One of the most overlooked aspects of internet marketing is the e-mail list. With this list, you’ve got an amazing opportunity to build relationships and make sales!
If you want to know how to build a list online and fast, the first thing you’ve got to do is get the attention of your prospect. Get their attention, give your list value regularly, and you’ll have your e-mails delivered to their inbox instead of their spam folder.
Are you ready to build your list online? Then let’s get started!
How Do People Actually Sign Up For Your List?
One of the reasons why e-mail marketing lists fail is because they just aren’t noticed on a website. That sign-up window needs to be in a prevalent place that will get plenty of attention… or even just demand their attention! Here are the three best ways to do it:
? Popup Windows: When a prospect is searching through your website instead of bouncing from it, then you’ve got the chance to add them to your list. There’s a good chance they aren’t going to do this on their own, so you’ve got to encourage them to do it!
That’s where the popup window can be a tremendous advantage. The window pops up, you give them the pitch, and then your visitors are in a place where they must choose to sign up or close the window. This method is the highest converting method for one simple reason: it gets noticed.
? Squeeze Pages: How much are you willing to pay someone for their personal information? That’s the question that must be asked by each marketer.
In a squeeze page, you answer that question by essentially bribing the target for their e-mail address. You’re giving them value and you get value in return, right? Give them a taste of value on your site, link to a squeeze page, and let them sign up to get more.
? Sidebar: The most common method you’ll see of getting e-mail addresses is through the sidebar window. Some of these windows float, while others are stationary. If you prefer this method because it is much less obtrusive, then make sure your sidebar gets noticed and keep the initial contact above the fold in the top third of the site.
You’ll also want to include an option near the footer in case someone has read something they like and want to sign up right away. That’s right ? in the two seconds it takes for a user to scroll up to give you an e-mail address, most prospects will actually change their mind.
There are some other methods of encouraging people to join your marketing list as well, such as through friend referrals or through product development. That’s just the first step in knowing how to build a list of subscribers. Once you get your website structure decided, it’s time to move to the next stage of the process.
How Do You Provide That Initial Value To Prospects?
Blogging is one of the most powerful tools that is available today. It provides you with an easy medium to discuss different topics within your niche so that you can set yourself apart from your competitors in the eyes of a target.
The problem that most bloggers face, however, is that they aren’t soliciting for e-mail addresses at all! If you’re blogging for your business and are wondering why it isn’t working, there are two primary fails that happen:
1. You either don’t have an e-mail marketing option or people can’t find it.
2. Your information isn’t valuable enough for people to want to join your marketing list.
This is why the content you put on your blog is so critical and why nearly 8 out of 10 business bloggers are hiring out this work to freelancers: with daily, valuable content, there is no better way to build an e-mail marketing list online fast!
How you syndicate your blog can also lead to a list being build quickly. Once you post the new information, for example, do you provide links to it on Facebook? Twitter? Pinterest?
And do you provide snippets of this information in your social media posts so that people want to click on the links and ultimately sign up for your list? If you’re not doing these tasks across the board, every day, and using this information to build relationships, then your email list will fail 100% of the time ? even if you’ve got the most useful product on the planet!
How Do You Build Relationships Through E-mail Marketing?
Have you really gotten someone’s attention through your squeeze page or popup window? There’s probably a good chance that you haven’t done that at all, unless you’ve got some powerful content on your website.
That’s why you’ll often see some sort of giveaway or contest behind held by businesses today. In exchange for an e-mail address, someone gets an entry so they might win something valuable to them.
With the right type of giveaway, you don’t need to provide content up front at all.
The process doesn’t just stop there, however, because whether your content drove a prospect to sign up or you’ve decided to giveaway a new iPad and that caused them to sign up, you’ve got to start forming a relationship with this potential prospects.
This is the most common point of failure when it comes to email marketing, because the average marketer has this thought in mind:
?Now that I’ve got a bunch of e-mail addresses on my list, I can begin selling things to them right away!?
That thought is wrong, wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong! Of course you can’t make a sale unless you put in a sales pitch, of course, but you’ve got to build up the relationship before doing this.
You’ve got to relate to your list. You’ve got to back up the perceived value of the list with a real value that can be proven before making a sale.
Most importantly, however, is that you’ve got to make your e-mail marketing list about the people on your list… not about you.
When you put the people on your list first, then you’ll know how to build a list online in any business, any industry, and with any opportunity.
How Can You Gain More Attention For Your List?
There are two primary methods that marketers use to draw people to their lists: by making a big splash with a product launch or giveaway, or by using a slow and steady method that is natural and methodical. Those methods can help to build a list, and sometimes build it very fast, but maybe not effectively fast.
What’s the point of knowing how to build a list of subscribers?if the people just unsubscribe from that list right away?
That’s why many marketers, business owners, and even freelancers are turning toward a new method of online list building that is proving to be quite effective: short bursts of highly valuable data. Having a website with some good information on it will convert a small percentage of your traffic.
Having giveaways will convert higher levels that will likely unsubscribe once you announce the winner of the contest. With short bursts of highly valuable data, however, you’re giving the people exactly what they want. When you do that, they’ll often provide the same for you.
So what does a short burst of highly valuable data look like? Here are a few options that you could utilize:
? a free webinar that can build up the skills of your prospect within your niche;
? a live streaming Q&A session where users can log onto your site and ask you specific questions about the niche subject; or
? using a co-op method with another business/marketer that can enhance the value of both organizations.
The key to any short burst method orbits around your overall expertise. If you want to start building a list on the internet, then you’ve got to know the ins and outs of your specific field!
Traffic on the internet gravitates toward those who are the smartest and most experienced. If you can prove that with this method of online list building, then you’ll have discovered one of the most powerful tools you can use today. Why is this so effective? Because it speaks to the immediacy of the prospect’s situation.
So, in order to build a list online?get the structure of your website right, provide people with value in the short-term and the long-term over the course of your e-mails, and work on building relationships with your list.
When you can do this consistently, you’ll be certain to notice an increase in your overall sales, revenues, and conversion rates.
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