Month: October 2013

With so many marketers trying to build a list website visitors are now inundated with opt-in forms and squeeze pages galore. While this method still works extremely well you may need to get a little creative so that people will part with their email address.

One way to attract attention is by offering a survey or a poll on your page. This could also be done on Facebook as well. All you do is ask a couple of questions and make the last one a request for an email address for a gift.

The gift is then perceived as a ‘thank you’ gift and the person readily parts with their email, no questions asked.

Use the same thing with the poll. Who doesn’t love to offer their opinion on something? At the end use the thank you gift to get their email address.

When using this method always make sure that your free gift is related to your business. Otherwise once you start sending out emails on a totally different topic your subscribers are going to quickly leave your list.

There are various tools available for creating and running surveys and polls. Just do a search online for the most popular ones. Some of these tools will have both free and paid options. For list building purposes a free tool will be just fine.

Your main purpose for running your survey is to get people onto your list. So you don’t need to ask too many questions, enough so that when you suggest giving them a gift they think it is a good idea.

At the same time you could use the survey as a research tool as well. You could find out just what problems your readers are having and what their likes and dislikes are. This provides you with valuable information that you can use in your business, such as new products or training ideas.

Another add on to this is to run a contest and offer a great prize. Once people have filled out their ballot you then get them to share it with their friends. This provides you with the ability to target even more people.

Contests can be run on various social sites making it easy for people to share. Just make sure you read any rules regarding running a contest first. You don’t want to overstep boundaries and risk losing your account.

If used correctly using Giveaway events can be a great way to build your list. There are two different ways to do this. First you can join a Giveaway event that is being hosted by someone else. Two you can create your own event.

The advantage of the first one is that you don’t have to set up the event and find people to contribute. Plus all you have to worry about is running your own promotions. This can get you great exposure but you may also be competing with a 100 other marketers vying for subscribers.

When searching for ongoing events look for ones that relate to your business and your niche. Some are very general while others may be more specific. For example if you are in the health industry then you want to look for these types of Giveaway as opposed to ones target for online marketers.

Running your own Giveaway may take up more of your time but the rewards may be higher. If you get together will other people in your niche and limit the number of people offering products you could see a better opt-in rate.

If you offer business coaching then you want to get together with 8 or 10 other coaches and give away a product or video during the event. Each person is responsible for creating their own gift and their download page. All you need to put together is the main page which contains a list of all the offers.
Everyone agrees to promote the Giveaway to their lists, on their website and on their social sites and inside any forums they belong to. The benefits of doing this are that you are reaching more targeted subscribers.

You will get people on your list who are immediately interested in what you have to offer. They will be open to receive more emails from you and they are more likely to stay on your list for a longer period of time.

With more general giveaways you will attract a large number of freebie seekers who are interested in nothing but getting something for free. They will join your list and unsubscribe almost immediately. Don’t worry if this happens as these are not the kind of subscribers you want.

Why not get together with some other marketers and try a Giveaway Event? Iit may very well bring you more subscribers than you anticipated.

Once you have your first list in place it is time to start sending out emails to your subscribers. It is important to stay in touch on a regular basis so that they don’t forget who you are.

There are a couple of different ways you can send out emails to your list. The first one is by creating a Follow up Sequence. These are pre-written emails that you load into your autoresponder service and schedule them to go out at certain intervals.

Most people recommend that you have a minimum of seven email messages scheduled. These don’t have to be that long and the first one should be sent as soon as the person opts into your list. Just thank them for joining your list or newsletter and tell them a little about who you are. This is also a good time to let them know how often you are going to email them.

By telling them in advance that you are going to be mailing several times a week or once per month, the person will expect to see your email in their inbox. If you say nothing and bombard them with daily emails you will get a large number of unsubscribes.

Another type of email message is called a Broadcast. These are used when you have a special announcement to make to your list. This could be when you are releasing a new product or you found a great deal on something of interest.

Broadcast messages can be used in addition to your follow up emails. Many marketers will send broadcasts out after the initial seven emails. The advantage of sending a broadcast is that you can send it to more than one list and you can schedule it to go out.

The last type of email message is called a Blog Post email. This is simply, as its name suggests a notice to your list that you have just published a new blog post. Your subscribers can read the post inside their email or click on the link and go to your actual blog.

Here’s a quick recap of the different types of email messages:

• Follow Up Sequence – great for engaging new subscribers and allowing them to get to know you. It is recommended that you create seven messages.
• Broadcast Message – useful for announcements and special offers
• Blog Post – use to engage your list and let them know you just added new content to your blog

Use these tips to get started on the right track and keep your list engaged and happy with your content.