AntiSpam Guide
The Surefire Way to Build Your Mailing List
from: Mitch Van Dusen
Building your email list should be one of your biggest priorities. Not only is it great for getting the initial sale, it is also great for informing your clients about other products or services that your offering. The more you remind people that you exist, the more they will come back and give you their money. So how do you get their email?
Advertise a Specific Landing Page
One of my favorite techniques is to create a special page devoted to getting subscribers. You have to write sales copy for your free newsletter or e-course in the same way you would sell a product. Stress the benefits they would be getting. Post testimonials. Talk about why they need your newsletter or e-course. You want to get people excited to give you their email address. That way they will be more likely to give you their attention when you send your first email.
Once you've posted this page on your website, advertise it. Instead of advertising your product directly, advertise your free newsletter or e-course. Advertise in search engines. Advertise in other ezines or newsletters. Include a short advertisement in your article and email signature boxes.
This is not to say that you shouldn't advertise your products or your website. But you should do both at the same time. Test out each method. One month, only advertise your website. The next, only advertise your email list. Compare the two, and see which one is more successful at bringing sales.
Offer a Free Gift for Signing Up
People respond to free gifts. Make it one of the major focal points of your pitch. Give away a free ebook or special report.
Offer Access to Your Newsletter/E-Course Archives
Create a password protected section of your website. In there, include all of your previous articles, newsletters, and e-courses.
A little trick to get people reading your emails on a regular basis is to change the password every week. Every week you would send out a new password to your list. This means that if people want access to your quality content, they have to keep updated, and therefore, they have to read your newsletter. However, some people find this annoying, so use your beset judgement.
Swap Ads with Other Newsletter Publishers
This is a great way to grow your list quickly. You do have to have at least a small group of people on your list. Go to other newsletter and ezine publishers who write about the same or a similar topic as you do, and offer to advertise their newsletter, in exchange for the same thing. Make sure you don't do too many of these at the same time. You want to make sure that you let your partnered publisher get quality exposure. If there are too many ads, your partner's ad will inappropriately blend in.
You can find these ezines through a search engine, or you can visit http://lists.topica.com/lists/publishers_swap_meet/. Bill Platt created this forum so ezine and newsletter publishers can network and exchange ads or endorsements.
Swap Endorsements with other Newsletter Publishers
This is always more effective then a small advertisement. But the same conditions apply. Don't over endorse other ezines. This will decrease the effectiveness of your endorsements and it will eventually become transparent to your subscribers. Make sure that you have subscribed to whatever publication you plan on promoting. Unlike a simple advertisement, you are endorsing another publication, using your own credibility. If you recommend a publication of poor quality, you will lose credibility with your subscribers. Ultimately it is better to have a small group of loyal subscribers than a large group of ambivalent readers.
Make a Sign Up Form Available Throughout Your Site
Even if you are advertising a specific landing page for people to sign up, you still should promote your publication throughout your website. The more you advertise your newsletter or e-course, the more chances your visitor will have to join.
Keep in mind that people don't always make up their mind right away. Some people might want to make sure you actually have good content to offer them. Some people might worry about SPAM. Sometimes, they have to browse your site and read your content and get a sense about you and your business before they would sign up. You want to make it easy for them to sign up at the moment when they make their decision.
A lot of people use pop up windows to advertise their publication. You can use a pop up as soon as someone enters your site, or on a certain page, or when they leave. Pop ups can be annoying for your visitors, but they are effective. So make sure you don't overdue it.
Some autoresponder hosts, like Aweber, will let you design pop ups and give you the code to stick into your website. You can also use a service like AdImpact. AdImpact has a large collection of visually stunning pop up templates. And even if your visitor gets annoyed, they will be impressed by the professional feel your website has. The extra advantage is that these pop ups cannot be blocked by a pop up blocker and they can be integrated with the most popular autoresponders, including Aweber.
Submit your Ezine or Newsletter to Directories
There are two ways to do this. You can submit your ezine manually to ezine directories. While this will take time, you don't have to pay someone else to do it for you. Here's a list of places to submit your ezine:
http://ezine-universe.com/ http://www.homeincome.com/search-it/ezine/index.html http://bestezines.com/ http://suite101.com/ http://zinos.com/ http://www.e-zine-list.com/ http://ezinearticles.com/ http://listchannel.com/dir/ http://www.jogena.com/ http://www.site-city.com/members/e-zine-master/ http://www.ezine-dir.com/ http://www.list-city.com/ http://www.disobey.com/low/
There are undoubtedly many more directories out there. Type "ezine directory" into Google, and you are sure to find other directories to submit to.
An advantage to doing it yourself is that you get exposure to all of the other ezines and newsletters that are in your category. This way you can see what your competition is doing. If you take the time to study other people's publications, you will get a huge flood of ideas, especially if you are studying a publication that has a large subscription base.
If you don't want to take the time, I've used a software called Ezine Announcer. The advantage of using this software is that Jason Potash, its creator, spends his time looking for new places to promote your ezine, so he will save you time and most likely get you better exposure. He also charges a modest price for the service he provides.
Join a Co-Registration Service
A co-registration service is a step up from buying subscribers. When you buy subscribers, those subscribers are either not aware that they are signing up for your newsletter, or know little or nothing about your publication before they signed up, which means they will probably forget about it and later tag your newsletter as spam.
With co-registration services you don't have to worry about this, as people actually get to read what you have to share about your ezine, and they sign up out of their own free will.
With co-registrations, your sign-up page is hosted on a high traffic site where many people will be exposed to it. As a result you get a large amount of qualified, targeted subscribers to your publication.
Co-registration services are usually not free, but it can be a good option. The best service I am aware of is Lead Factory. Their packages are highly competitive in terms of cost and they have wonderful features for their programs.
Purchase Subscribers
If you have the money to invest, this is a way to increase your list very quickly and with a high return on your investment. This is how it works: Names and email addresses are gathered through online forms placed on high traffic websites. These forms offered more information on the type of product and service that you offer. If they are interested, a visitor checks a box requesting more information. This information is then passed along to you.
The question is always whether or not your are sending these people SPAM. The truth is that these people did opt in to receive more information about your product or service. They do physically check a box and that technically makes them opt-ins.
You have to approach these people differently than those that sign up on your website. These people don't know you, so you have to introduce yourself and give them a reason to get to know you.
In your first email, you remind them that they had requested for more information your specific product or service category. You can even include the date they signed up, and the email address and IP address that they used to sign up with.
Then you have to share some really great information with them. This could be information from your magazine, or a secret that you don't normally share with people. Whatever it is, it has to capture and retain their interest.
Especially with this kind of contact, you always have to provide an easy way for them to unsubscribe. Giving people a way out psychologically puts them a bit more at ease.
If you continue to provide these subscribers valuable content over time, you will build a strong relationship with these leads. Many people will unsubscribe. But the most important statistic is the return on your investment, and this is what you need to track.
If you started out with 100,000 names, but a half a year later you are down to 10,000 or even 1000, you have to ask yourself what the lifetime value of these customers is. Depending on the cost of your product or service, it most likely won't take many people to refund the cost to purchase these leads.
In order for this to be successful, you have to set up a separate autoresponder for these leads. Not only does this make it easier to track how well these people respond, but it allows you to tailor your message depending on the list demographic or how they were acquired.
If you are interested in purchasing subscribers, I recommend using Nitro List Builder. You have two options with them. You can choose to receive 100,000 names in 30 days or you can choose to receive 25,000 names each month. They provide you these names in CVS format which means you can import them directly into many list management and autoresponder systems.
Some systems limit the number of names you can import at a time, and some, like Aweber, require each uploaded subscriber to reconfirm their request to sign up for your newsletter. If you are using Aweber, you can send out your first email as we discussed above, providing quality and captivating content, and at the end, request them to reconfirm. In some ways, this is a great option, because when someone puts effort into subscribing to your list, even if it's clicking on a link, that proactive decision psychologically puts them in control.
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