Visitors to your blog are good. RSS subscribers are better. But the real money online is in your mailing list. Build a large list of qualified buyers, and you’ll see a much higher return on your investment than you will from any other marketing effort. The only question is, how do you build a qualified list?
- Present an irresistible offer. The days of getting people to give you their email address with the promise of a monthly or weekly newsletter are gone. You need to offer your readers something of value. Downloadable products like eBooks and special reports are popular, as are software, and even trial subscriptions to membership sites.
- Use highly targeted marketing. If your list focuses on gardening, and all your Twitter followers are other Internet marketers, pushing signups on your Twitter account is not going to result in a lot of conversions. Instead, concentrate your efforts where gardeners hang out – online forums, niche blogs, even Craig’s List are all good choices for getting your list in front of qualified, interested individuals.
- Get traffic to your opt-in page. Common wisdom says that you need an opt-in form on every page of your site, and while that’s important, it’s even more critical to have a separate opt-in page. When linking back to your site from articles, forums, guest blogs, or ads, link to that page rather than your home page. You’ll see conversions increase dramatically.
- Test, analyze, tweak, and repeat. No headline or opt-in page is perfect from the start. Keep an eye on your stats, and systematically change out elements to test performance. You can use scripts to split-test headlines and other parts of a squeeze page, or you can just manually track which ones work and which do not. And keep notes, you’ll want to refer back to them later for other campaigns.
- Change your offer, too. Today’s hot ebook will eventually become yesterday’s news, and a new offer will often rejuvenate a quiet list.
Getting sign-ups is only part of your overall list building campaign, however. Once people are on your list, your job turns to keeping them there. Start by living up to the promise you made them. Revisit your opt-in page and welcome letter and make sure you’re doing what you said you would do. Did you promise a weekly newsletter? Then you need to get it out in a timely manner. Regardless of the promised schedule, don’t let weeks go by without contacting your list. An out-of-the-blue email from someone they haven’t heard from in three months will likely result in an unsubscribe.
At the same time, don’t make every contact with your list a sales pitch. Sure, they know they’re going to be marketed to when they sign-up, but they expect (and deserve) some value from being a member as well. It’s impossible to say what the exact ratio of information to sales pitch should be, but you should definitely test and analyze your results until you find the optimum mix for your market.
Building a list – and keeping it healthy – should be your highest priority as a business owner. Whether your business is selling diaper patterns to new moms, or multi-thousand-dollar software systems to IT professionals, your list is your biggest asset. Treat it well, and you will reap the rewards.
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