Email List Building Strategies
If you’re going to be successful in internet marketing, you need to build a list. It’s the number one key to opening the success floodgates. After it’s built, it’s yours to use any time you want. It’s a resource you can tap at any time and generate income.
OK, but how?
Here are the three components of list building:
- Your Opt-in Page
- Your Bribe
- The Opt-in Success Page
The Squeeze Page – The landing page is the page that has your opt-in form on it. This page is the one that asks them for their email. This page needs to look professional. It’s also got to be free from distractions. You’ve also got to make a strong “close”.
If you fail to make a strong close, you’re wasting your efforts. Your call to action tells the visitor what to do. You opt-in rates will take a dramatic nose dive without it. It’s strange, but if you don’t tell people what to do, they won’t do it.
If you want to add some extra juice to your opt-in page add a compelling video to the page. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. Plus it give you a chance to tell them to opt in multiple times. And you can have the video just tell them to fill in your form after it’s done playing.
Now, don’t worry if you have no idea how to make videos. You can hire freelancers to do this for you for a few hundred dollars. There are also list building systems that give you squeeze page templates.
The Incentive – Next, you’ve got to figure out what your bribe is. People won’t give you their email for nothing. Email privacy is very important to most people. This means your bribe needs to be very attractive.
The only way to make this work is to provide real value. Then it becomes something people want to get from you. And something from which they can derive a benefit. A few ideas:
- A free report
- Some useful software
- Training videos
- A multi-part email series
You’ve got to create some great content. It’s got to be something helpful for your new subscribers. It goes without saying it must be free. Bottom line is it’s got to be worth more to them than their email address.
Once again, don’t worry if you don’t know how to create the freebie. Here again, you can hire freelancers to create this for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. For example, you could have them write a 5-part email course. And you can get emails ghost written for about $20 – $25 each. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.
Or again, you can find complete list building packages for sale online that include an email series. There are two important things about the email series. First of all it has to give the subscriber what you promised – valuable information. And it’s nice if it earns you some money, too. 
The easiest way to do this is to market affiliate products in the emails. This allows you to get started with no products of your own. And you can earn some commissions immediately from your emails.
The Thank You Page – Finally, you need to consider your opt-in confirmation page. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. It’s nice to give them some great content right away. Then they feel good about giving you their email address. It also helps to build the relationship. So when they get your email, they’re happy to hear from you.
Again, a simple solution to this is to get an email marketing package that includes everything. You can also put the whole thing together on your own. You can either write the content pages on your own. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.
Summing it up
Whether you decide to build your email funnel yourself. Or if you hire people to do this for you. Or if you get a ready-done package. It’s just important that you start today building your opt-in list. Because as soon as you’ve got your own list . . . You’ve got a license to print money!
