Build an opt in email list This has to be the most effective way that you can build a line of communication between you and your potential customers, it is the foundation of any online business today.



Think about it, when you are surfing the web how many sites will you visit in an hour? More importantly how many will you remember? Pretty few I guess. Well it's exactly the same when your potential customers come to your site, they look around and leave, a lot of the time never to return.

Did you know that the average web user will only stay at a website for 10 seconds unless it grabs there attention or compels them to action ?

Studies have shown that it takes 4 to 8 points of contact between the business and potential customer to actually generate a sale. Often users only convert to buyers long after their initial visit to your website. So if you have no way of following a potential customer then you won't even be able to make it to 2 points of contact, and you'll be throwing away a lot of business.

I am sure that you know from your own personal experience of email, that when you receive information that you actually find useful you are more likely to respond to offers.

If you don't already you need to be concentrating on building and mailing to your own opt in email list.

Let's look at how to do it First of all think about WHO you need to be targeting, this will then let you adjust your opt in offer to gain maximum response. Typically this involves analysing your website content and traffic.

To begin with you need to build up a picture of what your customers are interested in, when they are visiting your site, which are your most popular pages, which content is viewed most and where your customers leave your site. Once you start to get a good idea of WHO your customers are and WHAT they are interested in then you will be much better equipped to offer them something they really want.

So what do they want? Presumably information that is geared towards their interests. One of the most popular ways of doing this is by offering an e-newsletter. Newsletters are a great way of building trust and respect between you and your customers and if done correctly over time will allow you to be regarded as an industry expert, somebody who can be relied on to deliver solid, sensible, useful content and ideas. Take a look at this newsletter, most likely you're reading it because a. My offer enticed you to subscribe or b. you're looking for reliable source of information on this subject. Either way we now have a relationship similar to the relationship you could have with your potential customers.

A newsletter is not always going to be the perfect fit for a business, if you sell ball bearings then I guess you're not going to have a whole lot to talk about every couple of weeks so here are some other ideas that could be equally as effective. If you do sell ball bearings, I'm sure it's a very interesting subject ;)

A special offer... Simply offering your potential customers something in return for their name and email address can be extremely successful.

For example: Simply enter your name and email address here to receive a discount voucher worth 10% off of your first order. Note this offer expires on 25th Nov

If you make your offer time limited make sure that you take it down when you say your going to, some people may miss out but you'll find that the next time you run a similar offer your customers will really pay attention, plus they will know that you deliver what you say and are efficient, very important factors when trading online.

An e-book... Produce a simple e-book relating to a subject or topic that your research shows your potential customers are interested in. The e-book doesn't have to be a bestseller as long as the content is good and is no shorter than 5 pages.

Make your e-book available as a simple PDF download in return for your customer's data.

An e-book can work for you in other ways too. Encourage people to pass it onto their friends and colleagues, this way it will spread out and reach a much larger audience, this technique is often referred to as viral marketing. Be sure to include a link in the e-book to a landing page on your website where you can offer these new prospects something in return for their name and email, if they have read the e-book and are interested enough to visit your site, then you will know exactly what information or product they are looking for and so it should be easy to present them with an irresistible offer in exchange for their name and email address.

A forum or discussion area... Creating an online forum or discussion area for your specific product, service or market could be another quick way to generate a flood of new leads. Create somewhere that people can mix and interact with other like-minded people and you will not only be providing a great meeting place but if done correctly you will be attracting a whole lot of new prospects to your opt in list.

A mini course... A little like the e-book idea but delivered over a few days, say 1 message a day for seven days, with each message covering a slightly different part of your main subject.

For example: Transform your garden in 7 days with our short email course in garden maintenance and design

Make sure that the course is full of information the customer actually needs (you know just what they are interested in from the research you have already done.

You will need a program called an auto responder to run and manage a course like this, in fact if your serious about you're email marketing then you will need an auto responder period. And the beauty of auto responders is that once you have set them up and created your messages they just keep on sending them out to new subscribers without you even having to lift a finger.

A free gift or prize... This could be anything that you can think of that has some value to your customers, for instance you could create some e-cards, letting your customers download them when they have given you their details, just make sure that the cards you offer are related to your own business or niche :)

You could offer a weekly prize, you draw a name from your list each week and bingo they just won. Again make the prize related to your own business or niche.

The options depend on your business type and your research into what your customers actually want, so there is a lot of room here for you to be creative and try out different ideas. Remember that with most of the examples above your biggest investment will be your energy and time, so if one idea doesn't work quite as well as you'd expected then try another, and another if needed.

Using these techniques the quality and conversion rates of your leads can only get better. Now let's look at how to write an irresistible offer that they just won't be able to refuse.

Tips on writing your email Opt in offers are not too hard to write, all you need to do is invest your thoughts and time. Here are three rules that you should stick to when writing your offer.

Rule 1: Emphasize the benefits, NOT the features. In order to get your visitors to sign up for your offer you simply NEED to answer their biggest question. 'What is in it for me?' and the best way to do this is by emphasizing the benefits of your product or service, rather than its features.

Let's look at an example: Suppose you are offering an e-book on dog grooming.

'FREE e-book on how to groom your dog.'

With this title your simply advertising a feature. You are telling your visitors a fact about your e-book.

Now lets try one where we emphasize benefits instead of features:

'Your dog can look like a Crufts winner. Discover 10 closely guarded secrets that only professional dog groomers use. Use these secrets to give your dog the make over of a lifetime and look like a real winner. Simply enter you name and email address below to get your FREE e-book.'

Can you see the difference? You've got your visitors attention by letting them know how THEY will benefit by signing up for your offer - by making their dog look like a Crufts winner.

Rule 2: Include a call to action. This one is pretty obvious but is still often overlooked. Make sure that whatever technique you decide to implement that you specifically ask the potential customer to actually do something.

For example Click here to receive your free gift.

Make the text clear and easy to read. Don't just leave it to chance, actually tell them EXACTLY what you want them to do, believe me it makes a big difference.

Rule 3: Include a link to your privacy policy. In order to build credibility and ease any potential fears people may have about giving you their personal information, you should include a link to your privacy policy on your actual sign up form, in fact you should really have a link to your privacy policy from each page of your site. By doing this you are letting people know that you care about this issue and that you will protect their information.

Your privacy policy should lay out exactly what information you collect and how you use it, your privacy policy should contain contact details of an appointed member of staff dealing with customer data, and provide them with a way of viewing their data and a way for them to request that it be removed or amended. You can find details of specific legislation from you local government website, trading standards and data protection agency relevant to your own country.

Collecting subscribers, so we have our offer and now we've written our email, how do we start collecting email address to send this too? Where is the best place to actually put your offer, so you get the best response?

This is pretty simple; your offer should be prominent and available without scrolling, so depending on what kind of web page you have (long sales copy, short sales copy, product landing page or multiple product page), just follow the simple rule of making your offer prominent and available without scrolling. Again don't be afraid to test here, if you're getting visitors to your page but no one is signing up for your offer try changing the position.

Ok let's wrap this up, in this article I have given you an overview of some ideas and options available to you, now it's over to you, a lot of your success in building your own opt in list will be down to your time, effort and creativity, but once you start to see the results I know that this will give you the determination to carry on increasing your sales, so good luck and let us know how you get on.

At http://www.culturething.com we offer services ranging from consultation and advice through to actually managing your opt in list + list building and marketing strategies.