To win big, you have to start out
small, as Demosthenes suggests, Small opportunities will often lead you to
great successes. The process of creating a list leads to the potential for
greater success and wealth, regardless of the business you are in. In this
article, we’ll talk about some simple tools you can use to build your list.
Let’s look at each method independently.
Sometimes it is best to rely on simple
tools and small opportunities, when you are just starting out in the industry.
You will have much time to grow your business and expand your customer base if
you follow the simple steps outlined in this article. So let’s begin first by
talking about subscriber leads.
Subscriber Leads: One easy way to build your list is by collecting subscriber leads. This is one of the best ways to
expand your business. There are many ways to acquire leads, but the best way to
collect leads is to gather them automatically, through email or by your website
through various forms. In the next few sections of this article, we will go into
greater detail about the ways you can grow your subscriber list and maintain
your list over time.
You will find as you run your business
that your subscriber leads prove vital to your businesses success and ability
to grow and expand over time.
Opt-In Leads: Like subscriber
leads, opt-in leads are a good tool for building your business. Opt-in leads
are leads you get when you invite someone to enter their information into your
database. When they do this, they are granting you permission to contact them
in the future about new products or updates to your site.
For example, when you create your
website, you can set it up so each person that visits has the choice to sign up
for a newsletter or some other type of routine e-mailing. By signing up,
visitors are “opting in” to your list. Setting your site up this way allows you
to gain visitor’s email addresses. While you can never force someone to do what
you want them to, this approach often works if you encourage people to sign up
by describing all the benefits your site offers. You can then reap the benefits
of gaining important subscriber leads.
Survey Leads: Another way to
produce automatic subscriber leads is by conducting surveys on your website.
This is a simple way to increase the number of subscribers to your list. You
can place survey ads on your website so they pop up when a customer checks
out.
How do you get someone to fill out a survey? It is not as hard as you think. For starters, some people enjoy filling out surveys. For those that don’t you can employ some simple tactics to encourage them to offer their information to you.
For example, tell your
customers what benefits they will reap from filling out your survey. Don’t
assume your customer’s know what benefits they will gain by filling out a
survey. You have to tell them. Maybe they will gain access to your website,
which contains thousands of free articles on the topic they are researching.
Maybe you will enter them into a contest to win a free gift. Giveaways are a
great way to encourage people to sign up for just about anything.
It’s funny how quickly people are
willing to give up their personal information, including their name, address
and email for a gift. We’ll talk more about gifts later in this guide.
Make sure you offer them an
irresistible reason to fill out your survey. Tell customers how they will
profit by signing up. This is a very easy and successful tool marketers use to
produce new leads. Most times visitors are willing to offer their email address
for a survey.
Let’s talk now about the next simple
tool you can use to build your subscriber list.
Affiliating: One way you can
collect leads for your subscriber list is by affiliating. Affiliating means
joining in or offering an affiliate program. When you take part in an affiliate
program you immediately realize the benefits of getting leads that an affiliate
will create and then forward to you.
For this process to work you need an opt-in program and an auto responder. Using these programs you can gather information and instantly send out confirmation emails to new subscribers on your list. Don’t worry about having people fill in their address fields or phone number. Most people are hesitant to provide this information, but very willing to provide their email address. There is much less pressure involved when you are collecting email addresses instead of personal information.
Top Two Ways To Profit From Your List: Once you start
growing your opt-in list, you’ll want to ensure it is profitable. There are
many ways to go about doing this. You want to make sure all your hard work is
for a good cause, so you have to find ways to profit from your list. There are
literally dozens of different methods you can employ to achieve results, but
two seem to work better than all others.
The top two ways to profit from your
list are also the easiest, so let’s look at them:
1. Build trust and loyalty among
your customers: Your customers will not buy from you unless you are
able to prove your worthiness. So, you have to spend notable time working to
build their trust. You can do this many ways. You can join forums that talk
about the products or service industry you have an interest in, and look for
experts in your field to offer their advice and recommendations to your
subscriber list.
Also, make sure your website is clear
and offers your visitors relevant and important information they
will find helpful during their journey. If you are practicing affiliate
marketing, and even if you are not, make sure you tested or tried any products
you plan to sell so you can provide your subscribers honest reviews of them.
This is the #1-way to build trust, and trust always leads to higher profit
margins.
You should also build a user-friendly
website, one that has a navigation bar placed in a prominent location. Make
sure you provide your customers with a contact us page and always respond to
customer or visitor inquiries within 48 hours if this is possible. The sooner
you get back with your visitors, the better reputation you will build.
When responding to customer’s that
contact you through your website, make sure that you remind them to sign up for
your free newsletter if they haven’t already, which will contain more
information on the subject they are looking for. Don’t automatically assume
they want to be subscribed to your newsletter just because they asked a
question on the topic. Tell them what your newsletter offers, and
how they can subscribe.
When you build trust and loyalty, your
customers are also more likely to refer your business to their friends and
their family. Some web owners design a page after the order page that allows
the customer to input the names and emails of two to three of their friends
that might also be interested in your products. This is another simple way to
build your list. Make sure you provide them an incentive for checking you out,
in the way of a free report, book, checklist or newsletter subscription.
2. Fulfill your subscriber’s needs: Everyone has
needs. The whole point of doing business on the web is to fulfill the needs of
people surfing the Internet. If you want to make money selling a product or a
service, you first have to find out how that product or service will fill your
prospect’s needs. How will they benefit from the product or service you offer?
Have other people benefited? If so, how and why? Providing your customers with
this information will help you create a profitable opt-in list, one that will
transform visitors into paying customers.
One of the simplest ways to tell your
customers how you can fulfill their needs is by listing the ways you do this on
your landing page, or on another prominent place on your website. Make sure you
bullet each benefit and explain to the prospect exactly how you plan to serve
them, and why your product or service is better than that of the
competition.
The more content you provide, the more
secure your customer will feel about their purchase. They are also more
inclined to believe you are fulfilling a need they have.
Let us take a moment to look at the first bullet, trust. Many people fear that building trust among strangers will prove difficult. Realistically speaking, anyone can build trust easily. How do you build trust?
First, run a legitimate business that
you know something about. Don’t try selling aromatherapy to someone just
because it is a hot trend. You have to know what you are selling to sell it
well. Next, if you want to encourage your customers to buy, offer them some
form of guarantee. You can for example, offer them a 60Day money-back guarantee
on any products they use on your site, provided they use the products in the
time frame appointed and have a legitimate reason for returning them.
Statistics show that even when
customers do not feel satisfied with a product they will often not return it
because they either (1) forget about it or (2) are too busy to mess with
it. Nonetheless, when you build a guarantee into your sale, you put
your customer’s mind at ease, and they consider their purchase less
risky.
Lastly, provide your customer’s helpful
hints and guidelines that will help them get the most benefit from your
product. This shows your customer you have a vested interest in helping them
succeed. This builds trust and loyalty, and converts subscribers to buyers.
That is your goal to begin with.
The following are the three (3) companies who are probably is the acknowledged market best leaders in the email marketing for Building a List of Subscribers, and I would definitely recommend that you should use one of them if at all possible:
1.) AWeber - Excellent autoresponder & email marketing software for bloggers, small businesses and e-commerce businesses. It's free, if you have 500 Subscribers and if you have over 500 Subscribers then you have to go for paid plan. "Try AWeber here for free."
2.) Constant Contact - Highly recommended for professional services providers. "Try here Constant Contact 30 days free trial."
3.) Getresponse - Good platform for beginners and newbies.
Quick Tips For Creating A Great List: We covered a lot of information above in the post about building and maintaining a high quality list of subscribers. Let’s review some of the most important steps you need to take to ensure you build a profitable list:
1. First, make sure you put up a
good landing page. It should be well-designed and professional looking. If you
don’t have any design skills then hire someone to do this for you.
2. Next, put a web form on your
landing page and offer your customers the opportunity to opt-in to your mailing
list. Give something away free to encourage them to opt in.
3. Make sure any freebies you give
away are of the highest quality, because the subscribers on your list will
judge the worthiness of your products and services based on the freebies they
get.
4. Include a lot of professionally
written content and interesting information for your visitors. Your customers
will want to read interesting things and want to look for more than just a
sales pitch. Content sites are a great way to build trust and loyalty. You can
build a content site jam-packed with articles and helpful information, then
link to your sales page from your content site.
5. Make sure you keep your
customer’s information private. If you tell your customer’s you will not share
his or her personal information, then don’t share it with anyone. You will ruin
your reputation, and word spreads fast on the Internet.
6. Take some time to try the product
you offer yourself. Make sure it is something you consider worthy of buying. If
you are selling a book you wrote, make sure it has mass appeal and will benefit
the target audience you plan to market it to.
7. Provide top-notch customer
service. This is THE number one way to stay ahead of the game. If your
customers are happy and you resolve their questions and complaints immediately,
then you will win their loyalty and trust.
8. Reward customers that refer others
to you. This is a simple way to build trust and loyalty.
9. Respond to your customer’s
complaints or inquiries immediately, with the goal in mind always being to
satisfy your customer.
10. Remain truthful and honest in all
you do. A customer will sniff out a scam faster than a dog will a bone. Don’t
lie, don’t trick and don’t steal. Be honest and be who you are, and you will do
well working on the Web and building your opt-in list.
Now you know everything there is to
know about building a terrific list from the ground up.
Also Read: 15 Tested and Proven Ways to Build Your Subscriber List!
Conclusion: There are many simple
ways to build a list. You can build your list using subscriber leads, opt-in
leads, survey leads and through affiliating. When building your list, you want
to ensure your list is profitable. The best way to achieve this is by building
trust and loyalty among your customers, and by fulfilling your customers needs.
If you don’t know what your customers needs are, then step back, take a moment
and ask. Find out. Survey. Do what you have to. Because if you don’t know what
your customer needs, you won’t know how or what to sell to them.
Lastly, make sure you are
always honest and sincere in all your business doings, and you will always make
a good impression with customers.
In the next article, learn more about mailing and subscriber lists.
