subject: List Building Essentials-5 Things You Need [print this page] People still read email if it is something they are interested in. After the 57 minutes a day they average spending on Facebook they go to their email inbox and check their emails.
Building an email list is still an excellent way to make money online. List building does not have to be difficult. Here are the essential things you need.
1. Autoresponder. This is an automatic way to send email.
I personally use Aweber. It seems to be used by the majority of top Internet marketers and the best autoresponder for a beginner as well.
Avoid using a free autoresponder. Your email messages will have ads from other Internet marketers. This is how the autoresponder company can afford to give you your responder for free.
2. Email messages. It's a good idea to have a series of informational email messages pre-programmed in your autoresponder.
Set these up to go out automatically. Initially start by sending them out every couple of days and then gradually space them out longer until you're sending out one every five days or so.
3. Squeeze page. Go to 90secondsqueezepage.com and build a squeeze page that you will be promoting.
You can develop more than one squeeze page and this is not a bad idea in terms of testing various ones to see what pulls in the best response. You need nothing more than at least an email address, and a first name if you're going to personalize your email messages.
4. Freebie. A proven way to get people to subscribe to your list is to offer them something for free in exchange for their contact information.
Much has been written over the years about what you should give away for free to get people to subscribe. The most common freebie is an ebook or short report that provides helpful information that can't be found elsewhere on the Internet.
It's a good idea to go ahead and create your own ebook or report. You can write your own information or hire a freelance writer to do it for you. Avoid using PLR ebooks or reports that are being promoted by other Internet marketers.
5. Marketing. Of course no one will subscribe to your list if they don't see your offer.
Develop a broad campaign for promoting your squeeze page. This should include social networking, discussion forums, article marketing, traffic exchanges, and search engine optimization. The more places your offer can be found the more people that will subscribe to your list.
These are what I would consider to be the list building essentials. In the long run a quality list of subscribers is one of the best assets you can develop for your online business.
