List building is extremely important. A subject you need to understand.
In this article, I will explain why every serious blogger and small business needs to focus on building an email list right now. I will also share an easy to follow actionable step by step guide that you can implement in your business right away.
When I talk with other professional bloggers, not building an email list is the #1 mistake they admit. So why is it that beginners continue to make this mistake over and over? Because there is a false presumption that email marketing is dead.
But Isn’t Email Marketing Kind of Dead?
No, it is not. In fact email marketing has never been more alive than it is today. Every website wants you to give them your email address, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, or The New York Times. Why email is so relevant and important?
The answer is very simple. Everyone’s got an email address which they log into several times a day. Most people with smart phones are signed into their email accounts 24/7 with push notifications enabled. Email is much more personal, direct, and a reliable way to get in touch with most people.
Some will ask what about social media? Social media is a great way to reach your audiences, but let’s face it, social media websites come and go. Not too long ago we had friendfeed, Google Buzz, MySpace, Plurk and countless other cool websites. Most of them are either dead now or irrelevant. Today we got Facebook and Twitter, but not every one is as hooked up on these sites as they are to their email account.
Facebook for example has the EdgeRank metrics which limits the reach of your updates. Twitter streams are so busy that there is a very short span of time in which you can get user’s attention. There are other places like Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, etc. You need a different content strategy for different channels, but for a small business or an individual blogger this can quickly get overwhelming.
I am not saying that social media is not important. It is, and you should explore every opportunity to reach out to your audiences however you should spend more time and effort into something that guarantees much better results.
Why List Building Is Important
During my years of online marketing experience, I have learned that list building is probably the best thing you can do for your website and your business.
Why? Because when someone subscribes to your email list with double opt-in, they are really interested and are much more likely to open your email and click on the links. It is not such a surprising fact, here is why:
Email is Personal – Email allows you to land into a user’s inbox. There is no ranking system limiting your reach. Your message is intended for a user and it lands into their inbox. It is very direct, personal, and casual.
Email is Purposeful – To get your email a user needs to signup for your email list and confirm their email address. Someone doing this much work is obviously already interested into hearing from you and is much more receptive and responsive to your message.
Email is Targeted – As we mentioned earlier the user has already shown interest in your products / content. They have already given consent to learn more by receiving your emails. They are much more likely to click, buy, and spread the word around for your products and services. Since you already know what they like, you can deliver them highly relevant content and offers to get better results.
Email is One-on-One – People read email in the privacy of their inbox. The message is not on a public wall or timeline. They can ask you questions directly in private with confidence. You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to ask questions on public forums where everyone can read them. Email also allows users to build a one on one relationship with you. Gradually they develop trust in your brand and proudly spread the word around.
To summarize all this, email works a lot better than any other online marketing tool. Big name brands learned that long time ago, and this is why they spend thousands of dollars on social media campaigns to get people to sign up for their email lists. They understand that the email is the best long term investment and people will continue to get their message at a very low cost for a longer period of time.
Free vs. Paid Email List Options
There are a number of free email subscription services online. Often beginners use the free options to save cost. This is understandable however it is not the most ideal way to go about it. Why?
Because most free options allow you to offer blog subscription via email. Most beginners don’t understand that email newsletters and blog subscription via email are two different things.
Services like FeedBurner or Jetpack Subscriptions offer blog subscription via email. This allows your users to receive an email update every time you publish a new blog post. This means the information they are receiving has to be public first. You can’t send out private email newsletters, you can’t personalize the email, you can’t categorize the subscribers by interest levels, and you lack reporting. So basically you don’t know anything about your subscribers especially with Jetpack.
Email newsletters while cost money allows you to send private mass emails to a group of subscribers. You can see subscriber activity, and segment your most loyal followers. You can run A/B split test campaigns to see which email subjects work better. You can see which country you have the most subscribers to adjust your timezone preferences. Last but definitely the most important, you can see the emails of all of your subscribers.
To really get your list building going, you should go with an email provider like Aweber or MailChimp. They’re both paid services, but MailChimp offers a free account for first 2000 subscribers. This is great for beginners because by the time they surpass that number, that email list should be paying for itself.
How to Start Building Your Email List
Considering the benefits of list building, it requires very little effort, time and money to build. Here is how to get started:
Select an Email Marketing Service Provider – I would recommend either Aweber or GetResponse.
Strategically Place Beautiful Optin Forms – Some WordPress themes come with built-in sidebar email widgets. Your email marketing service provider may also provide you with the embed code that you can place into your WordPress site.
If you really want to increase your email signups then you need to create better optin forms.
To further increase your signup rates, you need to offer your users incentives to join your email list. People love getting things for FREE and immediately. Offer them instant incentives that they can get for free immediately after joining your email list. This can be an eBook, coupon, free resource, or anything else.
It does not matter what kind of business you run, what kind of website you have, or what industry you are in. If you’ve got a website, and you want to turn your visitors into returning customers, then you need to get them in your email list.
Learn from other’s experience and don’t make the same mistake. Start list building right away.
Would you like to build a big list?
I have done some research, and I’ve come across a website, Affilorama by Mark Ling, a successful multimillion dollar internet marketer. There are free videos once you join for free that discuss list building.
In Affilorama he has a course called AffiloBlueprint that teaches you in a very simple way, taking you through the steps to get you started and up and running as a successful internet marketer. It really teaches you how to start up small and then build yourself up.
Affilorama
The general membership to Affilorama doesn’t cost you anything; yes, it’s free! There’s enough content provided to you as a free member to give you enough information on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing to get set up. Affilorama provides a stack of top class information in both video and written format.
If you’re just testing the waters of affiliate marketing, this is a great way to start off on the right path. There are tools that are recommended and available for download and use as a member as well.
To be successful in anything, especially affiliate marketing, you have to have a good grasp and understanding of the basic foundations and fundamentals in order to progress and build up without getting your head wrapped around and lost in the game.
Affilorama will ensure you have that concrete foundation and basic fundamental skills and knowledge for you to work your way up as an extremely successful affiliate.
If you’ve already been in the affiliate marketing industry for some time, Affilorama still offers some great content on how to scale up and take your business to the next level.
You can become a paid member of Affilorama, that allows you to subscribe to the site on an on-going monthly payment basis. The paid version offers more extensive training and detail that really digs deep into the secrets of how to make your business and your career as an affiliate extremely successful and sustainable.
More tools and software programs are provided to help you with the process of scaling up and doing bigger things for your business projects and marketing campaigns.
One of the greatest things about Affilorama is that the site is constantly changing and evolving like the affiliate marketing industry. No one wants to be left out in the dark with old marketing strategies and tactics, and as a member of Affilorama you won’t have to worry about that.
The Affilorama team updates the site on a consistent basis, editing videos and written documents that reflect changes in the industry.
Interviews with famous internet marketing gurus are also provided on Affilorama. They talk about what they do and how they got to the top spot they’re at right now.
With Affilorama, affiliate marketing secrets are revealed and strategies and tactics gurus have held back are exposed.
If you’re serious about making a living online with affiliate marketing, do it the right way with Affilorama.
AffiloJetpack
I also suggest that you check out Affilorama’s AffiloJetpack. There are a ton of products out there offering a variety of resources for affiliate marketers just jumping into the fray. One such product that goes above and beyond the rest through sheer value is AffiloJetpack.
AffiloJetpack is a collection of super high-quality, done-for-you websites. It contains material for 11 niches, out of which you can choose 5.
These niches offer great potential for affiliates, and they were pre-selected because a lot of new affiliates spend a lot of time agonizing over which niche to go into.
The content provided with AffiloJetpack can be used to create an SEO site by re-wording the website articles or bolster the content on an existing site.
It can also be used to create or bolster sites to which traffic is directed using PPC, and in this case there is no need to rewrite the articles; just send traffic straight to the squeeze pages and rely on the autoresponder series to do all the heavy lifting as far as sales are concerned.
In AffiloJetpack, 80% of the work that you would normally need to do has already been done for you.
How much does Affilorama cost?
Free Membership – $0/month
Premium Membership – $67/month
Affilo Theme – $97 one-time cost
Affilo Blueprint – $197 one-time cost
Affilo Jetpack – $497 one-time cost
Conclusion:
If you are trying to make money online, then Affilorama is a great place.
You can learn everything about affiliate marketing, right from the beginning to the advanced level.
You will gain some really good knowledge and that can help you to make money online.
So all in all, I recommend Affilorama if you are serious about making money online.
Go here to check it out: http://6d810y31oiti6o5zv2mayqplpk.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=BOOK
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