6 Ideas To Make Money by Sandra Summers - HTML preview

Money Making Idea #5: List Building

Difficulty: Easy/Intermediate

Cost To Use/Implement: Fee Based/Free

Time & Effort Involved: 1-5 Days

Ways To Use/Implement: Several

In all reality, this is the most successful way to skyrocket your online profits. And every single Internet Marketer worth their weight in dollars knows it. The building of the mailing list itself isn't that difficult however, what is difficult is selling to your newly built list. The reason this is such a complicated task is due to a few factors:

1. The subscribers on your list and how you collected them (usually by offering something for free which makes selling all the more difficult)
2. Knowing the correct way to sell to your subscribers
3. The frequency in which you send your sales pitches out

All the above combined can create an extremely tough selling arena for you. But, here are some tips to help you:

1. If you have built your mailing list on the basis of giving something away for free and will continue to give away such 'freebies', make sure that you offer products or packages that have a substantial value for a very reduced price if applicable (be sure to stay in accordance with the product(s) reselling license). For example: Offering a newly released product that not many other resellers have access to for a severely discounted price of $5.00 is a fairly successful combination especially for 'freebie' subscribers. While this isn't completely void of all cost, it's pretty close if the product(s) normally resells for $30 and upwards.
2. Try using the 'soft sell' method when sending offers out to mailing list subscribers. The process of soft selling is to not come right out and say "Buy This Now", but rather to offer some sort of reasons why one might want to consider purchasing this product - i.e. : the benefits of purchasing it.
3. Most mailing list subscribers have voiced the collective opinion that they do not care for being a part of mailing lists that send out emails to them too often. But, how often is too often? It has been expressed in several different polls and forums that anything more than 1 email a week is too much. However, if you condition your subscribers to expect to be receiving offers from you on a daily basis straight from the beginning of being on your mailing list, then you will receive many less complaints and unsubscribers as well. A very easy way to accomplish this is to begin including 'special offers' right from the very first email you send to your new subscribers and continue to include them in each of your emailings. This way, your subscribers will get use to, or be conditioned to expect, these types of advertisements inside every one of your emails. This can be as simple as including a short P.S. At the end of your emails.

Now that you have a few ideas of how to properly use your mailing list to earn you some consistent profits, it's time to actually build one.

The easiest way to do this is to use Aweber. They provide you with all the functions for communicating with your list, whether through an Autoresponder series or through broadcasts. It's definitely worth checking out and can become the stable backbone for your income!

After this, it's all a matter of making adjustments to the mailing list program through your administration panel of the script itself which you should be able to find pretty easily once you have successfully installed a mailing list program onto your web site.

Moving on, you will need to set up a ezine/newsletter sign up box somewhere. Otherwise, how will you get new subscribers?!?

Now, any email list building system should have an HTML subscription pre-made code hanging around inside of it for you to access and use. Then it's just simply a matter of finding it, and 'copy and pasting' the HTML code into your existing web site or product. You could even generate your own squeeze page if you want to get really fancy (and also grab the immediate attention of your site visitors!). Not to be outdone, the idea of making use of a pop up window can be quite an attention getter and maybe even recruit more subscribers when they see them.

Now, a squeeze page is simply a plain old HTML page that is designed to do one thing and one thing only… make your site visitors subscribe to your mailing list. Therefore, it would be fairly easy to 'copy and paste' your HTML subscription form info inside one of these. You can see a fine example of a sign up system in place here.

Pop ups are a little different. But not too much. You still need to copy and paste the HTML code, but in this instance you'll need to do that within an existing code of another sort, usually a JavaScript. This will take a little more skill, but can still be done without too much hassle or details of signing up for your list to your potential subscribers.

What I mean is that by letting your potential subscribers know the really important things they will be getting is dire. For instance, if you simply put up a pop up that says: "Subscribe To My Mailing List", you probably won't get too many subscribers. On the other hand, if you made use of some descriptive language like: "Sign Up For More Tips, Tools, And Bargains 100% FREE" you would more than likely see a bigger subscription rate. Of course you would want to get a little more specific detailing what your subject matter is, but the above is just a simple example.

Again, if the thought of building a 'squeeze page' puts you off, then it's worth checking out the ready-made squeeze page template and auto-responder system at Mega Money Emails which has everything done for you.

There is also one other way to begin building your mailing list to make profits from, which will be discussed in greater detail in the next Money Making Idea. So be sure to read it thoroughly.

Once you get the hang of all this 'list building' it's a really good idea to begin building more than one. And you thought all you needed was one!

Most successful Internet Marketers that consistently earn 5 figures and up a month do have, and run, more than just one list. In fact they have quite a few.

The reasons for this are simple…

1. They want to earn more money with multiple profit streams
2. They want to specialize in more than one topic or subject matter (niche)

I'm in no way suggesting you should do this if you are just beginning, but it is something to consider in the future. List building is the life blood of many online businesses, and you should consider it the life blood of yours as well. You should actively come up with as many ways as you can think of to add subscribers to your existing mailing list because it will pay off for you.

All right. So we know how to get our list set up to start receiving subscribers, but where can we find them? Well, your web site is a good start. How many site visitors do you receive a day? Do you think that they might want to sign up to get more free information, goods, or services from you? Sure they would! Who doesn't like getting something for nothing?

But, a word of caution.. make your 'something' worthwhile for them, or you'll have a lot of un-subscribers. Not that that is always a bad thing. You must understand that when you begin building a list of subscribers you want a list full of responsive prospects and not dead beats that are only out for hoarding up as many freebies as they can get. Those are the people you do not want on subscribed even after you have sent them plenty of good offers.

Remember too that it's not an attack on you personally when someone un- subscribes. They just aren't interested in what you are offering them, or have to say. Good riddance! Even if you have an unsubscribe rate of 20 to 1, that 1 subscriber is a responsive subscriber and is worth more than what you feel you may have lost.

And believe me, it doesn't matter if you send out a treasure map to unbelievable riches, you will get people that unsubscribe. It's just the nature of doing business online. Just remember not to take it personally when this happens. Keep doing what you're doing and you will build a superb list of responsive subscribers. I guarantee it.

Where Else Can I Build My List?

- Other places to collect subscribers are through places like eBay. If you sell there, put your 'About Me' page to good use. Add your ezine/newsletter sign up HTML code inside there.

- Add a link inside your signature tag inside forums that leads to your ezine / newsletter sign up page.

- Put a plain .txt file inside your product .zip files that provides your customers with a link to subscribe to your mailing list to keep themselves current on any new products you release.

These are all useful ways to get new subscribers onto your mailing list and get your offers in front of them.

One last point concerning list building, you don't have to have a subscriber base of 50,000 to earn money with it. But the higher your number, the more profits you will be able to earn by getting your offers in front of more eyeballs each time you send one off.