As I am always saying, it is important to build a list of subscribers in order to be successful online. And when I say be successful, I mean regularly serving your clients and generating an tidy income from your online business whether you sell e-books, MP3s, videos, coaching, or tele-classes.
So what are the 5 important elements required to begin list building.
#1 - Autoresponder. It is vitally important that you have some kind of software mechanism that will maintain your list and send out regular communications to your list. When I first started online I tried to maintain a list manually but it was a lot of hard work and headache. You must sign up to an auto-responder account online in order to create an automated online business.
#2 - Squeeze page. A squeeze page is a web page that the readers of your articles will visit in order to sign up to your list and opt in.
Once they have given you their name and email address, a squeeze page will usually send the subscriber to your special free gift or giveaway. One thing I notice with a lot of newbies is that tend to add other links to their squeeze pages. But by doing so you diminish the success of the squeeze page. Every time you add an additional link to your squeeze page you dramatically reduce your chances of signing up a new subscriber. The purpose of your squeeze page is to sign up subscribers - nothing more, nothing less.#3 - Giveaway. Of course you are going to have to ethically bribe your readers to sign up to your list on your squeeze page by offering some kind of freebie such as an e-book, an mp3 or a video product. If you are new to this I would suggest that you create an e-book as this is one of the easiest and simplest methods you can use. If you have written several articles, choose 5 or 6 of your best ones and use them to form an e-book. Add a table of contents, page numbers and a link to your website. You must have a giveaway product otherwise your article readers will not have any reason to sign up to your list.
#4 - Traffic - In order to attract traffic to your squeeze page you are going to have to write articles, blogs or use social networking. I use articles because the quality of subscribers I receive to my squeeze page is far more superior than anything else that I have tried even ppc. The more traffic you generate to your squeeze page the more subscribers you will sign up and the bigger will be your list.
The final element that is important to your list building is that you must dedicate time and effort to your business. So many people set up the auto-responder and create squeeze pages but then when it comes to working on their business they just don't dedicate the time. I spend at least five hours on my business each day and sometimes I can sit in front of my laptop for ten hours. But for me it is worth it because some day I will be able to spend 20 hours or less each week and that is the goal I am working towards. What are your long term goals and will you use list building techniques to help you achieve them.
Fast Article Marketing - 5 Steps to List Building