Building a prospect, subscriber or client list – quickly -
is a rewarding experience. Since August, 2001, I’ve built
lists that range from a few hundred highly targeted
prospects to lists of over 280,000 subscribers. In this
article, you’ll discover the secrets I’ve used to quickly
build targeted, effective lists. At the end, you’ll get
a glimpse of an actual case study of a list I’m working
on right now.
The basic principles of list building are pretty straight
forward.
- You need something of value to offer your prospects and
give them a reason to sign up to your list.
- You need to set up a form to capture your prospects
contact details and connect it to your autoresponder
- You need visitors to come to your website (Develop
traffic)
> Basic Principle 1 <
Starting with the first basic principle, you need
something of value to offer your potential prospects.
You can offer
1. A newsletter
2. A product
3. A service
4. A special offer
> Basic Principle 2 <
The second basic principle is setting up your lead
capture form. This is the box (form) on your website
that your prospects fill in with their contact details.
As soon as they press the send button, your autoresponder
adds them to your database and sends them your message.
Presto, you’re starting to build your list.
Most autoresponders give you the HTML code for your form,
so you don’t have to worry about any special programming.
All you have to do is cut and paste.
The details you can comfortably collect from a prospect
depends on your offer. If you’re offering an online
newsletter, you only need your prospect’s first name and
email address. If you’re sending them a CD by snail mail,
you can collect their postal address even phone and fax
numbers.
Quick Note:
You’ll increase your response rate if you include the
sign up form at the top and bottom of your webpage as
well as use a popup / popunder or slide in box.
Once you’ve got the ground work done, you’re ready to
start driving traffic to your website.
> Basic Principle 3 <
Building your list is like building a city. You want to
get as many people into your city as possible, so you
need to build roads. You need an 8 lane highway and
multiple smaller roads to fill your city with people.
In list building terms, you need to focus on one main
technique to pull prospects into your list. You also want
to use secondary techniques to add to the momentum of
your traffic. The following list gives you the exact
methods I use to develop my lists. Choose one method as
your main focus and use the rest as your secondary
traffic sources.
1. Advertise in print
Place advertising where ever your market is. Ask yourself
what you read personally, where do you get information?
Your market most likely does the same as you, so get in
front of them by using classified or display advertising
in:
a. magazines
b. trade journals
c. newspapers
d. direct mail
2. Advertise online
This is the least costly method of advertising. You can
reach a targeted audience through advertising in ezines,
online newsletters or pay per click services like Google
AdWords ™.
You can find some of the best ezine advertising deals at
http://www.EzineAdAuction.com
You’ll find Google AdWords ™ at
http://www.adwords.google.com
3. Write articles
Writing articles gives you credibility. Write articles on
a regular basis and submit them to online and offline
sources. You should be submitting articles to the same
sources you’re advertising with as well as all other
publications you can find in your market. Do a search on
Google or your favourite search engine for the keywords
“ezine directories” and you’ll find lists of potential
places for your articles and advertising.
4. Affiliate Program
One of the fastest ways to build your list exponentially
is to set up an affiliate program. Your affiliates will
link to your website, which means plenty of targeted
traffic, which, in turn helps your search engine rankings,
which brings you more traffic, which increases the number
of affiliates you get and helps you build your list at
break neck speed. It’s a never ending cycle.
5. Forums
Get involved in forums. When you post or answer a
question in a forum, you’re generally allowed to have a
signature file attached to your post. It’s just like the
signature file in your email. Your signature file should
direct people to your website where they can sign up for
your list.
6. Email signature file
The same as in forums, every email you send out should
have a signature file directing people to your website.
7. Joint Ventures
If you’ve got a unique, original product, a joint venture
may be an option for you. Contact some entrepreneurs who
have large lists and see if they’re interested in working
with you.
8. Referrals
This is very powerful. Include a referral or “tell a
friend” form on your website. This little form can help
build your list exponentially. When someone recommends
your site to a friend, that friend is most likely going
to visit and possibly tell another friend. And the
snowball starts rolling. Add this technique with an
affiliate program and you’ll soon have a nice fat,
targeted list of prospects.
9. Buy opt-in subscriptions
If you want to build a big list really fast, you can buy
opt-in subscribers for as low as a penny each from
http://www.pennyperlead.com. These leads have raised
their hand and said yes I’m interested in receiving
business opportunity information. They’ve filled out a
form and you can contact them with your offers.
The upside of this process is you build a big list fast.
The downside is your list will be less responsive than
one you build on your own. It takes some time to
cultivate a relationship with these new subscribers, but
if you send them quality information, you can convert
the list into an asset for your business.
Case Study
Right now, I’m building a list from scratch for
http://www.thebusinessprofessional.com My business
partner, Edwin Ryan, and I started building the list 2
weeks ago and today we have 506 new subscribers. Here’s
how we did it.
1. Put together an incredible offer.
We’re offering a rare niche marketing interview with
Kacper Postawski. The interview is valued at $245 and
we’re giving it away free.
2. Simple Form
To access and listen to the interview, visitors simply
fill in their name and email address and the secret
interview page is emailed to them.
To build traffic for this page, we’ve posted in the top
internet marketing and business forums, as well as sent
an email to a couple of our smaller lists of about 2,000
people total. That’s it. Within the next 2 weeks, we’ll
start the main marketing and have projected this list to
reach upwards of 5,000 new subscribers within the next 4
months.
The list building process is really quite simple if you
look at the basics. Offer a quality product as an
incentive to sign up to your list. Plug your sign up
form into an autoresponder. Drive traffic to your
webpage where your sign up list is located - and watch
your list expand.
Terry 
