Tellman Knudson's List Building and Internet Marketing

What's the difference between the people who rocket ship to the top of the company and the people who flounder around or go really slow?

The answer is simple: The people who go to the top of the company have a list-they have a list of personal contacts.

Sometimes that list might be a subscriber list to an autoresponder that delivers a series of messages or newsletters, let's say. Sometimes it might just be a list of personal contacts in your address book or a big, supersonic, kick-butt Rolodex. You need to cultivate a list of people with influence.

When people focus on leads, they say, "Okay, I'm going to go after this one person and they're either going to say yes or no. If they say no, I'm going to drop them and go to the next person." That's the concept behind a lead.

The difference between a lead and a list is that with a list, you build a relationship with your list members. With a lead, it's like a one night stand. A lead is just, "Let's get together, have an exchange, and then you're out." It's not a very long-term deal most of the time. If you sell someone or get someone involved in your opportunity, maybe that will turn into a long-term business relationship, but usually it doesn't.

You don't want to swim upstream-you want to swim downstream, at least while you're building momentum.

So, you've got your squeeze page up and you're almost ready to start list building, right? You've chosen an autoresponder, and now you have to load messages into it. What should they say?

Let's take a "list building" newsletter, for instance. (Which really isn't a great topic if you're just starting out, because you're still learning. How can you tell other people how to build a list? Right? But let's just use it as an example.) The first message should say, "Thanks for joining my list building newsletter, mailing list, etc. I'll be sending you tips/issues each week/every day about great list building strategies." Then, give them their first issue or first tip about list building. In your P. S., remind them to pick up a copy of whatever it is you're selling that pertains to list building, be it yours or someone else's. And then, tell them it will really help them a lot.

Two caveats here:

Number one, try the product you want to sell people. Sign up, buy it, and then use it to see if it works well. If not, why would you try to pawn it off on someone else, just to make money? It's not ethical! Instead, find a product that you can solidly stand behind and let the people on your list know that you've used it and think it's awesome.

Number two, make sure the product is pertinent to the list. If you're writing to them about list building, an information product about Internet Marketing would be appropriate. But think about this, if you're writing about golf and try to sell those people a product about Internet Marketing, they'll think you're looney and you'll lose their trust. Only golfing products to golfers. See?

So, if you're writing about list building, choose a few list building products to promote.

The most important asset you have is your list. Never make the mistake of just sending product offers every single day, just random things that you haven't tried. If you do, you'll regret it and get tons of A. What's worse is that you'll never get those people to trust you again.

If they buy your product great! Then, be sure to send them a thank you letter. And in that, you can always offer something else. Put them into a special autoresponder account for people who bought from you. Send them the same list of tips as you'd send to other list members, only offer them progressively more expensive products. If they trust you, they'll buy more than one.

But remember, don't treat your list members like ATMs. They're people. Only offer them things you're sure that will help them. You aren't forcing them to buy, but you are bringing great things to their attention that they might never have found on their own. When it's time to go to bed at night, you'll sleep well knowing that you're not just making money, but you're helping other people to succeed, too.

Monetize your site as quickly and as easily as possible, and in the process, build your list along the way.

There are all sorts of different ways to think about doing this.

If you're an AdSense publisher, it might be smarter to have AdSense only after people subscribe to your list. And, it might be smarter only to show the AdSense after people have told a friend.

Do you see why?

The reason is because if you don't have these people on your list and if they are not telling friends, then you can't ever monetize those people again. They visit your site and then leave and go to the AdSense ad site, and forget join your list. If they are on your list, you can monetize them over and over again with ways that are much more impactful than AdSense.

Until they subscribe, don't show the AdSense because people might be turned off by it and not join your list. Or, like I said, there are all sorts of different ways to think about this. Maybe when they subscribe, the AdSense disappears because you already captured their names and addresses for your list, and then you can follow up on and make recommendations on products that they would benefit from. Test these!

Maybe do an A/B split test, where one page has AdSense and the other doesn't. See which one works best, and then go with it. But keep testing. Test your headline; test your subscribe button. You can test all the elements of your page--one test at a time. For instance, don't change your headline and the opt-in button at the same time. You won't know which prompted the viewer to join your list.

Here's the thing: When it comes to implementing marketing strategies, don't take too much time to do them before you test them. Then if they don't work, you took a lot of time to think about something that didn't work.

I would recommend that you send out a press release, today, or at least first thing in the morning to drive traffic to your squeeze page, which should lead to your sales letter or the sales letter of the product you're promoting. A press release about your new site will get some traffic.

You also want to use pay-per-click. The reason you want to use pay-per-click is before you find list members and everything else, you can check your conversions and see how everything works. I would use pay-per-click and get rolling with that right away.

You know, whatever your budget is: $5, $10, $100, or $2,000, whatever it is, spend that. You want to go low. You can spend $5 to $10 a day. Focus on split testing and tweaking the squeeze page and the sales page until you get it making money for you on $10 a day.

The whole thing is... Don't Wait! Take action immediately and don't let anything stop you. If your squeeze page isn't great, you can make changes to it, until it is great. Yet, it's out there the whole time, getting some response. If you had nothing working for you, you'd be no further in buiding your list.

Those are your two options. It's that simple.

So Many people come to online marketing with the idea of making a quick buck. How great would that be? The reality is that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. People spend gobs of time and money very quickly hoping to find the right program that will make them the next millionaire. The truth is, no program can do that for you.

But you need not be concerned. List building isn't difficult.

Creat a list building squeeze page
You get it up onto a server.
Drive tons of traffic to it.
People just sign up for your list.

Bingo!

There are plenty of ways to send traffic to your list building page, too. You can:

Write articles about your niche
Write a blog regarding your niche
Get a pay-per-click advertising campaign going.
Start writing and submitting press releases.
Study search engine optimication

Plus, there are 12 more ways to start driving traffic to

Before you start driving traffic, though, you set up an autoresponder and loaded it up with messages. You offer news, information, or tips about your niche, and you introduce the folks on your list to a product you can stand behind because you've tried it and love it. Then, you will make money.

If you think you can succeed by joining every free program out there, you're wasting your time. If you're serious about having a business, you need to spend some money, and you need to start list building. It's that easy.

A great thing to do even before you try to build a list is to set up an "ASK" campaign. Focus on getting 100 answers about whatever it is you're into. Then, you'll know exactly what people want. With that information, you're going to be able to write emails, write copy, and anything else you write, based on what people on your list want.

You can capture people's names and email addresses, if you want to. But I might even hold off on that so you can get as many questions asked as possible within a shorter period of time.

Also limit how much you ask. The more fields you add in, the less likely people will fill them out. So I would go for, "What is your single, most burning question about [my business?]" Whatever that business is. Use your picture and signature. And say, "Find out what people want to know," and go from there.

Use the answers you get to come up with bullet points, headline, and everything else on your squeeze page.

Yet, it all depends on how you want to position your ASK campaign and what it is you're trying to accomplish.

If you're going to use paid advertising to find out what people want, just ask them what they want as the first thing. Then on the thank-you page you might let them join your newsletter, or something like that and let them join your list.

Or, you might offer them an e-book on the squeeze page. Then, go to ClickBank and find an e-book you can promote. But do that after you find out what people want to know. "Thank you for subscribing. Your first lesson is on its way. While you're waiting, ask them again, "What's your single biggest question about weight loss?"

This will help you to know what your list wants. Build rapport with them. Then you can start recommending products.

I guarantee the people who are doing really well, are doing really well because they are able to build a bond and rapport with their lists very quickly and easily. What I'm giving you here are strategies to do just that. I'm saying build your foundation so you can really build rapport and find out what people on your list want first. Then start selling them stuff.

Start selling what list members said they already want, rather than trying to sell them what you want to sell them.

Make sense?