Summary

Ï List building is another one of those subjects that's drummed into us over and over again through many different products and services, and rightly so. It is one of the five most important aspects that will decide the fate of your business.

Ï Most list building services, if you haven't spent a whole bundle of cash on them already, I have to say, are useless and will cost you more than they net you, or even get you into trouble. The old 100k mailing list by the end of the week thing which I know myself and many others fell for during our early days just do not work full stop.

Ï The reason is quality over quantity. Would you still want a 100k list if I told you my personal list of just over fifteen thousand subscribers regularly outperforms ads I've previously purchased to go out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers?

Ï We don't want to get you a list of fifty thousand freebie-seekers or a hundred thousand that have been paid a small sum to subscribe. That's not at all what we're after. We're aiming for a highly-targeted, highly responsive list that will respond to your offers again and again.

Ï I should say at this point that there are people out there who do make their living through spam and unsolicited email, numbers over quantity. They pick up servers in other countries that don't have anti spam laws, or aren’t restrictive in any way, and send out millions upon millions of mails, and sure they make money. Ï In my eyes, however, this is not online marketing. It's not ethical, it doesn't build a solid business base for your future, and it gives those of us with legitimate lists a bad name, and just makes our lives harder than they need to be. If this is the kind of info you're looking for, you won't find it here. We're looking at real business.

Ï Ok, tip number one, the hardest part is getting started. The number one thing that I've seen relating to lists from the people I've known that have come and gone over the years is that they were put off when they first started out, quit and went searching for an easy option. There is no easy option that works.

Ï List building however, done properly, with a solid product at it's base, using the knowledge you've been taught thus far can however without a doubt put you up, two, three, five or even ten thousand subscribers in a few short months, so don't fret. It's not easy by any means, but it sure isn't hard either.

Ï Before we go further, I want to assure you again that numbers don't matter. So what if you only have 500 or a thousand subscribers? If they trust you, know you and your products, and have either bought from you before or knowingly subscribed being interested in what you have to offer, I'd much rather have this list than a purchased list of low quality leads ten times the size.

Ï And on that note, there's something else I want to get out to you right now, if you've done this before, or have thought about doing it, or haven't done it yet, listen up, because it's amazing how many people I speak to and on asking how their list building is going, and they say to me oh yeah, I only had three, four, five hundred on it, so I ditched it and started again. They weren't responding to me anyway. How to make them respond to you are a different report altogether, but please, do not start ditching lists like this to get organized again. Stop starting again.

Ï Next comes a great starting block to help you on your way to list building and using your list as one of your main resources. Am I building my list by doing this? Ask yourself this question with every site you set up, everyone you talk to, every joint venture you score, every product you release, in fact in every method of marketing you use.

Ï Always think in terms of your list. There are many different types of lists of course, standard ones for promotion, lists packed with affiliates, or long term customers that get that something a little extra special, but you should always be building a list of some type.

Ï If people are landing on your site, talking to you, reading your stuff, or buying your products and they don't have a chance to jump on one of your lists, you might as well be throwing money down the drain because you're losing quality subscribers imperative for future promotion and the growth of your business.

Ï How awesome would it be to be able to wake up in the morning with a new product, put it together and immediately have an instant and free promotion tool at your disposal where your product reaches not only top affiliates, but at the same time people who are willing to part with their cash. This is our aim.
Ï If they're not willing to spend on your products, then quite frankly, you shouldn't want them on your list. A way to ensure that the people on your list do indeed part with their cash is to get your contacts from other people private lists through simple joint ventures that allow you to take parts of their list away and add it yours, through a simple ad swap, or joint venture that sends their list to your product/follow-up system. Joint venturing at it's most basic, but at it’s most powerful.

Ï A question I see asked over and over again is, “Are sales more important than list building?” Some say no, but they miss the point entirely. Sales are list building. The people that buy your stuff are the most important lists you'll ever have. The list of people that have purchased from me before are almost ten times as likely to buy from me again than to have a new customer come along and buy my stuff. This is where the most important list of all should be coming from.

Ï If you could set up a product with the sole intent of building your resources, what would it be? At this point I'd expect replies associated with giving free stuff away and a tell a friend scripts and some sort of mass e-book library give away like we see all too often nowadays. Boring!

Ï How about doing something a little out there, that everyone seems to miss because they don't get any immediate cash rewards? How about setting up a single sale product, or a membership website with the sole intent of building your resources, but not a free one? A profit based website where you will receive no profit, or very little profit come to that. Sounds strange huh? On the surface of it, I can see how I'd be getting funny looks, and do indeed get funny looks when talking about this. Think for a moment though.
Ï Remember how we talked about pulling all your resources together, and the five main resources that will join together to make you money? I'll take one example here, using an affiliate system as home base. Up goes your website, up goes your high commission affiliate program (abnormally high that is, I'm talking 80% and upwards) then out go your JV's which you're giving 100% commissions to. What’s the point you might ask? Well, whilst Mr. Joe Nobody is out there with his site, and from the start trying to make cash by selling stuff people through search engines and e-zines and the like, you've just set up a huge circle of resource building goodness.

Ï While everyone was cramming in the front door at the same time, you’ve sneaked around the back and got in without a queue. It was smoother and far less work.

Ï People are attracted by your amazing affiliate program in this example (You can go other routes, like very well made products for a reduced price, or some sort of great offer (but this is the easiest to demonstrate for numbers sake). Once you have people attracted by your affiliate program, out comes the numbers of affiliates promoting for you. And already, you've got people doing the work for you, although granted you're not getting paid directly. Don't forget though that these guys promoting will not only build your customers, your long term customers, and your list at the same time, but they've just become your resource themselves adding to your affiliates that will stay with you and promote your future products.

Ï See how you went from a seemingly totally unprofitable idea that most would throw out the window immediately, to an all singing all dancing resource builder. Cool huh? Who'd have thought paying people to promote something that you're not making a profit from would be such a powerful method of marketing.
Ï Before we move on, I'd like to talk to you about your contact gathering and how you're doing it. How about those lovely sticky out popup that attack you every now and then? They do still work, but be careful where you put them.

Ï We need to avoid interrupting the sales process, especially when you're looking at selling a high ticket item. There's a load of ideas out there about how to do this. The 'In a Rush' system, that allows you to simply offer people the chance on your side or top navigation bar to receive the sales letter and info about your product through subscribing.

Ï How about integrating list building into your sales letter? if you can get them reading in the first place, it's a lot more likely they'll continue, even if they have to input some detail to get their hands on some sensitive information sent directly to their inbox. I like to use additional proof here, such as bank statements and sales figures from my business. Even entry pages that are designed solely for lead generation as an entry to your lower ticket items. There are plenty of ideas to be had, use them as an alternative to popup if you can, and always be on the look out for new ideas.

Ï Any of these methods beat the conventional, due to the fact that you're not interrupting the sales process. If you feel you're losing out on subscribers you can always create a product purely for resource building like we mentioned above. The only time I'd consider sales to be more important than plopping a dirty great subscription box in front of your subscribers, and this is when you're selling a high ticket item. I'm talking $250 upwards, because to be honest, if you're selling something at this price, the people seeing the product should already have you on their trusted list, and you should already have them on one of your lists or as part as your resources, whether it be your affiliates, customers, long term customers, your mailing list or even your joint venture prospects.

Ï Moving on from this, and developing the non profit resource building ideas, there's another way to look at this too, the first of two being to sacrifice a profit for resource building. Now ideally, you'll want to build all your resources at the same time. However when this is not possible, through a specific circumstance joint venture for example, if you get the choice of sales over resources, don't do it, resources over sales every time, unless you've set out to sell a high ticket item or you already have an established resource base.

Ï Joint ventures: This is where a lot of your powerful resources will come from. Customers that are pre-qualified, targeted, have bought or promoted in the past. The best buyers, the best affiliates, they're all already out there on marketers private lists. Scored a JV with a good list owner? Nice job. You better make sure you're gather them as leads over sales, because you may not get another chance to sink your teeth into this valuable gold mine.

Ï Don't feel lost just because you've been given a choice. You're not losing out by using any one of them. They're all as effective as each other at fulfilling their roles.