Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Build a List With Your Blog

Building Subscriber ListsSince you're a blogger, you may be more focused on writing your blog posts and monetizing them than you are with anything else. This is especially true if you use a self-hosted option since you usually do have more control over your business. However, what would happen if you suddenly lost your Google rankings? What if something else unforeseen happened? You would want a way to contact your readers and continue making money, wouldn't you? That's why it's so important to know how to create a great opt-in form for your blog so you can start to build your list.

The chances are good that you belong to some marketing lists yourself. Perhaps you signed up on another blogger's page, or after you'd purchased a product. Think about which lists you like belonging to, and what made you decide to join in the first place. Emulate this process with your own blog!

Your first step is to sign up with an autoresponder service. The service will keep track of the details of those on your list, and let you sent out follow up and broadcast e-mails. AWeber, E-mail Aces, and Get Response are all popular options. Any one of these services will give you the tools you need to generate an HTML or JavaScript opt-in form for your blog. You'll simply paste this form in on the appropriate spot on your blog -- perhaps even using a pop-up to capture even more e-mails.

You will need to give people a reason and an incentive to sign up for your list. For many marketers, this comes in the form of a free report. You can give this free report away in exchange for their e-mail! People love to get things for free, so you should find that you get a lot of sign-ups with a regular readership. Make sure the free report is finely tuned to exactly what these people are looking for, whether it be an answer to their problem or something that fuels their passion.

You may want to create a dedicated squeeze page as well. The squeeze page can be linked to from your blog -- you can also promote it using article marketing, pay per click, and other traffic generation methods. The squeeze page will have one purpose, and that is to get people to opt-in to your list.

You'll want to have a series of follow-up messages that will be sent after someone has opted in to your list. The first one should include a welcoming message, as well as the free report that you are giving away. The rest of the content is up to you! Some people like to take a more informational stand with occasional promotional e-mails. Other people like to send more promotional e-mails. It's all a matter of what your readers are used to, as well as your personal style.

Examine what other marketers do for list building in your niche to see what might work best for you. Having your own list is a great thing as an Internet marketer because it can encourage people to keep reading your blog (since you stay in their minds with your e-mails) and gives you a way to contact them no matter what happens with the search engines!

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