Thursday, August 15, 2013

Email List Building. Part 1.

After a lugubrious 6 month period of researching, I have finally decided to start my own newsletter and thus need an email list. An opt-in list. I can't believe the difference that it has made even in these early stages. I'm not spending half of my time running around the internet keeping my music followers up to speed on each platform. Now I can send out a brief newsletter at the drop of a hat to followers who have opted-in and remained faithful to my musical dalliances. having said this, it has certainly been a steep learning curve....but I'm loving every minute of it!


Building email lists correctly and quickly is critical to the fastest success of any internet based business and maintains the stability of potential future sales. Failure to be able to start, maintain and promote a self-built email list can be devastating and cost the business a very slow growth/sales rate. Yet it can be incredibly easy when one has the correct tools and knowledge! So let us begin here.
Having all your advertising in place, now the idea is to provide a "hop-link" which is a link to somewhere else, but not the website. Wherever the link takes a person to is called the "landing- page." In this training example, I shall call it a "splash-page" because it should paint a beautiful picture in the eyes of the beholder of what it is that the advertiser wants the audience to see. I like to have an:"opt-in" box in the "splash-page" built in. Another great way is to go from the advertising to the "splash-page" to another landing page which is the:"opt-in" box itself. When the reader puts in a name and email address and then presses:"submit", it goes to the "landing-page" which now, is the final destination which is the website. The wrong sequence is to go straight from the advertising to the "opt-in box"! Because most potential customers do not like the idea of filling in the box knowing they will then be placed into a mailing list! So the "splash-page" comes first, or at least, the box is contained in the "splash-page". And please remember that the "splash-page" must pertain to whatever is contained in the website and the advertising as all are inter-related. So if the website and advertising is about dog food, there should be some kind of dog, or dog happily eating some food or whatever-likewise a money generating site might have some pictures of money, a bank vault, etc. It is a matter of sales psychology. It prepares the potential customer for the sign up and causes excitement and anticipation to see the website and product/service. It now becomes obvious that to build the list, an "opt-in box" is needed with the idea being to capture the name and email address of every single potential customer, and the "splash-page" helps in many valued ways, too, from allowing the reader to feel comfortable about giving the information, and in anxious anticipation to see the website!
The "opt-in box" is a part of service that comes with the tool called an "auto-responder'. This is special software that uses the "box" to capture and store the information. It contains the new mailing list that the advertiser is building. The advertiser can pre-program the responder with automated sales messages once every few days. Much software comes with the pre-setup for the use of responders and the responders can be set up for that software. For the easiest tasks, a simple responder can be had that provides the" box", stores the input information, can be pre-programmed with advance sales messages, the whole or any part of the list can be emailed to simultaneously, saving the marketer a great deal of time, messages can be sent individually to a single list member, for instance, when a sale is made, a "Thank-You!" should be sent out right away.
Using Auto-Responders: An alternative use of the responder is found not just in building a list directly, but also, as we can surmise from the previous paragraph, it is a communication tool with which to communicate to the list members directly via email. Very specifically, some marketers do not use it directly in sales so much as to have an information type website, and the idea here being no "up-front" sales, but only sending more helpful information like a news and information letter. Only much later is the whole entire and or first half of the list mailed with an advertisement to sell something to them. So this idea is to build and maintain the list to make sales on the "back-end" rather than "up-front" or "front-end sales". In both cases, the responder is always used again later on to mail advertisements, etc.
To summarize:I explained from start to finish how to build an email list with correct tools and techniques including the two very important tools of the "auto-responder" and the "splash- page". I discussed the correct and non correct sequence of the "opt- in box" and "splash-page". I explained various usages of the responder in regards to the list being built. I mentioned the difference between how the responder is used just to build a list for communication purposes alone, with the idea being to make "back-end" sales later, as opposed to simply collecting the data while trying to make sales on the "front-end" regardless of whether any sales were made or not. Of course, I brought out the idea that in building a list the idea is always to try to capture each and every single visitor's information that clicks through from the advertising. I hope this has been truly helpful and satisfying to the reader's knowledge.
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