Add an opt-in form on each and every web page. It sounds very obvious, yet you’d be amazed at the number of website owners who put their opt-in form just on one page hoping people will spot it. When you are serious about developing a list, you will want many more people to see your form, and see it in a lot more spots. 

It’s important to include your opt-in form on every web page of your site, but it is also recommended that you have a web page committed solely to that role. In marketing lingo this is called a ’squeeze page’. The concept is that you are “squeezing” the visitor’s email address from them. There should be no additional promotions on this page. You may offer an incentive for subscribing, but everything on the squeeze page really needs to center on having them to sign up for your subscriber list. 

On all of your other pages (besides your squeeze page) the aim is to make your forms easy to see without crossing the line into distraction. When you build a large email list, your forms must intergrate with the general look of your site and brand. You ought to convey a unifying concept, and that message should continue throughout all of the mailings you send out. 

Ok, you have all of your forms up, and they are looking great, but how do you get people to sign up to your subscriber list? That’s the million-dollar question. Yet the answer is fairly simple. Give your visitors a good enough reason to subscribe. This can be in the form of a free report, valuable research, one of a kind offers or whatever fits in best with the expectations you have created in their thoughts. It could take a little testing to uncover the best incentive for your site’s visitors, however once you find it, you’ll see a rise in sign ups. 

Yet another tactic to build a large email list quickly is to strongly encourage your list subscribers to spread the word. Keep in mind that this tip is only going to succeed if you do a good job of keeping current members pleased with what you send them. Treat your list well, and they will treat you well in return. 

List building is not as difficult as some would really like you to think. It boils down to getting your opt-in form in front of individuals, providing them with a good reason to share their e-mail address, as well as always keeping them thankful enough to tell other people about you. Now that you understand how to do it, get moving! You will only discover how large your own list could be if you take action on these uncomplicated tips. 

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could build a list of millions of people that never ever bought anything from you? Of course not! But that’s just what can take place if you let some other person blindly build leads for you. That is assuming they are using legitimate means to capture those leads. Sad to say, it may be quite difficult to verify what techniques are used by the company that is promoting the lists.

Any kind of long term results with a list will depend on just how useful the messages are to the recipients. If you allow another person to acquire e-mail addresses for you, you lose the ability to keep relevancy in check. Perhaps the most common approach to get leads for resale is to offer a vague assurance of getting money. Nothing at all wrong with that. However let’s imagine you happen to be promoting a course on product creation. You may be teaching folks how to make money, but most of the individuals registering likely did not have that in mind – and may not even understand how you got their info.

Because you are running a business, you want to do anything you can to take care of it. If you buy email lists, it is almost always a sure ticket to disaster. You will quickly find you’re barraged with spam claims. This can lead to getting shut down by your isp along with getting dropped by your web hosting company. Regardless of how “clean” they claim their list of millions is, you simply have no way of knowing. Which is definitely not worth endangering your livelihood for.

There is, however, one exception to the above that has worked for some marketers: proven businesses that specialize in offering targeted leads. The problem is that they’re normally much too costly for beginning marketers. Nevertheless, if your funding permits, and you have a stong understanding of who your target market is, then you may choose to look at one of these businesses. Still, you will probably shell out $1 or higher for each email, rather than the $20 for 1,000,000 addresses the scammers try to sell.

In spite of the one exception mentioned previously, it is usually not recommended to buy email lists. Purchasing it may seem like a shortcut, which it is. And yet shortcuts have a way of providing limited results. List building is not really that difficult. And the more control you have over the overall operation, the better you’ll be able to maximize the final results.

You don’t have to have any specialized knowledge or technical ability to take advantage of what I’m about to reveal.

First, we’ll take a lot at an affordable type of opt-in leads – leads that are not only potentially cost-effective, but also available at huge discounts – if you know where to look. Now, if this article just stopped with this one tip, it would be worth your while because everyone who is a successful marketer has their “secret” sources where they can find leads at or near wholesale prices.

Before you dive in, the main question for many is why you might use one type of lead over another and if you are somewhat familiar with autoresponder leads, you may wonder if they are a quality lead and how they should be used?
I
Just about every marketer – newbie or not, has heard about autoresponder leads.

These opt-in leads have been around for a while but the problem – if there is a problem, is that many marketers do not know how to best use this type of lead and secondly, given the changes in email marketing practices, how one can enhance the quality of email leads to insure that one has the best chance of success in sending email.

It’s safe to say that autoresponder leads may have an undeserved reputation as being somewhat problematic. By this I mean that sometimes marketers who use these leads, do so without understanding that they leads do have a limit or suggested best use and that today, it is important to take steps to deal with current email marketing realities which equally apply to any type of prospect list.

You may wonder when and how you should use this type of lead and perhaps why some seasoned marketers prefer to use this type of lead in lieu of more expensive leads such as surveyed leads.

Why Autoresponder Leads Make Sense

The good news is that you can find higher-quality auto-responder leads in great quantity and save a bundle if you know how to use the leads. In other words, you’ll need a strategy to get the best value from the leads given that email marketing has changed dramatically over the years.

Quality is important too!

An issue which may require your attention is the issue of quality.

If you have tried email marketing recently, you know that it is very difficult to get through to certain domains due to rigorous spam checking and monitoring of how recipients view your email. Now keep in mind, I’m not advocating that you spam. In our context, we’re simply taking a look at how you can maximize your throughput when you are responding to people who requested information.

When it comes to email using auto-responder leads – or really just about any type of lead, there are a couple of tips that can help even the seasoned email marketer.

 
Simple Strategy to Enhance Quality

After my rather long intro, let’s cut to the chase.

The first simple way to enhance the quality of any list would be to place all records with temporary-type email addresses into a second file and at least initially, send to your top-tier email addresses. You’ll be able to do this by segregating your list by email domain.

Here’s why:

As an example, I have found that email addresses that are managed by Yahoo.com will be difficult to get through. This is due to a variety of reasons but the effect – even for legitimate marketers is that you will have to send email at a very slow pace when sending to Yahoo managed domains and your email must be completely void of any words that imply you are “selling” something – this is unfortunate but true.

Yahoo and other Temporary Email Address Providers

The problem with temporary email addresses is two-fold.

One problem is that is is difficult to send legitimate optin email in quantity given that Yahoo and other email account providers will limit you in terms of quantity but also even if your email is accepted, it is more than likely to be placed into a junk email folder.

If you have an email account with a regional phone company or AT&T, you are no doubt aware that the management of many of these email accounts as been outsourced to Yahoo.com. This is a problematic at best and has caused some consumers to think about relocating their internet access to another provider.
 
The impact on legitimate email marketers is important to note.

Email marketers can be proactive

Even though much of the email you will send  – when you send to temp addresses, will go to spam folders, it is possible to get email through. If you recognize the problem, you will be much more likely to find a solution.

Let’s consider an easy way to deal with this

Thinking in terms of making life easier for email marketers, it might be helpful to have a strategy in place – maybe even a policy as to how to deal with temporary email accounts.

This may be necessary given that some so-called prospects sign up with service that provide an email address that’s good for a one time use or that disappears in a matter of minutes or hours.

I would like to suggest that email marketers can set rules in place on their websites for example, that require prospects and customers alike to use permanent email addresses or that accept email addresses for domains that are not problematic.

A quick real-world example

In addition to providing various marketing services, we offer an email broadcast service that is made available selectively to our customers – subject to certain conditions. Recently, I acquired a list for a client that was to be used in an email broadcast that we would manage for the client.

I decided to segment the list – a true opt-in email address list – a high quality surveyed MLM Leads list and did so based on the domain of the email addresses. This was done so that we could see from a qualitative standpoint, if there was a difference in terms of email ‘opens’ between Yahoo-related email addresses and everything else.

The difference in the open rate was astounding.

Out of 7,000 email records, approximately, 3,500 were Yahoo-related. Of that group, the last time I checked, the open rate was about 0%. Only 12 people out of 3,500 opened the email – not worth anyone’s time.

The other group of non-Yahoo addresses, the open-rate exceeded 4% which is very good for a third-party list. I suspect you’ll agree that the results speak for themselves.

And here’s the best part. The nice thing about auto-responder leads is that you can get so many leads for less (assuming you find a good source – hint, hint!) – that you can afford to toss out prospects who provided a temporary email address and do so without feeling like you’re wasting  a lot of money!

/yahoo/i) – Of course, you’ll need to use proper syntax for the script program you prefer to use.

Of course, if you don’t use perl or php, and use Excel, you’re still in luck. It would just be a matter of copying the email address column, dividing the column using the data menu option and setting the delimited to a ’at’ sign!

You may also have a contact manager program that will make this even simpler.

Have an opt-in box in the top fold of your website.  That means those who come to your site will see the box without having to scroll down.  You have a better chance of catching them this way, since people often only spend seconds to a few minutes on a website and don’t want to bother with scrolling down.

You might have an opt-in box, but what is it for?  It should be there to offer something free, irresistible, and valuable to your target market in exchange for their email address.  People are savvy on the Internet these days so you have to bring your “A” game.  You want to give value so people think, “Wow, this guy knows his stuff.  I’m going to stick with him and see what else he knows.”   The offer should be irresistible in that you know something they might not and this could help them out.  These are hungry people, targeted people, people who just might buy from you.

Another way to grow your list is to offer a free product in a giveaway event. The premise here is to offer something of value and if people perusing the giveaway event like the look of your product and your squeeze page, they will opt-in to get said product.  Now, these opt-ins are not necessarily going to stay on your list.  They might opt in for the free gift and opt right out again.  At first you feel rejected by these freebie seekers, but it’s best they get off your list right away or they’ll be the ones calling “spam” on any email you send them in the future.

It is true that people who join your list for the freebie in the giveaway are probably not targeted customers, but some will be.  It’s a numbers game; 700 people grabbing your product at a giveaway and 300 of them opting out the next month leaves you with 400 targeted potential customers.  And that’s 400 people on your list you didn’t previously have, right?

An additional way to increase your list is to set up a Warrior Special Offer (WSO) on the Warrior Forum and instead of selling a product you’ve created, offer it for free with opt-in.  Marketers do this to not only grow their lists, but to get testimonials and feedback that will help them make their product better.  A lot of these people might just be looking for the next free thing, but they also end up learning from you and will be your loyal supporter.

These three ideas, having an opt-in enticement, joining giveaways, and offering a product for free on the Warrior Forum, are some of the ways you can grow your list.  Remember getting a big list is not an overnight thing for a relatively unknown marketer; it will be an ongoing but worthwhile process.

Content is king. It gets to wear the crown. And sit on the throne. And rule the world. When it comes to establishing credibility, gaining trust and producing sales, content is royalty.

While I would never suggest abandoning the concept of delivering high quality content to your subscribers, there is another type of list composed of subscribers who couldn’t care less about content.

“What is this type of list?” you ask.

- > The “announcement list”.

I’ve been teaching about the “announcement” list since at least 2002 (on record at an event). And, yet, it’s a widely untapped asset in most email marketing circles.

The main reason is: nobody’s teaching it. And so, nobody knows anything about it, let alone how to effectively create one of these lists.

So, we’re going to revisit it.

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What Is An “Announcement” List?
————————————-

DEFINED: An announcement list is a list whose sole purpose is to “announce” (I.E. Inform, notify) when something new is available for review, consumption or purchase.

In other words, it unapologetically says, “Hey, I just released XYZ. Come check it out!”

Now, at first glance you may be thinking, “Who would join a list that offers no content and only sales pitch?”

If you say it that way, it doesn’t sound too good to me either! That’s why you don’t say it that way. Let’s take a look at HOW to “say it”…

————————————-
How About An Example “Announcement” List?
————————————-

If you go to this site: http://PRRSO.com you’ll find a textbook example of this concept. PLRSO stands for “Private Label Rights Special Offers” I established this list for the sole purpose of informing people anytime I have a new PLR offer available for them to buy.

That’s it.

I don’t send out ezine articles to them. No newsletters. They don’t get blog posts. There aren’t any special reports. No content of any kind. What they get, in essence, are sales messages.

And there are already 2,822 subscribers, many of which have already purchased some of the PLR special offers that have been “announced” to the list.

Why does it work? Let me give you plenty of reasons…

1. I took something that was “in-demand” (PLR) and I allow people to get a head-start on the world by knowing about new releases FIRST by joining this list.

2. It’s not billed as an “announcement list”, but rather a “Free PLR Club”. Big, big difference in perception.

3. It has it’s own domain name, further adding to the perceived value and importance to those who join.

4. There is no requirement to buy once you join. Buy the offers that you want, pass on the ones you don’t want.

5. A cost example is provided to show what you can buy immediately, further illustrating the value of the complimentary “membership”.

And here’s the big twist that makes this idea of creating an “announcement” list a complete no-brainer…

I allow my affiliates to “give away” complimentary memberships to the PLRSO club!

When someone they refer buys one of the offers, they earn a commission. And I get other people to promote and build my list for me. We all win.

So, you may be thinking…

————————————-
What Kind Of “Announcement” List can I Build?
————————————-

There are a wide variety of “announcement” lists that you can build. Let’s briefly look at ten of them…

* PLR List. You can swipe my idea and create a list of private label rights buyers.

* New Offers List. Build a list of people who love your work and want to be notified any time you have a new offer available.

* Pre-Launch List. Create buzz and anticipation for an upcoming new product release by building a pre-launch list several weeks (even months) in advance.

* Ezine Publishers List. Build a list of publishers who want to know any time you have a new ezine article that is available for reprint in their ezines.

* Bloggers List. Another idea is to allow bloggers who are looking for ready-made content to post to their blogs.

* Industry News List. How about becoming the “go to” guy or gal to share breaking news about your industry?

* Joint Venture List. Develop a list of partners and affiliates who are ready to promote anytime you have a new offer.

* Incentives List. Here’s a great idea – create a list of people who you offer “incentives” to when they purchase someone else’s new product through YOUR affiliate link.

* Freebie List. Regularly give away rebrandable content (reports, articles, videos, etc.) to these subscribers to earn commissions.

While all ten of these lists aren’t necessarily “buyers” up front, they each can certainly lead to buyers and revenue for you if you implement them.

Content is king. But let’s not forget that there are alot of queens, princes, dukes and earls out there too.

——-
Jimmy D. Brown, one of the most respected marketing teachers online, has been fine-tuning what and how he teaches when it comes to Internet Marketing since 1999. Now you can benefit from those years of experience and also get full PLR rights to many of his best-selling products – at ridiculously LOW prices (I’m talking Ten Bucks).

Run, don’t walk to this website -> http://PLRSO.com

An opt-in list allows for a company to market their wares and site via an e-mail. With an opt-in list, a site and a subscriber consents to sending and receiving a newsletter from your company. Through this, you can keep your subscribers abreast of what is currently available in your site as well as whatever is coming out.

And because there is mutual consent between the two parties, any mail sent to the list is not considered as spam mail. There is a great number of successfully read promotional materials such as catalogs, newsletters and such that are sent because the subscribers themselves have signed up for them, meaning, they do want to be sent those items.

Building a list is crucial, only a small percentage actually subscribes for an opt-in list. Many people find promotional mails annoying but of you provide a good newsletter or promotional material, you will see your list build up and grow. You can also achieve this by having good content on your site. If people like what they see and read on your site, then they surely would want more. Newsletters would be a way to attract them back to your site. A little teaser or appetizer if you will.

But other than marketing your wares and your services, an opt-in list can also be used to earn extra profit. Not all lists can be used though. It would be good to first build a successful list with a huge number of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the more money you can get. Here are seven ways to make money using nothing more than your list.

1) Place advertisements. There are many corporations who will be willing to pay to put their banners and ads on a list with many subscribers. Selling or renting out lists is not a good idea so rather than doing that, many companies would just rather place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your newsletter could be placed with many ads and each one spells money.

2) Have affiliations with other companies that have at least a semblance or relation to what your site is about. Here other companies will provide links and brief descriptions of what they offer, products and services. With every click made on the link that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to their site, the company will pay you. This P4P or pay for performance.

3) Make deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of sales done through your list. With every sale done by customers that have come from your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company will pay you a small percentage of your sales. The more people who buys from them, the more earnings you get.

4) You may also get products from other sites on a consignment basis and sell them to your list via your newsletter. Place descriptions, articles and photos of the product in your newsletter. There will be those who will buy from you and when that happens, you can order the product from the other site and sell it to your buyer.

5) Sell e-books or a compilation of your articles on your list. Manuals and how-to articles are in great demand. Many people will be willing to shell out money to gain knowledge about a certain topic and subject. With your existing list trusting your expertise in that area, an e-book could be offered and sold or used as an incentive.

6) Create a network out of your list. Get people to invite more people to view your site and subscribe to your list. The larger your list is, the more people will be able to click on your links and affiliate links as well as make your advertisement rates higher.

7) Subscribers are willing to pay for information if they know that it can be trusted and relied upon. Use your list to get more and more people to subscribe to you as well as browse your site. Lastly, you can use your list to earn money by making them your partners. Your list will be the bloodline of your growth and increase.

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Source: Opt-In Lists

But before I drill into the specifics, why sign-ups? Why not just try to sell? That’s an important question.
Here is my answer: Research have shown that just an extremely minor percentage of prospects to your website
purchase on their earliest visit. Indeed, it takes more or less 7 follow ups before they actually make a purchase. It is, as a result, crucial you acquire your visitor’s contact details to follow up soon after.

Now that you appreciate the why, let’s get on to the how. Here are the web copywriting tips to skyrocket sign-ups:

1. Always, always keep your forms as to the point as possible. Whatever information you don’t need at that stage in the conversion process, do not collect it. Brief forms convert better than lengthy forms… whenever.

2. If you must utilize a long form, break it up into tiny parts but not more than 5 tiny parts. In
my own split-test, I discovered separating up long forms into tiny forms add my sign-ups by approximately 5% but once it hits 6 parts, people be liekly to forsake the form possibly assuming it’s never going to finish.

3. If you certainly must make use of long long forms that divides into more than 5 parts, employ a progress bar to show them when they will be able to complete the form…

4. If there are any information that are not vital but likely be valuable to have (for analytics
purposes), say to your visitors it’s optional.

5. Reveal your privacy policy extremely noticeably in your form. If you obtained paid assurance
services ( such as BBB), make sure you present their symbols.

6. Get rid of that “clear” button if you still retain one because people do not typically fill out long forms with erroneous information. What people every now and then do, is click the mistaken button, erased all the information, grow frustrated and leave scolding you for leaving that button there. So unless you’re looking ahead to other species than people to fill out your form, it’s beneficial for your conversion rate if you eliminate it.

7. As for your “submit” button, dub it differently. Use phrases such as, “subscribe immediately to get your report free of charge” or “Why Not! Hand me my free training!”

8. And do not use normal buttons, utilize graphics as your buttons to grab more awareness.

9. You must ensure visitors know your form exist and the 2 means I recommend to achieve that are: using a different background color for your form or use graphics to catch attention.

10. If you do using attention to catch attention to your forms, ensure the graphics are appropriate to your web copy.

11. Lasf of all, design it as painless for your visitors to fill out the form as possible. Do not set
limits on how they ought to write their information. For example, I encountered a number of forms that required me to fill out my address in a specified format. Needless to say, it irritates me a little when they didn’t advise me which format they prefer. And by the way…

12. If you do need a specified format, make clear what you want and why!

Want more copywriting tips? Then you should definitely check out some of the killer web copywriting secrets I share here.

Source: Business and Management

For list building some key components need to be kept into account like the method of acquiring the email addresses, how new subscribers should be welcomed, and how the relationship is maintained after the opt-in process. Acquiring the list of addresses is the easiest part of list building. But the basic rule here is to take explicit permission from the owner to send emails. Violation of this rule is going against the U.S. CAN-SPAM law regarding commercial email. This also leads to breaking of the relationship with the customer.

Addresses can be collected by online and offline means. Links for email opt-in should be posted on every page of the website, including the registration page and every transactional page. Paid search can be used to reach elevate the position in search engines results. The land up page should include a vivid link to the sign up page. Alliances can be searched who have a similar or a complementary business so to promote one’s company in return of promoting the other company. Incentives such as email only discount and free shipping can be offered to increase the subscription list. If the list is being rented from another organization make sure the list contains subscribers which have given permission. Offline means include collecting email addresses from visitors to the company, trade show or on-site. Email addresses can be asked for in appropriate situations by the customer support employees and telephone sales workers. Links for subscription can be posted in all printed material such as newspapers, flyers, magazines, bags, store signs, customer survey and feedback forms, catalogs, etc.

The next important step is to welcome the new subscriber. Because of the flood of emails filling one’s inbox, it is a tough to make one read the email and trust in it. A welcome message, with appropriate content, helps in building the relationship of trust with the subscriber. In fact, a complete welcome program must be build for this purpose. Welcoming a subscriber actually starts from the website’s registration page. This page should clearly explain the content, benefits and frequency to the subscribers. The opt-in page should be easy to navigate and shouldn’t be bothersome with numerous questions to be answered. For start four fields are sufficient: first name, last name, email address and format preferences. The other information can be collected via optional forms. After sign-up a thank you page must pop up immediately. This doses the confirmation job and leads the subscriber to the optional form. Next, a welcome email should be send to the customer. This email will not only build up the initial trust but will also check the validity of the email address. This email should include links to optional forms and the detailed preference page. It can also contain the subscription benefits and sample of the past best newsletters.

The next step of relationship management is the most important and delicate phase because of the personal relationship with every subscriber. If it is not taken care of properly, all the effort taken to collect email addresses for subscription list will be wasted. The subscriber’s preferences must be honored in order to expand the email program. The trends in bounces, inactivity and unsubscribing can be noted by the list statistics. Occasional special offers and surveys can be created for sustaining the interest of the readers. People who haven’t opened the emails for a long time should be concentrated upon, especially. Send follow-up emails and query messages.

Opt-in list building takes lots of time, energy and dedication. Certainly all the effort is worth it in the end, which can be seen by the healthy growth of the mailing list.

Source: Leads

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

Having endlessly sought expert advice, read countless articles and listened to numerous stories about people who’ve built unimaginable wealth on the Internet using their vast opt-in lists, you finally decide it’s time to have one of your own. Now under the illusion you know everything, you follow all the advice to the Tee. And you fail to make even a single penny.

In fact, you’re losing money. Fast. Being rather lazy, you hired writers to help out with your articles, and when that didn’t work your month’s budget on a doomed Pay-Per-Click campaign. Perhaps your list even got quite big. But only a tiny percentage actually converts to sales.

Either way, you’ve failed to make any profit, and after a few months’ daily scrutiny of your statistics and sales figures, you come to the conclusion that your dreams of Internet wealthbuilding lie in ruins.

You ask yourself what could possibly have gone wrong. You wonder why others have succeeded where you have failed. You begin to think you were too hasty, diving straight in like that. You begin to doubt the validity of your product, or worse, your own ability.

Sound familiar?

Before you get any more disheartened, remember that just because you emailed people on your list does not mean they’ll buy instantly. Or, put it another way, HAVE PATIENCE!

Whether you’re just starting out, or you’re already building an opt-in list but id doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, here’s three quick and easy steps to set you on the right track:

1) Make sure you are selling product or service is one that people really need.

And get to know your product. Too many people forget this. How can you expect your subscribers to buy something you haven’t bothered to research or learn about thoroughly? You carry it forward – knowledge and belief, or lack of it. Invest some time and effort to research your product properly.

2) Join forums, where you can provide expert advice and recommendations, allowing you to build an aura of trust around you. By doing this you can build a base around other forum users, inviting them to join your opt-in list. Because they know and trust you already, they will make good customers. Through your forum posts link to your site they will be able to see what your business is all about. They’ll begin to believe in you and your products. You can increase your credibility even more by writing and submitting articles and posting blogs, which will also build more potential subscribers and customers.

3) Get a mentor. Forums are great for this too – if you can find someone who has already launched a successful opt-in list, they will be able to tell you what to do and what not to do, as they’ve gone through it themselves. These people will be able to point out the many pitfalls and mistakes to avoid. There is nothing like getting it first hand. Learn from the mistakes of others!

Building a profitable opt-in list takes great preparation and effort. It won’t happen overnight! Opt-in lists have to be built from scratch and, once built, take some maintenance. Remember to keep it organized and manageable. But use it to Keep your subscribers happy and they’ll be willing to buy from you time and time again. Building your list, is the way to build Internet wealth!

Source: Affiliate Marketing

Finally you have come to understand the value of your opt-in email marketing list. There are so many success stories of people who make money online for free with their opt-in email marketing lists you have finally decide to build a list of your own or monetize the list you already have. Then you come to realize that you only thought you knew all there was to know about opt-in email marketing lists. To this point you may have followed the guru’s advice to the letter and you still are not able to make money online.

In fact, you might even be losing money. You might have found that even if you have a big opt-in email marketing list, only a very small percentage actually buy from you and you are not making the money that you thought you would. Being able to make money online for free has alluded you.

You chose a topic that is popular and you just knew was going to rocket past all sales records ever set, but you find yourself wondering why that didn’t happen. The most common mistake people make is simply diving in without a plan or a clue. Simply having an opt-in email marketing list and writing to them regularly does not mean you will sell them all on the first try.

For those who have started an opt-in list and have failed to realize a profit from it, there is hope to turn things around. You can make your opt-in email marketing list very profitable by adding a few twist to your approach. Following are 3 very simple ways or approaches to take to build a profitable opt-in list.

1) Get your prospects to first trust you. If all you do all the time is throw pitches at them, they will leave you in droves. Prepare their minds to be receptive to what you have to say by providing valuable information that they will find useful. Write about things that you are familiar with and let them have this information for free. If you don’t know all there is to know about a topic, there are all kinds of resources on the internet to help you get up to speed fast in your efforts to make money online for free. Give information for free that offers solutions to their problems. Doing this will set you up as an “expert.” You value to your reader increases with every single bit of useful information that you give away.

2) Join forums and make meaningful comments on competing sites. If your comments are helpful to others you will gain respect and a following from other members. Be sure to have a link to your site in your by line for people who like and appreciate what you have to say to follow to your site. Never be shy about asking other forum users to join your opt-in email marketing list.

3) Provide a product or service that offers people what they want. What people want is generally a solution to a problem. If you offer solutions and not just opinions, you will gain a greater audience because you are valuable to them. If you have a product or service that provides an easy solution to their problem, then you will have more subscribers to your opt-in email marketing list and gain customers and increase your sales.

There is one fundamental truth when it comes to marketing and sales online. People will only buy from someone they trust. You build that trust by making yourself valuable to them. You make yourself valuable by identifying and providing solutions to their problem or challenges.

Remember this one axiom of marketing, “Pain Sells.” People are very motivated to avoid pain or destroy pain. Do your research well and you would see the profits come in. One of the best ways I have found to gain interest from a prospect is to offer them a way to make money online for free.

Building a profitable opt-in email marketing list does not happen overnight. There is much to do in preparation for presenting revenue generating ideas and products to your opt in list. Make sure that your subscribers are happy and satisfied and view you as a source of valuable information and they will be willing to buy from you when you, the expert, present solutions to their problems.

Source: Internet Marketing

One of the ways you can combine marketing and customer service is through opt-in marketing. With an opt-in list you get the opportunity to introduce your site and products on a good time basis. Opt-in marketing strategy is a marketing strategy that is virtually low cost and not time consuming. Here, you get the consent of your website visitors to subscribe to your newsletters and other promotional materials such as catalogs and free promotions.

Opt-in marketing uses your list of subscribers to send e-mail to. These e-mails will contain the materials you will send to your subscribers. It is essential that you present your promotional items in a manner that will catch the interest and the eye of your subscribers to keep them wanting for more. The best way to do this is to provide fun, entertaining and informational articles.

Well written articles full of content and useful information will help in building your list as more subscribers will be enticed your list. When they have read the samples of your contents in your sites, they will be intrigued as to what will come next. Subscribing to your newsletter will offer them a glimpse of what you have to offer next.

Many sites and companies have captured the importance of articles and this also aids in search engine optimization. As more people are heading towards the internet for their information needs, serving the right information to them via articles in your site will increase the flow of your website traffic. With more traffic, the percentage of your sales will grow. More sales turn into more profit.

There have been the rise for the importance of well written, information enriched and keyword packed articles for the content of their site as well as for newsletters. These articles provide the information many are seeking in the internet. If your site has them, more people will be going to your site for information and research.

Well written articles would also boost your sites reputation. If they are filled with many information you will be regarded as well informed and an expert on the subjects that you tackle. Your articles must be well researched so that the people will trust you. When you have gained their trust, they will always come for you for their needs on that subject.

In connection, you must write articles or commission them to tackle subjects that are closely connected with your type of business. If you have a site for a medicine tackling a certain disease, your articles must be about the diseases. Or if you sell materials for home improvements provide articles with those themes. Most articles searched for are tips, guidelines, methods, manuals and such. If you provide these articles to your customers and you have their trust, they will always go to your site for help and advice as well as for your products.

With the loyalty of these customers, they may subscribe to your opt-in list to receive all the information you have. If you provide them with the answers for that need, they will be happy to be receiving your newsletters as well as other promotional materials to keep them well informed. Others may even forward your newsletters to other people when they find a certain article interesting.

You should provide links in your newsletter so that when other people are reading it and wants to read more, they may click on the link and go to your site. With the articles you have in your site that are good, they may decide to sign up as well for your opt-in list. This will build your list and make it bigger.

Make sure to keep your subscribers happy and interested in your newsletters and promotional materials. Keep on posting and writing good articles for your site and newsletter. If you are not interested in writing them or if you just don’t have the time, there are many available well experienced and knowledgeable writers available to help you out. This is an investment that will pay for itself in time.

article marketing, email, internet, list building, opt in lists

Source: article marketing

There is a saying among affiliate marketers who use an autoresponder service and an opt-in list combined with sales orientated e-mailing campaigns to market their affiliate products, this slogan is “the money is in the list”. Historically this form of affiliate marketing has proven to provide excellent results. However, what to do if you do not have an opt-in list? Below we will explore some of the ways in which you can begin to build your own list.The quickest way to build a large mailing list is to use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to send potential new subscribers to a landing page designed to capture their e-mail address. Although this can obviously be costly, if we consider that most affiliate marketers consider a 10% conversion ratio from all offers they send via their autoresponder service, we can see that any capital outlay can quickly be recovered.

A cheaper option is to rely solely upon organic website traffic, obviously you will need to have some form a website already active, and you will encourage visitors to your site who arrive via a search engine to subscribe to your mailing list. Almost every affiliate marketer likes to sweeten the pot at this point, by offering something free to the visitor in exchange for their subscription. Many people choose to give away a free report, something like a short e-book, which pertains to the content of the website you are hoping to attract subscribers to. This is a very good way of attracting mailing list subscriptions, if you use a well written report in this way you will not only be getting a subscription, but you will have primed prospective customers by giving them a taste of the kind of information they will receive when they purchase one of your main Affiliate products.

Once you have a suitable list, you can begin to exploited and market your affiliate products directly to the kinds of customers who are more likely to purchase the products you promote as an affiliate marketer. Most affiliate marketers will create a series of e-mails, which will be sent automatically to the members of their opt-in list by their autoresponder service. These e-mails were usually create a sales funnel, initially building buzz and interest in affiliate products that the affiliate marketer is about to launch, usually offering discounts if the recipient orders early, and finally making the product available. Affiliate marketers also send follow-up e-mails, promoting backend or companion products once the main product has been purchased.

Anyone who is serious about affiliate marketing needs to consider building their own mailing list. By using one of the many excellent autoresponder services such as GetResponse.com or Aweber.com to provide them with a vehicle allowing them to make direct contact with the target marketing customers who are most likely to purchase their products.

In recent years, it has been proven time and time again that mailing lists are an invaluable tool for the affiliate marketer.

Source: Autoresponders

Many people just getting started in internet marketing do not realize the critical importance of building a quality opt-in mailing list. They think it is enough to be making sales from their salespage. While it is good to make sales directly from your site, you will lose a large percentage of your future customers if you fail to build an opt-in mailing list.

The purpose of building a list of your website visitors is to help you maintain contact with them and develop a relationship with them. Your mission in doing this is to turn as many as you possibly can into your customers. It has been said, and rightly so, that your list is the most valuable asset in your online business. With your list being that important, here are some tips that will make building a quality list possible.

* Offer an incentive, when possible, for people to leave their email address. This is one of the best ways to get people to sign into your list. I like to offer a special report or free Internet marketing training. For optimum results, it is essential to give them something for signing into your list. This tip alone can easily double the number of sign-ups you have.

Many people try to accomplish their list building without offering any kind of incentive for signing up which can be a huge mistake. Finding quality incentives is so easy it only makes sense to offer one.

* Include a clearly written privacy policy. In all likely-hood, the main reason people refuse to leave their contact information is because they are afraid of being spammed. This has been a huge problem on the Internet for years. No one likes spam. If people have any reason to suspect that you will share their email address with others they will usually not let you have it. Give them a rock solid guarantee that you will not share their email address with anyone. This will put to rest the worries of people wanting to avoid spam. At one point I did not have a clearly defined privacy policy, however, after I added one I saw a 61% increase in the number of opt-ins I was receiving. Simple things like this can make a huge difference.

* Create multiple, tightly targeted lists. Very few comprehend the power of this tactic. By offering multiple lists on one site you drastically increase the chances of people finding something that interests them enough to sign up for. One of the lists could be for general updates, another could include tips your market would find useful, while another could be a monthly newsletter. No matter which option they choose you get their email address.

Think about things that your market might be most interested in and offer that information on that topic or, at a minimum, access to it on your site. If you do not provided several options that person would have signed up for nothing. Two or three options are plenty.

* Make all your lists double opt-in. Double opt-in allows people to first sign up on your site, and then activate their subscription via a confirmation email. There are plenty of good reasons to have the double opt-in format. Number one, it will take away any chance of being labeled a spammer and secondly, you can show proof that people actually did request your emails.

An added benefit to you is that the double opt-in method will result in a list that is significantly higher quality than a singe opt-in list. If these people are interested in your offer enough to verify with the confirmation email, they tend to be much more serious and interested in what you have to offer.

By putting the methods mentioned in this article into practice on your website, you will be able to build a huge, high quality list in a relatively short period. I have used all of the methods mentioned here and they work very well. If you use them, you will find they will work for you as well.

Source: Internet Marketing

Sounds confusing?

In short… You need an opt-in form, and you also need to replace it as well!

Wait! Before you pick up your computer and start throwing it at me, let us first take a step back….

As a marketer, you should have your own autorespondent software or services (I highly recommend aweber or getresponse) to capture visitors’ details such as name and email addresses. Normally, the opt-in process requires visitors to verify their email addresses, termed as double opt-in. Below is a typical process flow of an autorespondent with opt-in form embeded in a blog/website.

The ultimate goal here is to get the visitor’s opt-in detail into the mailing list, and you’ll notice that this happens only when the person clicks on the verification link in the email sent to them. Thus, there will definitely be a certain percentage of people who did not do that. Some of the common reasons for unsuccessful verification include:

1. Visitor opted-in with the wrong email
2. Verification email got into the spam folder
3. Visitor forgot/missed/did not bother to open the verification email and follow the instruction within.

We can address point 1 and 2 by giving proper instruction upon opt-in and also to drafting the email correctly so that it doesn’t get filtered as spam.

So how about point 3? You can reduce this problem and increase you verification rate by simply replacing your opt-in form.

Imagine this for a moment…

John visited your blog, likes it and decided to opt-in to your mailing list by filling up his name and email address into your opt-in form. Since John has not verified his email yet, the next time he visits your blog, instead of seeing the opt-in form, he sees a message reminding him to check his inbox for the verification email. After he has verified his email by clicking on the link in the email, subsequent visit to your blog, he sees a welcome message. This is illustrated in the figure below.

The typical process flow remains the same, only difference is what the visitor sees in replacement of the opt-in form. Think about it, since the visitor has already opted-in, whats the point of having the opt-in form up there taking up precious space? You can be creative with the space such as:

• Updates of new products in the members’ area
• Promoting products
• Special announcements
• and more…

Such “magical” process can easily be achieved through the use of cookies to track whether the visitor has opted-in and verified his email, and take the necessary course of action. Sounds simple doesn’t it? 

I won’t go into the technical details as it may be too confusing especially for those with no technical background. However, if you’re keen to get this process up running in your blog or website, simply leave your comment below and if there is a demand I’ll consider releasing the script.

Want to see the process in action? You can do so by filling in your name and email in my opt-in form on the right sidebar and see how it works. 

Source: list building

As more traffic is driven to your site, you can entice many of them to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. This is a list where in website visitors agree to be sent promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and such that could keep them updated about your site or the niche of your site. These promotional materials are sent via e-mail to the members of the list in different time intervals.

When using e-mail as the media of your marketing and advertisements, you eliminate the need for high costs. Email is free and if you can manage to make your own promotional advertisements you can also save a bundle there. With an opt-in subscribers list, you are pretty sure that what you are sending out is received, viewed and read by the subscribers and not simply being deleted. They have signed up for service and have consented in receiving it.

This means that there are constant reminders to your subscribers about all your products, new products and services as well as any promotions and special deals you are having. There is also the chance that they can be forwarded to other potential customers as they tell their friends and families about you and your site.

Of course you should be also aware that a subscriber may unsubscribe when they feel that they are not getting what they want or expected. Make sure that they are satisfied with your opt-in marketing strategies and keep them excited in receiving your newsletters and catalogs. Here are some tips that can help you build a list of eager subscribers.

Make your promotional materials interesting and fun. Try to use a little creativity but not too over artsy. Build around what your product or service is about. For example; if you are selling car parts, put some pictures of what is new in the auto parts world, a new wing door possibly that can fit any car and make it look like a Lamborghini.

Try to research what people are looking for, these way, you stay one step ahead of them all the time and you will be their bearer of new tidings. They will be eager to receive what you are sending them because they new you always have fresh and new things to share with them.

Write good articles that can be very informational but light at the same time. If your subscribers enjoy your articles, they will go to your site by clicking the links that you will be putting on your newsletter to read some more. You can provide articles that can connect to many people. Be diverse in your articles. Put something humorous, then put something informational, then put something that has both.

Are you wary about this because you don’t like writing? No problem, there are many professional and experienced article writers that can do the job for you for minimal fees. They know what they are doing and can provide the need that you have for your newsletters, the money that you pay for your articles are going to be met by the many sign-ups and the potential profit from the sales that you will get.

Create and send an E-book to your customers about anything that is related to your business or site. Use your knowledge and expertise in the field you have chosen to help other people who are similarly interested. Offer this e-book for free. You can write about anything informational and helpful to your subscribers. For example; you can do manuals and guides in so many things. This e-book could be used as a reference for many people.

Share this e-book with everyone, even other sites; just make sure that they don’t change the links in the e-book that will lead people to your site. If you want, you can always get some people to write it for you just like your articles. Your investment once again will be covered by the great marketing this will generate.

Add e-coupons in your newsletters that will help them avail to special discounts. Put a control number in your e-coupon so that they can only be used once. When people get discounts that can be found in your newsletters, they will be eager to receive your newsletter in anticipation of what you are promoting next.

If your subscribers can get benefits from your newsletters, they will be very eager to receive them. Just don’t flood your mailing list with mails so that you don’t annoy your subscribers.

email, internet, list building, opt in lists

Source: internet

When you build a good quality list, your return on investment could be as high as 1000% or more. And it’ll keep going up, because as you build a relationship with your list, you’re going to be able to get more and more benefit from it. Set up your blog and put an e-mail address form on it, and then write a short and informative report on your niche’s topic. Let your readers have the report for free as long as they give you their e-mail addresses.

This is simple, yet effective. Your readers can actually become future customers, and all they have to do is to type in their first name and e-mail address into your autoresponder. They download your free report, and you get their e-mail addresses. And there you have it, your blog opt in list.

There are lot of opportunities to make money with your list once you’ve built one that’s responsive to you. You list doesn’t have to be huge in order to make you a recurring income, either. You’ll need to build and maintain a relationship with your list by providing them with quality material. The products you sell, too, will have to be quality.

Your opt in list is a very valuable asset and vital to your business, especially if you work mostly online. A blog is a great tool for you to use in order to build your list. It’s free for you to do, search engines can pick you up easily, and you have a platform that’s got of a lot of additional functionality as well. In addition, you look professional doing it. If you want to build a list for free that can earn you a lot of money, this can be one way to do it. It’s an incredibly lucrative and relatively recent development in the online world that’s not to be missed.

Source: Email Marketing

photo by jessicafm

An Opt-in is simply a subscriber who has agreed to get your messages.

There’s a few different ways to verify whether or not you’ve agreed to get mail from someone. Let’s say for te sake of argument that you just have to have my book that featured on the top right hand side of this page. When you enter your name and email address into that form, you will almost instantly get an email from me that asks you to please verify that you agree to receive information from profitablesistas.com.

Once you click on the link in that first email, you have opted in to my lists of subscribers (or I have a new opt-in.) For internet marketers, this is a must with all the spam laws and crazies out there.

In short, you will have agreed to receive mail from me, in addition to the book I promised, and any further communications that I think you may be interested in. I will then send you the book I promised and hope that you will follow my lead on other juicy tidbits of information.

Now, remember I talked about lists and list building. Well, these are the people on you lists who have agreed to receive you juicy information. As an internet marketer you’ll want to offer something in exchange for providing that value in email address and name. Your autoresponder will handle all of the details of your subscribers opting in and out of you subscriber list.

There’s another lesson to be learned here. At the bottom of every email you receive from any internet marketer should have a link to opt-out. Opt-out is the opposite from opt-in. If you click the opt-out link in any email, you will be , in essence, saying “I don’t wish to receive any further communication from this internet marketer.”

I hope you enjoyed this lesson. Now ladies on to list building your list of opt-in’s!

Source: beginners

1. Only Use Permission-Based Email Marketing

Simply put, opt^in email (also called ‘permission-based’) is email sent to people who have given you permission to contact them via email. So if someone hasn’t directly requested information from you, they should not be on your opt^in list.

2. Single or Double Opt^in?

Depending on the email list service you’re using in your business, you may have a choice between single or double opt^in email. With single opt^in, someone gives you their email address once and they are added to your list. With double opt^in (also know as confirmation opt^in), someone gives you their email address, to which they then receive an automated response from your list service asking them to lick a specific URL to confirm that they do in fact want to be added to your list. Only once they click that link are they then added to your list.

So, which should you use? It depends, but for your main email list, I want to encourage you to use the double opt^in process. It means that you will lose a certain percentage of those people who signed up for your list because they then don’t confirm their subscription, but it protects you from being labeled as a spammer – something you want to avoid at all costs.

3. Post Your Privacy Policy

Wherever you give people the option to sign up for your list, make certain your privacy policy is clearly stated. Something like “We will never share your email address, period” should be fine.

4. Have a Clear Unsubscribe Link

In every email you send to your list, have a clear way for your reader to unsubscribe if they desire. Usually this is in the form of an unsubscribe URL at the bottom of the email. When someone clicks on the link, they should be taken to a page where they can remove their email address from your list. Just make sure your unsubscribe function works!

5. Multiple Lists

In the beginning, you’ll only be setting up one list, most likely for your ezine. But at some point you’ll want to have multiple lists, for different products or programs you offer, to more easily connect with specific people on your list.

For example, I have a list for my ezine subscribers, one for the members of my Coaching Cafe, one for each of my programs, and several others that perform various functions for me.

When you’re choosing an email list service provider, this is something you want to keep in mind – the ability to create and manage multiple lists.

6. Q’em up

Being able to compose your email messages ahead of time and then queue them to be delivered on the date and/or interval of your choosing is another great benefit to using an email list service provider.

For example, you can set up an 30-lesson ecourse to be delivered once a day for 30 days. Or create 26 issues of your ezine and set them up to go out every two weeks. This is one of my favorite things about using an email list service – it’s the ’set it and forget it’ kind of marketing – my favorite kind.

I use and highly recommend Aweber as your email list service provider.

7. What about my shopping cart?

Some shopping carts also act as an email list service, but I actually recommend you use both Aweber along with your shopping cart.

Here’s what I mean:

Use Aweber for your listbuilding, autoresponders, ezine (and ecourse) distribution, and any other mailings to your list. Let Aweber be your email list manager.

Use PayPal to process payments (it integrates with Aweber). THEN when you start consistently bringing in $500-$1000/month in income, sign up with a shopping cart (I use 1ShoppingCart – you’ll also need a merchant account to accept payments with 1SC – I use PracticePaySolutions.com). That’s when the fees of using a merchant account and a shopping cart become a wash.

Use your shopping cart for selling downloadable products, payment processing (it also integrates with PayPal), subscription/recurring payments, running special offers, and housing your customer list (meaning those people who have bought from you).

Only use your shopping cart’s autoresponder system for confirmation emails when a customer buys something from you, and only use their broadcast system when you want to send an email (for a special offer, for example) to your customers.

With this method, your MAIN list of prospects (which will include both those people who have bought from you, assuming they’ve come to your offers via your communication to them via your list, and your potential clients and customers) are always kept at Aweber, so you never have to move (and lose) your list once you migrate from PayPal to your shopping cart.

© 2007 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com

About the Author:

Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach™, founder of http://www.clientabundance.com/ , and creator of 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™, teaches coaches, consultants, online entrepreneurs, and self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.clientabundance.com/