Everyone who is involved in Internet Marketing will tell you that the money is in the list. If you do not have a list then you have no one to sell to. You have no one to sell to and you will start to resemble one of those poor little church mice !!
The first question that I asked when I started Internet marketing was "How do I build a list?"
The most simple way is to subscribe to a mailing list provider. Some of these offer a free service. Invariably there will be restrictions on the number of messages you can send, with an option to upgrade to a full membership. Other providers will only provide a paid for service. Possibly the biggest problem that will occur with this method of promotion is finding out that your mailing for product "A" goes out at the same time that my mailing for product "A" goes out with the same list provider.
Having decided that you will take your first steps on building your list, the next item to be considered is what you will be offering in exchange for someone's e-mail address. A lot of analysis has been done and it is generally agreed that on average it takes 8 to 10 contacts before someone will buy a product off the internet. Rather than offering something up for sale, why do not you offer a valuable free gift. For example, if you are in the "Health & Fitness" market place offer a product that could have a tie in to current interest, such as a free report which could be called "How to Obtain The Body You Crave For in 6 weeks" (After all summer is rapidly approaching!)
The important thing is that the title of what you are offering MUST DEMAND ATTENTION. As well as the title stopping people in their tracks, what you are offering must deliver the goods. Remember you are developing a list of people who will grow to trust you implicitly if you deliver high quality content every time you offer them something, be it free or chargeable.
Other areas where you can start to establish contacts is to look at and comment on forums and and discussion boards. A quick word of warning though before you start. Spend some time studying the environment, read through some of the posts and establish what is allowed. For example the forum may not want offers of free products being made. All decent forums have an FAQ section. Read through that to establish other areas that may be prohibited.
Article marketing is an area where you can establish your reputation as an expert. Again the secret is to provide high quality content that will be useful to those people who are looking for the solution to a problem, such as "How do I build my list?"
We are now living in the age of social networking with products such as "Facebook", "Twitter", "MySpace" etc. These provide a wonderful opportunity to promote the product you are either giving away or selling to the people who are linked through to you, (Followers, Friends etc.) A more detailed explanation on how to utilize these programs is beyond the scope of this article .
If you want to get as many subscribers in the shortest time possible you need to adopt a viral marketing strategy. When I was involved in the financial services industry when we had provided the client with a superb service we asked him or her for six referrals. This is essentially what viral marketing is about. Getting your client to pass on details of your product to their friends. A simple way to do this is to ask the client when he fills in the opt in form to provide you with names and emails of three to six of his friends. It is imperative that you make it clear to them that providing this information is completely voluntary.
Opt in form! Are you wondering what this has to do with building your list? Before you can send anything to a client they have to confirm that they actually want that information. So whatever method you use to put your message in front of a customer, be it a mailing list provider, forum etc. they have to submit their name and email address to you, then they have to confirm that they requested the information before it is sent. This is called double opt in and is required as a result of the Can-Spam act which was introduced to restrict spamming. You will need an auto responder service to build up your mailing list and they all operate in this way.
