What is your best list building strategy?

run WSO'S, adswaps and social media such as fb and twitter are my favourite.

"best method" is.... varying from person to person...

If you want FAST then invest in solo ads and couple that with ad swaps and thats about as fast as you can get when it comes to building a list...

I built my first 1,000 subs in under a month with just a few solo ads, after the first 1,000 it gets easier...

However, you should start implementing all the normal (but slower) list building techniques so they can start the trickle of traffic they can turn into a snowball...

Use the normal tactics you would use to get traffic and just send all the traffic to a squeeze page rather than a blog or sales page or whatever...

There are lots of other more advanced techniques but these listed will get you off to a good start...

Free WSOs are great too, I have got anywhere from 60 to over 200 subs by using free WSOs...

Good Luck

My best list building strategy is to get out on the net with a social presence and speak with people. By creating a relationship with people you create a sense of trust and connection with other people that are like minded. Will everyone join your list? Absolutely not! But the people that do move forward are interested and you know that.

This is a free way to build a list of like minded people that may have an interest in what you have to offer.

Good Luck to you!

I like to add my mom and facebook friends to my list.

In all seriousness though everytime you sell, give away or even promote an affiliate product you should have an opt in form. These should break down further to be niche specific. These are not only niche targeted people but unlike some of the other people's points (twitter, FB, etc.) these are people that buy products and thus your list will convert much better.

If you're looking for a platform I've always been satisfied with aweber.

Create landing pages for topics instead of relying on your home page to get optins. Your optin on the home page is good, but landing pages are better. Plus you can manage your lists better by segmenting them to your landing page topic.

If you really want to get good leads by optin setup a WordPress multisite with subdomains and work each topic with different landing pages.

I'm with MYOB. No freeloaders allowed.

I think it's not about quantity but quality of your list. You know the guy who made $15000 within a week with a list of only 1286 subscribers? Awesome, right? If your list contains full of freebee seekers and newbies you don't do well with your list. After all if you have a list of 1000 loyal subscribers you can do as good as the ones who has 100000 in their lists

I think social interaction goes a long long way, so Twitter, FB, Digg you name it.

IMO the best way to build your list (seems you know how to get traffic already) is to give them something they WANT. My mom breeds dogs so I put an opt in box on her homepage and said to enter your email if they are interested in a puppy. She gets about 10 people a day and sells her entire litter with the click of a mouse.

For my site in the sig I am just showing the proof that I know how to make $$ online, that's all I need to get some sign-ups each day. I could increase opt-ins with a fancy splash page, but I hate those so much and don't want to be another IM hack!

I always make sure that my opt ins require some type of information that they must have, whether important or not. It just has to be wanted or needed badly enough for them to opt into my list. It just can't be a boring "join my list for more info" type deal.

Some great advise in here guy's thanks! I have just started adding them to my notes. I was thinking of starting to build mine from WSO first then work my way up from there building a relationship between my list and I.

I have a question to throw out to all of you. I want to use a keyword domain address. I want to set up a landing page that promotes all of my offers. I am trying to make my keyword landingpage rank on google. How should I do that? I am talking about the structure of my website. Would I use mydomain dot com or mydomain dot com offer 1 etc? OR should I have a static page at mydomain dot com and then have mydomain dot com/offer 1 etc? I would really appreciate any answers for this. I will of course have an optin page.

Thank You,

YoderIII

I am actually going to be creating a new product just for my squeeze page...

i use ppv to create a list .. awesome results

Best technique = legitimate giveaways

Having just started to rebuild my list after a 2 year MIA, it seems more difficult this time around.

Have Keith's Push Button Giveaway 2.0. Have just used it for the first time. Expecting great things because of Keith's talent. Have been reading about his success on giveaways during the past couple of years.

Carol

Twitter is fast, you can also do OnlyWire that works well after you set up all the accounts. it has some major players in its matrix...

My best list building strategy?
I build my list through Social Media. There I find a more targetted audience. Then article marketing. Contrary to what some people are saying, article marketing isn't dead. It's alive and kicking for those who know how to do it (Tip-> promote your articles like you promote your new websites)! Then solo ads (Tip -> the secret is in the placement).

You will probably get the best return on investment by improving the results you get from your existing traffic. Split test to maximize your opt in rates on every page.

I have had great success using giveaways as a quick list building method. Howver the process of entering individual giveaways can be time consuming. I recently got to test Keith Purkiss' Push Button Giveaways 2.0 and am amazed at how easy it is to use and how much time I saved. For those who are unsure of what to put into giveaways there are even pre-prepared products available. It's a steal at the moment at $27 but I understand the price is going up sometime soon. I'm not really very good at using these types of programmes usually but his was super simple to get the hang of. There's a link straight to the programme in my sig.

Enjoy the journey.

Mandy

The Best Method?

There are so many, and a lot of great suggestions have been made.

The BEST method would naturally be to put a targeted ofer in front of a buyer. Obviously the HOW you do that is where you'll get opinions ranging across the board!

Gettiong someone with a huge list to send out your promotion would be the easiest. However - arranging that isn't easy as the list owners dont send out for everyone (regardless wether your offer would be great for their readers...lol), Hence you need to build relationships with other marketers first.

In terms of people starting out, there's a lot to be said for WSO's, Adswaps are great to once you have a list!
To get started and build an initial list, you alrwady covered a few great ways.

To add to those for people with no list:
Try Traffic Exchanges - Yes you'll get freebie seekers, but build and nuture the list into those who stick around because they're serious, and give them value for being on your list.
A good site for those would be Affliate Funnel | Build YOUR Business! or TECommandPost.com
They will also cover some Safelists, which can be hard work, but are still a great way for a newbie to get started, another good resource would be the new Easy Downlines - Free Signup

On those sites, you'll find links to most good Traffic Exchanges and Safelists... But also get an education on how to use them properly to effectively build your list.

And to repeat another method already mentioned (and probably the easiest way for anyone to get started with a good targeted list) would be to add products that give value to JVGiveaways, of which there are new ones and regular repeating ones almost constantly running. They're not as quick as they were a few years ago... BUT there are so many these days , that providing you have a list of which ones are starting and when, and the time to join them and add your gifts - They can be a method to really make some fast progress, and yes - a site that genuinely does what it says on the tin, in terms of helping educate AND save masses of time would be Push Button Giveaways 2.0 | The Simple Way To Build Your List Fast

These methods, as mentioned, will bring in good numbers. After that it's up to you to provide value and build a relationship with your subscribers in order to keep them and differentiate yourself form those who just market like crazy and treat people as ATMs

I know the advice about not just sending offer after offer isn't related to how to build lists... But as a lot of 'newbies' will read this thread - I figured it would be worth adding these comments.
Building a list is one thing everyone wants to know about - but shouldn't we also try to help people build a business?

Anyway - this is starting to sound like one of my rambles, so I'll end it here and leave other to add tro the thread...lol

Hope that helps

Randy
(P.S. No affiliate links were used in this post.... shame...haha)

Can i use any of these methods with limited time - about half an hour per day?
If i can do them without creating a product first that would also be good.
I would like to get started fast and then go back and improve later as i dont have a lot of time

P.S. i dont have any mailing list right now so i cant do the swaps and limited budget so cant buy solo adverts

Backlinking to high pr sites is my fave strategy. Are there any strategies you can recommend?

For me, my personal favourite list building stratergy is to NOT sell anything, instead I like to provide useful content - advice, tips, guidelines that kinda thing. So for me my favourite forms are blogging, article marketing and helping people on forums etc.

The only purpose of list building may be to build a strong list of buyers. This is really hard and time consuming task. All the rest is just a waste of time.

Don't trade free stuff for email address. Just give them an option to follow you if they want to. Get them addicted to you and your products. Turn them into your raving fans.

On a side note, it's very interesting how many people still rely on good old email marketing while we are already living in the age of mobile devices. I thought it would be wise to start collecting cell phone numbers instead of email addresses. And know what? The time is NOW!

Youtube videos that point to free reports/ebook giveaways that are 'part 2' of your youtube video. So the youtube video is a teaser and for more info and the whole solution to the problem they click through and get your free reports. Works like a charm for most niches!

Hi Mike,

A good way to help build your list is to use Solo ads, these work well as long as you target your market. There are many to choose from, before you choose one, do some research first though.

I use solo ads myself and they work well.

Good luck in building your list.
Steve

put all your energy and focus and budget in only one of those methods, that's the best strategy

In my opinion, Site Commenting and Forum Posting can help in link building a lot. But always give your best shot in SEO.

Hi,
It varies from person to person accordingly. You have to focus status and all other preliminary requirements while making list building strategy.

I agree that you need to get a good quality list; however, what I think is missing from that is the fact that you get that good quality list by building a good quantity list.

My list building strategy is as follows:

Build a large list to promote to
Build up the relationship and offer value
Launch a Product
Promote product to large list
Siphon those who buy into a second list specifically for buyers.
Repeat

What this does is it allows me to gain a very large following and get my name out there, it then allows me to take those people and send the buyers into a new list specifically for buyers. That buyers list is then developed so as to ensure high conversions on each promotion. As for the regular list, I still have a large list to promote to and possibly gain more buyers as time passes. I can also make a little extra cash selling solo ads and such.

In my book, quantity comes and then you can find the quality. If you just search for quality it could take forever to build up. Whereas if you go for quantity you can get a large number and find the quality in that large number. And then turn even more into quality buyers in the future.

Just my two cents.

Gregg Clunis

There isn't any best methods,
as each method have it's own strength and weakness,
the best is to apply them all,
but in sequences, else you won't be able
to handle it.
Methods like ; articles, blogging, videos, adswap, seo, etc.

last year i did try out facebook,twitter and it appear to miserable to me. good luck

The best strategy that i did is Facebook and Twitter. So far i don't have any problem with it.