10 Fast ways to build your opt-in list

List Building - 10 Super Fast Ways To Build Your Opt-in List
Copyright (c) 2009
by Titus Hoskins

It is a well known fact that the key to successful online
marketing comes from building a well targeted and responsive
opt-in email list. This is mainly because your online marketing
success comes from building relationships with a large subscriber
base, but just how do you go about doing this?

An opt-in list is when you are given the option to receive bulk
emails that are also sent to a large majority of other people.
Generally you need a person's permission to add them to such a
list otherwise it will be seen as spam. Regardless of what
you're promoting or selling, if you want to succeed online you
need to build up your own opt-in list. Most professional
marketers use double opt-in which means subscribers must fill in
an opt-in form on a web page and then confirm or verify their
subscription in an email sent to them. This eliminates any spam
complaints.

Virtually everyone uses email so it won't be too hard to build
your list if you use some of the simple tactics listed below.
Keep in mind, using an opt-in contact list should have a place in
everyone's marketing plan as it is cheap, fast, and still more
effective than other outdated methods of promotion and marketing.
This is because a large majority of the people who are making
money on the Internet are those who have built up a large opt-in
list or are using strategic follow-up emails in their marketing.
They will have refined, looked after and built up a trust with
the people on their list who they can contact in the future.

If you need any help with how to approach compiling your opt-in
email list then below are 10 quick and sure ways of getting
people to sign up for your contact list:

1. Set up an auto-responder which will automatically send out
messages to your visitor. It can be set up with a series of
compelling messages, which will encourage your subscribers to buy
your products or join your business. Using Pop-Ups, Pop-Ins and
Slide-In forms on web pages will quickly build your list. Some
professional marketers make the "Close" button on this pop-up
form very hard to see, so that visitors will subscribe as a means
of closing out the window. Use your own judgment here, do you
want to be this sneaky? It's not exactly the best way to start a
relationship, but many savvy marketers use it. This is the
equivalent of "getting your foot in the door" and then these
marketers follow-up with quality content to really get and hold
your attention.

2. Have a concrete image or graphic of your ezine or newsletter
when giving people the opportunity to sign up as this will
increase your conversion rate. Your ezine or newsletter can then
be sent out daily, weekly, monthly or whenever you need to send
it. Relationship building is the key here because you just don't
want a list, you want a responsive list.

3. Make it real simple for people to subscribe to your opt-in
email; it needs to be quick and easy in order to encourage people
to do it. For example you could put a simple form in the left
hand column of your websites home page and other pages if
possible. Most professional marketers place their opt-in form on
EVERY page of their site.

4. Use social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube,
Twitter... truth be told all of these sites are only glorified
List Builders; make sure you're taking advantage of them to
build your list of contacts.

5. Use Forums - there are literally thousands of forums and
discussion boards so all you have to do is find one that relates
to your particular business and then participate in the
discussion. The key is to get targeted subscribers, ones
interested in your topic or subject.

6. Promote your website and yourself - this can be done through
such things as article writing. This will promote your site in a
way that will get your site known and recognized by more people;
become an expert and people will want to get to know you and what
you have to say.

7. Ezine advertising is a cost effective and quick way to attract
visitors to your site in order to get more subscribers. Ezine ads
can be a very cheap and effective way of building your list
quickly. Many professional marketers also use co-registration
strategies - this can be simply done by adding a form where your
subscribers can check to subscribe to other related ezines or
newsletters. You promote my list, I promote yours.

8. Have well written content - you need to ensure that your
website content is well written, informative and appealing so
that when people visit your site they will hopefully opt-in to
your email list. Again, if you have nothing valuable to offer
your visitors, they won't join your list.

9. Always use incentives to reward people for joining your opt-in
list. Enticing potential subscribers with a free report, video,
article, ebook or software is still the quickest way to get
subscribers on your list.

10. Provide access to "Members Only" areas of your site - this
part of your website will be accessible only when people have
signed up to your opt-in email list. Same can be done for
articles or reports... give your visitors a good teaser and then
they have to opt-in to get access to the rest.

These are just some of the ways to build your list quickly but
there are countless others, especially if you have a product to
sell and you can do JVs (Joint Ventures) with other marketers or
big-name Gurus. Then using a "Squeeze Page" to collect contact
information to quickly build your list. So too is creating an
affiliate program and letting your affiliates build your list for
you!

Just remember, building up the perfect opt-in email list won't
happen over night but by following the above steps it will build
quickly. Just make sure that as your opt-in list grows, you
provide your users with quality content and you keep the list
organized and managed in order to keep your subscribers happy and
satisfied so that they will be willing to do business with you
over the long term.

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The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous
niche sites. If you want to learn how to make your online
marketing much more effective by building your lists try here:
http://www.bizwaremagic.com/opt-in.htm
Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be
freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles - membership website for wahm folks