In our last article we talked about why every internet marketer needs to build their own email list, it’s absolutely crucial if you want to succeed. Today we’re going to look at how to get started and more importantly how to convince people to join your list.
The first thing you need is a reliable email service provider aka an autoresponder. This is where you will collect your leads and what you’ll use to send emails to them. Inside JVZoo you’ll find our recommended choices, these are good, reliable and fully integrated with JVZoo
Next you need your lead capture page or squeeze page. This is a short page where people can opt-in to your list. You can find several good squeeze page builders, templates and copywriting resources on the JVZoo Marketplace
We also highly recommend that you find a good offer to promote, either your own product or an affiliate product. The idea here is to offset your cost and immediately monetize your leads when they are fresh.
It’s important that this offer is related to what you are offering on your squeeze page. After people opt-in you could redirect them to this offer, you could put an ad on your thank you pages and you can send your new leads an automated follow up email sequence promoting this offer. Doing so will help bring in some money you can reinvest in ads to scale up your efforts and build your list faster
You’ll get the best results if your money offer relates to the free offer on your squeeze page. For example if you are offering people a free tutorial video on how to edit videos, presenting them with a product that lets them do it at the click of a button should do well. Your money offer needs to do something quicker, better or easier than what you are giving away for free.
That said – your free offer still needs to have value. The best way to start a profitable relationship with your new subscribers is to over deliver and “wow” them right out of the gate.
That brings us to your “ethical bribe”… the incentive or reason you are going to give people to opt-in to your list.
The first thing you need to do is figure out what kind of subscriber you want on your list. Are you looking for people interested in dog grooming, people looking to make money online or people who need help with a technical problem?
Find out who your target market is and where you can find them. Then spend some time on forums, in Facebook groups etc. to figure out what they need… What are they missing? Once you do that it becomes pretty easy to construct a free offer to entice opt-ins.
Here are a few ideas to get you started…
You’re the Expert
It doesn’t matter if you are a complete new to internet marketing. You already know more than some people and to them you are the expert. This can be even more pronounced if you are marketing to niches outside of marketing
Find out what people are struggling with and make some tutorial videos (or reports) showing them how to do it. Just one example… you could show them how to set up a WordPress blog and then your money offer could be one of the many JVZoo products on how to use WP to make money online.
People Have Already Done The Work For You!
Private Label Rights (PLR) is your best friend here. Essentially these are products and content you can buy and when you do you also get the rights to change them and use them in any way you want.
JVZoo is full of good PLR products. Pick one that fits your needs, slap a new cover on it with your name, add your own affiliate links and edit them as much as you like… and you’ll have the easiest freebie offer ever made.
Copy What Works
When you’re an internet marketer, junk mail becomes the highlight of your day. Instead of being annoyed by online ads, start studying them.
See what the big dogs in your industry are doing. If they are running the same squeeze page and offers over and over again… spending lots of money on ads. Chances are those pages and campaigns are profitable and it would be a good idea to copy what they do. Of course you shouldn’t steal stuff, but there is no reason you should not be heavily inspired by what already works.
Ride The Coattails of Hype.
You’ve seen them before… Those big product launches every affiliate under the sun is mailing for, the ones that sell thousands of copies.
However, even when they sell 10,000 copies… that still means there are hundreds of thousands who didn’t buy the product. This gives you a “in” to piggyback on these launches to build your own list.
Why didn’t people buy it? Maybe the price was too high or maybe they still need information before they can make their decision. Whatever it is it gives you the opportunity to run a campaign that either…
Give them a free alternative… “Keep your money – this is how to do what Product X does… for free!
Or make a review style report or video and bill it as… The truth about Product X revealed.
This way you can ride the general hype around a big launch and use it to your own advantage. And of course the smart thing to do would be to use the hyped product as your money offer too.
That should give you a few ideas on how to get started building your opt-in offer and squeeze pages. Don’t forget to check the JVZoo Marketplace too, there are tons of great products that will help you get started and slash your learning curve in half.
The most important thing to take away today though, is that you always need to keep in mind why you are building a list. What are you going to promote to them down the line?
Your initial freebie offer sets the tone for what they expect from you and it will attract people with certain interests and desires.
If you are planning to promote WordPress related products down the line and maybe launch your own one day… Your freebie offer should be WP related. Do not promise people dog grooming tips and then try to sell them video editing software. You’ll be wasting your time (and theirs) and you’ll drown in unsubscribes and spam complaints.
That said, there’s nothing to be scared off – just go do it. You will most likely fail a few times before you succeed, everyone did and if they tell you otherwise they are lying.
However, building your own list, using a good ethical bribe and monetizing the process with a good money offer is one of the only reliable and time tested methods to grow an internet business… so get started building your squeeze page today.
In the next article in this series, we’ll be looking at how you can get more free and low cost traffic to your squeeze pages, so you can take your list building to the next level.
