|
Home / Internet Marketing / Email
Getting The Opt-In: How to Build an Opt-in Email List
By:adam beazley
So your running an online business and your wondering how to promote it. Building a list has got to be the single most important thing you can do to help build your home business. Generally speaking your opt-in list will provide the bulk of your website traffic so do not slack on this issue, this should be your primary focus.
Building an Opt-in email list used to be pretty easy. Now and days with spam at an all time high, people are reluctant to give out their email addresses. As marketers it is our job to offer them something so enticing that they will give us their email address. Its not enough to just have an enticing offer, you also need to establish some form of trust. How do you create trust on the internet and how do you create an enticing offer that the viewer cant refuse?
Lets start with the basics. You need a good autoresponder and you need a set of emails that has some good content. I recommend the Getresponse autoresponder, simply because they are hosted on a good server that has not been blacklisted by AOL, Yahoo or other large email providers and its free.
Now as far as email content goes, I recommend that you do your own research and write your own emails. Keep in mind that the only way to have a responsive opt-in list is to continually provide quality information which gives your subscribers results. If you are the person who absolutely despises writing and would prefer another option, you can go to ghostwriter and hire a freelance writer to draft up a set of emails for you to use. The ghostwriting service is very affordable and a great solution for those of you pressed with time.
I recommend having one primary full set of follow-up emails focused on a particular subject. For instance you might have an email campaign 'Home Business Tips' which sends an email a week and covers many different facets of home business promotion. This primary email campaign will be used in conjunction with another technique to attract the most new subscribers.
One of the most effective list building techniques is to make special 5 day email courses which addresses particular issues and then have that autoresponder courses loop into your primary autoresponder campaign. For instance you might have a 5 day course "5 Methods to increase your Opt-in subscribers" and every day you would send an email with one of the methods explained in detail. After the 5th day you would have an email telling the subscriber that they have been automatically entered into your "Home Business Tips" ezine. Be sure to let them know how to unsubscribe in case they are not interested, otherwise no response would imply that they are interested in receiving more information from you.
Now that you know how the back-end works we need to shift our focus on the front end, otherwise known as the 'Squeeze Page' or 'Splash Page'. This is the place where you send people with the promise of something, weather it just be the information within the email campaign, free software or some popular e-book. Whatever the enticement is you need a good 'Squeeze Page' to convince the visitor to give you his or her email address in exchange for the enticement.
A squeeze page design consist of 7 major components:
1. The question - this is where you ask the question that your 5 day course will answer.
2. The statement - this is where you state what the email course will do for them, in BIG RED LETTERS deliver the results of following your direction.
3. The Picture - this is where you gain the trust of your visitors, a picture is worth a thousand words and having your picture on your squeeze page will increase your chances of them opting in by almost %80. You should post a nice headshot of yourself with your signature right next to it. You should also type your name, profession and website next to the signature.
4. The List - this is where you list the benefits of your ecourse and the free stuff you are giving away. You might use bullets where you describe the free materials and maybe tell the visitor what they are worth in dollars. Be sure to bring attention to your action words and keywords by increasing the size and or changing the color (red works well).
5. The directions - here is where you tell the visitor what to do. Tell them how to fill in the form and state exactly what they will get by filling out he form.
6. The form - this is the form that will actually take their information and submit it to your autoresponder. Generally speaking the autoresponder you use will have a place where you can go get this form to place within the HTML of your website. See "Website Design Section" for more help on this subject.
7. The disclaimer - this is where you promise not to sell or give away the persons email address under no circumstance.
8. The testimonial (optional)- this is where you can post a customers testimonial about your email course and or your character and business practices.
Now that you have finished all of the setup your done, all that's left is getting people to your squeeze page. This can accomplish this by using direct email campaigns, solo ads, classifieds, traffic exchange programs, forums and many other techniques.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: opt-in list, opt-in list building, online marketing, list building, home business building, home business, online business, opt-in, email list
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Adam Beazley
www.Plug-In-Home-Business.com
If you want to learn more ways to drive more people to your splash page and website signup for my "Home Business Traffic & Promotion Strategies" email series here: www.Plug-In-Home-Business.com/PIHB.html
This article may be distributed freely as long as this bio box stays in tack.
|
|
| Top Email Articles |
|
|
- 2). email-automatic-responder By : Corey Morehouse
What is a email automatic responder?
If you run an online business or send a large amount of e-mail periodically you may have found if being a very tedious task. Email automatic responders called "autoresponders" eliminate this task completely. Well almost :)
Email automatic responders allow you to followup automatically with any prospect or lead automatically.
|
- 3). Email Marketing is Still Hot for Small Business By : W. Dave Free
How do you communicate with your customers? We all know that there's getting to be more and more online activity. How much? According to the Pew Research Center:
The proportion of Americans online on a typical day grew from 36% of the entire adult population in January 2002 to 44% in December 2005. The number of adults who said they logged on at least once a day from home rose from 27% of American adults in January 2002 to 35% in late 2005.
|
- 4). Navigate More Website Activity Through Email Newsletters To Visitors By : Anton Cheranev
When you own a business website, you may find if helpful to have a weekly or monthly newsletter full of useful information about your products. Newsletters can be a great way to navigate more website activity your way. Emailing weekly or monthly newsletters can be the best way to update or remind past visitors of your services or products. Extending special offers in those newsletters can generate more website traffic, purchases of services or products and possible referrals from the visitor’s friends and family.
|
|
|
- 6). Diamonds in the Spam By : Virginia Bola, PsyD
There are those who turn apoplectic at the receipt of unsolicited commercial email, commonly dubbed spam. These are the same people who receive hundreds of bulk letters addressed to "Occupant" without batting an eye.
Getting rid of unwanted mail means sorting through the stack to pull out the important pieces and then dumping the remainder in the trash bin.
|
|
|
- 8). Email Marketing: Affordable Internet Marketing Technique By : David Riewe
Email marketing is labeled as a killer method when it comes to effective low-cost Internet marketing endeavors. This is because it is the most widely-used and has the best reputation in bringing targeted traffic to websites. It is used to stay in touch with your customers or prospective customers, send out invitations, or make special offers.
It's as easy as writing an e-mail that may be in a form of a newsletter or a plain announcement, and sending that to as many targeted recipients as possible.
|
- 9). 5 Surefire Tips for Effective Email Marketing By : Rob Burko
Over the past few years, research has continued to prove the benefits of e-mail marketing for business: low costs, high conversion rates and detailed tracking are all notable features. But e-mail marketing is becoming much more than just a tool for spammers and e-businesses. Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy on the differences between spam and permission-based emails, and more and more of them are accepting permission-based e-mail marketing as a positive replacement for direct mail.
|
- 10). Opt-In List Building Is A Provable Success By : Shon Christopher
There has been a lot of talk about the reality of success regarding opt-in lists. Due to this talk there have been many marketers partaking in surveys conducted to ensure that website promotion through opt-in list building is not just internet hype. The results obtained in these surveys have clearly shown that opt-in list building is still the hottest marketing tool for website promotion.
|
| New Email Articles |
|
|
- 2). How Comments Attract Search Engine Indexing & Traffic By : William McRea
All bloggers want readers to post comments. Why?
Comments offer the blog both social and SEO benefits. Comments increase the percentage of text on the page. They increase the keywords, and hopefully, include a keyword anchored link to a webpage or blog with the same content and keywords.
|
|
|
|
|
- 5). The Significance and Benefits of Email Marketing By : Justin Brown
There is no dismissing the fact that e-mail, also known as electronic mail, is an indispensable medium of marketing on the internet.
Internet as whole has a wide marketing area because of the fact that it is available high and wide throughout the world. This makes it accessible to almost every country and eventually to the people in those countries.
|
- 6). What Is So Great About An Email Follow Up? By : George Royal
If you are in business, any kind of business then it is important for you to learn how to make the customers and clients happy. The first rule of doing this is to make them feel listened to and appreciated and the easiest way to do that is to use an email follow up every tie you get a message form one of them. This can be done in one of a couple different ways, it does not matter which one you choose as long as you do choose one kind of email follow up.
|
- 7). Direct Mail – Not What it Used to Be By : Joy Gendusa
The number of businesses using direct mail marketing now compared to how many used this medium 10 to 15 years ago is staggeringly higher. More and more marketers understand its effectiveness and are on the bandwagon - especially Mortgage Brokers.
Years back the novelty of receiving an advertisement in your mailbox was such that any direct mail pieces were not only looked at but mulled over.
|
- 8). How To Use Autoresponders To Increase Your Sales By : Ken Hill
Using autoresponders will help you to close more sales through consistent and effective follow up of your visitors.
With your autoresponders you'll be able to:
- Educate your visitors about your product
- Share the benefits of purchasing your product
- Increase your credibility
- Build up your visitors' trust in you
- Continue to keep your marketing message on your visitors' minds so that when your visitors are ready to purchase from you, they will.
|
- 9). Email Miscommunication is Too Easy! By : Kelly J. Watkins, MBA
We misinterpret, filter, or change 70% to 90% of what we hear. Communicating messages clearly, and in a format that the receiver will understand, is difficult. It’s easy to miscommunicate. By watching which words you choose, your message will be more clearly communicated.
Cause
Why does all this confusion occur? One of the many reasons is that people suffer from information overload.
|
- 10). Copywriting in Your Email Campaign By : Chet Holcomb
Want to double or triple the number of new leads and customers you generate each month with your emails? Try focusing your Email campaign with copywriting techniques.
Copywriting in Emails is the art of using attractively written content focusing around a service or product to sell. A tool used to tempt the reader by making the items for sale seem attractive, desirable and at the same time beneficial.
|
|
|
