Simple Ways To Build Your List by Anne-Marie Ronsen This guide is everything and anything you ever needed to know about list building. List building is a popular subject these days, especially in the world of online marketing. So if you are looking for current, up-to-date information you came to just the right place! If you are new to list building, this guide contains everything you need to know to get started in the industry. One of the first questions that pops into people’s heads when someone mentions "list building" is what is it, and why do I need it? The answer is simple. If you plan to grow your business, you need to create subscriber leads. These are leads to people who may be interested in buying your products and services. Most subscriber lists are nothing more than lists of prospects interested in buying the products and services you have to sell. You can gather leads automatically by creating your website in a way that requires everyone that visits sign up for your newsletter to give you their email address. While you can’t force anyone to sign up, you can gently encourage him or her to sign up by showing him or her the benefits of doing so. For example, if you plan to give away a free bonus report for subscribers signing up to your list, let them know that. Tell them how your free bonus will help them succeed or achieve their goals. We’ll talk more about this in greater detail later in the book. Back to the purpose of this book. The purpose of this book is to help you learn how to create powerful and effective mailing and subscriber lists (two terms we will use interchangeably). What is the point of these lists? The point is to encourage people enthusiastically to take advantage of all the benefits you have to offer them through your website. When you build a successful subscriber list, you essentially lay the foundation for a successful business. "A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her…" - David Brinkley When building your business, you will experience many challenges. You may find as Mr. Brinkley suggests, that people oppose you. You may find the competition fierce. You may find you have to overcome your own fears about success to succeed. You can however, overcome any challenges presented to you with perseverance and strength. Throughout this book you will find many ways of collecting subscriber leads. These leads will prove to be the lifeline of your business. So let’s get started and find out how you can build your subscriber list for pennies on the dollar. Simple Ways To Build Your List "Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises" - Demosthenes To win big, you have to start out small, as Demosthenes suggests. Small opportunities will often lead you to great successes. The process of creating a list leads to the potential for greater success and wealth, regardless of the business you are in. In this section we’ll talk about some simple tools you can use to build your list. Let’s look at each method independently. Sometimes it is best to rely on simple tools and small opportunities when you are just starting out in the industry. You will have much time to grow your business and expand your customer base if you follow the simple steps outlined in this guide. So let’s begin first by talking about subscriber leads. Subscriber Leads One easy way to build your list is by collecting subscriber leads. This is one of the best ways to expand your business. There are many ways to acquire leads, but the best way to collect leads is to gather them automatically, through email or by your website through various forms. In the next few sections of this book, we will go into greater detail about the ways you can grow your subscriber list and maintain your list over time. You will find as you run your business that your subscriber leads prove vital to your businesses success and ability to grow and expand over time. Opt-In Leads Like subscriber leads, opt-in leads are a good tool for building your business. Opt-in leads are leads you get when you invite someone to enter their information into your database. When they do this, they are granting you permission to contact them in the future about new products or updates to your site. For example, when you create your website, you can set it up so each person that visits has the choice to sign up for a newsletter or some other type of routine e-mailing. By signing up, visitors are "opting in" to your list. Setting your site up this way allows you to gain visitor’s email addresses. While you can never force someone to do what you want them to, this approach often works if you encourage people to sign up by describing all the benefits your site offers. You can then reap the benefits of gaining important subscriber leads. Survey Leads Another way to produce automatic subscriber leads is by conducting surveys on your website. This is a simple way to increase the number of subscribers to your list. You can place survey ads on your website so they pop up when a customer checks out. How do you get someone to fill out a survey? It is not as hard as you think. For starters, some people enjoy filling out surveys. For those that don’t you can employ some simple tactics to encourage them to offer their information to you. For example, tell your customers what benefits they will reap from filling out your survey. Don’t assume your customer’s know what benefits they will gain by filling out a survey. You have to tell them. Maybe they will gain access to your website, which contains thousands of free articles on the topic they are researching. Maybe you will enter them into a contest to win a free gift. Giveaways are a great way to encourage people to sign up for just about anything. It’s funny how quickly people are willing to give up their personal information, including their name, address and email for a gift. We’ll talk more about gifts later in this guide. Make sure you offer them an irresistible reason to fill out your survey. Tell customers how they will profit by signing up. This is a very easy and successful tool marketers use to produce new leads. Most times visitors are willing to offer their email address for a survey. Let’s talk now about the next simple tool you can use to build your subscriber list. Affiliating One way you can collect leads for your subscriber list is by affiliating. Affiliating means joining in or offering an affiliate program. When you take part in an affiliate program you immediately realize the benefits of getting leads that an affiliate will create and then forward to you. For this process to work you need an opt-in program and an auto responder programmer. We will devote an entire section to auto responders later in this guide. Using these programs you can gather information and instantly send out confirmation emails to new subscribers on your list. Don’t worry about having people fill in their address fields or phone number. Most people are hesitant to provide this information, but very willing to provide their email address. There is much less pressure involved when you are collecting email addresses instead of personal information.