Blog of Online Professional | Lee Gilbert on 5 Ways To Build A List Today

5 Ways To Build A List Today

Can you imagine a car without a steering wheel or a stereo without speakers? This is what many online businesses are like. They are incomplete because they are missing out on a very important aspect of their business. They do not have a way to build their business list.

Why build your business list?

Your list is your key foundation point to your business. Here is the reason why. Your list provides you with the following benefits:

Leads who are interested in your product and may very likely buy from you in the future
Customers who have already bought from you but may very well buy other products from you.
Subscribers who want to hear about new products
Subscribers who may recommend you and your products to others.
Subscribers who may like your products so much that they will become your sales people or affiliates.

What tools do you need for list building?

An autoresponder: an autoresponder is your best friend. You can use it for so many tasks. Here are a few:

To manage your lists
Send out publications like your newsletter
Send out announcements, ads, new product announcements, mailers etc.
Thank you letters to customers
FAQ sheets

Free giveaways: like free reports, free mini courses and my favorite a free newsletter or ezine.

Building your list with viral marketing

1) Free giveaways are viral marketing at its best. They usually have links in them to subscribe to your free newsletter and one link to a product or affiliate product. The more people who download them, the more opportunities you have for people to sign up for your list.

2) Free reports are about a popular topic in your industry. This ensures that they will have a high ratio of people downloading them.

3) Mini courses are daily short lessons that people can act on today. Again they are on popular topics in your industry that your market wants to know about. At the bottom of every lesson or at the beginning you will mention your newsletter and a link to subscribe. You can also offer one of these free gifts as an incentive for people to subscribe to your newsletter.

Landing page (Squeeze page)

This is like a mini sales page for your free mini course, newsletter or report. There are certain components that you should include in your squeeze page:

List the benefits of joining your list.
Offer an incentive: When you offer a free subscription you can also offer one of these free gifts as an incentive for people to subscribe to your newsletter.
Have a way to subscribe: Always remember to have a web form for your visitors to subscribe to your list
Critically, remember the principles of M.W.A (Most Wanted Action) - so that your form and call to action is "above the fold" so the user does not have to scroll down the web page to see your M.W.A

Ads in related ezines

You can place ads in related ezines and newsletters. You can also do ad swaps with other list owners when you have 100 subscribers and up. Here you have a choice of ads.

Classified: This is a short 6 line (60 characters) ad that is placed towards the end of the ezine. They are the cheapest paid ad and are ideal for split testing and seeing if the ezine list is responsive to your ad.
The second type of ad is a Top Sponsor Ad. You are usually allowed up to 10 lines (60 characters) for these ads. They are placed at the top of the ezine, usually before the featured article. This allows you the greatest exposure, for your ad and you can expect a good response if you have done your testing before placing the ad.
The final type of ad and one that many prefer are the Solo ads. These get sent out as an individual ad to the whole subscriber base. They are the most expensive and you will expect good response from these ads.

Ads on related websites

For this type of advertising you will use classified ads. An important factor for success is to choose websites that are related to your market but not your competitors. A second thing to consider is the amount of traffic the website is drawing. Of course you may have to pay a little more, but the increase in your subscriber base will be worth it. Always track and record your results so that you know which websites are responsive and need repeat ads.

Blogs and article distribution

This is a powerful way to build your list. Success depends on a few factors.

Quality: In order to get your blogs and articles read quality is a must. They should be appealing to your market and informative. Always check for grammar and spelling.
Bio or resource box: This goes at the end of your articles and is very important. Offering one of your free gifts like a free mini course or free report will help you be successful.
Links: Your links in your blogs are critical to your success. Try not to put more than 2 in the blog. You can link up to an article on your web page, product, or another blog etc.

With these few points you will be able to build your list with responsive subscribers and develop your business into a profitable enterprise.
If you are only doing some, rather than all of the above, you may want to look again at your list building strategy and implement the missing ideas.

Of course, there is Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing, Email Marketing and lately Facebook Ad Marketing to add to the above - but that is for another time...

Comments (3) Post Comment Article Listing

posted by: Lee Gilbert
26th May 2010

Hi Jordan, happy to reply more in private but I will say here that list building is a science and an art - requiring persistency. These days I input about 6 hrs a month to adjusting my strategies - which is about the same as I do with my clients. Of course when you're first starting out its 3 to 4 times that

Lee Gilbert on 1st Jun 2010 11:13 AM

Hi Lee, I found your blog through your comment on the redfly marketing blog. List building is something that I have never got round to doing. It looks like you have your site very well set up to do this. Do you mind if I ask how many people you have got on your list so far, and how much effort it has taken on your part? (you don;t have to say if you don't want to) :-) Thanks!

Jordan McClements on 31st May 2010 03:30 PM

Hugely helpful and very clear. Many thanks.

Helen Shiner on 26th May 2010 01:16 PM