How and why to build an email list

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You've probably heard this common Internet marketing mantra a million times. The money is in the list. List marketing is probably the most powerful way to create a profitable home based business. You can't afford to ignore this powerful approach.

Why it works

In most cases, people need to see a marketing message more than once before they're persuaded to make a purchase. Repeated exposure is usually necessary to inspire action. You can create opportunities for multiple exposure by adding an individual to your list.

People are also more likely to buy from those with whom the feel a trusting connection. List marketing gives you a chance to develop a relationship with the people on your list. That increases your credibility, producing more sales.

How to do it

Internet marketing is a proven winning home based business for women or men when you implement a simple squeeze page. A squeeze pages has only one purpose. It should persuade the reader to become part of your list. Anything else is completely extraneous.

The use of a free gift is an effective way to persuade visitors to join your list. This time-tested strategy can substantially boost your bottom line.

Having a quality inducement won't automatically make your squeeze page a success, though. Building a squeeze page the right way is just as important. We know that specific squeeze page techniques generate optimal results. You should emulate those proven techniques. That means you'll want to follow these three guidelines.

Squeeze page basics

Initially, there should be no outgoing links on your squeeze page. You want people to sign up for your list, not to have them click away to something else.

Second, you'll need to write a short, powerful message. You want people to take advantage of your inducement and to become a subscriber, not to complicate the situation. Don't forget that your squeeze page only has one purpose - to build a list. You should choose every word with that goal in mind.

Third, you will want to approach the sign up process as if it were as important as a big sale - close that deal! Thus, your squeeze page's sign up form needs to include an extremely strong call to action. Clearly communicate the value of subscribing to those reading the page.

Summary

A good inducement and a squeeze page built with these three recommendations will get the job done. That will give you the opportunity to develop an effective relationship with prospects. You'll also have the chance to expose your subscribers to key marketing messages more than once.

You will take your Internet marketing efforts to the next level if you learn how to build an email list. It's not a coincidence that top marketers all rely on their lists. It's true - the money is in the list!

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Email List Building Strategies

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If you're going to be successful in internet marketing, you need to build a list. This is the most important factor in your long-term success. After it's built, it's yours to use any time you want. Just push a button and print money - literally.

OK, but how?

Here's what you need to build your list:

  • Your Landing Page
  • The Bribe
  • The Thank You Page

Your Opt-in 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. So, obviously it has to be well designed. 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. Oddly, if you don't make it clear, people will be confused and end up doing nothing.

If you want to add some extra juice to your opt-in page make it a video squeeze page. You only have a few second to get your visitors attention - video helps! And you can repeat the call to action several times int he video. And after the video, you can make it just say "fill in the form now".

If you don't know how to make video, don't worry. Hiring out-sourced help to do it for you only costs $150 - $250. You can also find ready-made list building tools that give you squeeze page templates.

The Bribe - The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. People won't give you their email for nothing. Most people are very protective of their email address. So you have to give them a good reason to do it.

The only way to make this work is to provide real value. Then it becomes something people want to get from you. And can benefit from. For example:

  • An eBook
  • Software
  • Training videos
  • An email training series

You've got to create some great content. Something that's useful and helpful to your visitors. 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. You just pick the topic and they create the training. A 5-part email series is a good freebie. And you can get emails ghost written for about $20 - $25 each. So, a great premium will cost you around $100 - $150.

Or again, you can find complete list building packages for sale online that include an email series. Two critical aspects of using a follow up series. The first thing is that it delivers value to your subscribers. And second, it needs to make you money. The easiest way to do this is to market affiliate products in the emails. This is such a simple solution because you don't have to create the product. And you can earn some commissions immediately from your emails.

The Opt-in Success Page - The last bit is the thank you page. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. A great thing to do here is provide some immediate value. Then they feel good about giving you their email address. It also sets the foundation for your relationship with them. Then they're more receptive when you email them.

You can use a "done for you" email marketing system. You can also put the whole thing together on your own. And do your own writing for this content. Or pay a freelancer to write the content for you.

Summary

It makes no difference whether you build your opt-in, bribe and thank you page. Or hire someone else to do it for you. Or if you get a ready-done package. The key is to start building your list. Because as soon as you've got your own list . . . You're free to make money at the push of a button.

Return to the Jack Folsgood.com home page.

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Affiliate Marketing Secrets

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Secrets of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is by far the fastest way to get started making money online. This is when you refer traffic to someone else's product sales page, they make the sale and deliver the product, keep 50% or more of the sales

Here's just a few benefits

  1. You're able to start instantly without having to make a product, write a sales letter, develop a website, create marketing materials, get a merchant account, or provide support
  2. It's complete hands-free for you because they handle the billing, support, maintenance, etc.
  3. There's no risk for you. The product owner has already done all the research , development and testing. So you know that your traffic will result in sales.

Looking at these benefits, it's clear that affiliate marketing is the way to go!

The downside is...

Once you send your visitors to the product sales page, they are gone forever. Less than 10% of the visitors your send will actually buy the product. The 10% or less that make a purchase now belong to the product owner. She can sell them additional products, but you can never sell to them again.

Is there are way around this?

It's simple: You must get your visitors' email addresses before you send them to the product owner's website. By getting their contact info, you can follow up increase your odds of making the sale by sending them back to the product owner's website multiple times. And if you want to do it like a pro, you'll give them some great content before sending them to the sales page.

Here's why you want to implement these affiliate marketing strategies:

  1. Owning a list of potential buyers gives you the ability to market additional products at the push of a button.
  2. You'll be warming them up by providing valuable information and then casually linking to the product sales page in the context of this information.

If you want to create an affiliate marketing system like this, you'll need the following:

  1. A squeeze page, and even better a Video squeeze page.
  2. Several high-quality content pages
  3. At least a 5-Part Email Followup Series

Instead of sending visitors directly to the product sales page, you'll send them to your lead capture page first. Your squeeze page adds your visitors to you autoresponder. This is how you start building your list, and at the same time begin sending them useful information. After subscribing them to your email list, it redirects them to your content mini-site.

You content mini-site builds the good will, so that when you send them to the product sales page, they are in a buying mood. While they're reading the content you've provided, your email system is already following up with them to send them back to the product website again and again.

All of this together increases your chances of making the sale by up to 500% so it's well worth the effort of setting it up. And once it's set up, it runs automatically - you just send visitors to the squeeze page, instead of the product website.

One option, if you're not up to the challenge of setting this all up yourself, is to let someone like Affiliate Silver Bullet do it for you. These kinds of services will build the whole system for you and then just give you a video squeeze page (with video), pre-written emails, content pages, etc. The benefit is that it's much less expensive then you could do it yourself, and it's instantly set up. One negative is that there will be other people using this same affiliate marketing system. However, the odds of you and them both finding the same visitor are so small, that it doesn't really matter.

Alternatively, you can use a service like Elance to "outsource" each of these components. Whichever way you decided to go, it's critical to get an affiliate marketing system like this in place, if you're at all serious about your business.

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