Building Your First List
To create your first subscriber list, you will need to start with an email account. You probably don’t want to use your personal account because it might become too difficult to manage both your personal communications and interactions wih subscribers. So you should consider opening a new account with one of the big email providers, such as Gmail or Yahoo.
If your business already has a name you should use this as the name on your new email account if it is available. If you don’t have a business name or your name isn’t available, try to pick something related to the niche you will be working in, for example LoseWeightFast@gmail.com or DiscountSportsMemorabilia@yahoo.com.
Next you will need a website called an opt-in page that will serve as an entry point for your prospective subscribers. An opt-in page can be your squeeze page – in which you give away your LMR – or it can simply be a place for visitors to opt-in to your business or service, such as contacting you for a free consultation or setting up a doctor’s appointment.
If you have never built a website before, it can seem intimidating. But you no longer need to be an expert on writing code or have a degree in web design in order to make a great-looking high-converting website. There are plenty of free tools you can use to set up a website in just a few minutes.
One of the best is WordPress. This is an open source site that you can use to build a website for free using their simple online tools, many of which are drag-and-drop. WordPress has existing free and paid templates that you can use to simply add your new content and have a great-looking website. Or you can build an entirely new website on your own using their free tools.
Another option is to hire somebody to build your website for you. There are many companies that specialize in these types of projects, but they can be costly. You also can hire a freelancer from one of the marketplaces mentioned earlier, which is often a more affordable option.
Regardless of whether you build it yourself or hire somebody to create your website, you will need a domain name and a hosting service.
A domain name is going to be the URL address of your website. In other words, it’s going to be the link to where visitors can find it, for example www.CutePuppies4Sale.com or www.GreatBooksDiscussionGroup.org.
There are lots of sites where you can purchase a domain name. Usually you buy it for a period of time, such as a year or 24 months. Although the cost depends on which site you use, what offers they have, and how long your lease it, generally you can expect to pay anywhere from $9 to $29/year per domain name.
Once you have a domain name, you will need to lease space on a server to host your site. Again, there are many different companies that specialize in hosting websites. Costs tend to range from about $99 to $199/year, depending on the size and level of service you require. Once you sign up, simply follow the online instructions to link your new domain name to your hosting service.
Once you have built your opt-in page (or had it built for you), WordPress will ask you to input your domain name as the URL for your new website.
When you do this, whenever anybody types in that address, they will be directed to your website.
Finally, you want to load your LMR into your autoresponder and connect autoresponder to your website. Then, whenever visitors arrive on your page and opt-in by giving you their email address, your autoresponder will automatically take care of sending out your free lead magnet and adding their email to your subscription list.
If you LMR is something people passionate about your niche are going to want to have your subscription list will quickly fill up with hundreds or even thousands of new highly-targeted subscribers who have already proven that they are interested in the types of products and service you are promoting.
Traffic: How to Populate Your List
The key to any successful online marketing program is to get as much traffic as possible to your website. As long as you are giving away a high-value product for free, you are going to capture a high percentage of visitors. This is known as a visitor conversion because you are converting visitors into subscribers once they opt-in to your list.
Traffic can be divided into two types: Paid and free.
Paid traffic methods include buying ad on Google, Facebook and other popular ad providers; buying banner ads that appear on the top, sides and bottom of popular websites related to your niche; buying lists of subscribers from other Internet marketers; and many other options.
Free traffic marketing includes using social media to attract people who are interested in your niche to visit your website; participating in niche-related discussions in chat rooms, forum, social media pages and other locations and encouraging people to visit your website; creating a blog and writing regularly about your niche topic and including a link to your website; and many other free methods.
If you are just starting out, you can use free traffic methods until you build your list so large that it starts to attract a lot of prospective customers so you can start building revenues. Then you can reinvest some or all of these revenues into paid traffic methods so that you can build your list even more quickly.
Obviously, free traffic methods take a lot longer to gain traction. It can take weeks or even months before you start to get the kind of response that is going to provide you with enough revenues to fund your paid traffic marketing.
Paid traffic, on the other hand, can provide traffic almost instantly. With such popular platforms as Facebook Ads or Google Ads, you can get your ads in front of highly-targeted prospects right away, so it’s not unusual for you to start getting visitors to your site almost moments after you launch your paid traffic platforms.
Not all traffic generation methods are created equal. Some work better than others and will bring you results more quickly. The fastest and most cost-effective traffic generation methods are:
1. Joint Ventures (Paid)
2. Pay-Per-Click, Pay-Per-View and Banner Ads (Paid)
3. Social Media/Blogging (Free)
4. Forums, Ad Swaps and Safelists (Free/Paid)
Joint ventures are when you enter into an agreement with another marketer – usually somebody who already works within your niche – and agree to share the costs of promotion equally. Both parties promote the business to their own lists and profits are then split down the middle. Joint ventures are a great way to get twice the mileage out of your promotional budget for half the cost. Joint venture partners can be found in many different places online, but one of the best and easiest to use is Warrior Forum, a site that specializes in bringing Internet marketers together.
When you buy PPC, PPV or banner ads, you deal with an external ad broker, such as Facebook Ads or Google AdWords, and pay to have ads sent to high-target web users. With PPC, you pay only for those who click through to your pages. With PPV and banner ads, you pay for a certain number of impressions, or pages on which your ad will appear.
Ad swaps are another helpful way to expand your list quickly. It’s when you agree to trade lists with another marketer. You send out emails to their list promoting your web page and they send your subscribers a link to their page. It’s a fast and free way to double your exposure. Potential ad swap partners can be found at Warrior Forum and many other Internet marketing exchange sites.
Solo ads are when you pay another marketer to promote your link to their subscribers, usually in the form of a recommendation in an email or in a newsletter. For as little as $10 you can buy solo ads that include links back to your squeeze pages, opt-in pages or websites.
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