Email List Building Tips

What is a List?

If you’ve used a shopping card, signed up for a credit card, subscribed to a magazine, bought something from a catalog, or filled out a product registration form, chances are you’re part of someone’s mailing list.

This is the kind of list we’re talking about here.

A mailing list is what enables organizations, businesses, or whoever owns that list to keep in touch with their members/customers and keep them engaged with whatever it is that they’re promoting.

The Money is in the List

Unless you’re just starting out as an Internet marketer, you’ve probably already heard of the saying “the money is in the list” several if not countless times. If you haven’t, try doing a search on Google (or any search engine, for that matter) for “the money is in the list”.

Fact is, every successful Internet Marketer has a list.

Unfortunately, however, the saying that the money is in the list is not entirely true. If it were, then the guys with the biggest lists would be ones who are making the most money. Truth of the matter is, quite often, the guys at the top of the leader board are people very few of us have heard of. This makes one wonder, “what do those guys have that others don’t?”

The answer is quite simple, really. What they have are well-targeted and prequalified lists. This is why it’s a bad idea to buy lists from other people.

There are two types of email marketers:

· those that do just about anything they can to get people on their lists (even if it means having to fool them into signing up) and

· those that only want people on their lists they feel they can genuinely help.

I think it’s obvious which one of these is the better kind of email marketer and the one that you should emulate.

Remember that leads are the lifeblood of any business. So, build your list with a lot of care and with a clear conscience.

Traditional Mailing Lists versus Email Lists

Following are some of the reasons why email lists are better than traditional mailing lists.

It’s easy – Executing an email campaign is simple, all you need basically is a computer with Internet access, an email account, and the ability to put your message into writing. And you can do it practically anywhere—in your office, at home, or even on the kitchen table.

It’s more cost effective – Email eliminates the overhead costs associated with traditional direct mail such as the cost for printing, envelopes, postage, and the labor involved in getting the shipping labels on each printed piece.

It has a wider reach – You can send email to practically any person with an email account regardless of where they are on the globe. You can even send emails to people who are on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean.

It’s faster – Email generally takes only an instant to reach its intended recipient, compared to printed mail which could take days. Not only that, printed matters can take days or even weeks to print, label, and sort before they are delivered to their intended recipients.

It’s interactive – Email enables recipients to respond without switching to a different medium. In comparison, a printed piece requires its recipient to use a different medium (e.g., phone, Internet, or reply mail) to respond to whatever call-to-action it has on it. This causes delays in as far as reaction time is concerned. And considering the “trouble” that the recipient has to go through, this can also cause the recipient to lose interest in the offer.

It’s more personalized – Email allows you to send custom-fitted messages enabling you to connect with your audience on a more personal level.

It’s more engaging and interesting – With email, you can use various types of media to capture the interest of your audience—graphics, video, music, games, etc.

It’s easier to target – An email list makes it easier for you to reach only those who are interested in whatever you have to offer thus saving you from bothering and annoying those who do not.

It’s highly trackable – Not only can you determine how many of your recipients have taken action on your offer, you can also identify who they are and when they did so, along with other useful information that you can use to develop/improve your future email marketing campaigns.

It’s not time restrained – And that goes for you and your recipient. You can send out your messages at any time you deem necessary. Likewise, your recipients can take action on your offer anytime they want.

Email List Building Tips

The Basics

Tip #1 – Create a well-crafted lead capture page. The primary function of a lead capture page is for collecting the names, email addresses, and other information about your audience/site’s visitors. So, you must have on your lead capture page information about your offer of a solution to your prospects’ problems to give them a reason to sign up/opt-in. Make it simple: use a headline, some bullet points about what you are offering, your autoresponder opt-in form, and the important points of your privacy statement. You can also use your lead capture page to introduce yourself and your brand.

Tip #2 – Include a link to your privacy policy on your lead capture page. And make sure your privacy policy is clear and concise.

Tip #3 – Use an autoresponder service. An autoresponder is basically a piece of software (or a service) that enables you to send/broadcast emails to the people in your list automatically. All you need to do is to create/compose your messages and set the dates when you want the autoresponder to send them out to your list. Additionally, autoresponders lets you easily set up an opt-in form on your lead capture page. A great example of an autoresponder is Aweber.

Tip #4 - Write the copy for your lead capture page with your prospects’ point of view in mind. Keep in mind that it’s far easier to convince people when you are in agreement with their train of thought than it is to force them to see it your way.

Tip #5 – Don’t make it difficult for your prospects. Deciding on whether or not they should entrust you with their email address is already hard enough. So, if they do give you their email address, give them what they asked for right away.

Tip #6 – Give away something of value. It could be a report, an ebook, a video clip, an audio recording, whatever, so long as it’s not trash. Make it something that people will love you for.

Tip #7 – Provide a preview of what people will receive once they sign up to your list. Remember what was mentioned earlier about “targeted and qualified” lists? This should reduce your chances of getting people who will sign up to your list “by mistake”.

Tip #8 – Make sure you have a confirmation/thank you page. This is where your subscribers will be redirected after they submitted their personal/contact information through your autoresponder form. As such, your thank you page will be the first experience your subscribers will have after signing up. So take this opportunity to make a (good) first impression on your subscribers or to build on the one you made when they first came to your site. Aside from thanking your subscribers for signing up, clearly explain to them what just happened, what happens next, and what (if anything) they need to do. You can also use your confirmation/thank you page to engage your subscribers with other conversion possibilities like a newsletter signup, an RSS feed, white paper download, etc.

Tip #9 – Provide an easy way out. As much as we want the people in our list to stay in our list forever, it is a must that they are provided with a way to opt-out. People who are wary of joining may not join at all if they don’t see a way out. You can actually gain people’s trust just by showing them that you are not there to trap them.

Gaining People’s Trust

Tip #10 – Don’t sell (at least not while trying to get people to sign up to your list). Keep in mind that people don’t like being sold to unless they are in a buying mood. And when they’re in a buying mood, they don’t need anyone to convince them to buy whatever it is that they’ve set their eyes on. So, instead of telling people to buy your products, think of ways to spark their interest in your product. You can create videos or articles showing how your product is made or how it has helped people’s lives.

Tip #11 – Be yourself. Many companies, as well as individuals, tend to project a perfect image of themselves wherever they appear believing that they will earn more trust from that. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is corporate marketing talk doesn’t earn trust. In lieu of that, connect with your audience by setting up a personal ‘company’ blog and write your blog entries in your own words. Be transparent about what you’re talking about. Encourage your readers to leave their comments.

Tip #12 – Show your audience/subscribers that you care and that you understand their needs. Reply to all the emails you receive from your audience/subscribers. Check out forums (even those that aren’t your own), as well as social networking sites, and respond to the issues raised about you/your company/your products. Make a site dedicated to hearing feedback and addressing all of your audience’s issues.

Tip #13 – Be an expert in your field. Gain trust by establishing credibility in your industry. Write and submit articles (relevant to your industry) to article directories/submission sites like Amazines, Ezine Articles, and Idea Marketers. Show your audience that you know what you are talking about.

Tip #14 - Be true to your customers. There’s a very good chance that your audience/subscribers/customers will recommend you to other people if they’re happy with you. So, be honest and transparent. If you want to hype up your products and services, make sure to provide guarantees. And make sure that there’s consistency in the service you provide.

Tip #15 – Create your own social networking site. There are online services that let you create your very own social networking site around any topic you want. Having such a website will enable you to pass on information to your members with ease and it can put a personal face on your company/business. Some examples of these services are SocialGo and Ning.

Tip #16 – Exchange links with similar sites – Having a link on a site that’s in a similar niche/subject/topic as yours, especially the popular ones, can gain you people’s trust.

Driving Traffic

Tip #17 – Get your site/lead-generation page to rank high in the search engine results pages (SERP). In short, optimize your site for the search engines (SEO). If you can’t do it on your own, find/hire someone who can.

Tip #18 – Leverage the virality of video sharing sites. YouTube, Metacafe, Break, there’s a bunch of them out there. Create interesting and informative videos for/about your niche/market and post them on your YouTube channel on a regular basis. Make sure to include the link to your squeeze/opt-in page in your video post.

Tip #19 – Respond through video. YouTube, along with other video sharing sites and some social networking sites allow you to post video response/comments. Posting video response/comments allows you to piggy back on the popularity of the video you are responding to/commenting on. In addition, video comments have the capability to catch people’s attention more than text-based comments.

Tip #20 – Make your presence known on social networking sites – If you have an account on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, make sure to mention about your products/services/offers (complete with the link to your squeeze/opt-in page) in your profile. If not, you can always signup for an account with all the social networking sites out there, preferably using a username and avatar that brands your business or you as a person, whichever it is that you want to promote.

Tip #21 – Create a blog on various free blogging platforms – Blogger/Blogspot, WordPress.com, LiveJournal, there’s a bunch of them out there. Fill them up regularly with new blog entries and don’t forget to include a link to your lead capture page. You can also set up an opt-in form on your blogs.

Tip #22 – Make the most out of your blogs’ RSS feed. If you publish useful/interesting content on your blog, there’s a very good chance that your readers will want to subscribe to your blog and probably even syndicate your posts on their site. And there’s no better way for them to do either of those than through your blog’s RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. Just don’t forget to include a link to your lead-generation page in your blog posts. More importantly, make your posts interesting and useful.

Tip #23 – Submit your blog(s) to blog directories. This will help you in building a following, readership, and revenue. Some examples of blog directories are Best of the Web Blogs, Technorati, and Blog Catalog.

Tip #24 – Comment on other people’s blog – Especially those that are in a similar or related niche to yours. You can also comment on those that are in a different niche so long as you stay relevant to the conversation. Just don’t link drop and run. Like I said, make your comments relevant to either the running discussion or the main blog entry.

 

Tip #25 – Do a guest post on other people’s blog – Some bloggers welcome guest bloggers. Try to look for them and offer to write an entry or two for their blog. The key here is relevance and quality content. Write an entry that will be useful and interesting to the readers of the blog you are writing for.

Tip #26 – Create a podcast. A podcast is a series of digital audio or video files released episodically online and downloaded through web syndication. Podcasting is actually very similar to blogging, except that you use audio/video to get your message across instead of the written word. And just like blogging, podcasting also utilizes RSS. (Screenshot courtesy of StackExchange.)

 

Tip #27 – Participate in forums. Join forums that are related to your niche and start participating in the discussions. Wherever permitted, include the link to your lead capture page in your forum sig file.

Tip #28 – Do some pay-per-click advertising. Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter, Facebook, just to name a few popular ones. PPC can get you instant and highly targeted traffic.

Tip #29 – Cost-per-action (CPA)/cost-per-lead (CPL) advertising. CPA is a paid advertising model where you (the advertiser) pay only whenever a person successfully performs your prescribed action.

Tip #30 – Advertise on ezines. Almost all ezines accept ads from third parties. If you don’t know what ezines are, these are online newsletters that website owners use to send updates, news and new promotions to their site's visitors. You can place an ad for your website, product, or service in various ezines.

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