The Email List Building Bible

How To Build & Run A Successful Opt-In List
Brought To You By Matt Poc
http://MattPoc.com/paidproductforfree.html
Table Of Contents

Chapter Name 1. The Role Of Building Lists In Internet Marketing A. Introduction
B. Lists – The Online Marketer’s Treasure C. Why Have A Growing List?

2. What You Need To Build Lists
A. A Website
B. Autoresponder
C. Ways To Bring Traffic To Your Site
D. Relevant Content

3. Kinds Of Lists
A. Opt In Lists
B. How Does An Opt In List Differ From An Ezine C. Double Optin Lists
D. Opt Out Lists

4. How Do You Build A List?
A. Autoresponders
B. Ebooks
C. Ezines
D. Articles
E. Blogs
F. Ecourses
G. Squeeze Pages
H. Free Reports

I. Free Classified Ads
J. Gifts
K. Coupons
L. Contests
M. Trade And Exchange Ads
N. Pay Per Subscriber
O. Google Adwords
P. Ezine Advertising
Q. Search Engine Results
R. Co Registration
S. Pop Ups
T. Link Exchanges
U. Joint Ventures
V. Press Releases

W. Getting Mileage From Someone Else’s List
X. Forums

5. Messaging Etiquette
A. Composing Your Message
B. Making Your Message Personal
C. Layout Of The Ezine/Message
D. Listing The Contents
E. Proofreading
F. Check To See If You Are Spamming
G. Can You Use HTML In Your Emails
H. Include A Quote For The Day

I. Original Content
J. Does It Work?
6. A Word About Tracking Your Visitors
7. Be Wary About This
8. Other List Building Tips
9. Importance Of Spam And How To Avoid Being A Spammer

A. How Spam Happens
B. Fighting Spam
C. Don’t Be A Spammer
D. How Can You Avoid Spamming Your Lists?
E. Avoid Opt In List Providers
F. Provide Quality Content

10. Keeping A Clean List
A. Your List Is Your Bottom Line. Respect It
B. Coordinating Within Your Organization To Keep Updated Lists

11. Conclusion

Chapter 1- Introduction
The Role Of Building Lists In Internet Marketing

Introduction
One of the most important things in an Internet Marketing business is a list of contacts. Just as in any other business, online businesses also need to build relationships with their customers. Subscribers are the contacts on your lists that are the most valuable asset of your online business. Therefore, list building leads to building relationships, which in turn encourages prospects to visit your website, sign up and get closer to buying your offer. But people are not just going to flock to a website and leave their contact information! To attract them, they must perceive some value. The first thing they are going to think about is how they will benefit from giving you their contact details. That’s why every business that does online marketing must build its own lists, targeted at specific prospects. It is time consuming. You have to work really hard. But in the end, you will directly enjoy the fruits of your efforts.

Lists – The Online Marketer’s Treasure
Everyone talks about his or her ‘optin’ lists. It’s their treasure. They are always looking for new and innovative ways to build their lists to keep visitors coming to their sites continuously. They offer various things to the prospective customer like free reports, ebooks, software, memberships, services etc. just to get their email address and other identifiable information. It is essential to keep following up with people who might be interested in what you are offering. Only when you have a growing list can you facilitate your users to visit your site. It grabs their attention and takes them to those areas of the site that are of particular value to them.

Why Have A Growing List?
Is it not sufficient to have a few hundred contacts? In online marketing, not every visitor buys from the site he or she is visiting. Sure you may have built a huge database of contacts, but unless each one is a qualified contact, there is no guarantee that they will take any purchase-related action when they visit. Even in the offline world, you usually cannot get a buying decision out of your prospect right away – it takes not less than 5 visits unless they are desperately in need. Again, if you deal with more than one product, different visitors may be interested in different products. That is why you have to get your visitor’s email id and name as they browse through your site. This will let you plan a frequency at which you can remind them and keep them updated about current offers to keep the sales coming in. You must use ethical methods to build your lists. The worst thing in Internet marketing is acquiring a bad reputation, because that will ensure that you can never do business again.

Chapter 2
What You Need To Build Lists

The people on your list are your target customers. You must convert them into a base that looks forward to what you want to tell them.
You yourself must be easily reachable. When you do this, people slowly begin to have faith in you. When you communicate with your contacts, you must sound approachable and friendly rather than seriously formal.

Let us talk about the basic things you need before you actually experiment with different methods of building lists and stick to the ones that work most profitably for your particular line of activity.

A Website
The first thing you must set up is your website, so that your contacts have a place to come to and find you. They also need a place where they can securely leave their email and name. You must ensure that they do not have any difficulty in the process. Not only that, you want to give them something of value to remember. Your website is practically your main point of contact with your users. So make sure you build a site that is good to look at. That does not mean graphics rich and jazzy, but something that is designed to be professional and effective. It must attract your users enough for them to want to browse around and check out what you have for them. Use pleasant colors and relevant images, a good layout and useful information.

Your site must provide crisp content. Write it in such a way that it draws their attention – like a magnetic headline, bulleted points, etc. On top of everything else, it should endorse your own image.
Do it in a way that is unique and memorable for your visitor. They are only going to be there for seconds before they move on to browse elsewhere. It must have something special for your prospect to remember and come back. The number of sites on the Internet is growing rapidly and it is up to you to make yours look special.

A point to bear in mind here is that even after you’ve drawn the visitor to your site, there is no fixed rule that says they must purchase from you the first time they go by your site. Which means we must make sure there is some way by which they can leave their contact information behind before they go? You do need to remind them and follow up, don’t you? You can do this by asking them to sign up in exchange for something valuable to them – like a free download or newsletter. In this manner, your list continues to build. You must find a way to follow up with these contacts to that they become your customers.

Autoresponder
The next thing is your autoresponder. (We will talk about this more in detail in a subsequent section). Subscribe to one that suits your needs best. These are a wonderful way to automate your follow up, when you have to keep in touch with your customers regularly. You might find it easy to keep in touch with, say 200 or 300 people, but when the list runs to thousands, just imagine the amount of time you’ll spend, time that you can devote to more creative activities. Instead, a good Auto responder can help you tremendously in keeping up with your reminding and emailing.

Ways To Bring Traffic To Your Site
Coming to the main purpose of this ebook – unless you bring traffic to your site, how will you build lists? Right. But bear in mind that your traffic must be relevant to your requirement. In Internet marketing, the pay per click advertising campaign method is effective. What you really need to take care about is the keywords you use; they must especially relate to your unique product. Also, writing articles about topics related to your business and posting them on online directories can bring in traffic. You can tie up with an allied business so that together you can offer a range of services and mutually benefit while building those lists.

Relevant Content
It follows from the above that you must be attentive to what you write in your emails. You users will look for information that is useful and relevant to them. If you don’t send them messages that are meaningful, they will cease to read them. On top of that, they will unsubscribe. So make sure you provide value, because it will be a worthwhile investment. And, though it seems obvious, each contact must be able to sign up with you easily. Which means, every official communication that goes out of your office, whether online or snail mail, must contain your web URL, and encourage them to get on your list.

You must remember that it is not just for size that you are growing your list. Why you are doing it is so you can convert it into business. You can start with a strong small list and build it as you go along.

If you haven’t already decided what you are going to offer and to whom you are going to sell it – your product and your target market- do it now. Pick something you are interested in and get familiar with it. Some people even select products sold by others, and when they become confident, choose something similar and market it.

Kinds Of Lists

Obviously the best list you can maintain for your email marketing is the one you build from your own customers and visitors who browse your website. But it is not enough to only have a list of those you know. You also want to bring in new customers all the time. Lets talk about different kinds of lists in online marketing.

Opt In lists
An opt-in list is your list of subscribers who opted to receive your email, ezine, newsletter or whatever you offered when they signed up. It means they have allowed you to contact them via email. Here, a targeted opt in list would be a list of users who have been qualified for your specific market. Your subscriber becomes a part of your email list.

How Does An Opt-In List Differ From An Ezine?
Opt in lists are informal and brief. They are full of tips, etc. and have limited period offers. Invariably opt in lists are mailed when something new is to be introduced or to tell its users that a particular offer is available only for the next 48 hours, or something like that. Ezines, on the other hand, are formal. These carry articles and other hints. The periodicity of Ezines can be anything from a daily to once in two weeks or once a month. Actually if you really look at it, you’ll find that both opt in lists and Ezines are quite integrated. Ezines have opt in lists built into them, in the sense that along with their usual features, they include a section where they announce a new product launch, perhaps offering it to their subscribers at a special price or as a free download in the next 24 hours.

Double Optin Lists
Double opt in is when your subscriber opts in two times. How? First on the website when he/she click and confirm their subscription after giving their email id and name. After this they click on the link sent to them at the email address which they signed up with to confirm their subscription. So it means not only opting to be on the list, but also confirming it by verifying their email ids.

Opt Out Lists
Opt out is when your subscriber asks for his/her email address to be deleted from your list when they no longer want to receive messages from you. They can do this through the “unsubscribe” link that you include in your emails to them. But did you know that some online marketers provide their users an unsubscribe link that does not work. When the user clicks the link, it sometimes goes into the wrong hands adding the user to some spammer’s list under the assumption that the email address is being validated.

These days, reputed companies make sure that they only send email to subscribers when they permit them to. By sending email to those who opted not to receive them will only end up irritating the user and mess up the credibility of the online business. Why lose all the effort you put in by simply not respecting your customer?

How Do You Build A List?

There are numerous ways in which you can build a credible list. More are evolving through the experience of innovative online marketers all the time. We have discussed the most widely used methods in this ebook and how they can work for you. Almost all of them are simple to get in place to get you going on your path to profit.

Auto Responders

The online marketing business wouldn’t be where it is today without autoresponders. It saves a tremendous amount of time by completely automating the process of communicating with your subscribers. An autoresponder uses software that can be programmed according to your requirements. Once you set the parameters of how you want things done, it just follows instructions. You can be as creative as you want. You don’t even have to make a major investment on one these days – several sites offer them for free.

Why Is An Auto Responder So Important?
Autoresponders save time and time is money while building your lists. If you send promotional emails from your ISP, you will be reported as a spammer. The next thing you know, you might have to close shop. Autoresponders can be exclusively used to send these routine follow up emails to the thousands of contacts on the list. You can plan and keep your emails ready, and set the autoresponder to send it at the specific intervals you want. It can keep track of subscribers signing in and even respond to let them know they have been signed in. Practically every single routine emailing activity can be handled by the autoresponder, which is why no online marketing can do without it.

How It Works
You can use a follow up autoresponder that can keep the follow up work ongoing with your contacts. No subscriber is going to worry about when your next email is coming, and you certainly cannot expect them to remember your particular message among the hundreds they must be getting on a daily basis. That’s where an autoresponder comes in. To keep your business information alive in the subscriber’s mind.

Program It And It Does The Rest
You only have to keep your messages ready, decide on a sending schedule and your autoresponder takes care of the rest for as long as you have set it. This will mean that you can concentrate on other equally important issues while your sales keep coming in, thanks to your autoresponder’s faithful follow up. In fact, it even lets you go on holiday while it keeps your office practically running!. Your autoresponder can help you send out useful information to your contacts. Instead of using the same: dear subscriber: for all your contacts, you can make your autoresponder address each contact by name and send the email. It is always nicer to receive an email addressed to us personally than get the feeling that we are one in a massive group of recipients. The autoresponder can even be programmed to wish your contacts “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings”

List Tracking
It can track your lists. This means you can make carefully thought out offers to your target audience. They just want to know what is in it for them. So you can structure your message accordingly so that it appeals to them. Experienced online marketers recommend that it is better to use autoresponders that give you an update about contact statistics. This can be split into month/week/day to tell you which of your leads are active and which ones have opted out, helping you in healthy list maintenance.

Keeping In Touch
Autoresponders help you in keeping in touch with your subscribers, giving them relevant information about your business, say, when you get fresh stocks or if you are planning a discount sale. Or you can even make your new subscribers some kind of special offer. This will keep your contact list alive and help you turn them into continuous sales!

You can also get your autoresponder to get activated when a contact signs up at your website. After they write their name and email address, when they send the information, it goes to the autoresponder URL that will send an acknowledgement right away.

Factors To Consider While Buying An Autoresponder
When you decide to use an autoresponder, you want to ensure that it is the one best suited to your needs in terms of performance, customer support, features and cost. These parameters must be balanced and convince you that it is the right one for you.

In terms of performance, the main thing to consider while getting an autoresponder is delivery of email. The higher the ability to deliver emails, the better. The provider of the autoresponder must support you with prompt customer service that knows what it is talking about. Just imagine getting stuck half way through your campaign! So look for one that is accessible easily and responds quickly.

Features are only as useful as you find them for your business. It is possible that you may not use all the features your autoresponder provides. But you can have it working efficiently for you when you are clear about what you want and set it accordingly. Next, you want to check that what you are paying to use your autoresponder does not cut into your profits. After all, you are trying to find ways to build your lists, not incur losses. So check what it will cost you in service, set up, monthly expenditure and other costs that may not have been mentioned. There is no use getting an autoresponder that you can’t afford.

Sequential Auto responders
Technology is advancing all the time to make the online marketer’s life easier. Many online business use what are called sequential autoresponders. These collect and save the names and email addresses of your contacts. This enables it to continue to send messages in sequential intervals, set by you, to your potential contacts. It can also take attached documents.

To summarize, your autoresponder can help you build massive lists depending on what you use it for. It helps in building an impression of your reliability, makes your customers have more faith in you and keeps them thinking about you. This will lead to more profits through frequent sales.

E-books

A lot of online marketers have tested and tried this strategy to build their lists. The main thing here is to make a good ebook that the user will want to get for free. This is usually offered as a sign up bonus – when the customer leaves his email id and name. As a next step, the user is taken to the website URL to download the ebook from there.

In fact, these days you need not even go through the trouble of writing your own ebook. You can outsource it to writers who then give you the full resale rights of the book. After you get your ebook ready, ensure that you add your optin page or autoresponder URL to every page of the ebook, to help the user find you right away.

You can make an ebook that runs to several pages or just a few, there’s no standard length. People like to receive free ebooks, particularly if they are interested in the information it contains. Ebooks are inexpensive to give away because you don’t have to maintain physical stocks since they are in the digital format. You can send them to your users through your autoresponder, so delivery is quick. You don’t incur shipping charges. What’s more, you can give away as many copies as you like.

Ebooks can be given away for free as an incentive to sign up with you, or you could also charge a nominal fee and give away the reprint rights to your subscribers. They, for their part can also give it away for free and make money by doing this. But these tend to be hot for a while and then the excitement wears down. The trick is to keep writing new ebooks all the time to keep your audience eager. You aim here is to increase your list size with more subscribers. By increasing the number of links pointing to your own website, you can also rank high with the search engines.

Ways In Which You Can Use The E book To Build Your Lists: You can use your ebook to build your lists in different ways. Many people enjoy receiving relevant information that they are interested in. An ebook given away free draws the visitor to your website. Ebooks can be used in the following manner:

• Offer the complete ebook in return for referral email ids or testimonials, which you can use.
• Writing your own ebook makes you look like a specialist or professional in your field, and builds credibility.
• You can post your ebook on various free websites, which will ensure an increase in the number of downloads.
• Some marketers offer just the first two chapters of the ebook, giving the visitor the choice to buy the full ebook.
• Make your ebook work for you to build your lists by making it a limited offer for that particular topic. You can inform your visitor this ebook will only be available for the next 24 hours for free download, encouraging them to take advantage of the offer right away by signing up with their email id and name.

E zines

Ezines are not only useful as great list builders, but are an inexpensive and efficient way to keep in touch with your subscribers and interact with them. You can keep them updated with what is happening in your organization, telling them about new product launches and other innovations you have introduced. Not only that, it’s a good publicity tool for your website. Ezines help in following up with the customer on an ongoing basis. Through its content, the subscriber is encouraged to visit your website often. People don’t take action on a single message. They need to be reminded constantly before they can consider buying your product. Ensure that you have an online version of your ezine on your website. This will help it to be indexed by the search engines and bring lots of visitors to your site. In each issue of your ezine, use keywords related to your business because gradually your ezine pages will get into the search engines.

Theme Based Ezine
When you plan your ezine, decide on a specific theme that suits your market, and the kind of people you want signing up with you to buy your products. This will enhance the type of list you want to build. You want the people who opt to receive your newsletter to read them and recommend them to others, who will also build your list by subscribing to your ezine. Initially it is better to just have an easy sign up box where your visitor needs to only fill in email id. Some people tend to think that online marketers are always looking to get personal information. You don’t want to put them off. Your subscribe link must appear on every page of your website, preferably at the top left hand corner as everyone tends to look there first. Remember to mention what you are offering for free near all the links.

Exchanging Ads With Other Ezines
You can use your ezine to expand your lists by putting an ad for it in other ezines and websites, preferably related businesses that are non-competitive. Here also, remember to include information about your freebie. You can in turn carry ads for those websites/ezines and divert traffic toward each other and benefit mutually. The more web partners you have, the more busy the traffic will be on your website.

And by the way, you can use free content on your ezine as well if you cannot write your own. The biggest advantage of an ezine is that you will make people get used to seeing communication from you at frequent intervals. Your ezine can carry special offers without the risk of spamming.

Over a period of time, you can skim through your old ezines, make ebooks out of similar content, and use these as free gifts. We all intend to save some of the information we receive but never really get around to it, what with the volume we receive. So this will be a nice little idea to use. You must make sure you write/use good stuff in the ezines; otherwise no one will bother to read it.
Every email you send out must have your registration/subscription link. Add a registration button or link to all e-mail correspondence. Also have a “if you liked this, recommend it to a friend” kind of link in every ezine. That helps in spreading the word about your products ethically.

Interacting With Your Prospects Through Your Ezine
The reason why your prospects signed up for your ezine is because you said that you would give them information they can use. It is important to stick to this promise over and over again to maintain this list. Make sure you provide the content you promised. They must look forward to your next ezine. Let the tone of your ezine be informative, instead of as a tool to increase sales. This will give it a sort of consultative approach and build good relationships with your list. So how can you use your ezine to interact with your prospects? Read on…

• Ask questions in your ezine. Request your subscribers to answer the question from a choice of 3 answers, which they can do by clicking a link.
• Encourage feedback from your subscribers; you can provide a link where they can post their feedback and other remarks. Make sure you acknowledge these and maybe even have a small giveaway to those whose feedback is included as a tip in your next ezine. How’s that?
• Invite questions and suggestions from your readers. Ensure that you reply to these in subsequent issues. Ezines give you the image of being an expert, which in turn brings you respect, making you look trustworthy.

With this, I am sure you can come up with some more effective ideas!

Articles

Yet another proven method to build substantial lists is by writing keyword rich articles, pertaining to your line of business. This can work whether you post them on your own website or in other big article sites and directories. These article directories and other site owners look for content they can share with their readers. These sites get continuous targeted traffic from people, who are looking for different kinds of information, and when you post there – it is almost guaranteed that your article will come up in the search results if it is related to the search. When you include your opt in URL at the end of every article you post, this ensures more visitors to your site. A brief message with your URL will also trigger your reader’s interest, making them want to visit your site for more, putting them in a receptive mood to sign up with your list.

Let other ezines and sites reprint your articles, insisting that they can do so as long as they keep the links to your site. You can keep track of these users so that you can continue to send them subsequent issues. You can also ask them to send you an email asking for your permission to use your material. This makes more validated contacts.