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  Building Your List with Free Stuff

  Rick 8:26 am on August 4, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: building a list, free offers, List Building

  The most popular and most successful method for building a list is to give something away to your target group. The thing you give away will usually be a “free report”, a chapter of an ebook you’ve just written, a little software program, or any other downloadable item that you have distribution rights for.

  The idea is that you give something of value to your subscribers, and they give something of value back to you – their contact information so you can keep in touch with them.

  The Give Away Item

  First, make sure the give away item is worth downloading. In other words, make sure it provides useful information and has some substance. If it does not offer value of any kind your subscriber will feel cheated.

  Second, your give away does not have to be long and involved. In fact, it is better if it is short and sweet. I recently signed up for a free report that was 94 pages long. After the first 20 pages or so (much of which was the introduction) I put it aside and will probably never look at it again.

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  Kick Starting Your Local Email List

  Rick 7:45 am on December 9, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: email (4), List Building, scrubbing

  In a previous post I outlined what I call the “Opt-Out” method of developing an email list. This method allows you to enter contact information into your autoresponder and then
  begin sending them occasional email messages without first asking their permission.

  I am not recommending that you buy lists, plug them into your system and just start sending out emails by the millions. This is the worst kind of spamming, and it is illegal. It is also ineffective because most purchased lists are not targeted and they are usually of very low quality.

  But what if you take the time to scour through Chamber of Commerce lists and look through local websites to develop your own list from their data. Is that good or bad? This would probably give you a fairly up-to-date list, and it would be targeted because it would be aimed directly at business addresses.

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  Video Strategy for Getting Traffic

  Rick 10:36 am on December 6, 2008 | 5 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: lead capture, List Building, Video Marketing (7)

  Here’s a great video from Mike Koenigs of Traffic Geyser describing what they call the “10 x 10 x 4″ system. It boils down to this:

  1. Create 10 “little” videos each promoting some aspect of your product or service. He suggests doing a 10 part FAQ (questions your prospects would like answers to). Each questions gets a video. Keep them short. I would say about a minute at most. There’s nothing sacred about the number 10 here. It just means “create a bunch” – the more the better.

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  Building Your First Email List

  Rick 10:14 am on December 5, 2008 | 2 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: email capture, email marketing (6), List Building

  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?

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  Using Opt-Out Email To Reach Local Business

  Rick 10:10 am on November 28, 2008 | 10 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: email advertising, List Building, opt-in, opt-out (2), spam (5)

  Perhaps the most common list-building technique used by internet marketers is what I have called the GCC System – Gather-Capture-Convert. This is what is normally referred to as an “opt-in” system.

  One of the difficulties with this system is that it relies on getting visitors to your websites. That’s the old “traffic problem” rearing its ugly head again. Getting traffic is not easy.

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  Capturing Email Addresses

  Rick 1:11 pm on November 23, 2008 | 2 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: autoresponder (2), ecourse, email marketing (6), List Building

  This is taken from Part 5 of the Linknet eCourse

  Local Marketing Gold

  Once you start getting traffic to your site you need interesting content to keep your visitors engaged. Memorable content, photos, videos, contests, surveys, information, etc. will make an impression on your visitors and give them an incentive to bookmark your site and return in the future.

  But you also need a way to build a list of interested visitors who you can proactively keep in touch with. If you do it correctly you will eventually be able to successfully promote your products to your list. In order to build a list you need an email capture system.
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  Giveaways a Good Way to Start Building a List

  Rick 4:30 pm on July 12, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: digital products, GiveAway Event, List Building

  Participating in “joint ventures” is a good way to get involved with promoting and developing online products (usually digital products).

  One popular type of joint venture is the Product GiveAway. A bunch of online marketers get together and contribute digital products to a “GiveAway Event”. Usually these products are things like ebooks, video courses, or, in some cases, low cost services you are prepared to give away as an introduction to your more expensive services.

  All the contributors promote the event to their email lists. People visit the event and “join”. Once they have joined they are exposed to sometimes hundreds of interesting digital products that they can download for free. The catch is, to download them they must sign up with each contributor. As a result, the contributor gets many new sign ups to his or her list.

  These are really a win-win-win situation. The Giveaway Event operator gets a list of all those who have signed up to download gifts – potentially thousands of people. The contributors get exposure and an expanded email list. And the members get free products.

  To see one that is currently running, visit http://www.summerjvgiveaway.com/2/index.php?id=88">The Summer JV Giveaway.

   
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  Don't Use a Free Autoreponder Service

  Rick 10:32 am on February 22, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: autoresponders, email (4), List Building

  Everybody involved in internet marketing knows you need an autoresponder (or two, or three.) In case you’re tempted to go cheap – say, use one of those free autoresponder services - there are some pretty important reasons why you should NOT.

  It boils down to this: it just isn’t worth messing around with a free service with something so vital to your online business. Your regular email communications are probably the most important means you have of growing your business and keeping your customers happy.

  For some really good reasons why it is best to stay with an established autoresponder service, see this article,  Why Not To Use Free Autoresponders.