15 Ways to Build Your Subscriber List

Email marketing can be profitable for any business, no matter what kind of product or service you are selling. It is significantly cheaper than other advertising methods and it helps build credibility with your subscribers. As a result, you can generate more sales and profits.

The foundation for successful email marketing is a targeted, responsive and permission-based email list. If you have a list of subscribers that trust you and consider you an expert, you’ve completed the first step and are on your way!

Below you will several list-building ideas that will help you make the most of your email marketing efforts:

*Provide useful, relevant and unique content. Your visitors will not give you their email addresses just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be useful to your subscribers.

*Add a subscription form to every page of your website. Make sure it stands out so it is easy to find. If appropriate, you can also include it in more than one place. For instance, your opt-in form might always appear in the top-left corner of your site, while you also include an opt-in at the bottom of some of your popular posts.

*Make it easy for your reader to sign up. The more information you request, the fewer people will opt-in. In most cases, a name and an email address should be enough. If it’s not necessary, don’t include it here.

*Publish a Privacy Policy. Let your readers know that they can be confident you will not share their information with others. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Privacy Policy web page and provide the link to it below your opt-in form. (wow, this is something I’ve been meaning to do…)

*Show your first issue or other sample to your visitors. This lets potential subscribers review your newsletter before they sign up to determine if it is something they’d be interested in.

*Archive past newsletter issues. A “library” of past newsletters is both appealing and useful to visitors and builds your credibility as an authority. (Also, if your articles are written with good SEO techniques in mind, they can send additional traffic to your web site through good search engine positioning).

*Contact other newsletter publishers. Introduce yourself and explore ways you may be able to help each other. Perhaps you can introduce other publisher’s newsletters or print articles they have written to your list, with a link to sign up. When you contact them, be sure to tell them why you think THEIR readers would like what you have to offer and why YOUR readers would benefit from their newsletters. This is a win-win scenario; both of you will build your lists faster!

*Give away bonuses subscribers can use. Create an opt-in bonus for joining your subscriber list. You can write an ebook or PDF report, or even hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. But don’t limit yourself to only a gift for new opt-ins. Remind your readers that the next bonus is coming soon. People hate to miss out on things. If you systematically pass on “goodies” throughout the year, your subscribers are unlikely to leave.

*Ask your subscribers to pass it on. Word of mouth is a powerful viral technique that works great with email marketing. If your subscribers find the content you share with them to be informative, they will pass your newsletter on to their friends. This can be a good source of new subscribers.

*Let others reprint your newsletter as long as the content is not modified. Many webmasters and newsletter publishers are actively looking for high-quality content and, if they reprint your newsletter, you will get new subscribers, traffic and links pointing to your site.

*Include a “Sign Up” button in the newsletter. If you are using plain text instead of HTML, provide a text link to your subscription page. You may feel that this is not required because the subscriber is already on your list, but remember that readers will forward your newsletters to others, or reprint it online. You want to make it easy for them to subscribe.

*Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page has one goal – to get an opt-in and build your list. Think of it like a mini-sales letter for your subscription or opt-in bonus. It features a powerful headline and a couple of very important benefits that should make subscribers want to sign up to your list.

*Include testimonials on your squeeze page. This can be important. Put 1 or 2 strong testimonials from satisfied subscribers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video social proof) is more “believable”. To increase that believability, include full names, locations and/or urls; don’t use “Brian K, FL” as a testimonial name.

*Blog religiously. Blogging is a great way to communicate with your potential customers, and it creates a nice flow with your email marketing. Be sure to include your newsletter sign-up form on each page of your blog. You can start a free blog at Blogger or WordPress.

*Post on other blogs. Post great comments and information on similar blogs with a link to your squeeze or opt-in page. Also comment on others’ blogs through trackbacks. In most cases, your comments will be posted on their blogs with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers. You can actually download a copy of my Blog Warrior software, which makes finding blogs in your niche, commenting, and building links a whole lot easier (for free for a limited time) right here.

One last point, you will most definitely need an autoresponder service to automate the signing up process, the newsletter delivery, subscriber management, etc… It’s impossible to be online marketing today without the use of autoresponders. Three of the top autoresponder services that I like are Aweber, Trafficwave, and GetResponse. They are all quite reasonably priced and I feel each provides topnotch support. If you know me, though, you’ll know which one I use the most and actually prefer

Now go ahead…get to building your subscriber list

What You Need Before Getting Started

Building a free membership website is actually easier than it may sound..not super easy, but not that complicated either. There are so many associated advantages to having a free membership site that the little bit of trouble and expense will be well worth the time and effort that are required.

To get started on building your free membership website you are going to need some tools. The first thing that you will need to have is a web hosting service. There are actually two web hosting services that are excellent, reasonably priced and effective. You will have choices to make when you visit either of these two websites.

Web Hosting:

Host Gator

(This one is my personal favorite and the only one I use) You will see that there are several choices of servers ranging in price from a measly $6.95 per month to a whopping $174.95 per month. The service that will most likely serve your needs for a very long time can be found under the fist choice of ‘Personal Hosting’. When you click on the ‘learn more’ link, you will see that there are several choices beginning with a ‘hatchling’ account and all the way up to a Semi-dedicated account.

Net Host

When you visit this site, click on the middle button that says ‘$14.95 more info’. You will see that you are being offered 500MB of disc space and a site builder for $14.95. Larger amounts of disc space are available for more money each month. I’d start with the $14.95 and then add additional disc space as needed. There is a Site Studio offered with all of the plans but it isn’t free with any of them.

Domain Names:

Now you need a domain name. Domain names are very specific and completely unique. When you type in a domain name, your computer takes you to that website and ONLY to that website. To start with you should think up several possibilities for your domain name. Using your own name in the domain name will make it easier to find one that hasn’t already been taken. But a better way to think is to use keyword specific words related to your memberhips site. You aren’t very likely to find the simplest ones to be available so you are going to have to get a bit creative. Here’s a two places that you can register your domain name. There are others…

Name Cheap

Here you will see that it will cost you only $8.88 to register your domain name. There will be many offers for additional names and products. What you really need here is a domain name for no less than two years. You do not need to pay for anything additional that is offered.

GoDaddy

Here you will see that you can register your domain name for $8.95 per year. Again…you will be offered many extras but all you really need is to register your domain name for two years. The reason you need to register it for two years is that search engines really don’t like domains that are only registered for one year. Spammers tend to only register for one year at a time because they won’t be at the same location for anywhere near that long.

Membership Software:

If you are going to have a membership website, then you must have the software that will accomplish that. There are basically three sites that you should visit and look over the product offered on each site.

1) aMember

2) Launch Formula Marketing

3) Butterfly Marketing

Theme and Content:

As with every website, there must be a theme as well as content. There is a saying among Internet marketers that, “Content is King” and that’s pretty accurate. The only way that you can keep members visiting even a free membership site is to keep it constantly updated and loaded with fresh and relevant content that pertains to the theme of your site.

There are many ways to get good content. There are article banks where you can download free articles for reprint. There are sites where you can get PLR material that will provide good website content. You can also hire ghostwriters to write fresh content.

Blogs or Forums:

Most hosting services (both of the ones mentioned above) have included a utility called Fantastico. This feature allows you to set up a blog or forum on your membership site. In addition you can install such things as customer support, content management systems, polls and a host of other things. You really need to poke around in your hosting service to see what all is available.

Help Desk:

Installing a help desk is entirely optional. It is, by no means, a required feature for a free membership site. The software can be found at the HelpDesk website at http://www.perldesk.com/. The cost of the HelpDesk software starts at $99.95. Although this is not required the HelpDesk software can be very beneficial. It will allow you to you to organize your companies customer relations to a database backed browser based help desk. This can save you a whole ton of headaches particularly if you have multiple businesses.

Okay, that’s about it. You need a hosting service, a domain name registered, membership software, a theme and website content, a blog or forum and maybe a Helpdesk. This will be enough to get your free membership website off of the launch pad.

Stay tuned…and check out these examples of great free membership sites…

Social Bookmarking

Exposed Instant Bonus Page

Trafficwave Free Trial

What’s Not to Like About a Free Membership Site?

Just check out Free Monthly Websites…

Internet marketers and entrepreneurs of all kinds are quickly finding the many, many advantages to opening a free membership site. I’m actually in the process, I’ve got one in the works And even the savvy and well-established Internet marketers who already have paid membership sites are jumping on the free membership site bandwagon because they can see the obvious advantages.

Paid membership sites are usually limited to a specific number of members. This means that marketing is limited to that specific number. Limiting marketing possibilities is never a positive thing no mater what products or services are being promoted.

Of course, there are obvious reasons for limiting paid membership site memberships but the fact remains that a free membership site can be operated right along side a paid membership site and there is never any reason at all to limit the memberships available to a free site.

Three to six months is about the duration of a paid membership to most membership sites according to many paid membership site owners. Three to six months isn’t very long in terms of Internet marketing. Once a paid member drops his membership, the site owner must then replace him and that can get expensive.

On the other hand, membership cancellations at free membership sites are easily and cheaply replaced. Marketing to the members of a free membership website is absolutely unlimited. You can continue to market to free membership site members for as long as you want to. Free membership sites are easy to run and they cost almost nothing and yet the owner is supplied with an almost unlimited number of customers and potential customers to market all kinds of products and services to.

Let’s face it: Every Internet marketer must now have an opt-in mailing list in order to send bulk marketing emails. That’s the law that went into effect with the implementation of the CAN SPAM act. There is nothing anybody can do about it. If you send bulk marketing emails without the express consent of the recipients, you are subject to very heavy fines and the very real possibility of having your Internet business closed down – period.

So… why limit your mailing list to just a paid membership site? Why not build a free membership site and gain an unlimited number of names and email addresses to which you have the legal right to send marketing emails? There simply is not satisfactory reason for NOT having a free membership site…at least not one that I can see.

Free membership sites are easy to set up and easy to operate. Of course, there must be fresh and timely content but that’s a lot easier (not to mention cheaper) than constantly having to run PPC campaigns or paying for advertising in related E-zines to attract members to your opt-in list and thus gain their permission to market products and services to them. Think about it…

We all know that visibility on the Internet is one of the basic keys to successful marketing. Getting visibility is one of the hardest tasks that most Internet marketers face from the inception of a marketing idea. All Internet marketers well understand the value of writing and marketing articles and E-Books, posting to blogs and forums that belong to others and doing PPC campaigns, as well as, exchanging links and paying for advertising in E-zines and newsletters.

With a free membership website, you can almost guarantee yourself, not only a long list of customers and potential customers but that others will be willing to pay YOU for advertisements on your free membership sites and advertisements in the newsletters that you send to your very impressively long list.

I’ll be writing more on this topic soon. In the meantime, check out some other free membership sites:

Social Bookmarking Exposed
Instant Bonus Page
Trafficwave Free Trial

Using Articles and Autoresponders Together

Here’s a way to promote all your niche articles besides submitting them to directories one by one.

Writing articles to market a product or service is an excellent way to build any business. The articles, of course, should be very informative, providing the reader with information that is relevant to a specific topic. Your article resource box usually includes a link to a website or blog for more information. The website, of course, is designed to sell a product or service that relates to the topic of the article.

Articles are commonly submitted to article directories, websites, and ezine publishers. This is one of the most effective ways to market a service or product on the Internet, and get this…it can become even more effective when it is combined with the use of an autoresponder.

Here’s what to do. Take all of your articles for your one specific topic and start to set them up into an autoresponder. Each different niche or topic should definitely have it’s own autoresponder address so you will need an autoresponder service that allows you unlimited autoresponders. Make sure you have a master list of your articles per topic and the autoresponder address/form code for each topic one you have set up. Add descriptions of the articles on your master list also.

Now, we all know advertising your articles one at a time can take a great deal of time, but advertising one autoresponder address – the one for the master list of a specific topic – won’t take very much time at all. Simply put your autoresponder topic’s form code in a newsletter, and on your website or blog. That way when someone signs up to receive an informational article, not only will they get to read one, but having set up your autoresponder, they will continue to receive your other articles related to the specific topic. Make sure you have an excellent resource box set up at the end of your articles, pointing your subscribers to your site, service or product.

When submitting your articles to directories, you can even put a link to the autoresponder address or squeeze page where article readers can sign up to receive more articles, into your resource box.

If you don’t have an autoresponder service yet, there are a few decent ones out there, Aweber, GetResponse, etc… I would recommend checking out, TrafficWave.net. The quality of their service is excellent and you can’t beat the pricing, especially when you see all that they provide for one low fee. If you have any questions, as always, feel free to contact me!

Hello and Welcome!

I am a successful internet marketer, mother of two grown children and maime to my one beautiful granddaughter. I have lived in scenic Northeastern Pennsylvania among the mountains and streams (in the heart of what used to be coal country) my whole life. I am surrounded by my family and friends for which I am always grateful.

I have worked at a variety (and yes, I mean A variety) of jobs throughout the years and about four years ago, I made a decision that has changed my life. I decided to work only part time and to focus on a home based business and internet marketing. The best decision I’ve ever made.  It’s full time now and This is My Passion!

Along the way I have gained lasting friendships and attained powerful knowledge. I meet people everyday…making new friends and marketing partners. I am constantly learning as I am always looking for new and better ways to expand upon my already established success. I am here to be your friend, mentor, and business partner, whatever you need…

“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced everyday.”

I am involved with an outstanding marketing group,  The CrazyFoxes Marketing Group. Everyone here is successful and has something to offer.  If you are serious about your own home based business and making money online, there is no better place to be. These guys and gals are awesome!

I love  affiliate marketing, and use platforms as Clickbank, Commission Junction, Amazon… I got sidetracked and tried mlm for a bit…just not me! So back to affiliate marketing and now I am in the process of working on my own products, so we’ll see what happens…stay tuned!

There’s a world of opportunity out there on the internet and working from home, you just have to DO IT!

Social Media Marketing has become the way of the future in internet marketing  and I love Twitter and Facebook! If you are a member of either, connect with me…I’ll get right back!  Exciting times are ahead in 2009! Looking forward to it all…

Contact Me, let’s talk…

skype:  brenda2729

bfranzosuccess@gmail.com