It is often said that the money is in the list, but when you are starting out how do you build this list of yours?
1. A Newsletter. This is a great place to start building a list from your website. Put a simple opt-in form to capture email addresses and in return your visitors will receive a copy of your newsletter. Then every couple of days or every week send an interesting and informative newsletter to your growing list. Don’t cram it with sales links, just one or two. If you are offering genuinely interesting and useful content then your subscribers will stay subscribed.
2. E-books. A giveaway ebook is also an excellent way to build a list. Offer your ebook (which can be related to your niche) as a free giveaway in exchange for subscribing to your list. If you are not sure about content for your book then don’t let that put you off. If you have been article marketing, or just blogging, then you can re-use this content in your book. Remember it is a giveaway, not War and Peace, so make it short, snappy and useful. The added advantage of an ebook is that you can put your affiliate or sales links in it, and allow others to give it away free of charge. Then your links get exposed to a much wider audience. This is viral marketing in its purest form.
3. Social Media sites. If you have a good presence on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, you can build up a good reputation and following. These people will then be more than happy to go to your website or blog and subscribe to your list, as you will have become a trusted source of information and not a spammer. These sites are now really exploding, and if you haven’t started dabbling with social media I would suggest that you start now, and probably with Twitter as you can build a big following in a relatively short space of time.
4. Use your current subscribers. Ask your subscribers to recommend your site to their friends. You can use a small script (a ‘tell a friend’ script) or just ask them outright. If you have been providing an informative newsletter to your subscribers then they will not hesitate to tell their friends about you. This can be a very effective list building technique.
5. Use your blog. Add your opt-in form into the sidebar of your blog. In this way every post you make will automatically have your subscribe form on it. (If you are not sure what an opt-in form is, or which is the best company to use, then details can be found in the resource box below)
Using these strategies you will soon quickly and easily begin to grow your subscriber list.
Go to Mark Boardman's blog to find out more about
href="http://blogyourworld.com/list-building/">list buildingand discover how to start your own subscriber list. More information about
href="http://www.blogyourworld.com">Blogging can be found here.
