As one can easily see by the number of people opting to do business online, the Internet marketing business is booming. From small storefront owners to big corporations, everyone is moving some aspect of their business online to catch the marketing wave. Now let’s take a moment to compare online vs. offline listbuilding and see which one works best.

For the business owner with a physical store location, the normal methods of marketing in the past have included mass mailings, telephone soliciting, and even some resorting to a visit to the local mall to put flyers on the windows of cars. As you can imagine, this takes a lot of time and effort, not to mention the cost of the employees who are actually doing all of the work.

Now let’s think about Internet marketing – building a list and reaching a large audience. You create a website, select your products or services, and drive traffic to this website. Once a visitor is there, you provide them with quality content, products they can use, and an opt-in page to your mailing list. Don’t forget to mention the benefits of becoming a subscriber – a free newsletter, a free DVD, entrance into a drawing, a free e-book – something that they cannot pass up.

Comparing Traditional and Online Listbuilding

If a store owner mailed out information, he or she may already have a list, unless the list was purchased. In that case, someone now has to call all of these people to follow up with them. The people who are interested will probably get put into a system of some sort and their information stored for future reference. If flyers were handed out in stores or door-to-door, there is no way to follow up and you have to hope that people will inquire about your products or services.

Now let’s try this online. Everyone that subscribed to your mailing list had to provide an e-mail address. By setting up a simple auto responder, you can reach your target audience with a quick e-mail. This can be to say hello, send announcements, special offers, sales – anything you choose. You can even set up a series of e-mails to be sent out at a specific time. So for the Internet marketer, once you set up an auto responder, you could be away on vacation and your subscribers can get e-mails on a certain day.

Listbuilding is one of the most powerful ways to market to your customers; it’s how you market to them that determines how difficult or easy the process is. As you can see how much work it takes for an offline business owner to reach their customers, it’s easy to see why everyone is moving their businesses online, even if only for marketing purposes.

The greatest benefit of providing an opt-in box on your website is that you know that the subscribers have at least some interest in what you are selling. Once you have a list, you can start out with small, low-priced products or low-cost services and gradually build up as you build a relationship with them.

Anyone who does not have a list or plans to start building one will definitely be hurting their profit potential.

Anyone doing business online has one goal in mind – to make money. There are a number of ways to do this, and more ways are being created every day. With so much competition in the world of Internet marketing, you now have to be more creative with strategies to win the grand prize – customers. Effective listbuilding on in the Internet is one place to start. Creating a list of subscribers who are interested in your products or services gives you the upper hand over those who are simply promoting.

Benefits of Building a List

The top benefit for building a list is that you have a group of individuals who are already pre-screened, so to speak. If you have a list of people who trust you and like your products, you can send them e-mails when you promote new launches, when you have specials or sales, or when you just want to update them on what’s going on. This is a great way to keep your business fresh in their minds and build a relationship with them.

Another great benefit of building a list is the opportunity to use it as leverage for swapping lists. They say the money is in the list, so if you have a massive list of individuals, you can approach another marketer or business owner and offer them a chance to promote to your list and vice versa. This can also be a great way to start building a name for yourself in your niche.

Getting Them to Subscribe

You can drive all the traffic in the world to your page, but getting them to subscribe is a different story. The easiest way to get people to subscribe is to make them an offer they can’t refuse. “Ten Easy Ways to Do Whatever,” or “Free Report” on your niche – something filled with information that they will find useful.

To get started, you simply need to create a squeeze page so visitors can opt in. It is also best if you offer a double opt-in, which is a confirmation sent to the e-mail address they used to sign up. This eliminates bogus e-mail addresses just to get your free product. Don’t forget your opt-out page, just in case they want to opt-out at some point.

Keeping Them Interested

Once you start building a list, you want to keep your subscribers interested. The one thing that you never want to do is fill their inboxes with useless information. You want to send them quality content on a frequent basis – just enough to keep them interested. “Ten Tips to Make Your Life Easier,” a “Free Newsletter,” things that they don’t mind getting. Remember, just as quickly as they opted in, they could also opt out.

By sending useful information that your subscribers can use, they will look forward to hearing from you and they may even recommend their friends to subscribe. Growing your list does not happen overnight, but it will happen over time.

When building a list through e-mailing it is important to remember that SPAM is the quickest way to get someone to block you, opt-out, or even bad mouth you across the Internet. Effective listbuilding with e-mailing is quite simple and easy to do, and what was once a difficult task—reaching subscribers all at once—has been simplified through e-mail.

It is easier than ever to e-mail promotions, newsletters, sales, special offers, etc. and reach your target audience with a click of the mouse. Now that most e-mails can display HTML code within the body of the e-mail, it is possible to create professional e-mail ads in no time at all. What’s even better is that once you create it, you can save it as a template and revise it for the next advertisement. This works in your favor in two ways:

• You save time designing advertisements.
• You can have a template with your unique touch already at your fingertips.

With the amount of money you can save by doing this yourself, you can invest it into expanding your products or do something nice for yourself.

How To Capture the Email

Now that your plan is in place, all you need are the e-mail addresses. How to do you get these?

We’ve all seen e-mail capture forms or opt-in boxes “Sign-up here…” or “Join My Mailing List…” These are all ways of collecting e-mail addresses. Now you have to do something to get them to sign up, so how about a free gift, free updates, newsletters, etc.? These are all strategies to get someone to opt-in or subscribe to your mailing list. Everyone likes getting something for free, so take advantage of the opportunity as you build your list.

Remember, this doesn’t have to be something of great value; it has to be something that your potential subscribers find useful. Information about your niche is always a great teaser, as are newsletters.

Auto Responder Is A Must

When starting a mailing list, an auto responder is a must. This allows you to quickly send e-mails to everyone on your list as well as automatically respond to certain e-mails based on the mail received. With an auto responder, you create e-mails in advance and set them up to go out on a specific day or in response to certain e-mails. This is a necessity for the Internet marketer. It is a way to communicate effectively with your subscribers.

The best thing about gathering a list of subscribers is that you know they are interested in your products or services – why else would they have signed up? Your subscribers are the best targeted group of people that you can sell to, and as you can imagine, it can save you a significant amount of time when promoting new products or services.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a list, stop thinking and get moving on it. It takes some time to get it up and going (auto responder), but once you do, you will see the benefits of listbuilding can pay off over and over again.