A viral list builder maximizes your ability to reach potential subscribers by using other websites to promote your ezine subscription or autoresponder ecourse. It allows you to use existing subscribers to create new subscribers. These are advertising techniques that, once set up, continue to work without additional input on your part.

If you want to make every visitor count, these tools can help you acheive that at no cost. Some viral list builders work on page, some work as popups, and some replace a page entirely, such as a thank you page. Before I continue, I want to be sure that you understand that zero cost is referring to money only.

There are other costs associated with using some viral tools, such as time, a certain level of control, and the fact that you're often building someone else's list or traffic as well as your own. The trade offs can be worth it, however, if you use these tools correctly.

I like the simplicity of List Inferno, so we'll use that as an example. There are only three steps in the sign up process, and the code works with or without popups. Unlike some list builders, you can promote ezines on topics other than Internet Marketing, which I think is a plus.

Here's how it works. You enter your ezine details in List Inferno and place some code on your web pages. Each time you show a web page with that code on it, it will display a selection of ezines to which your visitor can subscribe. In turn, your newsletter subscription information will appear on someone else's site, giving you more chances to gain subscribers.

This means that for every visitor to your page, you get the opportunity to gain another subscriber. In my experience, the sign up rate with viral list builders is rather high. My list building efforts, once started with these viral tools, just seem to spin off on their own without my having to actively do anything. I like that, and you will too. If they slow down for any reason, I simply ramp them up a bit with a few techniques and there they go again gathering subscribers.

In my course on beginning list building, I outline the basic elements that you need to properly build a list. One of those elements is, obviously, a way to reach potential subscribers.

A big challenge, however, is that many people find it a big task to drive traffic to their websites. Even worse, new marketers often don't want to invest money in a website at all. The good news is that viral list builders like List Inferno can be used with free websites, and once you get it going with a few visitors and subscribers, the viral effect takes over. The bad news is that you really should get yourself a top level domain name and real website.

One rather simple technique you can use to enhance the viral effect is to create several pages on your site, all of which have good information and proper keyword density. Then, place the list building code on each of those pages.

Next, begin driving traffic to those pages through all of the means in your marketing arsenal. During your auto responder sequence or broadcast emails, send your visitors to those pages that offer more information on the topic at hand.

In this way, not only will you have natural traffic working for you, but each subscriber as well. In fact, if you do this right, each subscriber can be responsible for producing several opportunities for you to gain new subscribers. Using this type of system, you'll be a champion of viral list building in no time.