Email Myth 1: List Building Seems Hard

/ List Building / By

Thanks for visiting the very first post on BuildThatList.com, My name is Tom and I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome you to my blog.

I am sure you will want to stick around to learn tips and strategies to improve your list building efforts plus I have a few added bonuses such as CommentLuv, KeywordLuv and Do-Follow to encourage discussion -so don’t forget to comment!

Whether you are currently building an email list and marketing to your subscribers or are just checking the concept out to see if it is the ‘make money online’ method that you will try next, one of the comments I hear frequently is, ‘ List Building…. That Seems Hard!’ So I thought what better place to start this blog that with blowing this myth out of the water!

What Is Involved In List Building?

There are only a few steps to a successful email marketing campaign and the only difference between a successful list and a failed list is that the failed list’s owner just missed  or misinterpreted one or more of the steps. So what are the steps involved in list building.

  1. Your Bribe

    Unless you are incredibly famous or popular and people are dying to hear everything you are doing, saying and promoting, you are going to need something to encourage people to join your list. You know you have great knowledge and content – but does anyone else?

    This is why almost every website that you visit that asks your to join their email list try’s to ‘bribe’ you with something of value.

    Notice the keyword ‘value’?
    A Lot of email marketers fail because they give away junkie second-hand ebooks that have done their rounds of the internet several times over. It isn’t that hard to create your own content -so don’t be lazy!

    What Can I Bribe My Visitors With?

    I’ll stick with the obvious ones here, because I know the majority of you are like me and cannot code a unique piece of software or want to pay people to subscribe!

    • An Ebook
      An ebook is a great way to help you build credibility with your subscribers. This way you get to give new subscribers 15-20 pages of ‘YOU’ – so make it good! A great example of using an ebook to convert subscribers is: Robb Sutton with is Ramped Blogging Ebook (which is 118 pages!)
    • An E-Course
      Very similar to an ebook, but the benefit of an e-course is that it allows your subscribers to get used to you emailing them on a regular basis. Michael from IncomeDiary.com seems to have perfected this model with his How To Make Money Blogging E-Course.
    • The Opportunity To Win Something
      People will give you their email adress if you give them the opportunity to win something that they really want! Tyler Cruz is giving away 160 landing pages for subscribing! (And he didn’t even have to pay for them!)

  2. Your Capture


    Now that you have chosen a your bribe, you need a way to get people to sign up for you ‘amazing offer’.

    Now you do not need to have a whole sales page like the image, there are many ways you can capture your emails. You can add a subscription form to your blogs sidebar, or you could include a pop-up that instantly grabs your visitors attention.

    Don’t forget to make Your Sign Up Stand Out! As you will notice in the picture to the left, that the subscription form draws your attention to it. With its yellow background, dashed border and red arrows, there is no way that you would ever miss it!

    Email Marketing Software
    To make sure that you comply with all the SPAM regulations, you do not want to host or handle the subscriber details yourself. There are quite a few companies out there that specialise in this, but the one that I recommend (and most internet marketers agree with me) is Aweber.com. (Plus they give you your first month for just $1)

  3. Your Promotion


    Since you now have your bribe and your capture sorted (I won’t say perfected, because that is something you continually work towards), it is time to start driving eyeballs to your capture!

    This is where it really comes down to personal preference. There is no right or wrong way to get traffic (well maybe there are a few…), but what I mean is, if it works for you, then no one has a right to tell you that you are doing it wrong.

    Here Are A Few Promotion Methods:

    • Search Engine Optimisation (Google, Yahoo, Bing)
    • Social Media (Digg, Stumble, Twitter)
    • Blog Commenting
    • PPC (Where you pay for each targeted visitor)

    Find The Promotion Method That Works For You
    The thing I love about promoting on the internet is that there is no ‘best way’. If you are struggling to get traffic with your current promotion method – try something new.

  4. Your Nurture


    After you start gaining subscribers, you won’t want to lose them. This is why the ‘Nurture’ step is so important.

    Just like a little seeding is vulnerable, the first couple of months a new subscriber is on your list, is the time where you really need to work hard to protect them. New subscribers do not know you well, have limited trust in you, and a lot of them are looking for reasons to unsubscribe from your list – you have to ‘nurture’ them.

    • Be Personal
      I don’t know if you noticed, but a lot of email marketers are extremely impersonal. They just send you offer after offer, hoping to make a commission off of you.

      For me, there is no quicker way to make me want to leave a list. One email that I received from an internet marketer yesterday was the complete opposite. I am subscribed to Yaro Starak’s (Entrepreneurs-Journey.com) email list, and the email talked about his love for the month January(because of the amount of Tennis tournaments) and then related it back to a blog post about ‘What Andre Agassi Can Teach You About Being A Better Person.’

      I don’t know about you, but the more I get to know a marketer, the more I begin to trust them – so be personable!

    • Don’t Abuse Their Trust
      Your new subscribers have invested some trust into you. Maybe it is because of ‘your bribe’ or maybe they just like you. Either way, you have their trust, so value it. Don’t send affiliate email after affiliate email (of products that don’t even relate to your subscriber), squeezing every last drop out of them and then discarding them like a piece of trash!

      Apart from the fact that this method will just give you a bad name, your subscribers will also unsubscribe as quickly as they subscribed!

    • Continually Give Them Reasons To Stay
      They joined your list for a reason. Whether it was an ebook, e-course an anything else. You know what they are interested in – so give it to them! If they signed up because you promised tip to keep a tidy life, then make sure that is what you are sending them on a regular basis! If you are not sending them regular emails, when you do eventually send them an email promoting a product that you believe in, they are going to have to stop and try and work out who you are. BUT if you are regularly sending them emails with tips and strategies, they are more likely to consider what you are promoting.

  5. Your Sales


    I touched on sales a tiny bit just before, but this is the part that puts food on the table – so you need to get this right.

    There is nothing I can stress more than to be personable. Don’t use the prefabricated, generic emails that affiliates are made available too! Everyone will know you didn’t write them – so don’t try and fool them. Instead, put you spin on the product.

    Here are a few things you will want to look at when writing an email recommending a product:

    • What Makes It Unique?
    • Why Do You Recommend It?
    • [BONUS] Add A Personal Story

    I think that if you have selected a great product, and contact your list with an email that includes all the above points, you will definitely get a great response. But don’t forget to follow up. Statistics show that the second and third email about an offer will push people across the line!

Don’t Get Disheartened
As your list is growing, you are not going to get people to purchase every single time. The only reason the guru’s boast that they are making $1,000’s from one email, is because they have 20,000+ subscribers!  Give your list time to grow and remember to BUILD THAT LIST!

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