There are a lot of things we could probably lump under the “most important” category when it comes to building an online business. Most experts agree that the at the top of that list you’d probably find the subject of LIST BUILDING because it is a very important topic. It’s actually one of the most important things that you should be doing in your business. Assembling a list of customers, followers, and prospects that you can market to reportedly is paramount in the grand scheme of things. After all, isn’t it one of the main reasons we’re doing business online?
We build these lists so that we can market to people and make sales. Try to look at your customer list as not only a source of revenue but also a BIG part of your exit strategy. Most marketers plan out their week and some even their months but you’ll be hard pressed to find the ones that are planning out a full year and let alone an exit strategy. A self-perpetuating subscriber list serves as a revenue source but also a source of security. Your list is an asset and whether you are building a business to sell and retire or a business to continuously fund your retirement.
LEAD CAPTURE METHODS ARE CONSTANTLY EVOLVING
The thing that makes list building a topic that we can revisit over and over again is that it’s an ever changing paradigm in online business space because the technology keeps evolving. You’ve chosen to do business in the most dynamic and rapidly evolving arena in the history of mankind. Heck, it’s a different Internet now than when you started reading this article.
There are new methods, tactics, and tools coming out daily that enable us to improve the way we do business and this applies to the way we capture leads and grow our lists. There are even new ways of growing audiences now that you can market to them WITHOUT them having to be on a traditional “email list.”
As technology grows, the methods and tools for capturing prospects will continue change. Now we can use API’s (application-program interfaces) to automatically add customers to a subscriber list when they take an action on one of our websites. An example of this is the “subscribe with Facebook” button. One click can put people on your list using their Facebook name and email address.
One of the modern strategies in list building has been an advent of tools like OptimizePress, Clickfunnels and LeadPages who pioneered the 2 Step Opt-In process. I’m not talking about the “double opt in confirmation” that some marketers do in order to weed people out during the list building process but rather 2 STEP OPTIN. The 2 step opt-in process has doubled or even tripled many marketers squeeze page conversion and list growth rate by putting the subscribe button inside a lightbox that opens when you click a button. Who woulda thunk it?
Things like one TAP optin and push alerts are revolutionizing the marketing game for many of us. We can no longer ignore mobile devices in our marketing efforts because the statistics don’t lie. Most of your followers are accessing your stuff on a mobile device and that’s just a fact.
GROW YOUR LISTS IN AS MANY PLACES AS POSSIBLE
A list, a following, a tribe, an audience, whatever the heck you want to call it this week, is no longer built only by using email. Now, we also use social groups, forums, mobile devices, and really any web real estate that can essentially “house” potential customers.
Years ago, It used to be that the only place that you could really build your list was in your autoresponder service. You literally had to accumulate all of the names and email addresses and you had to have them in a software with which you could later send a bulk email to everyone, but that just isn’t the case anymore. Social media is just as powerful as any autoresponder. Facebook groups, YouTube channels, Twitter followers, and so many more types of social audiences can be monetized nowadays, and you can do it with advertising and offers not unlike you would an email list.
ZOO TIP: Did you know that you can grow a customer audience in SLACK and that JVZoo will automatically add your customers into your SLACK Channel for you?
Make a channel for a product, connect it to your JVZoo account and everyone can comment similarly to a Facebook group! For sensitive information, create private channels and invite a few members.
Direct Messages allow you to send messages directly to another person or to a small group of people for more focused conversations.
Take a conversation from typing to face-to-face by starting a Slack voice or video call in any Channel or Direct Message. From there, you’re one click away from sharing your screen, so everyone can follow along.
Think of this as your own private group and marketing platform for all your customers only. Remember, these are BUYERS so you can speak to them in this group as such. Add your people into a channel, build a relationship with them by discussing product related topics and speaking to them from your podium.
One of the keys to successfully building and monetizing a social following is to always bear in mind the “party principle”. Generally speaking, people don’t go to social media to shop or to study but trust us when we tell you that LOTS of people DO buy stuff while they’re on social media. The party principle just means that you understand that your social media audience came to party not to purchase. You wouldn’t show up to your cousin’s barbecue and start selling Amway, would you? (I hope not.) When you try to FORCE SELL to an audience that came to party, you’re going to be chastised, branded as a spammer, and cast out.
It behooves you to use the party crowd as a way to MEET people, create interesting conversations, make friends and ultimately exchange contact details and invite them to other parties, YOUR parties. Online, this translates to your social groups, your subscriber list your websites. That’s when you can bring them into your “funnel” and begin marketing to them. We recommend getting them on your autoresponder list so the marketing can happen automatically every day.
MARKET TO YOUR PEOPLE PROPERLY
Autoresponder companies like Aweber and GetResponse serve as a place for you to store the contact details of each subscriber as well as a central place to email them all from. The most powerful function of these services is by far, the ability to PRE-SCHEDULE emails that go out to your lists(s) at intervals that you chose.
You can and SHOULD create pre-written email sequences for everyone on your email lists. Go into JVZoo and pick products to promote to your list on an ongoing basis, pick congruent top performing products with good earnings per click (EPC) stats. Pick lots of them and request approval to promote them from the vendor. Then write 5 or 6 emails for EACH product. Create a folder with at least 50 or 60 emails to start. Once you’ve got a good sized chunk of emails with your affiliate links in them start queuing them to go out to your list daily. Day 1 – Email 1 – Day 2 – Email 2 and so on, and so on.
The more emails you’ve got set up to go out automatically on that list, the more money you’ll make, period. This is because you’re going to focus now on making sales of your own product to get people onto that list. You’re going to connect your JVZoo product to that list so that it automatically and perpetually feeds that list for you with new buyers. That’s when the autoresponder takes over, that’s when YOU WIN.
6 KEYS TO GROWING A PROFITABLE LIST
Attract your prospects: Know who your audience is and then create a message for THAT audience. “ATTRACTING” means making them come to you. Don’t get that twisted and don’t skip over it because there is probably a big difference between “attracting” people and what you’re doing now.
Not All Lists Are Created Equally: You must speak to each list differently. You’ve got to segment your people based on interest and propensity to buy.
Don’t speak to a buyer the way you would speak to someone who hasn’t purchased from you yet and don’t speak to an affiliate partner the same way you would speak to a customer. Human relationships have varying degrees of TRUST. This means that we speak differently to individuals that we feel closer to. If you mess this up, you’ll lose your following but if you get it right you’ll be revered.
Capturing Leads: JVZoo automatically integrates with the major autoresponder services so that you can automatically add all your buyers to your email list every time you make a sale.
This works for each vendor sale (of your own product) AND for each affiliate sale (of someone else’s product that you are promoting). Both of those customers can be added to separate lists for you by JVZoo. And… the smart marketers have pre-queued emails going out to all those buyers daily from the point of sale forward.
Monetize Your Subscribers PROPERLY: Businesses that plan ahead last longer than businesses that don’t. Build your list with a purpose. If that purpose is to make money then plan it out because it isn’t just going to magically happen by itself.
Create a series of pre-written well thought out email campaigns that will go out automatically every day to each subscriber. Do this in advance, before they subscribe. Create a years worth of emails, some subscribers will be on day one while others are on day 51. Each day has the potential to make you money.
Make Your List Building Efforts Go Viral: Give incentives to your subscribers to invite their friends to subscribe to your list. This creates a viral effect that perpetuates your list growth.
Don’t skim over this part, do it. Do it aggressively. Use “like gates” and “share gates” to reward your new subscriber for inviting more people to your squeeze page and into your sales funnel. This is the special marketing sauce that HUGE targeted lists are built with.
Retain Your People: Don’t stress the unsubscribes, focus primarily on growth but be mindful of your retention.
Focus on getting as many possible people as you can into your funnel and onto your list and into your Facebook groups, Slack channels, YouTube channels, and onto Twitter. Focus on making sales and automatically adding those people into pre-queued email lists. That’s what makes you money.
Be sure to use automation rules inside of your autoresponder so that subscribers are not getting mixed messages. When someone on your freebie seeker list buys a product, have an automation rule in place that moves them to your buyers list. Communicate with your subscriber appropriately based on the list they are on. That’s one of the most important things to keep in mind for retention.
BE THE CATALYST IN YOUR EMAIL MARKETING BUSINESS
Many new marketers inadvertently stunt the growth of their audiences and email lists because they fall into what we call “reactive” mode. You should always be PRO-active in business, not reactive. Remember, that when you are growing your list and building your online business YOU ARE THE CATALYST. You determine how you market, what you email and when you email. Do it strategically, do it with purpose and do it PROactively.
Don’t just turn on your computer each day and REACT to what you’re seeing in your inbox. Take control of your list building and email marketing by planning ahead. Remember the 6 P’s.. Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!
Mail your list frequently, that’s what it’s for. It’s not an art collection for you to just accumulate and admire from time to time. This isn’t a hobby, it’s a business and the purpose of building your email list is to mail it offers and monetize it. Don’t ever be afraid to mail your people, you are the catalyst and YOU determine the frequency at which you want to communicate with them. Provide value and monetize them in parallel, TRAIN THEM.
Train your list to expect messages from you frequently and monetize those value packed messages with affiliate links. Some people will unsubscribe, SO BE IT. That’s what happens when you are growing a list and building a business. It’s the SW3=N formula. Some will, some won’t, so what, NEXT! Just keep focusing on growth, providing value and monetization with JVZoo!
