How to quickly build an opt-in email list using free tools
| by David Callan Opt-in email lists are goldmines. They are the real secret weapons of those very successful folks who make a very good living online, making thousands of dollars almost effortlessly.You must have heard the phrase that the money is in the list many times.
Despite all the havoc SPAM has caused to email as a legitimate marketing tool,
opt-in email lists remain extremely effective and indeed one of the most powerful
online marketing weapons available anywhere.
So how do you build your opt-in email list? Is it really possible to do it with free promotional tools? This article will show you how you can quickly build your opt-in email list with free promotional tools.
Identify A Need
The Most important step in building your opt-in email list is to identify a market that you can serve well. Identifying a market starts with you knowing what specific needs your potential subscribers have and what they will expect you to provide. If you can then exceed their expectations, you will find that your list will grow at an almost break-neck speed.
The mistake that many online marketers make is to attempt to build an opt-in email list with their own needs in mind rather than those of their subscribers. This is how a list “refuses” to grow. Identifying a need is therefore the most important and critical step in building an opt-in email list. You may even want to use a free auto-responder to test various different ideas and see which one receives the most enthusiastic response. You can then concentrate all your efforts in building up that particular list.
Do You Have Something Special To Give?
Once you have identified your market and have a good understanding of who your subscriber is and what they want most, the next thing to ask yourself is if you truly have something valuable, special and unique to offer your subscribers. If you start a list to offer ordinary information widely available on the net, you will fail. If you are not able to provide value, then there is only one option open to you - find another market where you can.
These days there are too many people online trying to build lists without having anything of real value to offer their subscribers. Many surfers are aware of this and avoid getting their email addresses on any list at all costs. So the only way of getting them is to offer real value. There is really no other way.
Get Creative In Finding Advertising and Promotion Opportunities
Constantly advertise and promote everywhere you can to drive subscribers to your list.
For example if you use articles to promote your site and generate traffic, you can advertise your email course or special report, or whatever it is you are using to build your opt-in email list, in your article resource box. You will be surprised at the high number of people you can get signing up for your list through reading one of your articles somewhere.
You can even post a number of articles directly promoting your list. A good way of doing this is by using parts of the content from your email course or special report. Apart from high traffic article sites, remember to also post your promotional articles at article announcement lists and ezine article lists.
Adjust the content At Your Site
One immediate thing you can do is to edit your current content so as to include details on how folks can sign up for your special report available via email. Your site is actually a very good place to build up your list. Why do you think so many leading web sites rely on their own sites to build up their lists?
Offer A Valuable Free Gift
There is lots of free stuff online. Some of it is very valuable. You can search around for something really enticing to give away as a free gift to your subscribers. This will have major effect in improving your conversion rate and your list will start to grow much faster. Of course the ideal free gift is something that you can offer from your site that is of real value.
You Can Later Invest Some Of Your Profits In Paid Ads
Some people think that you need a very big list to start making money. This is not true. Even a very small list can be extremely profitable. It all depends on your creativity and just how well you understand your subscribers.
As your opt-in email list, which you have so far created using free tools, starts to bring in some cash, you can use some of your profits to step up your ad campaign to paid ads. You can for example start to use search engine PPC (pay-per-click) ads.