List Building 101

Unless you decided to build an online business less than fifteen minutes ago, you have no doubt heard about how vital it is for you to have your own opt-in email list. Nobody disputes this fact. Every Internet marketing guru there is will tell you that list building is the most important part of Internet marketing. Many of these Internet marketing gurus go into excruciating details about the importance of list building. Sometimes they are long on the ‘why’ and short on the ‘how’ but you can find a lot of good information on the Internet itself about how to build your opt-in list.

There are about five basic concepts to master:

1. Your opt-in box needs to be positioned on your page so that it is easy to see. There should be an opt-in box on every page of your website and it shouldn’t be at the bottom of any page. Opt-in boxes that are effective are placed at the top left or top right under your header graphic, if you use one. Either way, it should ALWAYS be available without scrolling down at all.

2. You have to give your website visitors an incentive for signing up for your opt-in list. People don’t just hand out their names and email addresses readily and you must give them a good enough reason to sign up. A free report, e-book, audio or video can work well for this.

3. Promotion is a vital part of building an opt-in list. Advertising pays. It has always paid and it always will. Sometimes you have to pay for advertising but there are ways to get free advertising. Either way...you are going to have to promote your opt-in list

4. Use your own expertise to build your list. Join blogs or forums and prove to the other posters that you know what you are talking about. Credibility builds opt-in lists.

5. Use joint ventures or joint venture give-a-ways to build your list. Remember that you have to give in order to receive and what you need to receive is more members of your opt-in list.

Obviously there’s more than that to building a large li9st, but those 5 basics will take you a fair way towards your online goals – get started on your list-building today.