List building essentials
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This document discusses the essential elements needed for successful list building through email marketing. It identifies the key components as an autoresponder service, a squeeze page to collect leads, a quality giveaway to incentivize opt-ins, a domain name to host the pages, and hosting services. It then provides more details on each of these elements, emphasizing the importance of choosing a reputable autoresponder, developing an engaging squeeze page, and offering a high-quality free giveaway to attract subscribers.
List building essentials
- 1. List Building Essentials Page 1
- 2. Table of Contents List Building Essentials ............................................................................... 3 Autoresponder Service .............................................................................. 4 Hosted ................................................................................................... 5 Popular Hosted Services ........................................................................ 5 A Squeeze Page .......................................................................................... 8 Headline................................................................................................. 8 Bullet Points ........................................................................................... 9 Design .................................................................................................... 9 Quality Giveaway ..................................................................................... 10 Domain Name .......................................................................................... 11 Hosting .................................................................................................... 12 List Building Essentials Page 2
- 3. List Building Essentials List building is a very simple process, but you need a few tools before you get started. Without these tools, your job is going to be much harder, and your list won’t be as effective as it could be. Fortunately, most of these items are very easy and inexpensive to obtain, and are extremely simple to use. You won’t need a fortune to get started, nor will you need any specialized experience. If you’re missing any of these elements, it will be much harder to build a successful and profitable email list. You might be able to make do, but your list will never be as effective as it could be. We’re going to discuss the elements you must have for a successful email marketing campaign: An autoresponder service A squeeze page A quality giveaway A domain name Hosting Traffic List Building Essentials Page 3
- 4. Autoresponder Service Obviously, an autoresponder service is the most vital thing. Without it, you won’t be able to collect email addresses or email those you collect. There are two types of autoresponder services – hosted and self-hosted. Self-Hosted Self-hosted scripts won’t typically cost you a monthly fee, but they may cost you an upfront charge for the script itself. However, you may run into some issues that make you wish you’d gone with a hosted service. First, with hosted scripts, you don’t have access to the whitelisted status that many of the hosted services have. This means many of your subscribers won’t receive your emails, and instead your messages will go to their spam boxes where they will probably never be seen. Second, you will be on your own when it comes to dealing with spam complaints. When you are a member of a hosted service, they can handle spam complaints on your behalf. If you use double-opt in so that people have to confirm their request before they are subscribed, you will have extra protection in the case of spam complaints. List Building Essentials Page 4
- 5. However, ISPs may not trust you when you tell them you have a double- opt in from your own script. It may be difficult to prove, and you may run the risk of having your hosting company disconnect your service temporarily, or your domain confiscated by your registrar. Hosted Hosted autoresponder services are much safer to use. Not only are they typically whitelisted with most major ISPs, but they will work hard to ensure you are protected in the event that you have any spam complaints. Popular Hosted Services There are many different hosted services you could use, but each has their pros and cons. It can be difficult to decide which one to use when you’re confronted with dozens of different choices. I’m going to give you a brief rundown of some of the most popular hosted autoresponder services so you can hopefully choose the right one for your purposes. Remember, if you choose the wrong autoresponder, you will either lose the subscribers you’ve already collected, or you’ll have to transfer them to a new service. List Building Essentials Page 5
- 6. Transferring leads to a new service can be a major hassle. Unless you’re already well known with your new service, they may not want to accept your leads at all. And if they do, they may require you to ask all of your leads to reconfirm their subscription. This could result in leads failing to reconfirm, which could result in a huge reduction in the size of your list. Obviously, that would cost you a lot of hard work building the original list. Thus, it is essential to choose the right service from the start. Aweber.com – Aweber.com is the most popular autoresponder service among internet marketers. They have pricing plans that will grow with you, so you can pay less when you’re just getting started, and you won’t have to pay a higher monthly fee until your list grows. They are very easy to use, and are considered extremely reliable. GetResponse.com – GetResponse.com is very similar to Aweber.com, and they are Aweber’s closest competitors among marketers. They also have plans that will grow with your business. They used to be extremely reliable, but many marketers have noticed that their servers are a bit unreliable lately. iContact.com – iContact.com is not used as commonly by internet marketers, but it is very popular with large corporations such as Coleman, List Building Essentials Page 6
- 7. Electrolux, and Frigidaire. Their prices are very competitive, so they are definitely worth considering. ConstantContact.com – Constant Contact offers similar services to other popular choices, but they also have a free trial. This way, you can try out their service to see if you’re happy with it. The main caveat, of course, is that you may feel forced into staying after the trial if you’ve built a substantial email list, even if you’re not quite happy with the service. MailChimp.com – Mail Chimp is a newer service, and many people are turning to them because they offer a free service. While your list is small, it won’t cost you anything. However, there is a laundry list of topics they don’t allow, so you have to be very careful to ensure you aren’t breaking their terms. It would be very unfortunately to build a decently-sized list and lose it all because you failed to read their rules. List Building Essentials Page 7
- 8. A Squeeze Page You will need a squeeze page to collect leads. A squeeze page is a type of web page that has a short sales letter and an opt-in box. Typically, you use the squeeze page to collect names and email addresses by giving away something like a free report. There are a few elements a successful squeeze page should always have: 1. A great headline 2. Convincing bullet points 3. A clean, professional design 4. A great offer Headline As with sales pages, the headline is perhaps the most important part of a squeeze page. The headline should grab attention and get people to read the rest of your message. List Building Essentials Page 8
- 9. It’s a good idea to test various headlines until you find one that increases your opt-in rate. Bullet Points The bullet points on your squeeze page will need to convince people that your free offer is worth giving you their email address. Try to be somewhat mysterious, because mystery sells. Design The design of your squeeze page should be clean and professional. If it looks too amateurish, people may worry that you’re a spammer. If the design is too “busy”, it may detract from your message. Keep your design simple, but attractive. In the next section, we’ll take a look at your giveaway. List Building Essentials Page 9
- 10. Quality Giveaway A high-quality offer is critical. If you have a poor quality offer, people aren’t likely to subscribe. Moreover, if they do subscribe, they will lose confidence in you and your future offers. However, if you provide exceptional quality for free, people will suspect your paid content must be even better. Not only that, but they will see you as an expert in your field. This will make them more likely to buy any products you create, as well as any you recommend as an affiliate. Most people give away reports, but you could also offer videos or other giveaways. A report is a great idea, because you can also place monetization links within the report itself. This will help you make money from the very first moment people subscribe. Be sure to save your reports in PDF format so people can’t just edit them and steal the content easily. Load a link to the report in your autoresponder so it’s delivered automatically after someone subscribes. This will automate the process so you don’t have to worry about manually sending reports out to people who opt-in. List Building Essentials Page 10
- 11. Domain Name You’ll need a domain name to host your squeeze page. If you already have a domain name, you could host your squeeze page in a subdirectory on that domain. It’s a good idea to get a separate domain for your squeeze page. That way, you can have a domain that is similar to the title of your free giveaway. This isn’t necessary, but it is a nice touch that could help boost conversions. Most marketers get their domain names from www.NameCheap.com. If you search for “NameCheap month year coupon” in a search engine, you should be able to find a coupon that will let you get a .com domain name for less than $10. I suggest avoiding GoDaddy.com. They have been known to take someone’s domain away permanently for a single spam complaint, and if you’re going to be running an email list, that isn’t something you want to risk. It is also said that they will charge you a very large fee (over $100) to reinstate your domain even if you prove you did nothing wrong! List Building Essentials Page 11
- 12. Hosting Obviously, you will need hosting for your domain name. While your domain name is like your website’s street address on the internet, hosting is like your website’s home. Hosting for a simple squeeze page can be as little as $5 per month. If all you’ll be hosting is a squeeze page, you don’t need a lot of bells and whistles, but if you think you might be hosting blogs or other types of websites, you might want to consider a slightly more expensive hosting package. At HostGator.com, you can get a very good hosting package for about $10 per month. Their “Baby Croc” plan will let you host dozens of squeeze pages, blogs, or other types of websites on a single account. If you use the coupon code “wordpress” when you sign up to Host Gator, you can get the first month of hosting for just $0.01! These are the essentials you need for running a profitable email list. In all, it should cost you very little to get started, and you should find your list will become profitable very quickly. List Building Essentials Page 12