Creating Email Marketing List
Creating an email marketing list can be one of the easiest and most profitable things that you do in your business. Did I say easy? Yes, I said easy. Building a huge, profitable list isnt nearly as hard as you may think it is. There are many resources to help you build an email list.
Of course, you start with your own website. Make sure that there is a subscribe box on every single page of your website. When you create thank you pages that people are redirected to after placing an order, or registering for your website, make sure that you invite them to subscribe to your ezine or newsletter. You will need to publish an email ezine or newsletter every so often, and offer your subscribers valuable information, but publishing an email newsletter isnt hard at all but can be time consuming and somewhat tedious. I have found a great new service that cuts my time writing, formatting and editing my newsletters down to minutes rather than hours. It is called Infogoround and they offer a Newsletter Generator in their members only site. By the way, their main product is private label articles, written by others that you can use as if you wrote them yourself...another great time saver!
When you place your subscribe box on your website pages, make sure that it is visible as soon as the page loads. Strongly consider using either fly-in ads for your pages, pop-unders, or pop on exit scripts as well. Avoid using pop-up ads, because most people block those these days. Fly in ads work best. Simply put your subscribe box, or a link to your subscribe page in the fly-in ad, and let it work its magic when someone visits your site.
Keep in mind that people do not want to be on a list just so that you can send them advertisements. They want something of value in exchange for their email address. Again, publish an email newsletter, and keep them happy with that. Now that you have something to offer in exchange for email addresses, go to all of the ezine directories that you can find, and list your ezine in those directories. You can find the directories by doing a search in Google for ezine directories.
Publish your ezine on your website, and include a subscribe box there as well. Make sure that you list the pages that contain your ezine in the search engines. Furthermore, in each issue of your ezine, ask your subscribers to forward it to a friend who might be interested, and include subscribe instructions in the text of the ezine as well.
Write a signature file that includes subscribe information for your ezine in it. Use your signature file when sending email, posting to newsgroups, posting to email discussion lists, and when posting in forums. Make it a point to make posts in forums that are related to the topic of your website or ezine. This will not only increase your website traffic, but it will also increase your subscriber base. Post to forums that target newbies, or those looking to get started in developing a web business.
Exchange advertisements with other list owners. This is a great way to build an email list. They will run your ad, which focuses on getting new subscribers, and you run their ad, which should be similar. This doesnt cost either party any money, and it is usually a win-win situation.
A good place to buy ezine ads is Ezine Ad Auction. They list ezines with discounted ad rates, some very substantial savings. Go to www.ezineadauction.com and tell Merle I sent you :o)
Write fresh content for your ezine, and after youve published the issue that contains that content, submit it to the article sites. You can find the article sites through Google, by searching for the keywords article submission. Be sure to write and include an authors resource box, which should contain information about your website and your ezine along with the subscribe address. Also send your articles to other ezine publishers, in hopes that they will publish your articles, with the authors resource box. If you don't have the time or desire to go to each article submission site, open an account, read their terms of service, copy/paste your article, bio, and keywords, I highly recommend Article Marketer. I have tried them all and this is the best of the best. They send your articles automatically to 1,000's of ezine directories, article directories and other article sites.
Finally, consider using a list building service. This is the absolute fastest way to build your email list. It does cost money typically twenty cents per subscriber but this is money well spent! There are many great list building services out there. One of the better ones is List Opt at http://www.listopt.com .
