Internet | Online Income-Streams
The Importance of List Building
You may have heard over and over again " The money is in the list!" What does this actually mean?
It means you have a better chance of selling to someone if you can reach them a second or third time. The list is simply a list of names and email addresses of people that wish more information about your topic.
It is the best way and easiest way to keep up a dialogue with your potential customers. Combine your list with an autoresponder and you have a very powerful tool.
An auto responder is simply a service that you can preload with messages. The service I use and have been completly satisfied with is Getresponse. These messages are sent out to your subscriber on predetermined schedule after their joining. The messages can be informational, or sales oriented. I recommend a mix of both. Ideally I would say 60% to 70% informational content to 30% sales pitch.
This gives your customer the good feeling that they are getting more information than just sales pitch.
With an autoresponder you can also send a broadcast to all the people on your list. This may be to update them about current information or possibly to let them know about an upcoming sale item, or a piece of news that they should be made aware of.
I have read in several places that statisically you can expect roughly $1.00 per month per subscriber on your list. In my general observations this is about right. Of course this depends on your niche, products, messages etc. etc. A lot of variables but a good estimate.
So obviously the more people on your list the more people you can reach with your information, the more potential sales.
It is important to treat the people on your list well and not constantly hit them with sales. I am much more likely to look at a product after I have heard other useful information from a person.
There is a term "Burning YourList". Lets suppose you have a good list of people that have bought your product or are interested in your product. If you suddenly hit them with the sale of a poor quality item or many sales. It is like crying wolf. Your creditability gets shot. You may have a huge spike in your sales one time but the respose after that may be horrible. They will be very hesitant to buy from you again.
As I mentioned above the autoresponder and list building service I use is Getresponse. Take a couple of minutes to check them out. They have some very good tutorials. It is easy to use and set up. As you can see at the top right side I have a simple form that people fill out if they want my tips on Internet Marketing. Once they fill it out I can send them bite size chunks of information that they can use in their own business.
I also send information on products that I have found useful. Hopefully people get the information they need and products that help them to create their online business.
If you don't have a list, you must rely on traffic that comes to your website. How many times have you gone to a website found some useful information and left without book marking it. Now there is no way of getting more useful information form that site unless you actually remeber how you got to it in the first place. This is the same with your customers.
Not only do the regular emails keep you in your customers mind but they help you inform them more fully on your particular topic. Don't spam your customers. Everyone hates it, and your sales will not be better for it.
If you are creating a list and sending broadcasts send enough information that you customer can choose whether or not it is of interest to them to goto that web page. Don't just say "Heres a very cool thing I just found. You should check it out" Give a little more background information.
Time is precious for everyone now (computers were suppose to make things easier) so think of your subscribers first. Give them what you would want both in consideration and in content of your emails.
I started my list building with a free autoresponder service. What A Nightmare! I am sure there are some free autoresponder services that could be worth while, but my honest opinion is don't waste your time. Use a paid service. Getresponse is about $18.00 a month. It is a business expense but for the service and the features, and the customer service I have been completly satisfied.
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