If you’ve been researching internet marketing at all, you may have come across the phrase ‘the money is in the list’…
And it’s VERY true!
List building is, without question, one of the most crucial elements in any successful online business, and it’s a huge factor in how I went from big debts to millionaire status in just a few years.
You may know how to locate a market and find a product to sell, but without a list of TARGETED customers to promote that product to, you’ll never be in a position to make serious amounts of money online. Similarly, you might have the very best sales letter that’s ever been written, but if no one sees your website, you won’t be able to sell the product!
What you need is a way of sending targeted customers towards your product offers, over and over again, and the best way of doing this is to capture their email addresses, as this will allow you to stay in contact with your prospects and promote future products to them whenever you wish…
If You Build It, They Will Come…
Once you have a product in mind and a website set up, you’re in a position to look for customers. In short, you can now start to build a sizeable list of potential buyers. However, it’s not always about quantity here.
Let me explain what I mean by this…
You see, before I set up my online business, I’d always been under the impression that the ultimate goal when selling products online was to find as many customers as possible to buy my products…
My objective was to sell one product to lots and lots of different people, and I thought that this was the way to become rich. I mean, that was the logical approach and it made perfect sense… didn’t it?!
Yet it was only after I’d started making a decent amount of money online that I discovered this wasn’t the case at all…
And it really surprised me!
And that’s because the reality was almost the exact opposite to what I’d always thought…
Instead of selling ONE product to lots and lots of new customers, the real way to make huge amounts of money is actually to sell lots of products to a very small selection of customers, again and again! And it was this knowledge that led me to start selling back-end products to my customers…
Amazingly, the bulk of my profits now come from a relatively small number of people who’ve bought many different products from me!
So you see, THE REAL SECRET to making huge sums of money lies in your ability to get the same people to buy multiple products from you…
And in order to do this, you need to build a relationship with your list, because it’s the quality of this relationship that will determine the success of your business in the long run.
So by sending helpful email courses, reports, tips and advice to your list, you’ll be creating positive, long-term relationships, which will lead to consistent sales.
And why is that?
Well, there are a number of reasons, but here are the main three:
THEY TRUST YOU – Your own list of customers are familiar with you and trust that you will deliver… they have already bought from you and know that if they buy again, they will receive the product as advertised. This is a huge factor in people returning to buy similar products in the future…
THEY ARE HOT – Again, these people have already bought from you, and as a result, they are far more likely to buy another product, whether it be an impulsive purchase, or simply because they were satisfied with the previous purchase and want more of the same.
THEY ARE TARGETED – You know what these customers want before you present them with your offer. If they’re on your ‘real estate’ list, the chances are high that they’ll purchase a similar product again.
So then, how do you go about building a list?
1. Use a Squeeze Page
First of all, your list will come from a data capture device, sometimes known as a “Squeeze Page”.
They are single web pages with the sole purpose of capturing information for follow-up marketing. The information required will normally depend on the product that is ultimately being promoted, but typically, squeeze pages will aim to collect names, email addresses, post/zip codes, addresses and telephone numbers, although most squeeze pages simply require a name and email address.
But in order to obtain this information, you need to give them something in return. And what you offer them should be free, in order to get as many people to sign up as possible.
Here are some examples of things that you can give away in order to capture names and e-mail addresses from people:
Free e-book – This is arguably the most popular method of obtaining customer details. Website owners will purchase the resale rights to e-books and then give them away on their squeeze pages, completely free. This is certainly a method that I recommend because people are always looking for information, and they’ll happily trade in their email address for it if it’s free.
Free e-mail course – This is another popular method as an email course can run for many weeks – and even months – providing added value for the prospect. If you wanted to sell an e-book all about weight loss, for instance, you could target potential buyers by offering a free subscription to a weight loss email course. Many of those interested in losing weight would then happily sign up and you’d be able to build a list of highly targeted prospects.
Free subscription to your newsletter – An online newsletter pertaining to your products would enable you to keep in touch with your customers, helping to generate positive relationships. To utilise this method, you could offer a free subscription to your service, in order to entice prospects to give you their email address.
2. Link it to an email marketing service
Once you’ve set up your squeeze page, you then need to link it up to an email marketing service which will automatically collect and store the details for you. The best and most widely used companies that offer this service are GetResponse.com, AWeber.com or 1shoppingcart.com.
Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to start promoting your squeeze page, building a red-hot list of hungry and targeted buyers in the process!
As the saying goes, “the money is in the list”, and through my own experience of selling products online, I’ve found this to be one of the most accurate sayings ever!
As a result, you need to make sure that list building is at the forefront of your thinking as soon as you get started with your online business.
Because ultimately, however good your products may be, you won’t be able to make enough money from them unless you promote them effectively, and to people that actually want them…
The truth is, you need to find people that desperately want the type of product you’re selling – this is your TARGET MARKET.
And you can do this by offering them free products in return for their name and email address.
By capturing these details via squeeze pages, you can keep in contact with red-hot, targeted customers for months, even years down the line, and benefit from a consistent and residual supply of income.
