I like list building with viral list builders. While some marketers hate them, I think they have their place, especially if you're a beginning marketer. Don't tell anyone, but I still use them. I believe that many who don't like them simply either don't use them well, or they've used the wrong ones.

So what does a viral list builder do? It gives you a way to leverage your existing subscribers and website visitors so that you create more traffic, and more subscribers. Several years ago, I heard them described as set and forget advertising techniques, and it's mostly true.

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.

While these tools can be free, or free with an upgrade option, there are other costs involved. The fact that you're often building someone else's list or traffic as well as your own is a trade off I'm willing to make. I suspect most people don't use these tools to full advantage, and so they feel the trade offs are not worth it.

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.

The basic premise is that you enter your ezine details in the List Inferno list builder and place some code on your web pages. Each time you show a web page with the viral code on it, it will display a selection of ezines to which your visitor can subscribe. In return, your ezine subscription information will appear on another web page on someone else's site.

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.

One challenge, however, is that many people find it hard to drive traffic to their websites, or they don't want to spend the money on a website at all. While I highly recommend that you build a website and develop a number of ways to drive traffic, viral list builders like List Inferno can be used with free websites, and once you get a few visitors, the viral effect begins to build your list for you.

There are a number of things you can do to increase the power of a viral list builder. One simple technique is to create a number of relevant keyword rich pages on your site, and place the list building code on each of those pages.

You can drive traffic to those pages in the usual ways in order to generate the viral effect of the list builder. Then, during your auto responder sequence or broadcast emails to your subscribers, systematically send your visitors to those pages.

The ideal scenario is to not only have organic traffic working for you, but each subscriber as well. When this method is properly executed, each subscriber triggers new opportunities to aquire additional subscribers. By modeling this type of system, you'll be an expert viral list builder in record time.