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.

Listbuilding is simply creating a never-ending list of e-mail addresses from people who are interested in you and what you have to offer online. It is all about giving great value to your visitors and customers in exchange for them opting in to your list. Listbuilding can make your life easier because it will provide you with a targeted group of people who are already interested – sort of like pre-screened candidates for your products, if you will.

Building a list requires you to have the right system in place and an ability to generate traffic. This should be included in your Internet marketing plans, and will prove beneficial to you once you have comprised a list of warm prospects. Once you build your trust with the people on your list, you have the ability to sell to them over and over again.

How To Build a List

There are several ways to build a list – this can be as simple or as complex as you’d like it to be. Listbuilding is a way to develop a relationship with your visitors and potential customers. Since most people don’t make a purchase the first time, capturing their e-mail address is a great way to send them updates, thank them for visiting, or give them special offers just for subscribing to your list. Typically, in exchange for their e-mail address, you would offer them something of value such as a free report, or e-book.

Newsletters, Updates, Reviews

Once a visitor subscribes to your list, you can offer weekly or monthly newsletters, free products reviews, notice of upcoming sales, special offers only available to subscribers, or other information that they will find useful. You must deliver what you promise in order to build their trust; if you don’t, they could just as easily opt-out.

Joint Ventures

I mentioned earlier that listbuilding can be beneficial to your business, and joint venturing is one way to use your list to make create income online. If you have a product or an idea and a substantial list of subscribers, you can approach established marketers with your product or plan. The way joint ventures typically work is they allow you to mail to their list in exchange for a percentage of the profits. This can be a great way to create a name for yourself and make money in the process.

Web 2.0

Social media sites, videos, and blogs are excellent tools for listbuilding. Remember when entering the social media arena, it is just as important for you to participate as it is for you to market. In fact, it is a must. If you go in with the idea of just marketing your products, it won’t work. You have to interact, ask questions, make comments, and create an online presence – then move forward and start building your list.

There are a number of ways you can build a list if you want success from online marketing. In fact, listbuilding plays an important role in Internet marketing. Online marketing is all about building relationships. It’s not what you know, but who you know (or better yet, who knows you). Once you have a list of subscribers, you are on your way to the top.

Internet users send and receive hundreds of millions of email messages each day.

Whether these emails are cheerful notes to friends or just another boring business update, each one of these messages carries a personal impact. Even this newsletter, which is mailed to 82,000 people, touches you personally.

If you’re not sure how personal this can be, then consider the continuing controversy over SPAM. I’ve found it fascinating to
watch how upset some people become when they receive unsolicited emails. Clearly, they feel that this is a crime
against God and against man. The only fair punishment is death.

See, it’s very personal.

Yet, many of these same people who decry the unwanted intrusion into their lives, will send out the nastiest email messages you’ll ever see. Miss Manners would be astounded to read some of the things I’ve received from people I don’t know, who don’t know me and have no nexus with me.

When people are in public places, we are constrained by two forces. One is the simple fact of being overheard publicly. We know there are certain things you just don’t do in public. The other constraint is our inability to be naturally articulate at the time when we need it most.

But, if you give some people the opportunity to carefully craft an email so they can give vent to the vitriol that’s in their souls, and it’s amazing what some people will do. They will virtually foam at the mouth and spray invectives like they’re coming out of a fire hose.

When I speak with other Internet entrepreneurs, they agree that this is a growing trend. What’s most interesting is that the vast majority of these messages simply have no basis for the sender to be even mildly upset.

I received a fascinating email this week from an attorney who was apparently venting his own frustrations at the world. This email accused me of being a charlatan and masquerading as an attorney. While this man was clearly upset about something, I could not fathom the purpose of this email.

I sent back a simple request for more information about why he might be so angry. Maybe he was a customer who did not receive a product. Maybe he was a subscriber who didn�t like this newsletter and wanted off the list.

He never responded. All he wanted to do was lash out at someone because he is so unhappy with himself. He wanted to make his problem into my problem.

For those of us conducting business online, we have to always remember how personal each email message is that we send. On the other hand, we have to avoid being personally involved with, or offended by, many of the messages we receive.

Yours in success,

Shawn