Building your mailing list is one of the most important things that you need to do in order to have a successful online business.
Your list is the key to selling your services or products, because it is a list of people who has already expressed an interest in what you have to offer.
It is easy to set up a mailing list, but then you have to promote it in order to grow it. It is not enough to just put an opt in box on your website and wait. There are so many ways that you can promote it, but here are three that are sure to get you some success:
1. Provide them with an incentive. If you have an opt in box on your website and you are not getting very many new leads signed up for your newsletter, it’s probably because people (in general) want free stuff in exchange for giving you their email address. If you write a report about something you know about that is interesting or important to them, that is an incentive for them to sign up for your list. At the same time, they are opting in for your newsletter, so once you have them on board, you will be able to market to them. A free offering has to be valuable to them, but it doesn’t have to be so detailed that they don’t need your services anymore. For instance: 3 Easy Ways to Build Your Mailing List could easily be turned into a free report! I could format it nicely, call it a report or an ebook, and then ask people to opt in for it. Be sure to use your social networks to direct people to your free report and you will see your mailing list start to grow.
2. Put your opt in box everywhere! If you only have your opt in box on one page of your website, then you are not giving it enough real estate. Your opt in should be on every page of your site, in a conspicuous spot – like the top right or the top left, so no one can miss it. You never know which page of your website someone is going to land on in a Google search, so it is important to put the opportunity in front of them on all of your pages. You should also have your opt in box on your social network profiles. If you have a profile on Facebook or one of the other countless social networking sites, be sure to add your opt in code to your profile page. You never know where your ideal client is going to find you! By giving your opt in box the real estate it deserves, it will work harder for you every day!
3. Take part in a joint venture. A joint venture (JV) is a project two or more people undertake for the success of their own goals. One JV idea is an Amazon book launch, which uses a marketing strategy to have a lot of people buy a new book from Amazon on the same day, pushing the book up the bestseller list. To do this, people ‘JV’ with as many people as they can, so that the joint venture partners (JVPs) will promote the book launch to their lists and encourage them to buy the book that day. In exchange, the JVPs provide a bonus gift for the launch that anyone who buys the book will receive. This means that by providing a bonus gift, I can potentially grow my list because of the amount of traffic going to the book launch – if they pick up my bonus gift, I now have them on my list (without even looking for them!) It’s a joint venture because everyone benefits: the book launch person gets their bestseller status, the JVPs get more prospects on their lists, and the people who purchase the book get all kinds of amazing bonus gifts without spending an extra dime. It’s win-win-win, and a great strategy to build your list (give away that free product you made in #2 above and get involved in a JV!)
There are many more ways you can build your list quickly, but these three ways are guaranteed winners! See what they can do for you!
