Ask any experienced online marketer, and they will tell you that the most important thing you can ever do when you are building an online business is to create lists that you are able to send out content to. It doesn’t matter what niche you are targeting, you need to have a list of people that content to.

Build a list, build a list…the money is in the list…you need to have a list of hungry buyers.

But WHY?

Today I am starting a series of posts on list building. In the coming posts I will be covering topics such as WHY you need to build a list, a few of the different methods HOW you can go about this and then into some of the various techniques you can use to be successful in your list building efforts.

So, let’s dig in:

In the beginning, every name on any list you build will be a potential customer. Once you know how to ‘work’ that mailing list properly, you will quickly start to turn some of those potentials into customers.

No matter what kind of online business you are running, it is important to understand that there is a huge difference between making money online and building your business.

For example, there are thousands of people who decide that they want to make some money online. They begin their ‘Internet Marketing’ journey without a product, without software, or without some sort of service of their own to offer to potential customers.

Consequently, they start their business doing something like promoting products as an affiliate marketer or by featuring paid advertising on a webpage.

In both of these situations, this person might be making some money but they are not building their business. At the very heart of the business building concept is the ability to coerce information from the people who visit your website.

In this case, the specific action that you need to ask them to take is to provide their email address and their name. You in turn need to provide something of value to them in exchange for this, whether it be an ebook or a piece of software or a collection of graphics. Whatever that ‘ethical bribe’ is, having them take this action and confirming their email address will add them to that particular mailing list.

Doing this gives you permission to send them additional information in the future.

When people chose to subscribe to your list, they make a small commitment to your business. However, at this point, they have not made the most important commitment, spending money with you.

By using the tactics and strategies that you’ll read in ‘List Building From Scratch’ and by coming back here and reading the content that I provide in these posts, you will be able to convince some of your prospects to spend money with you, and when they do so, they become your customer.

Isn’t that what we all really want?

The commitment that they have now shown to your business is far greater and more important, for several reasons.

Firstly, they have demonstrated that they trust you and are happy to do business with you. This is important because every business person (whether operating online or offline) wants to build a list of loyal customers to whom they can sell products and services on a regular basis.

By becoming a customer, that person has indicated that they are willing to pay you for more valuable content. That content is either offered through your messages that are loaded into your autoresponder and trickled to them at specific intervals or through blog posts like this.

Alright, so we have some basics of ‘why’ you need to not only have a list of people that you can mail out to, next time  I will ‘how’ you are going to start getting these people on to your list.

Til then, check out ‘List Building From Scratch’, you’ll have a better handle on what I will be covering…

One of the easiest to implement yet most overlooked ways to get the subscribers of your newsletter, or your customers, to warm up to you and feel like you value them and want to help them is to ask them simple questions.

Everybody’s favorite subject is himself or herself so why not show some interest?

Ask questions and do things that require some sort of interaction from your readers. It doesn’t really matter what you ask. You can ask questions that are completely unrelated to what your newsletter is about so long as you get people to respond.

When you get them used to doing things you ask them to do, no matter what it is, it’s easy for them to keep doing things you ask them to do like buy the products you recommend.
The more you can get your readers to communicate with you, the more they will feel like they know and can trust you.

A relationship (as far as an online newsletter or email course goes) is nothing more than two people (you and each individual subscriber) knowing what their place is in relation to each other.

You are the provider of helpful information and someone who wants to help your reader succeed at something.

You must get that across.

Your reader is someone who will learn to trust your advice and listen to your recommendations because you have built up a history of doing things that seem to benefit them more than they seem to benefit you. That doesn’t necessarily have to be true, as long as it seems like it’s the truth to your readers.

Remember, perception (or what people believe) is the only truth that really matters as far as they’re concerned.

As attractive and inviting as this website looks, it’s just one of millions of pages/sites on the internet and just like email messages, can be a very impersonal place, unless you make it otherwise.

What it boils down to is: The Internet is a cold and distant place. It’s just a series of tubes where people dump text and images (or at least that is what you would get out of this video)

That’s actually to your advantage because if you can consistently get across to your readers that you are a real person with real concerns (just like them) and you know what it’s like for them to be in the situation they’re in because you’ve been there, you won’t have any trouble getting people to warm up to you.

People in general tend to like others who look out for them because people (again, in general) think about themselves first. If it seems like another person is looking out for them first then that person will automatically take a high position in their eyes.

In other words, when you’re writing, not every link in it has to be an affiliate link for a product you’ll get paid from.

Understand this…

Your readers are buying products and services all the time that aren’t putting money in your pockets so it doesn’t hurt you at all to tell them about a product or service that you won’t make money from.

This sets you up to make money when you do have something to recommend that will put a commission check in your pockets.

To set yourself up to make money you have to give, give, give and then give some more. Now it’s important to note that you don’t have to give everything away.

Giving (as I’m using the term) means to give of yourself. Share stories with your readers, point them to helpful resources and let them know about things they probably haven’t found on their own.

In other words, offer your guidance. That’s what they signed up to your mailing list for. Not for a bunch of ads they can find on their own.

Are you publishing your own newsletter? Are you stumped for content? No worries, my friend Doug Champigny has the solution for you. Newsletter in a Box is the perfect solution for you. There is over a year’s worth of content for your newsletter, article submissions, or create your own info product from the content! It’s a GREAT resource!

Looking for more ‘Inside Information’ like this, subscribe to my K.A.R. Newsletter (Knowledge, Application, Results) and receive a few unadvertised bonuses for signing up. You can sign up in the upper right hand corner of the page.

Stay tuned for Part II – Guys…you also stay tuned…I will be launching a new website later today that you will be VERY interested in…I guarantee it!

Until next time,

Here’s to YOUR Successes,

Ron

You’re probably wondering what the heck that headline means…well, let me explain…

The past two evenings I had the opportunity to attend a Men’s event at the church that I belong to…the event was titled Ribs & Blues and the basic concept was to get a large group of guys together for a nice dinner (they catered in Famous Daves..mmMMmm ) and then listen to some Blues music performed by one of the worship leaders of the church and ‘his’ band.

Both nights were outstanding. The ribs were excellent and I got to listen to one of my favorite performers, Steve Duede. You can check him and his band out here. Check out the YouTube video of Noah, the harmonica player….he’s not bad.

Last night, during a break between songs, he made mention of the performance the night before and how that was just a ‘rehearsal’ for last night’s gig. He was right…the Sunday night gig was good, but not as good as last nights. They played for nearly 20 minutes longer than they did the night before and they did a lot more improv during the show.

But his comment got me thinking about the Information Marketing biz and how we do things.

In the beginning, we fumble around trying different things. Some may work, some may fail. But it’s sort of like a rehearsal. You’re practicing to get things to work without much effort.

Once you figure out what works you can refine it and repeat it. Rinse, Repeat. Rinse, Repeat.

Having things on autopilot. Isn’t that our goal in the Information marketing business?

Speaking of rinsing and repeating, one of the most important things you can do as an Information Marketer is to refine your email marketing and list building skills.

I have come across a set of video tutorials recently that will knock your socks off.

Are your emails pulling in $300-500 each time you send one out?

If they aren’t, you definitely need to look at the Responsive Email Marketing Video Tutorials!

This is a simple secret that most beginning email marketers miss. So they waste their time trying to grow their list bigger and bigger – thinking it’s the only way to increase their sales.

But the truth is, you can much more easily double your sales by writing a more responsive email rather than trying to double your number of subscribers.

Find out more here.

Now…to be honest, I ate way too many ribs the past couple of days, so I need to go take it easy for a while…

Til next time,

Here’s to YOUR Successes

Ron