Month: October 2013

Business owners today need to have an active list of subscribers. This could be a newsletter list, a buyer’s list or a general interest list that is related to your business in some way.
Creating a list isn’t that difficult to do. All you need is a couple of basic tools and you are ready to go. Let’s take a look at the basics:

Autoresponder – there are several companies that offer an autoresponder service. The most popular ones are Aweber, Get Response, iContact and Mail Chimp. It is recommended that you go with a paid service otherwise you may find that the company sends out promotions along with your emails. This can really tick off your subscribers plus it doesn’t look professional. You can get started with a service for a basic account for under $20 a month, some even have low cost monthly trials.

Actually that is all you need to start list building unless you don’t have a website or blog set up! Using a reliable service will ensure that your emails get delivered and you now have one central portal where you can manage your emails from.

Once inside your account you will find that creating a list and an opt-in form is relatively easy. This will differ depending upon which service you chose. Just follow their instructions and if you run into any difficulty use their help or support function.

Your next step is to place your form onto your website. Again this is easy to do if you have a wordpress site. You simply take the code and place it inside a text widget in your side bar. You can also have your form displayed at the end of each of your blog posts as well. This just makes it so easy for people to sign up, especially if they just enjoyed your post. All they have to do is read, enjoy and give you their email address.

A good way to entice people to part with their email address is to give them something in return. This could a free book or report, access to a private video or a free coupon or even a 20 minute consultation.
This really covers the very basics of getting started with building a list. Getting an opt-in form on your website is a great start. From there, as you learn more about list building, you can improve your techniques.

So just how do you get people to join your mailing list? This is such an important question for many new marketers. Today the face of marketing is changing and people are using social media sites for almost everything.

People use Facebook and Twitter to update their day with what they are doing and how they are feeling. So if people are spending so much time on these sites it makes sense for you to take advantage of this.

If you don’t currently use social media that much for your business you need to improve this. This isn’t hard to do and all you have to do is starting posting about what you are doing each day. This includes linking to blog posts you write or about a new discount you are offering. Even sharing things you like outside of your business is a good idea.
Let’s see how you can put using social sites together with building your list. Well, first you can post a link to your squeeze page on your wall or page. Plus you can leave informative posts about what you are offering.

Offering people access to a private group is often a great way to entice people onto your list. Of course you will want to offer them valuable information that you don’t give out to other people. You are offering them something special so make sure you keep to your word.

Adding new subscribers to your list doesn’t always happen overnight and you may need to spend time letting people get to know you first. Then when they are comfortable with you they will be ready to join your list.

If you enjoy using images and graphics don’t forget about including sites like Pinterest into your list building efforts. You can create a photo contest and run it via Pinterest, just have everyone post to a specific board. They will need to subscribe to your list in order to find out who the winner is.

Facebook provides you with the opportunity to run surveys and polls so why not take advantage of this? Ask questions and actively ask people to Like and Share your poll. This way you can potentially reach more people who are interested in what you have to offer.
Get into the habit of becoming a regular user of your social accounts and you will discover ways to build your list and to keep them entertained and happy.