
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.
I strongly recommend start building your list
today. Do not rely on one time traffic to your website. Develop a
relationship with your subscribers. You will be able to reap the benefits
both in money and customer loyalty for years to come.
Check out Getrespose and
their tutorials. Very informative.
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