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[B949]Build Your Email List

by Patrick Schwerdtfeger, Pat

Your email list is one of the greatest assets you can build in your online business. It represents your audience; the people you can promote and sell products to, whether they're yours or someone else's. And one of the best ways to accumulate email address is to offer something of value and use an autoresponder to allow people to request it.

Autoresponders are simple signup forms you can add to your website where visitors can enter their name and email address to request a promised item. Autoresponders allow you to preprogram email messages that will go out automatically to those who fill out the form. And the emails you send out will give recipients an option opt out of the list whenever they like.

Autoresponders make email accumulation very easy for online businesses but the hard part is always getting people to sign up. Not only do they have to know an offer exists but it has to be enticing enough to motivate them to give you their email address. This article will look at three different ways to publicize your offer, providing the impetus for visitors to join your list.

The first obvious place to announce the availability of your offer is on your website. This may sound obvious but you might be surprised how many people have fantastic offers available but don't make them known to new visitors to their website. Your offer should be prominently displayed on your homepage so a visitor completely unfamiliar with your website would see it immediately.

When your offer is announced like this on your website, the trick reverts back to driving traffic to your site in general. There are many strategies for doing this including article marketing, posting on forums, starting a blog and leveraging social bookmarking services but those are beyond the scope of this article. The point is that a great website with a great offer but no traffic will leave you with nothing.

The second place you can publicize the availability of your offer is to contact group organizers in your field. Obviously, the offer must represent a terrific value for a group organizer to share it with his or her members. But if it is indeed a good offer, these organizers will be happy to share it. In addition, you can contact bloggers in your area and invite them to share the offer with their own audiences. If the offer is good, you could get plenty of exposure in a hurry.

The third strategy is the quickest but also the most expensive. You can rent someone else's list or do a joint venture, publicizing your offer to a large list someone else has already accumulated. This will cost you some money but you can generate a lot of interest in a single day, allowing you to build your own list quickly.

These list owners will never show you their list. They'll only send out an email on your behalf. Then, you'll end up getting the email addresses of those who accept your offer. You can then scrub future lists for the emails you already have and only pay for the remaining recipients. This strategy allows you to incrementally build up a list with consecutive offers.

Once you've decided on your offer, spend some time thinking about how you want to publicize its availability. The more people who know about it, the better. And if your offer is truly exceptional, you could end up with a huge email list overnight.

Wise Way #1 - OFFER A FREEBIE

You have to give in order to get. If you want people tooffer up their email address, you`re going to have to offer up an incentive. Nothing works better than something that`s complimentary (you spell that f-r-e-e). You can give away no-cost reports, books, software, or even sample pages of a book.

Wise Way #2 - USE POP-UPS

Pop-ups are one of the most common methods you can use to capture email addresses and build your email list quickly and with ease. Simply construct a web page containing code for a form and set the page to open (pop up) when visitors enter or exit your site.

Make sure the pop-up offer is something that`s valuable enough to motivate visitors to take time to give you their contact information. Your offer can be a complimentary report, download, or ebook that arrives instantly through your autoresponder to their email inbox when they give you their email.

Be cautious when using pop-ups. Most computer users consider them to be annoying. Multiple pop-ups on a site can really turn off a potential customer, so limit yourself to one pop-up per site.

Wise Way #3 - USE POSTCARDS

If you have a mailing list that contains snail mail (street) addresses, convert it into an email list by sending out a postcard and inviting people to visit your website to receive a gift of some kind -- a report, a discount coupon, etc. Visitors don`t have to pay in order to receive their gifts, they simply need to enter an email address.

A Word to the Wise from the U.S. Post Office: Postage is much less expensive for a postcard than a standard-size letter. (Not only are they economical, postcards are more likely to get your message across since the consumer doesn`t have to open an envelope.)

Wise Way #4 - SUBSCRIBER BOX ON EVERY PAGE

This is a clever trick that so many people overlook. Put a response form on every page of your website offering a newsletter or other freebie. This will increase the number of email addresses you capture exponentially.

Why? When search engines index the pages of your website, a visitor may come directly to a page other than your home page. If you only have a subscriber box on your home page, you`re missing the boat, not to mention the thousands of visitors who bypass your homepage.

Wise Way #5 - CONTESTS

Contests very often prove to be a good way to generate traffic and buzz for your business. Create a contest and put a form on your site or in a pop-up box. The entry "fee" is their email address.

You need to be aware that not all the people who sign up for your contest are good prospects. Many are just contest "junkies" -- people who are only looking for freebies and have no intention of buying a product or service.

Warning to the Wise: If your prizes are cash or
large-ticket items, you should be sure to check with local agencies to make sure you`re not violating any contest laws.

Wise Way #6 - DISPLAY YOUR AUTORESPONDER ADDRESS

Most people give their website link when they place soloads, ezine ads, or other marketing messages. To be one step ahead of the game in collecting email addresses, list your autoresponder address instead of your URL. This way you can capture email address and funnel them into your follow-up sales letters.

Wise Way #7 - JUST ASK

If you`re chatting with a prospect on the phone or a potential customer stops by your place of business, don`t be shy: ask for an email address or business card (which usually includes their email address).

Okay, you know what you want...you know what you need. It`s time for you to set your traps and capture those email addresses.

Article Source : Marketing And Sales Promotion

About Author

Both Patrick Schwerdtfeger & Ronald Gibson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Patrick Schwerdtfeger has sinced written about articles on various topics from . Tactical Execution with Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a strategic company focused on and program implementation across business markets. Visit the websi. Patrick Schwerdtfeger's top article . to your Favourites.

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