The Money Is In The List: Building An E-Mail List

If you've been involved in this internet marketing world for a while, you've probably heard the saying, "The money is in the list!" quite a few times already. If you're just getting started with internet marketing, be prepared to hear it a lot! It's being said so much because it's true! The money IS in the list; the e-mail list that is! You've probably heard of big-time internet marketing gurus making hundreds of thousands of dollars in very short periods of time. They can do this because they have huge, targeted, highly responsive, quality e-mail lists. The only work required by them is writing a persuasive e-mail promoting a product that they highly recommend and clicking "Send". That's it! Everything after that is totally automated. Their autoresponder (a system that manages your e-mail list and ensures that your emails get past spam filters) sends that e-mail out to their whole e-mail list. The people on that list receive, open, and read the information contained within the e-mail. These people know and trust the person who sent out the e-mail, so they value his or her recommendation as gold. They know that the product will benefit them and give them what they need. So, they have no problem shelling out some cash in order to obtain that product. In return, the person that sent out that e-mail makes money. The amount of money made depends upon many factors, but the one factor that mainly determines that amount of money made is the size of the list. Generally, larger lists will result in more money made. Let me provide an example to give you a better understanding of what I mean...

I'm going to use two lists to compare, one containing 50,000 prospects and the other containing 5,000 prospects. The list containing 50,000 prospects will be List A and the list containing 5,000 prospects will be List B. An e-mail promoting a random product is sent out to each of the lists. Both of the lists receive only a 3% response rate. 3% of 50,000 is 1,500 and 3% of 5,000 is 150. Now, let's say the product that was being promoted costs $25. List A just made a whopping $37,500 and List B made only $3,750. Now, this was not only to show you that bigger lists generally result in more money being made, but also the money potential that only email lists can give you. You see only 3% of the prospects in List B bought the product that was being promoted, but it still resulted in $3,750 being made. I'd say that's amazing considering the only work involved was sending out an e-mail. Imagine YOU making that much money everytime YOU sent out an e-mail? Think it's impossible? Not with an e-mail list, it isn't!

Now, that you know what an e-mail list is and understand how it works, I'm going to help you start and build one of your own! The process of building a list takes a bit of time, but in the end, it's well worth it! So, let's get started! First, you will need an autoresponder. Again, the purpose of an autoresponder is to manage your e-mail list and ensure that the e-mails you send to your list get past spam filters. There are many autoresponder services out there, but you will want to go with a company that is reliable, has an excellent reputation and a high e-mail delivery rate. A high e-mail delivery rate is EXTREMELY important because if a percentage of people on your list aren't getting your e-mails, you could be losing lots of money! So, email deliverability is an important factor to consider when choosing an autoresponder service. That's why there are only two autoresponder services that I personally highly recommend. Those two services are GetResponse and AWeber. Both services have excellent reputations, have been in service for years, and have 99% e-mail deliverabilty rates. They both offer an unlimited amount of autoresponders and excellent training and support. And best of all, both only cost mere pennies a day! So, if you are interested in starting, building, and maintaining an e-mail list, GetResponse and AWeber autoresponder services are the perfect place to start!

Now that you have a reliable autoresponder service, it's time to start building your list! There are three ways people can opt-in to your list:

1. By filling out a form created by you
2. By sending an e-mail to your autoresponder e-mail address
3. By you adding their e-mail address to your autoresponder

Most of the time, lists are built primarily by people opting in via forms. And in order to allow people to opt-in to your e-mail list via forms, you will need to create lead capture pages. A lead capture page is basically a webpage with a form on it where people can opt-in. The lead capture page can be promoting a product or service or just simply providing information. As long as it has a form on the page, it's a lead capture page. And, in order to create your own lead capture page, you will need your own domain and hosting. GoDaddy is the leading domain registrar and you can register a domain for as low as $8.95 a year! GoDaddy also offers great hosting, but I recommend Hosting Zoom. Hosting Zoom provides very reliable hosting for the low price of only $4.95 a month! Building lead capture pages may be a bit difficult for those who don't have basic knowledge of HTML, so if you need any help at all on creating your own lead capture pages, feel free to contact me via comment at the bottom of this post and I will be more than happy to assist you!

Now that you've created your lead capture page, it's time to advertise it! In recent posts, I've discussed many different ways you can advertise. Below, I will briefly discuss ways you can use these methods of advertising to build your list. For more in-depth information on how to use these methods of advertising, you can refer to my previous posts to the right under "Previous Posts". I've categorized them into three categories, free methods of advertising, cheap methods of advertising, and pay-per-click advertising.

Forums - Are you involved in any forums yet? If so, are you using your signature after all of your posts? If not, then you could be losing out on many potential prospects for your e-mail list. Forums are a great place to get targeted prospects on your e-mail list. Everyone on the forum shares a common interest with you so they will most likely be interested in joining your e-mail list. So, add a link to your lead capture page in your forum signature(s) and watch your list grow!

Blogs - Blogs are also a great place to collect targeted prospects for your e-mail list. Just add an opt-in form somewhere alongside of your posts and let people know that they can receive more valuable information from you through e-mail by filling out your form.

Articles - If you write articles, you should know that with every article you write is a resource box included at the bottom where you can put information about yourself. Resources boxes can also be used to advertise your lead capture page. Place a link to your lead capture page in your resource box and let your readers know that you have more valuable information to offer them if they opt-in to your e-mail list.

Traffic Exchanges - If you read my post on traffic exchanges, which can be found here, then you know what splash pages are. Lead capture pages can be used within traffic exchanges just like splash pages. Traffic exchanges are PERFECT for building your list because most traffic exchange users are looking for freebies. The information you can provide to them if they join your e-mail list is a freebie, so they will be happy opt-in on your lead capture page!

Ezine/Newsletter Ads - When purchasing ad space in newsletters and ezines, include a link to your lead capture page where people can go and opt-in to your e-mail list. Remember to only purchase ad space in newsletters and ezines that are targeted to your niche. That way, you will experience a much better response and receive only highly targeted prospects!

Pay-Per-Click Ads - Pay-per-click ads is a perfect way to send targeted traffic to your lead capture page. And targeted traffic means targeted prospects for your e-mail list!

Now, I've just discussed to you what e-mail lists are, how they work, the money potential of them, where to obtain a reliable autoresponder, what a lead capture page is, and how to promote your lead capture page. There's only one thing missing... ACTION! You will not be able to accomplish a thing without ACTION! Remember, if you need any help or have any questions, feel free to refer back to this blog and leave me a comment. I will be more than happy to assist you with starting, building, and maintaining your list! Good luck!