| Hello again Name and welcome to How to build an opt-in email subscriber list and turn your website into an automatic cash generating machine (and the legal mistake that could cost you a fortune when you retire) Ask any successful internet marketer what's their most valuable tangible asset and they'll all say the same thing - their opt-in email subscriber list - I guarantee it. 'Opt-in' is the opposite of spam. You've opted to receive this mail and you can unsubscribe at any time. So why is an opt-in list so important and how do you attract subscribers and get them to buy from you? Here's eight tips: 1. The reason you need a list is twofold - to capitalise on the investment you've made in driving readers to your site and to build trust over time. Every time a visitor leaves your site without buying or leaving their contact details is a potential customer lost. 2. It's commonly believed that it takes 7 contacts with a prospect to get them to trust you and buy. Achieving this on the net is particularly difficult and it's where email marketing comes into its own. With an opt-in list you can start to build dialogue and understanding. And once you've bought your automated mailing system, your mailings won't cost you a penny. 3. To get people to subscribe to your list you need to give them an incentive. This can vary from a simple newsletter if your market is very niche - the subscribers will have a common interest, hobby or passion and will be keen to sign-up - to an offer or course as a reward for subscribers where their affinity with your offer is weaker. If your market is interested in making money online, I can mail you a free tool you can offer them in return for subscribing to your list. You can even brand it to your own company and make money when your readers make sales! To get the ebook, mail me by replying to this note and I'll send it to you. 4. In the 'old' days (you'd be amazed how much internet marketing has changed in less than 10 years) website owners had to manage their lists, newsletter distribution, unsubscribers etc manually. It took huge amounts of time and effort and, although it was profitable, it wasn't much fun. Now you can automate many of the essential tasks involved in running a subscriber list and focus on delivering great products by using 'Autoresponders'. An Autoresponder is like a programmed publisher. You feed messages in and decide when they should go out, to whom and in what order. You include links to your sales pages and to your unsubscribe facility. At Incise we offer our own Autoresponder - if you're interested, mail me at paullock@incisecomms.co.uk . Alternatively, try Corey Rudl's extremely powerful piece of software called "Mailloop" that he had custom built. Corey is offering this software to "regular" business owners -- so you don't get trapped in this vicious cycle, and so you can spend your time "growing" your business instead of "running" it. If you want to eliminate tedious daily chores, or you're planning to grow your business substantially, definitely check out Corey's software here 5. There are two tested ways to communicate by email - a newsletter (ezine) or a mini-course. To work effectively they must be valuable to the readers, but they must also be valuable to you. How? By having subtle links to your own products and services they encourage readers to find out more about what you offer. So you have to find a way of weaving in references to your products by describing their benefits in a low-key but compelling way. To find out how to write a profitable newsletter I recommend Michael Green's ' How to write a newsletter' toolkit. Michael's one of the world's leading internet marketers. I use many of his products myself and this one's worth its weight in gold. 6. There's no point in signing up subscribers and then forgetting about them. Or sending them a newsletter every two or three months. The opposite is even worse - daily emails full of irrelevant, badly written plugs will overload your unsubscribe service. There's no golden rule about frequency - it depends on your market, their needs and what you're offering. A mini-course should probably go out at least once or twice a week. And an ezine should be monthly at the very least. If in doubt, why not ask your readers? 7. There are lots of ways to build your list. The techniques you use will depend on your budget and timescales. If you need subscribers quickly, pay-per-click advertising on Overture or Google Adwords for example, is a fast way of driving lots of qualified visitors to your site. Just make sure your Landing Page - the one you're driving them to - is focused on getting them to sign up. Otherwise your ad budget will get wasted. Other techniques include driving traffic to your site through offline media, contributing to forums, joint ventures with other sites, sending press releases to sites in your sector and all the techniques available to drive traffic to your site. For 24 ways to promote your site or product try Michael Green's 'How to promote a product' toolkit - I bought it and it transformed my web marketing. 8. Avoid this costly mistake and you could retire rich! Every website should have a privacy policy so that readers can check how you intend to use their data. So before you copy a privacy policy from another site - I know, it's tempting - remember what I said about successful marketers' most valuable asset -your opt-in list! If you plan to sell your business, it's vital that its most valuable asset is something you can include in the sale. So having a privacy policy that protects subscribers but allows you to sell their details when you sell the business is critical. Andrew Woolley is a lawyer specialising in e-business. He can help you avoid this mistake. Contact him at aw@e-lawfirm.co.uk . That's it for now. All the best, Paul --------------------------------------------------- Protect your business from crashes, viruses and hackers. Incise subscribers save over 15%. Depositit is the leading online data back-up solution. Incise subscribers get nearly 20% off standard prices. Find out more here --------------------------------------------------- paullock@incisecomms.co.uk NOTES 1. Please forward this course to anyone you think might find it useful, whether they're considering starting an online business or already running one. To get the email, they can sign up in less than 10 seconds at www.incisecomms.co.uk . 2. As a reader of my course, you're my most important critic and commentator. I welcome all reader feedback. Email me anytime at paullock@incisecomms.co.uk . 3. If you really don't find the course useful, then reply to this email with the subject field 'unsubscribe'. I'd appreciate any feedback.. 4. Lastly, I've taken every care to check the information and advice I give. However, I regret that I can't be responsible for any loss that you may suffer as a result of the advice or from any omission or inaccuracy. This disclaimer also applies to 3rd party links. © Paul Lock 2005. All rights reserved. No copying or extraction without permission from service@incisecomms.co.uk |