Everyone knows it. The money is in the list. The problem is never knowing what to do – it’s knowing how to do it. Although building an email list is a huge area and covers a broad range of topics, there are a few things you can do today to start building your list.
Here are 5 Tips to Quickly Build An Email List of 1,000+ Leads:
#1. Give Something Away
You’ve probably heard the saying before that, “givers gain.” Well that saying is 100% true when it comes to building your list. The best thing you can do to generate leads is by giving something away. When I say give something away, I’m referring to a free electronic report, an ebook, a video series or whatever is easiest for you to create.
You see what you’re really doing here is an exchange. Your giving your ideal prospect valuable information in exchange for their email. Do this often and frequent enough and you’ll start to quickly build your first 1,000+ leads. This is the same formula I used to build an email database of 2,400 people over the course of a year.
#2. Don’t Be Everything to Everyone
You don’t want to be everything to everyone. When you’re creating your free offer focus on a niche. When you focus on a niche you become the expert in that area. Not only will this help you build a list of targeted leads, but it will also help you eliminate your competition.
You don’t want to offer an ebook called 7 Tips to be More Successful because it’s too vague. You’re trying to be everything to everyone. Focus your efforts into a niche. Maybe create an ebook called 7 Tips to be More Successful as a Blogger. That’s more specific.
Here’s another example. It’s my first free ebook called: The Genius Within You – How to Unlock Your Life Purpose. It’s an electronic book that I give away for free on my blog. It’s geared towards people who are struggling with their life direction and may be looking for a career change.
#3. Build A Landing Page for Your Free Offer
Once you know what you’re going to give away create a landing page. A landing page is just a web page where people can read about your free offer and opt-in to your email database. You can check out a sample landing page I created for my ebook: The Genius Within You – How to Unlock Your Life Purpose
What’s important is that your landing page creates a sense of urgency. If people don’t feel an internal desire to act, then they won’t opt into your email database. To create this internal desire make sure to offer your prospects something highly desirable.
#4. Give People What They Want (Not What They Need)
People buy what they want and not what they need. So when you create your free offer make sure to give people what they want and not what they need. One of the best places to find out what people want is by researching online forums.
That’s where I started. I joined an online personal growth community. As I participated in the forum and began answering other members questions I realized something. I realized I was answering the same questions over and over again – most of them on life purpose. That’s when I had my “ah-ha”. People wanted to learn about life purpose. That’s where I got my idea for the free ebook.
#5. Drive Traffic to Your Free Offer
Once you’ve nailed down your free offer it’s time to drive traffic to it. You can do this several different ways. Here are what I’ve found to be the most effective ways to drive traffic:
- Article Marketing with a Spin – make sure to only post your articles in directories that are related to your niche. For my Life Purpose ebook I would only post articles at SelfGrowth.com. This worked extremely well because my prospects were nicely targeted.
- Forum Marketing – join an online forum and start posting comments. Be as helpful as you can. The way you get traffic is by creating a compelling signature in your profile. In my profile signature I used “How to Unlock Your Life Purpose” with a link to my landing page. 30% of the people who went to my landing page opted-in to get my free ebook.
- Blog Commenting – start commenting on other blogs but do it with a specific intention. Attempt to get the attention of the blog owner. Once you get their attention send them a quick email and ask them if you could publish a guest article on their site.
- Newsletter Marketing – sign-up for the Newsletters that are in your niche. Then email the owner asking them if you could publish an article in their Newsletter. Make sure to include a small signature with a link to your offer at the end of the article.
These 5 tips have helped me build my first 1,000+ leads, but this list is far from complete. What other suggestions do you have for the newbie marketer to help them quickly build their email list?
6 Comments
Steven | The Emotion Machine
February 3, 2010This is very sound advice. I have tried some of these in the past with success. My newsletter is still a baby (only just now working on my third edition), but I will definitely apply these techniques in the future!
Diane Zidek
February 3, 2010This is a great list of tips. I would add regarding your give-away (as trade for email), to be certain you have branded your ebook, newsletter, etc., with your information leading back to your main hub. You could also consider encouraging your recipients of your product to feel free to forward to friends or anyone who may benefit — if your info is branded properly and is truly good content, it will lead to others visiting your site and seeing your offers.
– Diane
Steve
February 3, 2010That’s a good point Diane. I just ran into something similar with a good friend of mine.
As part of his ebook (giveaway) he added a whole page at the end of the book describing who he was and what he did – sort of branding his business.
I asked him to try a different approach by cutting down this description to 1-2 paragraphs max – then adding a link to his About Page on his blog. That way, if people want to know more they can go and visit his blog, subscribe to his RSS Feed, share his articles, etc.
Do you have any other tips on branding?
Adrian
February 5, 2010Steve,
There are a lot of networking meetings held at public libraries for people looking for jobs. I know that there are motivational/inspirational speakers who are invited to speak in front of the audience and at the end of the meeting people just pick up the speaker’s business card and chances are they will go to his website and sign up for RSS or newsletter. That’s obviously great for the speaker.
But on the other hand, you attend the meeting and during breaks you talk to people and most likely they will ask you what you do for a living. Then you can hand them over your business card. They end up visiting your website and eventually sign up.
I know that the niche might not be the best for what one might be looking for but I believe it’ll help. At the end of the day it’s networking, right?
Adrian
Steve
February 5, 2010Great tips Adrian,
Sometimes I get so ‘caught up’ in the online strategies and methods that I don’t think of going offline – thanks for your suggestions :)
Office Furniture
February 6, 2010A great list of tips. It is clear that you understand that innovation and creativity are clearly the by-products of the work environment you place yourself in each day.
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