How To Build A Mailing List

Here is how to build a mailing list of people interested in a certain niche:

1. Decide first what kind of people you need to join your list. For example, if you are in the work at home niche you may want to decide if you want to target seasoned marketers or beginners. This is important because if you need beginners for example and you offer them a report or an ebook about doing successful joint ventures you'll get the wrong people to join your list if at all. It won't be a while until they unsubscribe from your list, or worst, they will stay in your list and never respond to your promotions (because they joined with an email account they never open).

2. Once you decided who you want in your list prepare a bribe. Use PLRs (Private Label Rights) for that, but not as is. Take several PLRs relevant to what you want your list to know or learn, read and understand them all and come up with a series of articles about this issue. You can gather them in the form of report to download or posts on your blog, but I personally prefer to use these articles in the form of a series of emails. This way I am training my list to do the one activity I want them to do; reading my emails.

If you don't want to write your own material you can get buy the Master Resale Rights to an ebook that you think will interest your audience and offer it to them for free.
3. Prepare your offer for instant delivery. More about that in a minute.

Now as your offer is ready you need to find people who you want in your mailing list and let them know about your offer. For example, if you want people who are interested in building a website for the first time see your free guide to build a website for newbies, you want those people to know about your free guide.

Here are two techniques off the top of my mind:

1. If you have your offer in the form of a downloadable file, join forums where those people hang around (find the forums by searching Google for your keyword + forum and join the top ten). Participate in some of the active discussions and provide some useful tips, then start a new thread with the link to your free pdf report that you put together to help the forum members. You can do that as long as it is relevant to the main stream of the forum, and since it is not an affiliate link you will be thanked for your contribution. You will not only get other members to join your list, but also anyone who will search Google for your keywords will find your post in their organic results.

IMPORTANT: Provide the direct download link, and to get the names and emails of your prospects include a registration mechanism requesting a name and an email before they can read the report. You can use this tool to get that registration mechanism.

2. If you are going to offer your bribe in form of a series of emails then build a lead capture page and include it's url in your signature. When other members read your rich and valuable posts they will want to learn more from you, and they will find your signature that says: To learn more about blah blah blah visit my website http://blah blah blah, which is your lead capture page. In this case I recommend a long lead capture page emphasizing and exaggerating the issues you are discussing in your report, then end it with an opt in form that you'll get from your autoresponder. More on that in a minute.

To get people to opt in your list you'll need to send them to a landing page that teases them about your offer, build the desire to have your offer, then a mechanism to get that offer (which is to fill in your form).

You'll need a web hosting for your landing page and your downloads, if any; an html editor in case you don't have a site builder built in your hosting package, and FTP program to upload your files to the web hosting server, and an autoresponder that collects the names and emails of your visitors and follows up with your email series.

In your autoresponder start a new list, and give it a name relevant to the topic, and follow the autoresponder's instructions to get the html code for the opt in form. Copy that code and paste it in your lead capture page using the built in web site builder from your hosting company, or your own html editor and upload it to your web hosting server.

Although you can start all of the above tools for a very decent amount of money (less than a $100), still you can get functional equivalents for free. You can get a free web hosting from new horizons, a free html editor from "My Free Website Builder", a free FTP software from FileZilla, and an offer that pays you per lead, like partner with Paul. The only thing you need to pay for is the autoresponder because this is your asset. You can get a decent one for under $10/month (which is the cheapest ever) from iContact.

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Don't forget to download a backup of your list every week, just in case.

If you are going to use the "registration" mechanism AFTER the prospects download your report use eBook Pro for this purpose.

If you are going to give your bribe in the form of email series then use your autoresponder. In your autoresponder account start a campaign and assign it to this list. Then copy your email series one by one and paste them in that campaign. You'll have the option to set the intervals between emails, I personally prefer to get my emails delivered every other day. This way my readers will be hooked up to the series without being overwhelmed or bored.

If you decide to give them a download you will want it to be in a .pdf format. This way you'll guarantee your report or ebook can be opened on any computer. For that purpose don't use Microsoft Office, instead download open office 3 (openoffice.org). It is free and allows you to export your files into .pdf format. It also works on any platform. Upload your file to your web hosting account and provide the direct download link to your prospects either in your forum post or as a redirect after they confirm the email address they used to join your list.

While building your list you need to make some money to pay for the tools you are using to build that list, and hopefully have some extra for your own expenses. There are 3 main ways to make money while building your list:

1. After your prospects fill your opt in form your autoresponder will take them to a "Thank You" page. That "Thank You" page is a real estate you can monetize by affiliate links. Here is what I recommend: get your "Thank You" page to redirect to an affiliate program that is directly related to the topic and that pays you per LEAD not per sale. Your prospects are already in the mood of filling forms and when they see the lead capture page of your affiliate program they will automatically and willingly fill it and you'll get paid just for that.

2. After your subscribers confirm their emails instead of going directly to the download link you can take them to a one time offer. You can gather some Master Resale Rights products that you purchased in the past in a package and offer it for a fraction of individual price for each one. You can also "Joint Venture" with any of the well known names in your niche, use their one time offer and split the revenue. You can also just put your link to an affiliate program that pays per SALE, given that the product is directly related to your topic.

3. In your email series, or in your .pdf report, you can include your affiliate links to products or services that will help your readers in this particular issue that they joined your list for.