Build A Targeted Email Database Quickly

Building a prospect, subscriber or client list, quickly, is a rewarding experience. The basic principles of list building are pretty straight forward.

- You need something of value to offer your prospects and give them a reason to sign up to your list.

- You need to set up a form to capture your prospects contact details and

- You need visitors to come to your website (Develop traffic)

Basic Principle 1

Starting with the first basic principle, you need something of value to offer your potential prospects.

You can offer

1. A newsletter

2. A product

3. A service

4. A special offer

Basic Principle 2

The second basic principle is setting up your lead capture form. This is the box (form) on your website where your prospects fill in with their contact details. As soon as they press the send button, your autoresponder adds them to your database and sends them your message. Presto, you're starting to build your list.

Most autoresponders give you the HTML code for your form, so you don't have to worry about any special programming. All you have to do is cut and paste.

The details you can comfortably collect from a prospect depends on your offer. If you're offering an online newsletter, you only need your prospect's first name and email address. If you're sending them a CD by snail mail, you can collect their postal address even phone and fax numbers.

Quick Note:

You'll increase your response rate if you include the sign up form at the top and bottom of your webpage as well as use a popup / popunder or slide in box.

Once you've got the ground work done, you're ready to start driving traffic to your website.

Basic Principle 3

Building your list is like building a city. You want to get as many people into your city as possible, so you need to build roads. You need an 8 lane highway and multiple smaller roads to fill your city with people.

In list building terms, you need to focus on one main technique to pull prospects into your list. You also want to use secondary techniques to add to the momentum of your traffic. The following list gives you the exact methods I use to develop my lists. Choose one method as your main focus and use the rest as your secondary traffic sources.

Advertise in print

Place advertising where ever your market is. Ask yourself what you read personally, where do you get information? Your market most likely does the same as you, so get in front of them by using classified or display advertising in:

a. magazines

b. trade journals

c. newspapers

d. direct mail

Advertise online

This is the least costly method of advertising. You can reach a targeted audience through a variety of free and low cost marketing methods.

Write articles

Writing articles gives you credibility. Write articles on a regular basis and submit them to online and offline sources. You should be submitting articles to the same sources you're advertising with as well as all other publications in your market. Do a search on Google or your favourite search engine for the keyword "ezine directories" and you'll find lists of potential places for your articles and advertising.

Affiliate Program

One of the fastest ways to build your list exponentially is to set up an affiliate program. Your affiliates will link to your website, which means plenty of targeted traffic. This helps your search engine rankings, which brings you more traffic, which increases the number of affiliates you get and helps you build your list at break neck speed. It's a never ending cycle.

Forums

Get involved in forums. When you post or answer a question in a forum, you're generally allowed to have a signature file attached to your post. It's just like the signature file in your email. Your signature file should direct people to your website where they can sign up for your list.

Email signature file

The same as in forums, every email you send out should have a signature file directing people to your website.

Joint Ventures

If you've got a unique, original product, a joint venture may be an option for you. Contact some entrepreneurs who have large lists and see if they're interested in working with you. Joint venture marketing is a win-win situation. You win, because you're able to tap into someone else's database and they win, because they get a higher than average commission when they sell your products.

Referrals

This is very powerful. Include a referral or "tell a friend" form on your website. This little form can help build your list exponentially. When someone recommends your site to a friend, that friend is most likely going to visit and possibly tell another friend. And the snowball starts rolling. Add this technique with an affiliate program and you'll soon have a nice fat, targeted list of prospects.

The list building process is really quite simple if you look at the basics. Offer a quality product as an incentive to sign up to your list. Plug your sign up form into an autoresponder. Drive traffic to your webpage where your sign up list is located - and watch your list expand.