or are willing to learn and update it at least 3 times a week. Build traffic to your landing page which can be your blog, just have your signup form prominently displayed. I recommend Aweber.

    Write unique articles

    Submit PLR content

    Contribute to forums like this one Warrior Forum is the best one in the World.

    Submit to video sites can anyone say Youtube they are huge. 2nd biggest search engine in the World even though they are not a real search engine they get more searches than Yahoo and Bing combined pretty impressive.
    Build backlinks

    Submit your Url to all search engines Even though Google, Yahoo, and Bing make up 95% of all online searches.

    Submit free Press releases

    Write some free classifieds

    There are tons of ways to drive free traffic just get to work. One step at a time you will get there!
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  • Profile picture of the author ivanadee
    it is a good explanation from theemperor. if I can add, just see your squeeze page. If u are the visitor, do u want to sign up? then see the product. do u explain about the great/unique things of ur free product so they will get to sign up without thinking?
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  • Profile picture of the author iSoftware
    There's nothing wrong with freebies - per se. Here I differ with what someone said above ^^.

    Frank Kern Does too. The issue is WHAT ARE YOU GIVING AWAY FOR FREE?!
    The right freebie with PREQUALIFY PEOPLE BEFORE THEY GET ON YOUR LIST.

    Here's an example. Say you had a WSO on Market Samurai and it went like this.

    "Free Video Reveals The #1 Secret to Finding Profitable Keywords with The Web's Leading Keyword Reseach Tool"

    or Word Tracker

    "Free Report Reveals the #1 Secret to Finding Hot Niches With WordTracker Premium"


    Do you see what has happened here <==== You have PREQUALIFIED THE PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THIS.

    Why? Because if they have spent $97 for a piece of software you know that:
    a) they have some purchasing power
    b) they are committed enough to the business to pay almost $100 for some software when there are free tools out there


    The point is THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH FREEBIES!

    What MAY BE WRONG is the "TYPE" of "Freebie" you offer. Again, Kern did an excellent video on this and I can't find the link.

    One tip for you is to offer a freebie that shows someone how to get the most out of a POPULAR, PAID PRODUCT. That way you have prequalified buyers (or potential buyers...maybe people who are thinking about buying the software and want to know more....).
    Another tip is to try to partner with people who DO COREGISTRATION WITH YOU ON THEIR THANK YOU PAGE.

    If someone comes to your list from an ORDER THANK YOU PAGE, then you KNOW THEY HAVE ALREADY BOUGHT - INSTANT PREQUALIFICATION...

    I hope this helps.....
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