07.10.07
A great list building technique
There are many ways to build an email list and I have tried quite a few myself. In this post, I want the discuss one of my favorite ways to build a responsive list fast. It’s a simple two-step process:
1) Create a good, meaningful report and give it away for free to anyone who subscribes to your list
2) Give a strong incentive to existing subscribers to refer new people to your free report
Let’s look at these two steps in detail. Your free report should address an important issue in the market that you are targeting. Keep it simple and meaningful. Only if your subscribers like the report will they recommend it to someone else.
The report can be as small as 5 pages, it doesn’t matter. But the content should be good and it should deliver what you promised in your sales/squeeze page. Unless you are honest, your list members will either unsubscribe or never respond to your offers.
The second step is trickier. To grow your list on auto-pilot, you need to give a strong enough incentive to your exisiting subscribers to refer new ones. And this incentive has to be monetary. Your exisiting members should be able to earn handsome returns if they refer new people to your list.
Let’s look at some of the incentives that are being used successfully in the market:
1) One Time Offer - Hit your subscribers with an attractive OTO as soon as they sign on to your list. The product you offer as an OTO must be closely related to your free report, and it should offer good value. Create an affiliate program for this product (through Clickbank or similar networks) and offer a high affiliate commission (75% is what I recommend). This will give your existing list members an incentive to promote your free report.
2) Pay Per Subscriber - Some marketers (very few) have build huge lists by paying affiliates as much as 50 cents per referred subscriber. This is an expensive proposition and you should not try it unless you know what you’re doing
3) Run a Contest - An affiliate contest can boost your list building exercise. You can run a contest for a limited time or on a weekly/monthly basis where you reward the top referrers. However, a contest works best in conjunction with other monetary incentives. I have never seen anyone use this on a stand alone basis.
These are some of the most common techniques used to put the list building exercise on auto pilot. There are some more advanced tricks being used by established marketers, but they require the use of high end scripts. I will talk about them in the future posts.
Always keep this in mind - if your free report is not good, then the entire exercise is a waste. Also, be honest in your sales letter/sqeeze page. It won’t do you any good if you make flase promises and then don’t deliver on them.
Happy list building! And please share your comments below.
Janey said,
July 10, 2007 at 7:44 am
Hi Alok:)
It’s great to wonder up on your sight:) Long time no see, no hear from, etc.
I hope all’s well with you and your online ventures, and sales.
May we meet again in the near future
Sincerely,
Janey Godwin
Kamal Talib said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:08 am
Hi Alok.
Thanks for the post.
I totally agree with you.Even Super affiliates strongly urged website owners to have their own subscription lists.
Till we meet again.
Take care.
Kamal
James said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:15 am
Thanks for the tutorial. But I am just a beginner. Most of the tems you used is strang to me. Can you explain.
Molly said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:34 am
Hello Alok, thank you for the lesson. I think I am too aold to get up the courage to have a go.
Regards,Molly
Femi said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:35 am
Thanks for that Alok. I am familiar with the 1st and 3rd list building strategy however the 2nd one is new to me, I can see how those utilizing it can build really huge lists. While I use several techniques myself like pop-ups, email signatures, 404 error pages etc…I seem to be seeing lots of good results with article marketing and ebay. Take care!
Alok said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:45 am
Femi, in this post I am trying to focus on building a list on auto pilot. Of course, article marketing, ppc, seo, etc are great ways to get the initial set of subscribers. But we also need to focus on ways to use the existing subscriber base to grow the list further. The idea is to grow the list virally.
I will talk about various ways to drive traffic to your squeeze pages in the future posts.
BillyWarhol said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:47 am
Hey thx Alok!!
I’m still in the process of trying to get my elusive LIST built!!
I’ll buckle down this week & try & make some headway*
Cheers!! Billy ;))
Alfred Fernandes said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:48 am
Hi Alok,
A good article, but seems it came earlier than it should have been.
Creating a good report is beyond the capacity of many like me. A sales/squeeze page requires explanation of obtaining HTML code for opt-in form from the autoresponder.
Hitting the subscribers with an attractive OTO doesn’t look as simple as you mentioned. Please explain as to how to go about this OTO particularly creating it in the first place?
May be you wanted to address these points in detail in your later articles. Look forward to your informative articles.
Thank you. Best wishes to your continued success.
Alfred Fernandes
Alok said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:53 am
Yes Alfred, I will get into these topics later. I wrote this post earlier because of the high interest in list building. I realize that some people may find this post hard to understand. But I am going to touch upon each element in detail in the later posts.
Alok
SHERYL KENNING said,
July 10, 2007 at 8:56 am
I am also new and just getting started. and funds our limited. I think this would be great for those of you who have the money and experience to do such a report.. But i am having trouble getting started. I don’t have a clue how to even start a report. But I am willing to try anything, Sheryl
Sam said,
July 10, 2007 at 9:24 am
Hi Alok,
Thanks for the info. Probably we can also use Videos on youtube and Google video or Free IQ sites to get the initial load of visitors to a Free Contents Membership site where people will join in the site for free and start learning about Internet marketing and how to start with it.. It is an Idea I am working on to help Beginners Internet Marketer to get off ground and in the same time I can get my targeted Subscribers list…
Sam Bitar
Kristine Pass said,
July 10, 2007 at 10:09 am
Hey Alok.
Enjoyed reading your list. I’ve used all these at one time or another and have to say that I’m a big fan of the contest route. People love having a way to hope for and dream about something and contests provide just that.
By the way, if you or your readers would like some free advertising, let me know. I’m offering links for endorsement of my social service site.
Infinite Blessings!
Kristy
Kurt said,
July 10, 2007 at 10:13 am
Alok,
Good info. I have subscribed to many lists, and I have purchased a number of Internet Marketing products lately. Two things strike me.
One, almost no one coaches their new subscribers and conditions them to buy, let alone refer or recommend. Two, almost no one uses the concept that every subscriber has the potential to be leveraged into more subscribers. These are Internet Marketing people, and they really should be applying viral techniques in a better way.
By the way, though, the implementation of these techniques can be very different for different markets. The leverage does not have to be obvious to the subscriber, and monetary incentives don’t always have to be used.
For example, I have a site about cats which gets about 400+ unique visitors a day and climbing, all from free traffic. My Alexa ranking is horrible, which indicates that my target market probably doesn’t even know what Alexa is, and many of them probably don’t have websites.
Most of my visitors to that site wouldn’t care enough to get 50 cents for getting their brother to sign up for my ezine, and outside of that, they really don’t know anything about promotion. What they might do, however, is recommend my site because I provide excellent information on a subject they’re interested in… cats.
Sometimes, all you have to do is provide excellent content, and ask for the referral, no incentive needed. So, some of these techniques, although the concepts are the same, need to be approached in different ways.
David said,
July 10, 2007 at 10:19 am
Hey Alok,
good info as usual keep it up - now how about offering a pay per subscriber scheme to your list or even a competition !
Good Fortune
David
Bill Thorn said,
July 10, 2007 at 11:11 am
Hi Alok,
Greta information there are a lot of
people who are not doing this
It is a great way to build a list.
BillThorn
Pete K said,
July 10, 2007 at 11:12 am
Hi Alok,
List Building on autopilot? This has to be the ultimate goal of every internet marketer. It’s certainly a subject that grabs my attention, because like everyone else, I want a bigger list. Not just a list of names and email addresses, but a current list of genuine optin, responsive people who are genuinely interested in what I have to say and motivated by what I recomend. My experience is that you have to not only build such a list (collecting the optin data), but more importantly, you must then set about developing the relationship, because they don’t arrive on your list with a pre-determined high level of trust and belief in you and what you recomend. This has to be earned!
However, today we are addressing the first part of this process, how to start building the list.
Your suggestion of writing a good meaningful report and giving it away free to anyone who joins your list is excellent, though it does pose a couple of problems for many new and inexperienced internet marketers. They will probably have some difficulty writing an appropriate report, and even if they do manage to produce one, they still have the problem of how to give it away, because their main reason for doing all of this is that they don’t have a list.
If you can show them how to quickly accumulate a small list of as few as only 20 names, then your suggestion of offering these people an incentive to refer others to your free report will certainly work because it effectively creates a simple ‘viral campaign’ which will grow with astonishing speed.
However, if we are dealing primarily with inexperienced people, this process needs to be simple, and inexpensive.
Alok, if you can produce another of your well known masterpieces, (for which you are famous) and deliver a simple, effective tool for achieving this, you will have performed another invaluable service.
As a final thought, how about a simple guide to article writing and forum submissions, coupled with your ‘On Demand Profits’ and a simple lead capture page, I think this would be a very effective way for new people in our business to start building a good quality list.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment on this vital subject.
Best wishes,
Pete
Australia
http://urlfreeze.com/4pwk/aj1/
Carl Hendricks said,
July 10, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Fundament advice for anyone looking to build a responsive list and build an an online business.
Alok said,
July 10, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Kurt, that’s true. The incentive system will not create a viral effect for non-IM niches. But it works great if your target market is Internet Marketing.
Pete, point well taken. And I do intend to talk about list building for beginners. So look out for that in the near future.
Nicholas said,
July 10, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Good work Alok.
How about buying the traffic and send it to a splash page.
Would that work to build the list and then keep it interesting with real value?
I think there is too much crap out there on the net and not as easy as it use to be to keep customers on a lish..list…lol.
Do let me know what you think. I’d Ippreciate your effort.
Thanks!
Cheers
Brian Campbell said,
July 10, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Hello and Thank you I appreciate your idea.
Where do I go to set one or all of these up and will there be examples that I can learn from.
I have Faith in myself to build it solo but I work much better with visual aid, a blue print or something.
Unfortunatly I am not all that good with computers, so I am doing the best I can, so lessons are very valuable to me.
If this or somthing like this were to work for me then I will deffinetly SHARE all the information I ubtain to my downline, there are way to many marketing opportunities, that offer NOTHING to get us newbies up and running to the bank with the first check, unless you pay there price. And in return my teacher will get his/her percentage of my own profit.
God Bless us all
Brian Campbell
Jon Sollie said,
July 10, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Hi Alok!
Good to see your email coming again. Seems as though there was a period of quiet on your end.
As a newbie and a “techie klutz” I agree with some of your readers who would like more down to earth information written with those of us who don’t always quite get it in mind!
Thanks Alok.
All the best,
Jon
Margriet Boogaard said,
July 10, 2007 at 4:16 pm
This is a great overview of the possibilities. I’m glad you are going to work out the details for each subject of getting subscribers. Thank you so far.
Day Online Trading said,
July 10, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Thanks for the excellent post Alok.
The techniques you refer to are not new, but it is very important to follow the steps if you want to build a good list.
The problems that people refer to in regard to writing an article of good value are real. It takes a bit of research to find out enough information to write the report. The best way to do this is to search on Google for your subject matter, learn as much as possible about your subject, then jot down your initial thoughts and learnings. Once you have the basis for your report, go back to your notes and massage the information until it makes sense and gives important information to the reader.
Keep up the good work!
Barry
http://day-online-trading.com
Jorge said,
July 10, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Good post. Beginners do not start with a list, however. They have nothing to build-up in the first place. They have no list to send the report to. It might be good to bring in some suggestions for starting the list.
Kurt said,
July 11, 2007 at 9:46 am
Jorge is correct. Starting out by trying to build a list around “air” is not the way to go.
Barry has an excellent point about research. I’ll take it one step further though.
It seems from the comments, that one, many of you are “newbies” and are looking for someone to guide them on the correct way to approach list building. Two, that you’re mindset seems to be Internet Marketing focused. In other words, you’re not sure what to do be successful in Internet Marketing, and you want to build a list of other people who are also unsure of what to do.
The point is, you have to have a business model of some sort. You have to offer something of real value. You have to start with end in mind, and keep the customer experience the best it can be. It won’t be perfect, but you have to start with a plan. What’s your plan? Forget about the web. Forget about list building. Forget about making money for a second. You’re so focused on making the sandwich, you forgot to check and see if you have any bread!
Good luck!
Nancy said,
July 11, 2007 at 10:54 am
Good points here. For instance, if I want to grow my list of highly targeted prospects in one of my niches, and I create a free report of some value to them, and offer it on the web site. . . still how are they going to find it?
What ELSE do I need to do, to let the targeted people know it’s there, and how to find it? How long will it take just to put metatags and keywords into the web page??
Let’s hear about the methods we can use to start the flow to the “bait”!!
Thanks everyone.
Teddy said,
July 11, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Great stuff, you are right on the money as usual. Thanks!
Bob Pardue said,
July 11, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Alok,
Fantastic ideas. I used contests long ago on an online movie site but haven’t thought about it for a good while. Thanks for your suggestions!
Bob
webmastercourse.com
Alok said,
July 12, 2007 at 2:04 am
Kurt, Nancy - excellent points. In this industry, most people forget the basics of running a business. Even in Internet Marketing, we need to adhere to the basic concepts of building a business.
I am glad to see some really intelligent and meaningful comments on this post. There’s a lot to learn here.
humblehard said,
July 12, 2007 at 7:03 am
Hai Alok,
Thanks for your guidance. I shall employ when I get in detail into the program. Bye and take care.
Rajasekhar Jinka said,
July 12, 2007 at 8:28 am
You are doing a good work Alok.
Thanks a lot.
Rajasekhar Jinka
Kurt said,
July 14, 2007 at 6:10 am
Hi Alok,
Well, all this discussion has inspired me. I love to test ideas. So, if I can find the time, I’m going to test a simple, inexpensive list building idea and report the results for the world to see. Wish me luck!
Xie said,
July 14, 2007 at 7:56 am
I agree with your mind .
luckly!
Sekander Musawi said,
July 16, 2007 at 4:51 am
Hi Alok,
I read your email thinking Alok is going to tell me how to build a great list.
Then i found it is not an eamil about the techniques of the list building it is more on the strategy of the list building such as wheather creating a good report or pumping your current subscriber in your list (provided you have a list and you know how to build list) to introduce more people to build your list.
I found the majority of the subcriber in your list are newbies who need to be taught the alphbets first with pencil or chalk for the list building then they would understand the strategy of the list building and mass list building and auto pilot system of data banks of the list. I mean questions like where to save the data obtained from list building exercise. Whether in autopilot systems or else? If not through auto pilot then what is the next option.?
Should you type on the internet 100 names on Write address box or use diary or type one main person on the list and forward the rest 99 by copying their address in the box. Then how the report to be sent on the list? These are the nitty and gritty of the technical side of the electronic communication system unless newbies are fully aware and trained in the use of the electronic communication systems they will not understand the forward subject of the internet marketing. Moreover how to publish report through email or web site. How important it is at the initial stage to maike a web site when the newbies do not know how to publish the sales letter on the website or how to send the sales letter to thousands of the members in the new list.
Sekander
MJay said,
July 18, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Alok,
I really like your blog. Finally - something for the rest of us who are not internet marketing superstars! I think sometimes I know just enough to get me into big trouble.
I don’t have a website yet, or an autoresponder, so obviously, no list. I have been learning a lot on the net, but let myself get side-tracked into all the internet marketing affiliate stuff and all the promotion stuff internet marketers try to sell to other internet marketers and unsuspecting newbies, and got some serious information overload. And I found I am not even interested in that kind of stuff!
I want to learn how to write effective email campaigns and find AFFORDABLE templates for squeeze pages and OTO’s. I am very techie “challenged” so I need to find someplace where I can get quality, affordable websites. I need to seriously learn copywriting! I already know which autoresponder I want to use. I want to learn how to write and submit articles. I REALLY want to learn all about social networking and blogging. The business I have is just not relevant to the kind of internet marketers I have encountered on the net, although I did learn a lot - probably even more than I think I did at this point.
I have not encountered very many people like you Alok. You seem to be sincere about wanting to help other people realize their dreams of making money on the internet. I have found that there is a VERY STEEP learning curve for someone like me who is just starting out, and it can get very expensive too. I have bought a LOT of ebooks! And subscribed to a lot of newsletters. I think I am now at the point where I am going to unsubscribe to many of them and just keep the few that I feel I can really learn something from (like yours), that is relevant to teaching me about the tools that will help me to learn how to market on the internet.
A Great Big Thanks to Kurt for putting it all into perspective!! You are so right - without a plan we spend a lot of time spinning our wheels going nowhere but to more confusion. That is exactly what I was doing. Your words will hopefully help others who are in that place right now.
Good luck to everybody!
Mjay
Mohinder Singh said,
July 28, 2007 at 3:36 am
Hi Alok!
Not sure, but something tells me that maybe myself do know you say if you are the same Alok that met in Accra, Ghana at an IPPC software/hardware computer company? Well if not, then too glad to meet another IT expert named Alok too:)
Well please could you make this online world more simple for us, as it is daily becoming too complicated, especially with many new sites having come with greater promising words of overnight riches, but yet to see any honest income come by. All that have earned a bit and yet to see the day then can be withdrawn are TIB (TakeTheInternetBack $13.24) LinkGrand ($1.53) EmailPaysU ($10.84). Further to this there are others that promise thousands of dollars like the Ippomails, Rainbow World, Chobbit Mails, Charm Mails, Camel Mails and so on…please do visit my website at http://nuurl.us/996d5 and wish you could help me out to simply the experience online and stop torturing myself with eyesores, backpain and the sleepless nights trying to find a secure retired future online, as getting new job at the middle age is really an uphill task more over to continue with it like a young man, that energy is no more there, it must have got drained up with the numerous thoughts and conversations taking place daily with God, who is just not bothered about our worldly achievements and yet never fails to remind us to show our truest love to Him as that is most dearest to Him and all the rest could be left unto Him.
Hey just now coming up with an idea, why not make it persuasive that anyone who truly loves God should work an hour or two online free (please don’t suggest to contribute financially online, as it has to be one’s own efforts made online in the name of God) contributing to building an empire online that could help the downtrodden and needy all over the world thus allowing us to be worthy of belonging to this planet Earth.
Hope to make some sense, as everyone online these days is looking for a way to succeed, no one is prepared to face any failure or loose any money.
So praying for success to all online surfers and hope they do not remain suferers as a result of their struggle online.
sheryl said,
December 6, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Hi Alok. Thanks for your lessons, I have learned alot, and my business is doing great. I have built a pretty good size list. Well funds are still limited but, that won’t be a problem for long. I am doing good in my business. Thanks for all your lessons and help. Sheryl
Rajasekhar said,
March 12, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Useful suggestions and tips always. Thanks.
Rajasekhar,
Proddatur.