Let me begin by saying that I am no expert on list-building and neither am I someone who makes a fortune from internet marketing (not yet at least).
What I’ve Learned About List-Building and Traffic
In my 2 years since I started with internet marketing and blogging, I have read many resources about many types of marketing on the internet. The majority of ‘gurus’ definitely claim that the real money is in the list. It is always in the list.
Lists give power to build up a relationship with thousands of readers on a very personal level. Best of all, it is totally automated. All the work lies in initially creating a sequence of follow-up messages that will get delivered in regular intervals to anybody who signs up to your list.
A few quick and obvious benefits of building a list are:
- Lists are permanent
While Rss feeds are great, if the providers stop their service, then you lose all your readers. A list of email addresses can be exported and saved and its existence will never rely on a 3rd party that could cease to exist at any moment.
- Lists are highly-targeted
Usually people who sign up to your list and opt-in are people who are very interested in what you have to offer. This is what makes a list so profitable, because of the fact that your audience is highly targeted to your product / niche and you have a very good potential to sell to them - Lists are re-usable
Imagine for a second that you are selling a product. You set up a site and when a reader lands on your site and your sales pitch is good enough, the visitor is convinced and makes a purchase from you and then leaves your site. The chances are big that this visitor made a once-off purchase and will not return to your site for repeat-business. With a list, you have the opportunity to build a relationship with your subscribers and sell to them over and over again (until they opt out of your list). So, instead of making a once-off sale, you have the opportunity to make multiple sales from a single visitor.
With most websites, large or small, there are always new visitors arriving on your site for the first time. If your site is not exactly what that visitor is looking for or your site is not convincing enough, he will leave. This is in my opinion a waste of a potential customer. You can optimise your traffic by offering an incentive that will make the visitor want to sign up to your list to receive future updates. While this visitor may have left your site on the first visit without buying anything from you, now you have him signed up to your list and you have the possibility of providing him with something that he needs and wants to buy from you.
What Kind Of Incentive?
If I have convinced you to create a list you might be wondering what kind of incentive you should give in order for people to opt in and sign up to your list. While it is not set in stone, you always need to provide some form of value that is going to make your visitor’s life better. Make your promise sound great or over the top exceptional, but be sure to deliver on your promise. This is a good way to win your new subscriber’s trust and respect which in turn opens them up to the idea of buying from you.
Here are a few possible incentives that you could offer in return for your visitor subscribing to your list. You will have to use some of your own common sense and creativity to decide which option would best suit your visitors and your target market.
- eBook
An ebook is an awesome incentive for people to sign up to your list. It is the incentive I am personally using for my own list on my blog. The reason why I like this method so much is because it is possible to create a totally fantastic resource (50, 100 or 500 pages) that will provide a lot of value to your visitor. The ebook is timeless and will stay around for a very long time, it can be downloaded and shared amongst many more people than you alone could reach with your own marketing efforts. Besides that fact, you can include affiliate links in your ebook that can result in some very nice commissions on top of the fact that you gain subscribers for your list.
- Newsletter
A newsletter is also a popular incentive for people to sign up to lists. This is the promise of a regular email (weekly or even monthly) with extra information that is not to be found on your site. It is not that hard to create 20-50 follow up messages in a newsletter format, but in that case it is always good to remember to make the messages timeless. (Not relating to current events)
- X Day Course
Offer a course that will last for x days, broken down into very oversee able portions of knowledge or information
- Software Program or Tool
Create or develop some sort of software or tool that is really useful. Then give it away to visitors in return for them signing up to your list. You can either create the tool yourself or you can just outsource it and get a qualified person to do it for you.
- Exclusive Access for X Days
People love being part of a special group or getting something for free that others do not have. If you have some sort of membership site or forum, why not allow your visitor access to the membership site for x days in return for them signing up to your list.
The Mindset Of Providing Value
I feel that it is important to mention the correct mindset of building a list.
You are not there to take from your visitor. You are not there to take his money or take his email address and just profiting from him. That is a win-lose scenario.
Always strive to create a win-win situation. You are there to provide value to your subscriber. To provide a good solution for a problem that your visitor has. To provide an opportunity for your visitor to gain and to profit.
You should strive to make your list a mutually beneficial relationship where you give your subscriber what he or she wants and in return he or she pays you for it. (Directly or via a commission).
This is the mindset and approach that will lead to many happy customers that will buy from you on a regular basis. It may not be important to you, but I always think it is good to have correct business ethics. When you create win-win situations you have no guilty conscience to worry about, because you are providing value to your subscribers and they are rewarding you with money.
What are you waiting for? Go ahead and start setting up your system to create a list right away. If you’re not doing this, you are missing out!
Diggy writes all about self improvement and personal growth. Spread the word and subscribe to his blog via RSS or Email
