Many people just getting started in internet marketing do not realize the critical importance of building a quality opt-in mailing list. They think it is enough to be making sales from their salespage. While it is good to make sales directly from your site, you will lose a large percentage of your future customers if you fail to build an opt-in mailing list.
Having a list allows you to keep in touch with your site’s visitors and slowly build a relationship with them. If done properly, you can then convert a high percentage of otherwise lukewarm prospects into paying customers. So exactly what does it take to build a great opt-in list quickly and easily? Here are some useful tactics:
* Offer an incentive to get people to give you their email address and name. This is one of the best ways to encourage people to sign up for your list. I like to offer a special report, free Internet marketing course, or anything else that my visitors find useful. It is essential to give them something for signing up for your list. This tip alone can easily double the number of opt-ins you receive.
I see so many people trying to build list with no offering of any kind for opting in. This is a big mistake. Incentives are to easy to create. It just doesn’t make sense not to offer one. Anything with a high perceived value that you offer free will help boost opt-ins by 100% or more. I’ve tried many ways of list building and I can assure you that offering incentives will give you a far superior result.
* Include a privacy policy. One of the main reasons people do not opt-in is because they are afraid they will be spammed. This has been a major problem on the Internet for years. Everyone abhors spam. If a prospect has any reason to suspect that you will sell their email address to others they will simply not sign in. Give them a guarantee that you will not share their email address with anyone whatsoever. This will end the worries of people who are concerned about that. After I added one I saw over a 60% increase in the number of sign-ups I was receiving. It’s amazing that a simple thing like this can make that much difference.
* Create several tightly targeted lists. Few people realize the power of a targeted list option. It depends on what you have to offer on your site, but this is something that if it can be used will greatly affect your opt-in rate. One of the lists options could be for periodic updates, another could include “how to” tips that your prospect would find helpful, while another could be for a newsletter with ongoing information. No matter which option they choose, you will still harvest their email address.
Think about things that your market might be most interested in and offer that information on that topic or, at a minimum, access to it on your site. If you do not provided several options that person would have signed up for nothing. Two or three options are plenty.
* Make all your lists double opt-in. Providing for a double opt-in requires that people first sign up on your site, and then activate their subscription via a confirmation email. Doing this will take away any chance of being labeled a spammer and you will be able to show proof that people actually did requested your emailed information.
Additionally, double opt-in will give your a significantly higher quality list of readers, as opposed to those from the singe opt-in method. The reason is because since these people are interested in your offer enough to verify with the confirmation email, they tend to be much more serious about what you offer. If that is the case, they will be much more responsive to your offers compared to those who sign up for your list on a whim. A high quality list is critical to making sales.
By putting the methods mentioned in this article into practice on your website, you will be able to build a huge, high quality list in a relatively short period. I have used all of the methods mentioned here and they work very well. If you use them, you will find they will work for you as well.
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