Online vs. Offline Listbuilding

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.