Believe it or not, much of the success that is achieved in an online business is through their lists. If you have been in the online business world of internet marketing for quite some time, you should already be aware of the importance of list building.
For those that are new to the online internet marketing world, you should be aware of this as well. You have probably heard the term – “The money is in the list”, and this is so true.
What is a list?
A list is a group of online subscribers that gave you their name and email address in exchange to receive a special online gift, eBook, information or newsletter subscription. This can be done through your website or it can be through your social networks or even offline via ads in the newspapers, magazines or other media forms.
Do you need a list?
I’ll answer this with one simple word loud and clear, absolutely. You’re losing business without it. Here are a few things about lists to ponder upon:
- Builds repeat business
- Easy to implement
- Helps turn leads into paying customers
- Inexpensive to maintain
- Direct communication
- Measurable results
- Positions you as an expert in your niche market
Fundamentals of List Building:
- Make sure to identify your target market
- Identify their problem
- Give them a solution to their problem
- Create a free enticing offer
- Set up an autoresponder
- Have a call to action
- Build a relationship
These fundamentals will help you grow and maintain your list. So, how important is the size of your list? It is important to realize that size could matter and at times it may be irrelevant. The reason is that if you have a list of 20,000 names yet you get minimal responses from them, then this may be a useless list. If you are sending newsletters every day, soon people will begin to delete them because they get so many of these every day. Pretty soon, you will have a list with no emails on it.
The whole key is to build lists with many people responding to you. You want responsive buyers. A couple of important things you want to make sure you implement in your list building are first, to stay in contact. Once you have someone in your list, you want to keep communicating with them to keep your business fresh in their minds allowing you to market different products or services to them for more revenue.
Offer them good non-promotional emails with relevant content to help solve their problems. You don’t want to keep selling them something because people buy from people they trust. If they continue to see you selling them without providing any valuable content, you will lose their trust. Be consistent with this and schedule your emails with your autoresponder so that they can begin expecting your emails.
Think about your own experience with your own email. Do you like getting all of those emails that are just trying to sell you something without providing good valuable information? We live in an online information world. People have so much access to information and they want to get value for giving their email address to you.
Second thing you want to do is to build a relationship. You have to learn how to gain their trust. I mentioned giving valuable information as content to them. This is the best form of building trust with them. When they see your emails, they should be happy to open them because they know that they are getting something of value.
Create confidence in the viewer’s eyes by supplying them with your credentials, telling them about your background. Be sincere in your message. Most readers are able to see right thru you and you don’t want to be caught doing that because you may never regain their trust. Ultimately, you want your list to know you, like you and trust you.
Last, you want to over-deliver. Give them more than what you promised. People love nothing more than nice surprises like that. They say that people come to the internet to do one of two things, to get information about something or to shop for something. Use your time to provide remarkable service, information and products. Once you do this, people will have interest to learning more about you and your products.
In conclusion, building an email marketing list is going to be one of the most important aspects of your online business. Remember, your market must know you, like you and trust you. Always keep track of your results. Test different markets and ideas and see what works best. Once you have something that is working for you, emulate that and keep repeating. I wish you the best of success with your marketing efforts. bExtraordinary my friends.
Recent Comments