Sunday, September 5, 2021

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How To Create An Email List For Money Grabbing Profits

How To Create An Email List For Money Grabbing Profits

 

Learning how to create an email list that brings in money-grabbing profits we will be Using list-building strategies, techniques, and tools I will cover.

There is no reason you can't make money online. Shure, why else are you reading this?

Why You Should Make List Building The Focus Of Your Business

There is an old saying that “the money is in the list” and this is very true. When you build an email list of people that like your niche then you can generate revenue by offering them products and services that are related to your niche.

Isn’t it Tough to Build a List?

Many people think that list building is really tough, which is the main reason that they don’t do it. There is nothing tough about it but it will take you time to build a large list of subscribers. Tools are available to help you build your list and some are free and some will cost you money.

Adding an “opt inbox” to your website is something that everyone can do – you do not require graphic design skills for this.

There are many large list owners out there that have absolutely no technical skills. This means that you can build a large list as well.

To build your list you will require an autoresponder for the automatic sending of emails and the code to create your opt-in box.

You must entice people to provide their email addresses to you and this is best achieved with a free lead magnet. A lead magnet can be in the form of a report or even a video that shares something of value.

These days’ people are concerned about providing their email addresses so you need to provide something of value in exchange for this. The value of subscribers on your list will far outweigh the cost of creating the lead magnet.

Building an email list is an Asset

There is a lot of value in a niche-specific list of subscribers. This value will increase in proportion to the size of your email list. If you just sell products and services and do not capture the email addresses of your visitors and customers then you will lose this added value.

An online business that has an associated list of subscribers is a lot more valuable than one that does not have a list. Each person on your list has value and if someone is interested in purchasing your business they will be aware of this.

Money on Demand

When you respect your list members and provide them with valuable content with the emails that you send you will have the ability to make money on demand.

You will have earned the respect of your email subscribers and when you present an offer to them they will be likely to check it out and some will purchase.

Many large list owners have made fortunes with email marketing and you can as well. Email is more direct than advertising and a lot more effective.

Your email subscribers will know and trust you so they will be more inclined to buy what you offer.

Think Long Term with List Building

There are a number of challenges associated with list building. You will need to invest time, effort (and money if you choose) to create a big list. The long-term benefits are worth it though.

how to create an email list

Choosing The Best Autoresponder Service For List Building

There is no other tool more important for your email marketing business than your autoresponder. Choosing the wrong autoresponder service is going to cause you major headaches.

It could mean that the delivery rate of your emails is low and a host of other issues that you don’t want to deal with. Read this article carefully so that you make the right decision.

Is the Autoresponder Service Established?

Do not overlook this point. Check the time that the autoresponder company has been operating and providing its services. Established companies will have developed a good relationship with email providers such as Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail and this is vital to get your messages through.

If your autoresponder does not have this kind of relationship then your emails could end up in spam boxes rather than your subscriber’s inbox. Look for companies that have been in existence for at least seven years or more.

What about Delivery Rates?

The more established and higher quality autoresponder companies will publish their delivery rate metrics for you to see. The higher the better of course and you will be well advised to go with a company that provides good delivery rates. If your emails are not getting to your subscribers then you will not make any money.

The best autoresponder companies will probably publish delivery rates in the region of 99%. Be sure to check out their public numbers on this. It is also a pretty well-known fact that if you use double opt-in your delivery rate numbers will be better than single opt-in.

Is it Easy to use the Service?

The first two points are more important than this one but this is still something that you should investigate. Take a look at the website of the autoresponder company and see if the navigation is straight forward. If it is then there is a good chance that the autoresponder service will be easy too.

Processes that are counter-intuitive and chunky are not recommended. Most services offer drag and drop facilities and this is good.

Take a look at training videos provided by the company to see how easy everything looks. There will be more videos on YouTube.

How much does the Service cost?

Your autoresponder service is precious to you so the cost should be your last consideration. It is true that the best autoresponder services can be pretty expensive and they usually charge more per month as your list of subscribers gets bigger.

Try to arrive at a final three autoresponder services so that you can make a comparison on price.

  • Take advantage of any 30-day free trial offers (or $1 offers) that the autoresponder companies are offering.
  • Add some emails and send them to email addresses that you own (you may have to set up Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail accounts).
  • How do they perform?
  • Did the emails get delivered?

Make sure that you play around with the user interface to see how easy to use it is. Use all of the trial period and make your decision just before the trial expires.

If you have provided payment details then cancel this if you are not going ahead with the service. Take your time to choose the best autoresponder service and it will support your email marketing efforts for years to come.

I personally use Getresponse. I have been using them for years and their service is second to none. You get a full 30 days free trial with no credit card required at sign up like most platforms out there. 

This platform is so good I provided the banner below which is an affiliate link to the product which means if you subscribe I will get a small commission which will not affect your cost.

image of getresponse banner for list building

Great Tools For List Building

You can get things done easier and faster with the right tools. Here I will recommend the best tools for your email marketing business as well as some others that can be of great assistance. NOTE some of the links below are affiliated.

A Good Autoresponder

You must have a good autoresponder. We have just discussed that in the last section So I will be brief.

There are two options open to you here which are subscribing to an autoresponder service Like Getresponse or hosting your own autoresponder software.

With an autoresponder service, you will pay a company on a monthly basis to store your list and send out emails.

Hosting your own autoresponder software will require some technical knowledge and if you don’t have this then choose an autoresponder service.

You have to pay monthly for the service but there are no hassles and you can send as many emails as you want.

If you are technically minded then hosted software could be a good option for you as there are no monthly payments.

But your web hosting company may impose a limit on the number of emails that you can send in a day. You do not want your business to be limited.

Some of the best autoresponder service companies are Aweber, GetResponse, and Mailchimp. You can expect to pay around $20 a month to start with and the cost will increase with the size of your list.

Software To Make Squeeze Pages

There are a number of software services and programs for creating squeeze pages that can save you a lot of time. Some of the services will create your entire sales funnel for you which is great. This includes one-time offer pages, download pages and thank you pages.

Check out Leadpages if you are interested in this. They will charge a monthly fee but they will host your pages for you. Leadpages will integrate with most of the popular autoresponder services.

A complete sales funnel designed in around 10 minutes is possible. At the time of this writing Lead Pages cost $79 per month for the pro option.

WordPress users can take advantage of free and premium plugins and themes. You can produce excellent looking squeeze pages using a premium theme such as Optimize Press or a premium plugin like Instabuilder.

But free isn't always good because nothing is really free. To take advantage of the full features of any free plugin you need to purchase the premium version.

I personally use the DIVI Builder Theme. You can get yearly access to the DIVI theme for $89 a year or save big on lifetime access for $249 which is what I have done. You can check it out below. Link is affiliated which means I get a commission if you purchase which doesn't affect your cost at all.

DIVI banner image

Software for Email Capture

All blog owners should capture email addresses and there are some WordPress plugins that you can use to do this. There is the Sumome plugin and the MailMunch plugin for a start.

Popups can be created as well as top bar forms and side forms and there are a lot more facilities on offer.

Software for Surveys

A good method to get email subscribers is to run a survey on your blog or website. Survey Monkey offers a simple way to do this. They have a free version that will collect 100 responses and this is recommended before you buy the full product. There are a number of other survey plugins available so get searching.

Checking your Grammar

An email that goes out with bad grammar will not get a very good response. Most of the popular autoresponder services will have a spellcheck facility and some may check grammar on a basic level.

If you want to ensure that your grammar is top notch then try Grammarly. You can install it quickly and easily on Windows or as an extension for Google Chrome. Each time you use the Internet Grammarly will monitor your grammar and make suggestions to you.

How To Get Your First 100 Subscribers

Getting email subscribers can be done in a number of ways but the recommended method is the implementation of a high-quality content strategy.

When people read content that is high quality they will believe that you have expertise in your niche and they will trust you. This will make them a lot more willing to become an email subscriber.

You can use different formats for your content so it can be in text form, a podcast (audio), or a video. It is actually best to mix this up as much as you can. Be sure that all of your content is top quality because poor quality content will not be looked at by your visitors and they will never become email subscribers.

How do you Define High-Quality Content?

This is relatively easy to do. It has to add value to the reader and this is the first important point. Once they have read your content or watched your video they should have learned something or know how to do something that they couldn’t do before.

Always keep your content relevant to the niche that you are operating in. If you are in the make money online niche then create content that helps people to make money on the Internet. People will certainly opt into your list if you do this.

You need to create a content plan. Determine how often per week you will publish new content and also come up with a list of titles for content that you really believe will add value.

A plan always works better than just making it up as you go along. With a plan, you will never be stuck for ideas because you have already decided what your content will be about.

Your Lead Magnet Needs to be Great

You are not going to get many people that will subscribe to your email list just because your content is great. There is a real reluctance these days to part with email addresses because of the spam problem.

So you need a great lead magnet to provide the necessary incentive for your visitors to opt-in.

The lead magnet can be a written document such as a report or even a video. Think your lead magnet through carefully and ensure that it will add value.

A poor lead magnet will lead to lots of unsubscribes from your list and you don’t want that to happen.

Position Yourself in front of Targeted Traffic

When you are starting out you need targeted traffic that is interested in your niche. Creating content that is never viewed can seem like a total waste of time but keep going.

Getting 10 – 20 visitors a month to your website is very demoralizing so this is what you can do:

  • Establish the relevant social channels for your brand.
  • Be sure to use your name or the name of your brand in your channel.
  • Depending upon your niche you will want to have channels on YouTube, Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn.
  • In Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook you can find groups that are related to your niche.
  • Be sure to post regularly to these groups but do not spam them.

You can get a lot of traffic to your website by doing this. Create a specific Facebook page and also use Twitter to get your message out.

There are content aggregators that can help you to get your posts distributed. Finding them is easy – just use your favorite search engine.

You can blog on LinkedIn and Quora for even more traffic. Always be looking at ways to build your following. Guest posting on high traffic blogs is also a good traffic strategy.

Squeeze Pages With High Conversions For List Building

 

It is essential that you get your squeeze page right as it is the first step in your sales funnel process. It does not matter if your lead magnet is top-notch as well as your email sequence if you cannot capture the email address of your squeeze page visitor.

You must make the effort to measure the conversions that your squeeze page delivers. There is nothing difficult about this.

It is just the number of people that opt-in divided by the number of visitors to your squeeze page. So 30 people opting in out of 100 visitors would give you a 30% opt-in rate.

Below is an image of the simplest squeeze page that actually converts. Go ahead and copy it and see how it works for you.

image for a simple squeeze page for list building

Your Headline Is Critical for list building

With written sales pages for list building purposes, it is often said that the longer the copy the better conversions you will achieve. The opposite is true of squeeze pages and this has been proven in several tests.

Your headline explains the benefits of obtaining your great lead magnet and this needs to be achieved in a few punch words to be really effective.

There have been several squeeze page tests conducted. But a really exciting one was whether a squeeze page converted better with or without bullet points.

The tests revealed that just a headline and no bullet points lead to greater conversions. Nobody really understands why this is the case – less is more is the best conclusion.

Your visitor is busy and you need to do everything to respect their time. Get straight to the point and then let them decide. There is no sale to be made so long copy is really not necessary. Keep it minimal.

Use your headline to create hope and curiosity. Be sure to tell your visitor that the information in your lead magnet is not very well known. Use the final line of the headline to tell your visitor about the biggest benefit. Play around with your headlines to see what converts the best.

Promote your Brand with a Pre Heading

It is very likely that your visitor will have never heard of your brand before. They may not look at your domain name so get your brand in front of them with a good pre heading. Use the space right at the top of your squeeze page box for this.

There is nothing wrong with using your own name so you could write “The Sally Jones Newsletter Proudly Presents...” When you are using a specific name then replace it with this. It is important that you present your brand name as when your subscriber receives your emails they will be from your brand name.

This is easy to set up in your autoresponder. Just add your brand name to the “From” field. Sometimes this is called the “Sender” field.

The first email after subscribing should arrive very quickly into your subscriber’s inbox so they should be able to relate this to your squeeze page and free lead magnet. They will be more inclined to open your email this way.

Don’t ask for your Visitors First Name

The old convention was to ask for a first name and email address. This means that your visitor will have to complete two fields instead of one. Don’t make them work hard to become a subscriber of your list. Just ask for their email address.

I myself always ask for a name. When I am writing emails I want the reader to imagine I am talking to them personally. I know this goes against the grain, but I hardly ever follow the rules anyway.

The Lowdown On Subject Lines

It should be obvious to you that the subject line of your email is the most important aspect of it. If your subject line is not appealing then your email will not be opened.

If your email isn’t opened then your email will not be read and you will certainly not make any money.

It doesn’t matter how good your Content is

You must craft a high-quality welcome email to warm your subscribers up and tell them that there will be a lot of high-quality advice and information coming their way. This will help to encourage them to look out for your emails and open them. Use “cliff hangers” at the end of each email that provides a taster of what the next email will bring.

You must be committed to providing value with your emails. This will make your subscribers like you and trust you more. Some of your subscribers will be excited to receive your next email when you do this. You need to make offers sometimes and this is perfectly reasonable. Your aim is to educate and solve the problems that your subscriber will be facing.

Do not be fazed by this as it is not difficult to create trust and build a good relationship with your list. When you have this situation then your subject lines do not matter quite as much but they are still important.

Content First Subject Line After

Don’t stress about your subject lines before you write your email content. After writing the content work out which are the most important points and write your subject line around this. Subject lines should be the last thing that you write.

Don’t Do This

Don’t use deceptive or misleading subject lines. People will ignore your emails or worse will unsubscribe. Here are three tactics to definitely avoid:

Issue Commands in your Subject Lines

Don’t issue commands to your subscribers in your subject lines. This tactic is used all of the time and has a very poor success rate.

You have probably seen examples of this such as “Check This Out Now”, “Open This Immediately” and “You Must See This”. People are not stupid and they will suspect that this is a sales email.

Don’t Insult with Subject Lines

This is really irritating. People send emails out telling the subscriber that they are disappointed with them. Is this taking care of your list? Definitely not! Some classic examples are the use of subjects such as “I Am Disappointed With You” or “I Am Shocked At You”.

The shock and disappointment is that you didn’t purchase the product that was recommended. Don’t treat your precious subscribers like this.

Deception

This is where the subject line has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the email. It is just about the worst subject line tactic that you can use. Examples are “Re: Your Support Question”, “Your Verification Is Complete”, “Your Application Has Been Accepted” and the old classic “Your Download Is Ready”. This is cheap and you must not do this.

Getting Responsive SubscribersGetting Responsive Subscribers

It is the aim of all email marketers to have a list full of people that read their emails and make a purchase when they present offers. This is unrealistic, but what you don’t want is a list full of tire kickers and freebie seekers.

There is no way that you can totally control this of course but there are some things you can do to minimize getting the wrong kind of subscribers.

What are your Traffic sources?

Where your traffic comes from is a very important factor. Traffic that originates from a source that is cheap will rarely produce a list of buyers. Resist the temptation to use “safe lists” for traffic or a similar service where you have to subscribe to their list and then they will join yours.

These people will never even read your emails let alone make a purchase.
You must ensure that your traffic is targeted. If your niche is making money online then traffic that originates from the Warrior Forum is likely to produce better subscribers because it is targeted.

Don’t go to general forums to get your traffic – it won’t turn out well.

Using Facebook ads is a good idea as you can really be specific about the demographics.
Although almost everyone is interested in making more money, traffic from unrelated websites is likely to lead to freebie seekers and tire kickers.

They just want information. Warrior Forum members are genuinely interested in making money online so they are likely to be more responsive.

Use the Double Opt-In Confirmation Facility

Another mistake that a lot of email marketers make is to immediately redirect a visitor to their lead magnet download page once they have opted in.

You have no idea whether the email address used by the visitor is real or not so this is just giving away your lead magnet for free.

Yes, you can lose a few opt-ins with a double opt-in but you will end up with a better class of subscribers. If they are prepared to go to the trouble of confirming their interest then they are more likely to read your emails when you send them.

If they can’t be bothered then you don’t want them anyway. To increase the number of opt-ins be sure to get people more excited about your lead magnet and your email newsletter after they have opted in.

Direct them to a web page that will do this. Tell them that you offer a great deal of value with your lead magnet and your emails.

Be upfront with your subscribers and tell them that you will send emails that contain offers sometimes.

Measure your open rates and click rates all the time. Your autoresponder service will provide this information.

Tell your subscribers that you are doing this and it will deter some tire kickers.

Track Activity and Clean your List

Take a close look at the subscriber activity in your list.

If you have a number of subscribers that have not opened any of your emails for a while then it is best to get shot of them. There could be several reasons why a subscriber is not opening your emails:
• They don’t like your email content

• They do not use the email address anymore

• They have forgotten who you are• They are freebie seekers

This is a great way to cleanse your list:

Find all subscribers that have not opened emails for 3 months. Remove these people from your primary list and add them to a new list.

Send out three broadcast messages to them on different days advising them of the situation and asking them to re-subscribe if they want to continue receiving your newsletter.

I have a great video course which is all you need to know to create an email list that will bring in passive income.

how to create an email list