form directly into your email auto responder, you need to start sending them emails. You have succeeded in getting people to sign up to receive more information from you by offering them them a good quality product for free on your opt-in page. Now you need to start communicating with them and build a relationship with them through your follow-up emails. How do you start? What should you say in your first follow-up email?

Although list building forms part of email marketing (you are building your list for the purpose of email marketing), email marketing really only starts with your first follow-up message.

The first follow-up email is probably the most difficult, because you make your first impression with this message and pave the way for future communication. With your first email you should build on the foundation of trust and credibility which you started with your offer of a quality product for free. The product that enticed your website visitors to sign up to your email list.

In many cases, the first e-mail will contain the free gift they have signed up for. After these people have received their free gift, they are a lot more likely to think favourably of you and to want to give something back in the future. In marketing and perhaps more so in internet marketing, offering something for free is a very important technique and has a psychological basis. It is human nature to be inclined to ‘return the favour’, to reciprocate.  In your case, you hope this comes in the form of them making a purchase through your affiliate link, or of your own product.

Whether they get a free gift or not, or perhaps they have already received their gift by having been redirected to your download page upon confirming their subscription to your list, you want to take this opportunity to start building a relationship. Perhaps share with them what they can expect from these e-mails, or even some valuable information they would want to know.

There is no one right way to craft your first follow-up e-mail. The important thing is that you are yourself. One thing you can do to make sure your e-mail is as good as it can be is put yourself in your reader’s (prospective customer) shoes. If you are a person randomly searching the internet and you signed up for the free product, what would you expect to receive in the form of contact from the person you signed up for with?

If you find it difficult to come up with ideas, go through some follow-up e-mails that you have received yourself. Give particular attention to those marketers who you have grown to respect. By using them as a model, you can easily create your first follow-up e-mail, and it will be likely to be something that will endear your list members to you.

Remember that these e-mails will be set up in your auto email responder. For that reason, there is no reason to expect perfection right away. You can always tweak this first follow-up message down the road as you get more information about how your list members react and what they expect to receive. Don’t be too hard on yourself!

Spend some time making sure this first e-mail makes the right impression. You will almost certainly succeed in this by stepping in the shoes of your list members and providing in their need for quality information related to the subject of the product they signed up for.

Email Marketing and List Building Resources:

Top List Building Products Reviewed

Squeeze Page List Building Solution

Aweber Email Marketing Software:

The reason for singling out a squeeze page for traffic generation is because the very nature of a squeeze page does not really allow for search engine optimization (SEO).

The basic premise of SEO is content. SEO is driven by content and since a squeeze page is very much devoid of much informative and educational content, it is difficult to achieve search engine indexing and ranking for squeeze pages. However, linking quality content articles from the same domain to your squeeze page would definitely help your search engine rankings. By doing this you covertly ad content and hence value to your squeeze page in the eyes of the search engines. Even if your squeeze page does not show up in the search result pages of search engines, your article with the good content might very well. So, you achieve search engine optimization for your articles with links in your articles to your squeeze page. Chances are good that the organic traffic you achieve to your articles will result in traffic to your squeeze page!

This same strategy should be applied to publishing articles on article directories, such as Ezine Articles, Go Articles and Article Dashboard. You simply submit your article with your squeeze page URL in the author’s resource box, which is usually displayed immediately after your article. Indicate that there is a free offer when they click on the link and you are almost certain to get people visiting your squeeze page from your article.

A proven and sure-fire way to drive traffic is pay-per-click advertising through Google Adwords for example. You will basically bid on the keywords (search terms) that people interested in your product are likely to search for. Create a very inviting ad so people will want to visit your webpage and see what you have to offer. If your squeeze page is compelling enough, you’ll probably find that you get an opt-in rate of around 20% or more! Of course, this varies according to the niche, but you’ll probably find a number around that.

As is the case with article directories, there are many free websites you can use to drive traffic. Sites like Squidoo and HubPages allow you to create a one-page website where you can link to your opt-in page. You’ll get the benefit of traffic straight from these communities, as well as through their rankings in the search engines for the keywords you have focused on.

Classified ad sites should also not be overlooked. In fact, the more types of websites you can use to promote your squeeze page, the better.

Many people are achieving great results with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook as well as business networking sites such as Orange Leads, Marketing Mastermind, Linkedin, Giblink and many others. Social media marketing requires a different and more subtle approach, though. Your focus with these sites should be on building relationships and trust to attract people to you and subsequently your interests, rather than blatantly advertising your products.

Joining online forums related to your niche and the subject of your squeeze page is another important internet marketing method. Build relationships with your fellow forum members and link from your forum posts to your squeeze page with the free offer.

Creating your opt in page or squeeze page is one thing, driving traffic to it is quite another and requires the traffic generation techniques as outlined above. It’s best to create a schedule and stick to it every single day in order to start seeing some good traffic. Do a little bit each day and it won’t seem like such a burden. The results in terms of both building your email list and profits, will be great!

One last thing: Make sure you have selected a good autoresponder company that will keep track of your e-mail open rates and be very reliable for you and your list members.

Recommended Website Traffic and SEO Resources:

Traffic Explosion Secrets:  A combination of SEO and traffic generation methods. How you can start generating traffic quickly and easily on a step-by-step basis, beginning with methods that take time to drive traffic to your site but continue to do so on a consistent basis thereafter. Follow this step-by-step plan and traffic generation problems that you may have suffered will rapidly become a thing of the past.

Advanced SEO Techniques: A DIY instructional guide for implementing advanced SEO techniques. These are the specific techniques that SEO experts use (and YOU can too!) to drive large numbers of traffic to their websites for free through organic search results from the search engines.

Visit List Building Products Reviewed: Independent Review Site of Leading List Building Products

The most successful online businesses spent a lot of time developing a strong email mailing list. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying ‘the money is in the list’, but the logic behind building a list is that it’s easier to market to an existing customer than it is to continue finding new ones. This is perhaps why online marketers consider their email marketing lists to be their most valuable asset.

If you haven’t begun building a mailing list for your own online business yet, then you could be losing thousands of dollars in sales. For your online business to stay successful over the long term, you’ll need to build a mailing list of opt-in subscribers filled with people who are willing to hear more about your products. If you want to know the latest craze in marketing have a look at this Affiliate Gameplan page.

Having your own list enables you to extract the lifetime time value of customer or turn a prospect into a customer. It seems that lately the new marketers jumping into the industry are seeking only short term profits, instead of building a strong, long-term business that could keep making profits for years to come.

Learning to build a solid, receptive list is easier than most people think, once you have the right information. This article will look at some list building tactics you can put to good use for your own online business.

Have you ever had the experience where you were looking for something, yet it was right there in plain sight all along? That’s precisely what email signatures are in relation to list building. Adding a subtle signature to all your outgoing emails can be a great way to attract interested people to your subscriber list. A high profile internet marketing team has put together a fantastic course and you can get all the details at this Affiliate Gameplan page. This could mean simply adding a link directly to your opt-in page at the foot of every email you send. Don’t just leave a link, though; add a teaser or line about your offer so people know what they’re signing up for. This can be a cost effective way to promote your online business at the same time as keeping in contact with people. The benefit is that people will continue to use emails for years to come, so your strategy will always work. What’s more, you can start to receive massive traffic virally when your email gets forwarded and spreads around – you never who reads your signature and signs up for your list.

Another suggestion for increasing your subscribers could be to ask other webmasters if they’d like to exchange ‘Thank You’ pages with you. For instance, once a person has signed up for your offer or joined your mailing list, where are they directed? What have you put on your Thank You page for people to see once they’ve signed up? Most list owners simply thank the person for subscribing and leave the rest of the page blank. Not what we’re looking for here; you have to leverage this space to get the most out of it. You could instead add one of the other publishers link their and recommend whatever they are offering in exchange of the email, and when they do the same on their site, nothing like it. This is called co-registration and can do wonders to your list building venture.

In all seriousness, list building is usually much simpler than people think. Be consistent in your efforts and you’ll find your list begins to grow even as you keep finding new ideas to grow it further.

More Articles:
Traffic Ultimatum

5.5 Tips That Boost Your Subscriber Profits
By Brian Terry
Have you ever wondered how you can make the subscribers on your list more responsive? Here’s what I mean… I’m sure you’ve done this before, you send your subscribers one email after another full of valuable, useful content, then you make a recommendation to a product and virtually no one orders through your link. Sound familiar?

It took me many years of trial and error to create this list of 5 tips that help you boost your subscriber profits.

Pay close attention to what I’m about to reveal because it can and will increase your listbuilding profits.

Tip 1: Use double optin subscriptions

Getting people to confirm their subscription ensures you have people on your list who definitely want to hear more from you. This is one of the most important steps to take because it helps you to build a quality subscriber list. Remember listbuilding is about quality not quantity.

Tip 2: Use personalization

It’s been proven time and time again that personalization significantly increases the effectiveness of your communication with your subscribers. By including your subscribers name in the emails you send them gives the message a sense of it’s being sent just for them and no-one else.

Tip 3: Train your subscribers

For every 2 emails you send out that are content orientated send out 1 email that’s an honest recommendation you make for a product you think will help them. Train your list to expect to receive offers from you that will be of use to them.

Tip 4: Regularly survey your subscribers

Find out what your lists wants, then give it to them. Simple. You could ask them questions like what’s their biggest problem online as well as ask other demographic style questions. This helps you to build a profile of your subscriber and gives you great understanding as to how you can help them better and what offers they’re more likely to respond to.

Tip 5: Give your list special offers

It doesn’t matter if you own a product or are an affiliate, make your list an offer only they’ll be getting. It could be for the next 48 hours you’re offering 20% discount on your product. Or you offer an extra bonus but only if they order something through your affiliate link.

Tip 5.5: Keep in regular contact with your subscribers

It’s when you email your list 2 times a month that they begin to forget who you are. Stay in regular contact and people will begin to know, like and trust you. Above all don’t forget this one golden rule of listbuilding… the money is in your “relationship” with your list not it’s size.
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About the Author
Brian Terry is the Co-founder of ListHero where he provides you with the fastest, easiest way to build your list for free.
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** Sidebar **
An opt-in page or squeeze page (also called a lead capture page and a registration page) must not be confused with an opt-in form or opt-in box as you would often find on a website or blog. The opt-in form on a website or blog merely provides an opportunity for visitors to subscribe to an email list. The squeeze page on the other hand is wholly committed to getting people to sign up to an email list and serves no other purpose whatsoever.
** End Sidebar **

So, you need to create and set up an opt-in page in order to collect names and email addresses of people to become your e-mail subscribers. Many online marketers often don’t take these details seriously and wonder why they are not getting as many sign-ups as they thought they would get! Follow this advice, and you should be able to create a great opt-in page that will lead to bigger profits for you.

The first thing you need to realize is that your opt-in page has one purpose and one purpose only and that is to collect e-mail addresses. You don’t want to put any other information and advertisements on this page because it could distract your visitors from concentrating on what you want them to do. They should see just one thing to do and that is to sign up for your list. This will definitely increase your conversions, so try not to over stuff your opt-in page.

While you don’t want it to be too cluttered, you do want to put some compelling text on the page that convinces people to opt in. This does not need to be long — around 300 words will be just fine. Make sure you include the benefits of signing up for the list and definitely focus on what is in it for them. Oh, and the headline! Be certain your headline grabs their attention. It is the most important part of your opt-in page. According to David Ogilvy, founder of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, “On the average five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that, unless your headline sells …, you have wasted 90% of your money.”

Free Download: The World’s Greatest Collection of Headlines. (A free gift!)

Video squeeze pages are becoming increasingly popular and possibly have a higher conversion rate especially if a short video on you opt-in page is used to provide more content about your offer and a preview of what people will get when they sign up for your email list.

You’ll also want to give something valuable away for free in exchange for their e-mail address. This is not mandatory, but many Internet marketers do so because it definitely increases conversions. You can give away an e-book, series of articles, audio, or anything else you have in mind. Just make sure it is a quality product, perhaps even something you paid for!

Whatever you decide to do, make it very clear that the benefits of signing up for the list are greater than the costs. While it might seem silly to associate a cost with giving way an e-mail address, many people are wary of doing so in this day and age. For that reason, you need to make sure you come across as a credible person and make it clear that you will never send spam or sell their e-mail address.

A great thing to do is browse other marketers opt-in pages in your niche. That way you can get a feel for the layout of their opt-in page and how they have designed it. You’ll probably find that these are quite simple and often the most compelling opt-in pages don’t even contain a header graphic. Your riveting headline will do the trick!

Opt-in Page Resources:
WordPress Landing Page Templates

Squeeze Page List Building Solutions

Video Squeeze Page Templates

Email Marketing Software:

Why Build Your Own List?

The phrase “The Money Is In The List” has become somewhat of a cliché, but it is true. However, it does need qualification:

The money is in your very own list of targeted subscribers and how well you take care of the people on your list

With that being said, the question still remains: “But why a list, why not free or paid traffic to my websites?”

And the answer to this is that unless you have your own list of subscribers you have to rely on other non-stop forms advertising to drive potential customers to your websites. By having to do this, you are at the mercy of other companies (your advertising resources) as to how far your customer reach is. What’s more, by merely driving visitors to your offers without capturing their contact details, you have lost those customers and potential customers forever and you have to keep on driving new potential customers to your offers just for them to disappear into thin air after they have visited your site and even after they have purchased from you! It is simply the ultimate of  lost opportunities and flushing customers away in Internet marketing!

When you have your own list you don’t have to worry so much about pay per click advertising campaigns and SEO (search engine optimization), because you own your own list full of targeted buyers!

[Side Note: If you are promoting a program or product as an affiliate of another company without that company passing on to you the email addresses of the people you have recruited for that company,you are not building your list and your business. You are promoting another program's owner without promoting you and building your business. For more information about this, see Creating Your Own Sales Funnel]

Build Your List In A Niche

What is your niche? Can you answer that? It is a fundamental decision you have to make before you start building your list otherwise you you will be like a cat on a hot tin roof jumping from the one product and program to the next. Having absolute clarity on your niche will give you focus and prevent confusion which is so common amongst people starting out marketing online. Drawing your marketing boundaries by clearly defining your niche will also prevent you from suffering information overload and analysis paralysis.

Naturally, you would want a hot niche with a hungry and passionate market and there are thousands to choose from. You need to make sure you have something to offer a group of people. You also want to make sure the customer base will be large enough to make your efforts worth your while.

If you cannot think of a niche, you just need to brainstorm and work your way from there. You can go to Amazon.com, magazines.com, 43things.com, Yahoo Answers, and many other sites to get some good ideas.

Of course, as an Internet marketer you are not limited to choosing just one niche. After you have built up a profitable relationships with members of one niche, you can add another to your business. That way, you are not dependent on a certain group of people for your income. Spreading assets out this way is an excellent way to make sure your business always stays afloat.

You Need Email Marketing Software (An Autoresponder Service) To Build Your List

This might sound harsh, but unless you are prepared to make use of an autoresponder service for your list building, building your list would not quite be possible. With an autoresponder you can set up your email messages in a sequence and as new members join your list, the series of emails from message one are automatically sent to each individual subscriber as they join your list.

When I first started building my list I tried to send out emails manually to my subscribers from my Gmail account and realized it was a disaster before I reached 10 subscribers. It is just not practically possible to keep track and having to send the same sequence of messages over and over, one by one, as each new subscriber joins. If it is not possible with 10 people how on earth would you manage with hundreds and then thousands of subscribers? And that is what you
should aim for, thousands of subscribers to your list.

[Side Note: Top Internet marketers agree that one subscriber on your list equals $1 in income per month. 100 subscribers = $100 per month etc.]

A good auto responder service also allows you unlimited auto responders with unlimited messages for each auto responder. For example, if your niche is body building you will capture subscribers for exercise regimes, dieting, competitive body building etc. You will have a different autoresponder with your sequence of emails set up for each one of these to ensure you meet your subscribers’ specific needs and meet them at the point from where they subscribed to your list.

When I say a good auto responder service actually builds your list for you, I mean it. It is just so much more than an automated sender of a series of emails.

Here are a just a few of the additional benefits:

• It can re-direct your subscribers to thank you pages, bonus pages, download pages or whatever sites you choose to send your subscribers to.

• It creates opt-in forms from your websites and blogs to capture names and email addresses of subscribers

• It generates a code that allows you to sync your existing lead capture/squeeze pages with your autoresponder   series

• It can automatically sends out a broadcast directly from your blog every time and immediately as you update your blog

• It tracks the opening of each and every email right to the exact time of day

• It tracks the clicks on every link in every email delivered

• It allows messages in html and/or text with a wide selection of templates for newsletters, blog broadcasts           etc.

• It tests your messages for spam to ensure a high delivery rate of your emails

• It can track visits to your websites and blogs

• It reports any spam complaints

• It lets you design different opt-in forms for the same site for split testing purposes

• It allows you split testing of your emails once you have a list of 100 or more subscribers

• It offers extensive tutorials on how to use every function and feature of your autoresponder service and             live online support

This list is not an exhaustive one, but should be sufficient as an illustration of how your autoresponder service plays a crucial role in building and maintaining your list. It is simply indispensible.

There are also autoresponder scripts you can set up on your own host. Many people are attracted to these because there is no monthly fee and they feel like they will have more power over their messages and settings. However, you should probably stay away from these scripts as they’re usually more trouble than they’re worth!

For one thing, there is the technical hassle of setting them up in the first place. Beyond that, some of the scripts are unreliable, which can really harm your business. You should also be aware that the autoresponder companies usually have relationships with the e-mail providers to ensure the delivery of your emails.

These scripts can have a higher chance of getting caught in the spam filters — which can destroy
your business before you even get started.

Going with a reliable auto responder company is one of the best things you can do as an Internet marketer and if you are serious about building your own list.

There are many good auto responder services available, but I prefer a service offering a range of important Internet marketing tools and resources with the auto responder service and facility being one of them. This way you have all your essential marketing tools in one place and integrated with one another. It also makes much more sense economically to have these tools and services bundled together, rather than to have to pay several membership fees to have access to all your important marketing resources.

In this respect, Global Virtual Opportunities (GVO) offers a “marketing home” to a whole army of distinguished Internet marketers with all the top-notch resources it offers in one place. Together with the auto responder service, it offers unlimited domain and web site hosting, lead capture and prospecting systems, video producing and hosting facilities, your own web conferencing facility plus excellent training in Internet marketing and video tutorials on the use of all the services it offers.

In Conclusion

Once you have clearly comprehended why it is important to build your own list of subscribers, what niche you will build your list in and why you need an autoresponder to build your list, you are pretty much ready to kick off with at least one good list building guide that will cover the specific process and finer details required to build your list as quickly and as effectively as possible.

There are hundreds of list building guides, but if you want to get it right from the start, select something from an independent and honest review site on the most sought after list building guides available.

If you feel you are not yet ready to purchase a list building guide, get yourself going with a free 7day e-course on list building success. With my compliments!

To your list building success!

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If only I had known this when I first started out with Internet marketing, my online experiences and achieving results, would have come just so much sooner.

Here is a truth that took me some time to discover.

If you can relate to my following paragraph, you might find this article in good time for you to get really focused on what Internet marketing and earning online truly boils down to:

For most people starting out with Internet marketing,  the confusion, information overload and the difficulties with sorting the wheat from the chaff, are the greatest challenges to master  online marketing.

As you progress and the pieces of the puzzle start falling in place, you actually come to realize something quite simple, but also something quite fundamental:

- Long-term and sustained success as an Internet marketer is directly related to your own email list of targeted  subscribers and how well you look after the people on your list -

So, if you have uncertainties about where, how and what, my advice is simple:

- focus entirely on building YOUR very own list of subscribers and how to take real good care of them

Here are my recommendations for CORRECT list building help and resources:
(I will never recommend something that I don’t personally use and that has not helped me greatly!)

1.)  Honest And Independent Review Site Of The Best List Building Guides

Up to date reviews of the leading list building guides.

The site offers a free, information-packed 7 day e-course on the real truths to list building success.

2.) Deadly List Building Tragedies

Just when you thought you knew everything about building a high paying list, William Brant had to go and spill the beans about the deadly business killing mistakes most people don’t even know they are making.

A free download and an absolute MUST HAVE!

3.) Tellman Knudson’s List Hero Membership Site

A membership site with all the support, processes and viral tools that you can dream of to build your list quite dramatically.

Free to join.

What is offered above is the crop of the cream in list building resources. That I can guarantee after my own long search for the right business building help and support.

Have a look at these great opportunities and you will see what I mean when I say this is top-notch quality to help YOU build YOUR business as you build YOUR list!

To your list building success!