How to Build an Opt-in Email Marketing List
Building an opt-in emailing list is one of the smartest things that you can do as an Internet marketer. Not only is it almost free, but it will allow you to make money even when Google changes its algorithm and delists your website. Not only that, it also can be quite lucrative. According to professional blogger John Chow, each person on your list is worth approximately $1 per month.
Instructions
Difficulty:
Step 1
Find email auto responder software. This will allow you to create a double opt-in email list (whereby users opt in and reconfirm their desire to receive information). A few services that you can consider are Aweber, GetResponse and iContact. These services all come with a 30-day free trial and cost between $10 to $20 per month afterwards. The price increases with the number of subscribers on your list.
Step 2
Create a "squeeze" page. This is a simple web page that has little information on it and whose sole purpose is to collect a web surfer's email address. You can offer a free gift, such as an informative report or video, as an incentive for a person to opt in. For example, if you were building a list for diet-related offers, you could offer a free report on food that will help people lose weight. This is the best way to get a lot of opt-ins and to build your list. You can use a free squeeze-page generator if you don't know how to create one (see resources below).
Step 3
Drive traffic to your site by using either free or paid methods. There are dozens of ways to drive traffic to your squeeze page. For instance, you can put up videos on YouTube, write articles for directories like EzineArticles, or post in forums related to your topic with a link to your page. You can also pay for traffic with pay-per-click search engines like Yahoo, Google or Bing.
Step 4
Build a relationship with people on your list. Everyone hates spam. To keep your information from being viewed as spam, you should, first, offer a newsletter that has valuable information and, second, try selling products to the people on your list. A rule of thumb is for every sales email, offer three to four informative emails. You can always put sales links in the middle of the nonsales emails; just don't try to sell all the time.
References
Resources
Article Written By Palmer Owyoung
Palmer Owyoung holds a Master of Arts in international business from the University of California at San Diego and a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and is a trained molecular biologist. He has been a freelance writer since 2006. In addition to writing, he is a full-time Forex trader and Internet marketer.