List Building: What's Your Best Technique?

That's great. It sounds like you're building a big list... but are they making you money or are you just happy to have a big list?

List-building is tremendously important and its 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."

Anyway, 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 website (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 website 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 offers link 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.

[/b]5. Be a frequent teleseminar guest.[/b]

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, websites 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 everyone 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 websites, along with your URL. They may very well 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.

And... (drum roll please!) my first book Boost Business Online: How to Attract More Clients by Leveraging the Power of E-mail and the Internet was just published this past Nov. I'm SO psyched about out!

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.