Build Your List Effectively

If you are an internet entrepreneur, you may have heard a lot about list building. You may have done a lot of research into it and built a pretty good list as well. Sometimes, despite trying every trick in the book, following all instructions to the last letter, paying a hefty amount for an auto responder service, and growing your list well, you still aren't really make enough money. Then you start wondering if you are on the right track.

Perhaps, you understood the general principles of list building, but didn’t pay enough attention to the niche market. Your product or service may be your passion, but do others on your list consider it their passion as well. Say for example, how many people are interested in alternative healing techniques? There may be a large number of them around the world, but you won’t know their number unless you know how many people are using the search engines to look for ‘alternative healing techniques’. It is as simple as that.

Let us assume that you did some research in your niche area and did your list building based on that research. You managed to build a pretty good list as well. It still does not earn you enough money. What do you do now? Now you need to build a rapport with the people on your list. Some of the ways to build this rapport are given here:

Be Generous

Generosity pays you back in the same coin. Give as much information as you can on your way to list building. Give as many free, useful products as you can. Pay attention to the quality of the stuff that you give. Help people improve their lives and their businesses. All this generosity will make them love you. To project yourself as an expert in your field, write some good articles. Get your articles published in article directories. Initiate some online forums. The discussion thread on those forums will give you an insight into your niche market. Let people ask you questions. If you help people, they will trust you. Once this trust develops, they will go ahead and buy the products that you recommend.

Try Out Your Product First

Whatever you are trying to sell, be sure that you try it out on yourself first. If you claim that your product does ‘ABC’, then make sure that your claims are correct. Remember that you can’t fool people. Don’t even try. It is not worth the effort. You will lose your credibility and your list building efforts will be useless.

Befriend Other Marketers In Your Niche

Attend conventions. Meet people who are making money in your niche and learn from them. You can get great advice there. Follow it.

Even though you have not yet made any money by list building, the good news is that, if you give quality information and if you maintain your standard, moneymaking is just a matter of time.

21 Ways to Promote Your Business Online & Off

Offline Promotions

1. Always put your URL (web address) on letterhead, business cards and in e-mail signatures--wherever potential visitors are likely to see it.

2. If your employees wear uniforms, put your URL on them so every one of your customers sees a walking advertisement of your website.

3. Include your URL on all promotional items you give away--coffee mugs, T-shirts, keychains and so on. A daily reminder is a good way to get people to visit your site.

4. Be sure to include your web address in all press releases you send out to members of the media. By having it at their fingertips, they may be more likely to include it in articles they write about your company.

5. Don't forget to put your web address in your Yellow Pages ad. That's one place people see it every day.

6. Do you own any company vehicles? Be sure to put your URL on the side of any car or truck that's out there delivering your products.

7. In addition to listing your toll-free number, put your web address on the bottom of every page of your catalog so customers have easy access to your online store.

Online Promotions

8.Hone your search engine submission process so you can get the best exposure possible.

9. If you're still itching for more exposure, you can explore search engine marketing, wherein you pay to have a text ad appear when visitors search for certain keywords.

10. Launch a sweepstakes that offers anyone who registers on your site or subscribes to e-newsletters within a certain time frame the chance to win a free gift.

11. Send out a weekly e-mail newsletter to registered site members that offers tips and news related to your company or industry with links back to your site.

12. Offer free content to other sites. It's a win-win situation: The other site gets free articles to beef up their offerings and you get a link back to your site and the cachet of being an expert.

13. Send a well-planned, customer-focused e-mail promotion to a targeted list of potential visitors and offer a credit toward the purchase of anything from your site. Spend time on your e-mail's look and content: You want to offer value to customers and not have it appear to be spam.

14. Create your own link exchange by asking sites complementary to yours (but that don't compete) to put your link on their pages and you'll do likewise.

15. Hook up with web affiliates--hundreds of sites that all link their traffic to yours--and get visitors from sites with related content.

16. Get active in online discussion groups and chats and always include your URL in your signature. (Don't do any hard selling, though. Most groups frown on such behavior and will think you're spamming the group.)

17. Any time someone orders a product from your site, include a catalog with their order to get them coming back for more.

18. Inspire your visitors to spread the word for you with viral marketing techniques, from the aforementioned newsgroup participation to including an "e-mail this link" on every page of your site.

19. Not sure what your customers want? Try creating an online survey to get their crucial opinions on how well your site is selling to them.

20. When creating your own ads, make sure you understand who you're targeting, the goal of your campaign, and how to creatively use the ad confines to get viewers to click on your ad, not away from it.

21. Use other selling venues like online classified advertising or online auction sites to increase exposure to your site and products.