Internet Marketing Strategy: Build A List Fast

If you haven't seen this well worn phrase already, get ready because this won't be the last time you'll read it: The gold is in the list. You will get sick and tired of hearing it, but it's very popular among internet marketers for a good reason-it's true. Just what is this list that we all speak of?

For internet marketers, a list is a set of records consisting of basic contact information for your prospects and/or current customers. If you have a product or promote products about business financing and I sign up for your list, then I have become a prospect that can receive ongoing marketing emails until such time as I unsubscribe.

List building is crucial to the growth of your business. Let's assume that you have signed up to sell someone else's products or services as an affiliate marketer. You like the product and you've been successful in getting some solid traffic to visit your affiliate links.

During a given month, you manage to convince 5,000 people to follow your links to the affiliate product owner's website (outstanding job). Of the 5,000 who visited, 100 decided to make a purchase and you pocketed 50% of the product commission on a $52 product.

That means that two out of every one hundred people you sent to the site purchased the product. You earned $26 for each one for $2,600 in the month. That's excellent work and enough to make you think about doing this more often and perhaps fulltime ultimately.

But what's wrong with this scenario? Plenty-and here's why: Even though you did a great job earning some nice cash this month, you've missed out on an opportunity to turn those one hundred purchasers into repeat buyers because you don't have their contact information. Who does? The product owner who gave you the first share of their purchase while he or she will sell to those same folks who are proven buyers over and over in the next few weeks, that's who.

Meanwhile, you'll work hard on getting another 5,000 people to visit the site when you had 100 who solid customers who probably liked what they bought enough to purchase better, more expensive and complimentary products in the next 30 days-but you won't be the one making the offer because they aren't on your list!

The best way to establish a solid foundation for success in internet marketing is to start building your list from the very beginning. Have a system set up to build a list before you start marketing links to a single individual.

List building tools like Aweber and GetResponse will provide you with unlimited lists for a variety of niches. You can create sub lists within niches to move prospects to customers and move customers to different tiered customer lists. For very little money each month (or my preferred option-a one-time annual fee) you have a list building business machine working on autopilot once you've created automated messages that go out converting your list into repeated and satisfied sales.

It's great to share in the easy commissions of affiliate sales but why give the product owner the benefit of repeat sales from proven purchasers when you were the one who provided the customers in the first place. Make sure that you don't leave money on the table by not leveraging relationships with your prospects, both purchasers and non-purchasers, for sales and commission opportunities in the future.