Internet marketers are fond of saying “Build a list, build a list!” But anybody who’s tried knows the biggest problem is just getting your act together.
Here is some advice on how to get this process going. The first part deals with “Setting Your Objectives”, and the second part deals with “Priming the Pump” – finding your first subscribers.
Part 1. Setting Your Objectives
The first problem is that you must have have a very clear idea of your objectives. You’ve got some blanks to fill in on your “Strategic Plan”, and the task is not easy.
BLANK 1 – Who am I trying to reach? (my market)
BLANK 2 – What am I ultimately trying to sell? (my product)
BLANK 3 – How is building a list going to help me sell my product to my market?
There will be other blanks to fill in on your “Strategic Plan”, but these will give you a good start. Most successful marketers will tell you if you don’t fill in these blanks at the beginning you will likely jump around aimlessly from false start to missed opportunity for months and even years. In the process you will lose precious time and you may even quit out of frustration.
Don’t get me wrong. I think filling in these blanks is difficult. Especially when you’re just starting out. The simple reason is that most new online marketers don’t know what they want to sell, and they don’t know who their market is.
Identifying your market is a complex problem…
A few years ago internet marketers were fond of saying: “Find something you are passionate about and then make that your focus.” The assumption was that there is a market online for just about anything, so if you’re passionate about, say “crochet needles” or “fishing lures”, you should develop or find (using Clickbank, for example) products aimed at people who want or like or need crochet needles or fishing lures, and then market to them.
These days internet marketers tend to say: “Do a keyword analysis and find out what people are searching for.” Then choose a profitable-looking niche based on that data. Then develop or find a product they will be interested in buying. And then market it to them.
Reaching local businesses…
Both of these recommendations make sense when dealing directly with individual consumers, but I don’t think they apply very well to local businesses.
Businesses have specific business-oriented needs, so they are generally not interested in crochet needles, dog training manuals or fishing lures. They are interested in things like management advice, accounting information, how to find good employees, how to deal with customers, tax advice and so on.
Of course, if you provide services like landscaping or janitorial or window cleaning, many local businesses will also be interested in those things too.
And it goes without saying that virtually all businesses are interested in marketing and advertising products or services in one form or another. Especially if these products and services don’t cost much and can be shown to be effective.
So for argument’s sake, let’s rise to the strategic planning challenge and fill in the blanks this way…
Blank 1: Who Am I Trying to Reach?
Answer: Local Business Advertisers (businesses who advertise)
Blank 2: What Am I Trying to Sell Them?
Answer: Online Web Marketing Products
Blank 3: How Will a List Help Me Sell To This Market?
Answer: It will help me identify businesses who are interested in my product(s), who I can introduce my product(s) to, and who I can gradually develop a relationship with.
Once you have clarified this information in your mind you can get to work on your list building system. Now it’s time to call up a tried and true list building formula. It goes like this:
1. Create an Offer to get your target market to sign up.
2. Drive traffic to your offer.
3. Create a capture system so you get their email addresses.
4. Follow up with regular high quality messages aimed at (eventually) converting them into customers.
This is what I call the GCC System – Gather, Capture, Convert. It is by far the best way to build a quality targeted list. It will probably not get you thousands of leads over night. But it will get you going and it will give you a chance to experiment with different offers, and different followups and it will help you get some initial subscribers.
In the next post I will talk about “Priming The Pump – Finding your first subscribers and driving people to your offer”.
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Email Marketing Strategy » Blog Archive » Building Your First Email List - Local Business Marketing 5:20 am on January 7, 2009 Permalink
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Syed Akram 1:03 pm on August 30, 2009 Permalink
If you want more people to join your list, give them a good reason to want to
join your list.
Incentives are the name of the game, and they can come in many shapes or sizes. Give your visitors something of value, and something that could even possibly assert your authority in the niche. For instance, a free report regarding some issue that is faced by many of your visitors would no doubt be of value to them, and at the same time, by writing one and helping them out, you’d be establishing your reputation as a trusted source of help and information.