Different Ways On How To Build Your Opt-In List

I've put together a few tips to help you build your list. I hope they help your business as it has helped mine.

1. Building Your Mailing List with Downloads

A mailing list is the lifeblood of your online business. The saying "the money is in the list" cannot be true enough -- if you had a targeted list of prospects to contact each time you have a new product, you will be able to save a lot of effort by marketing it to your existing list of targeted prospects.

You can actually build up a targeted list of prospects that are interested in your products by offering a relevant download on your website. For example, let's take a look at a very good example -- apple.com. When you download the free iTunes and Quicktime software from their site, they will ask you to fill in an optional name and email form so that they can send you offers on songs that you can purchase via -- guess where -- iTunes!

In reality, you do not need to offer such a "heavyweight" download such as a full-feature software like iTunes. You can attract prospects equally well with some quality freebies such as a simple report, a free wallpaper, and so on. The important thing is that your download offers enough value for the prospect to be willing to give away his/her own email address to get it.

However, slapping together a simple download and putting a link on your website won't be enough to attract qualified prospects. You will have to do some homework in order for your lead-generating mechanism to work well for you.

First of all, you must place your download form prominently on your website. Preferably, dedicate a page to it and link to that page from every other page of your website. That way, there is no way your visitors cannot find the download page, and when they do, you'll get some of them converted into your prospects!

Also, you have to put a little effort into promoting your download. Explain and elaborate on the values of the download, and why your visitors should download it. You might think why would anyone want to pass on a freebie, but most of your visitors would be too lazy to take the effort to download it because most of their downloads just sit on the hard drive collecting virtual dust. It is hence important to show your visitors why they should download your freebie.

2. Building Your List with Articles

You can build your list simply by writing articles, whether you have thought of it or not.

Quite simply, you write and submit your articles on your topic of expertise or business nature to popular article directories where eZine publishers and readers are looking for the information you provide.

Leveraging your viral marketing efforts on article writing can be rewarding, if done right. In the real sense, you are actually proving your worth and demonstrating your expertise about your business through the articles you write.

So, how can this method in effect build your mailing list? The answer: the resource box you attach to your articles. In your resource box (also known as bio box), you include a brief detail about yourself and your business site together with its URL.

It is strongly suggested that your resource box URL links to your mailing lists landing page where you can get your visitors name and email address, which will in turn help you build your mailing list at no cost.

If your articles are found worth sharing, eZine publishers will republish your articles together with your resource box for their readers and subscribers. The wonderful result: viral marketing without effort on your part!

You can start by writing and submitting your articles to trusted article submitter sites and begin your article marketing journey today.

3. Building Your List with Paid eZine Advertising

Some Internet Marketers can get clueless when it comes to unleashing the full potential of paid eZine advertising. One of the most common dilemmas is that whether should the Internet Marketer advertise the product or service he is selling directly to the subscribers of the eZine he is paying advertising for?

This can be a wise method, but with ifs and buts. For one, the advertisement must be compelling and attention grabbing. Secondly, there is no telling if the eZine's subscribers constantly practice a buying habit until you put some money to find out.

Investing even a small sum of money can be risky to a number of Internet Marketers who are on tight budgets. But in spite of the risk factors, eZine advertising can still be rewarding, if done right.

Thus the solution: the marketer would be wiser if he or she uses eZine advertising to build his or her mailing list. It makes sense, anyway. Since some eZines display more than one sponsored advertisement, you can grab the subscribers attention by giving a free or risk-free product or offer through your ad.

When the subscriber clicks on your ad, he or she can opt into your mailing list in exchange for the free offer, which can be a free report or even a trial service.

While you are not making a hard sell through your advertisement just yet, building your list by getting other eZine's subscribers subscribed to your eZine allows you to follow up with them in the future, as and when you have new offers.

4. Using Free Reports to Build Your List

Aside from pre-selling your products and affiliated offers, the other purpose of your free viral report should be to build your mailing list.

This is because if you are unable to pre-sell, let alone sell, the products and services featured in your free report, the last ditch effort should be to collect leads. In short, if you cannot convert the reader into a ready buyer, you should then attempt to convert him or her into your subscriber.

In that manner, you can still follow up with your reader on future offers and have a chance at converting him or her into your customer, preferably lifetime.

You can do so by offering a lifetime update to your report or a unique notification list your reader will be interested in subscribing to, which leads to having him or her subscribed to your mailing list.

One of the few success factors in viral marketing of your free report is quality. If your readers find your information worth sharing, and you encourage them to do so by giving them the right to give your report away for free, you will be able to have your name, status and links within the report passed around without any effort on your part ñ simply because others are willing to do so for you!

5. Building Your List with Give Away Ventures

With the awareness of the importance of list building, comes a recent Internet Marketing trend which was started just a couple of years ago for the mutual benefits of all Internet Marketers and mailing list owners.

This method is more recognized as a "starting a Give Away venture".

In a real sense, a Give Away event is much like a big time version of ad swaps. In a nutshell, a group of mailing list owners partner together and pool in their individual gifts in one limited-time event.

Each participating partner contributes a gift to the event. The gift can be a free product, membership pass or a product he is already selling (if he is kind enough to offer into the event).

The participating partner prepares a Lead Capture Page where he gives the gift in exchange for the subscribers email address. In other words, in order for a visitor to download the digital gift, he must opt in and subscribe to your mailing list.

When the gifts are pooled together into one event (site), every partner will then endorse the Give Away event to their own mailing lists.

The result: lots of visitors to one event as a collective effort of several participating partners!

With so many visitors downloading gifts from one focused event, it is a true win-win situation. This is because the visitors get to download several free gifts for their own use and every partner gets to build their own mailing list!

You can easily get notified about a Give Away event in the making by communicating with other Internet Marketers often or participating in Internet Marketing discussion and Joint Venture boards.


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Omar Martin is an internet marketing and sales expert. Omar & his partner Mike Filsaime help internet marketing newbies succeed online through 1 on 1 mentorship and coaching visit http://higherlevelstrategies.com/ . You can get their Cd-Rom delivered right to your doorstep at: http://InternetSellingForNewbies.com