Entrepreneur's List Building

A mailing list or database of contacts is bread and butter of business, whether online or offline. Without a list of customers, prospects and contacts,it is hard to be "in business". You might have heard the old adage "the money is in the list". There is nothing more true. When you have a list of highly targeted prospects that you can contact every time you have a new product or service, you save incredible amounts of time and money in marketing your new products and services.

First, you have to build the list of targeted prospects. One strategy to build your list is to offer prospects something of value on your website that they can download. Big businesses and small use this strategy. Prospects provide their name and email in exchange for the download. For example, let's take a look at a very good example -- apple.com. When you download the free iTunes and Quicktime software from their site, they will ask you to fill in an optional name and email form. this gives them the ability to send you additional information and offers via email. Most online stores offer the same thing during check out.

Even as a small business owner, and even if you not a primarily an online business, you can use this same strategy. You can offer visitors a free report, free tip sheet, free wallpaper or some other useful item related to your business. You want to be sure that your offer provides real value to the visitor. People are less and less willing to give away their email address.

There are some important strategies that you need to use in order for this download to work for you in building a list. You will have to do some homework in order for your lead-generating mechanism to work well for you.

First, you want to connect your "sign up" form with an auto-responder program either self hosted or through a third party provider. On your main website, you want the sign up form must be prominent. The form should be appear on every page. Ask for the person's email and name before giving them access to your download. It is an exchange.

You can have the greatest download but without traffic to your website all your work will be in vain. You will need a strategy to promote your offer and drive traffic to your site. If you do other types of advertising it is a great call to action for your ads. It increases the value of the ad by getting people to your site and obtaining their information so that you can market to them again.

Building a targeted list is something that every business owner should be doing. Whether you are online or offline business, you don't want your prospects just visiting your business, you want to know who they are and a way to stay in touch. When you are able to keep "touching" people you have a better chance of converting them into a client or customer then you do when they visit and leave.

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