List Building: Why You Should

Email List BuildingIf you’ve been in the internet marketing industry for more than a minute, you’ve probably heard that the money is in the list. This is one of those things that are absolutely true that most people don’t believe, making it, essentially, the exact opposite of a superstition. To be more precise, we could say that the money is in the relationship with the list.

It’s a brand new year, and if you haven’t been a building a list, now is the time to start. Having a list allows you to contact your customers, sell to them multiple times, and a build a relationship with them. You certainly already know that it’s much cheaper to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. Email list building is a profit multiplier, allowing you to get more money out of every customer. Email list building is a must-do if you want to make some serious money online.

Email List Building

Here are some tips to get you started:

Always add customers – You don’t need permission to contact people you’ve done business with, so always add your customers to your list. You should definitely double opt in, it isn’t required but recommended, so you avoid any sorts of problem in the future.

Build a squeeze page – If you don’t know where to get started, sign up to ViralHosts to build a squeeze page and promote it. ViralHosts allows you to host and build a squeeze page, free, and if you upgrade to Gold you will be able to email 3,000 random members every 3 days.

Offer people something they want – The tried and true method of email building a list is to give something away in return for their email address. The trick to this is to give them something that they actually want and can use. If you give them crap, you’re going to get started on the wrong foot.

Always have a one-time offer – After someone opts into your list, you should immediately offer them something to actually buy, preferably something related to what they just got for free. You should make them aware that the only time they can buy this is if they buy now, which is why it’s one time offer.

Start now – No, seriously, start now. You can get signed up with a good service like Aweber and Imnica Mail. The monthly fees are incredibly reasonable. There’s pretty much no reason for you to not start with email list building right now.

Further Readings:

If you want to learn more on email list building and how you can use it to make money online, make sure you read this blog post: Autoresponder Marketing which also plays a crucial part in email marketing. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Author:
Julien
Getting Started With Online Email Marketing

Frankly, if there’s one thing that people new to internet marketing wait too long to get into, it’s online email marketing. One of the oldest clichés in marketing is that the money is in the list, but there’s a reason that’s it’s a cliché: it’s true.

The list is your list of people that are interested in hearing from you, at the very least, and having a list of people who have already bought from you is even better. If you want to be able to make a consistent and large income online, neither of which should be underestimated, then getting good at online email marketing is going to make that much, much easier.

If you don’t have a list, you’re basically starting over every time you need to sell something. You need to reach the people that are buying whatever it is that you are selling, and that entails first finding them and then building a relationship with them. This is the core of what marketing, online or off, is all about.

When you collect your customers and potential customer’s emails to build a list, you’re jumping over those first two steps. Instead of trying to sell just to strangers, you’re selling to people that already know and trust you. If you treat the people on your list right, you can keep selling to them for a lifetime.

So that’s the benefit of online email marketing, but how do you actually, you know, do it? Fortunately, building a list isn’t complicated and it isn’t expensive, but you do have to know what you’re doing.

The first thing you need is an autoresponder service, which is fancy term for a mass email service. What an autoresponder service does is allow you to build an email list (there’s that word again) that you can send mass emails to. This is the basic service that allows you to actually have a list, and there are several different ones you can choose from, most of which are fairly inexpensive.

I use not one but two autoresponder services: Aweber and Imnica Mail. Both services delivers great results but the first one presently offers more features than the second one. However, Imnica Mail offers cheaper plans (which is great if you’re on a tight budget) and better analytics!

– Click here to sign up to Aweber
– Click here to sign up to Imnica Mail

Once you’ve got an autoresponder, you need to actually build a list of people to send those emails to. There are two popular ways to do this. One is sell them something; once you’ve sold a product or service to someone, you’ve got a pre-existing relationship with them and can send them business emails.

The second method, which is more popular in online email marketing, is to offer potential customers something free in order to get them on your list. They give you their email, and you give them something they can download. Once they’re on your list, you can then sell to them at will.

For example with this blog post I want to offer you 5 products in exchange for your email address. All you need to do is to submit a comment using the blog commenting system (and not the Facebook commenting system) so I can send you the instructions to download the products by email.

* 10 Action Steps to a Successful Online Business (ebook)
* Facebook Power Ads 3.0 (ebook)
* Local Internet Marketing Empire (ebook)
* Modal Popup Maker (app)
* Article Analyzer (app)

To download these products free, please leave a comment (using the blog’s comments system and NOT the Facebook comments system) on this blog post and I will send you instructions by email. Everything is automated so you should receive the email soon after you posted the comment. Make sure you add your primary email address so you are sure to receive it.

To Your Success in Business & Life

Colin Klinkert
Colin Klinkert
CEO, ColinKlinkert.com
Colin Klinkert
ViralNetworks
Author:
Julien
Hot Topic #3 – Autoresponder Marketing Strategy

Autoresponder marketing is one of the most effective ways to make money online. The idea behind autoresponders is to establish a strong, durable relationship with your subscribers. Everyone has heard the saying “the money is in the list” but the saying to remember is actually “the money is in the relationship with the list”.

When people opt into your list, they usually expect something in return: valuable content, tips and tricks, special offers, product bonuses… They gave you the permission to email them, and that’s already a first step to a relationship. That’s what autoresponder marketing is all about. However, to build a strong, durable relationship, you must constantly provide them with value. The best way to achieve this is by (effectively) using autoresponders.

Autoresponder Marketing

All internet marketers and home business owners should use autoresponder marketing and have an email series ready to be sent out. It is indeed much easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to get a new one. It has been proven that people only buy from you if they know and trust you so having the ability to follow up with them allows you to build that trust. It has also been proven that it usually takes 6 to 7 follow ups for a customer to purchase.

Creating an email series requires some time and efforts at first, but once it’s up and running, all you have to do is sit back and watch. The whole process should be automated as much as possible so you can then focus on other important tasks like monitoring, improvements, etc.

There are several autoresponder marketing programs available on the market. Two of them distinguish themselves from others. The first one is Aweber, which is certainly the most popular of all email marketing programs. Plenty of top industry players use this program because it has a great range of features including of course an autoresponder system.

Another autoresponder marketing program you should consider is Imnica Mail. While Imnica Mail isn’t as popular as Aweber, it has a few very interesting advantages over its competitors. For example, the plans are much cheaper, which is great if you’re on a tight budget. It also has a great analytics system that will help you analyze your email marketing campaign in depth with ease.

Autoresponder Marketing

Highly recommended tools

Autoresponder Marketing

Aweber

Autoresponder Marketing

Imnica Mail

Autoresponder Marketing

What you basically need to do with your autoresponder marketing program is setting up an email series to be sent to your subscribers. Once they subscribed, they should receive a welcome email, with some information about your business, products or services (for example). Then, every few days (or at least once a week), they should receive other emails, in which you provide them with valuable content. It MUST be related to the topic of your online presence, otherwise your subscribers are likely to unsubscribe.

Autoresponder marketing is great for building a relationship with your list. If you email people with valuable content, on a regular basis, they are more likely to read your emails, maybe even respond to them, visit your site or blog… and ultimately purchase your products or the products you promote. Building a list isn’t only about size but also conversion, hence the need for a relationship.

It may take you a little while to write email copies and set up the autoresponders at first. However, these efforts are definitely worth the time spent. As previously mentioned, autoresponder marketing is one of the most effective ways to make money online. It’s a proven technique and remains very popular among internet marketers and home business owners.

Bonus tip: Instead of writing long email copies, simply send short, eye-catching emails to your subscribers with a short description and a link to a page of your site or blog. Pages can easily be bookmarked and shared around, unlike emails… and this will drive additional traffic to your site or blog.

This blog post is part of a series of hot topics for making money online. Stay tuned for more and feel free to share your own experience on autoresponder marketing with us!

Did you miss out on the two first hot topics? Here they are:
Hot Topic #1: Keyword Research Tips and Tools
Hot Topic #2: Choosing a Web Host: ViralHosts vs HostGator

Author:
Julien
Misleading Subject Lines Are Bad Marketing

In the internet marketing industry, getting people’s attention is vital. Period. Even if you’ve just created the best product ever but can’t get people’s attention, you’re unlikely to succeed. However, getting people’s attention shouldn’t be your only goal. You certainly want to go further than that. You need to get the word about your products or services, build yourself a list of subscribers… and make money. Misleading subject lines are still far too common to get people’s attention and are clearly bad marketing. If you aren’t sure what we’re talking about, here are some examples:

– “Congratulations, You’ve Just Made A Commission!”
– “Your Affiliate Commissions”
– “You Owe Us Money!”
– “Your Credit Card Has Expired”

We strongly recommend to avoid using any type of misleading subject lines in the emails you send (to your own list or somebody else’s list). These subject lines can badly hurt your reputation and can be very damageable for your business. If you start communicating with someone with a lie, there is a very good chance this person won’t trust you for anything. The notion of trust is very important in our industry but too many just forget about it. So yes, you will get people’s attention with misleading subject lines, but what happens next is very unlikely to be favorable to you and your business.

Why would you use these subject lines anyway? Is the product you’re promoting so bad that you can’t find a proper subject line to get people’s attention? A few internet marketing gurus seem to provide email copies with misleading subject lines to their subscribers. Well, let’s be honest here: we believe they should rethink their recommendations… You’re in a better place than anyone else to know what you should and shouldn’t do for your business. You don’t necessarily have to do everything they tell you! How about you think about what they say before just doing it?

Our policy on misleading subject lines

As a reminder, misleading subject lines are strictly prohibited on ViralUrl, ViralNetworks and ViralHosts. If we receive a complaint and have the proof that a member has used a misleading subject line, we send one (and only one) warning to the sender. The next step is a suspension for an undetermined period of time. These misleading subject lines damage both their reputation and our own reputation and this is simply not acceptable.

The path to success won’t begin with a lie. Simply avoid any type of misleading subject line!

Author:
Julien