List Building Tips: Autoresponders and Email List Building

Today’s list building tips center on the subject of autoresponders and email list building. Working together, they provide you, the online marketer with a means to build a targeted email list that is interested in what you have to say and offer.

There are few people left in this world who have never received an email. It seems though, that advancement in technology usually brings with it a negative side as well. When it comes to email, unsolicited email tops the list in the negative category.

What happens to this unsolicited email? It ends up in the cyber trash of course and generally leaves the recipient with a negative feeling.

This is why it is important that your list building efforts are done in such a way that you are only emailing people who want to hear what you have to say. You don’t want people associating negative feelings with your name.

Email is a common form of contact between online business owners and their prospective customers. It provides you with a method of giving you contact with people in a manner where it is far easier to reach them than calling them up on the phone would be.

The introduction and increased availability of Wi-Fi hotspots, makes it easier than ever for people to access their email from wherever they happen to be. This makes the use of email lists a highly important business tool and one that need to be managed correctly.

How Your Autoresponder Email List Is Built

The most common method of building an email list is to provide an opt-in form on your website or blog. Generally an incentive, such as a free report, discounted products or some other item of benefit is offered to a potential subscriber in return for their agreement to join your email list.

It is important to include a statement or disclaimer along with your opt-in form that informs the potential subscriber of your intended use of the information they are being asked to give you. A person will find it easier to input their information if they have been assured that it will not be sold to a third party or spammer.

A word of warning here. Do not abuse your list by saying you will not give out their information and then going and doing it anyway. The Internet may be a big place, but it becomes exceedingly small in a hurry if someone thinks they have been conned. It will be talked about and your business will suffer as a result.

The initial list that is built using this method will be a mixture of those that you are targeting and others that were only interested in more general information. Over time, the untargeted subscribers will opt out and drop off your list.

While many look on this as being a bit disheartening, in reality, this weeding out process is a good thing in that it leaves you with subscribers who are genuinely interested in what you have to say and in the services and products you have to offer.

Autoresponder Services

All right, you now know how to go about attracting people to your email list, but how do you set up an opt-in form? And where is this list going to reside? Oh wait, how are you going to work with this list once you have it? This is where an autoresponder service such as AWeber comes in.

There are many autoresponder services and even software that are available for the online marketer to use. AWeber is one of the best known and trusted services of those that are available. But it is not the only one. There are other services out there that are both free and paid services.

For the most part, you get what you pay for when using free autoresponder services. Many find that in the end, it ends up costing them a significant amount of time when the service doesn’t do what they need it to do. It may also cost you customers, as these services generally support their own business by placing ads in along with your messages.

Because an autoresponder service is a vital component of doing business online, you want to thoroughly investigate what is available and in what price ranges. Many autoresponder services will offer you the opportunity to make use of a free trial so that you are able to become comfortable with them and also have the ability to compare their service with competing services.

Give Your Lists A Purpose

Once you have decided on which autoresponder service to use, it is then time to determine the purpose of the list or lists you will be setting up. Each list that you set up should have a specific purpose.

You can set up a list for newcomers or a customer list for people that have bought from you. A list could also be made available for people to receive information in a sub-category of your niche. Several marketers use this type of list for something like a series of a specific number of emails that provide training or information on a specific subject.

Once you have determined the purpose of a list you are setting up, you can then use the software within your autoresponder account to perform other necessary chores. Here you are able to create an opt-in form for your site, or direct those who opt-in to the download page you have created so that they can pick up the incentive you offered them for subscribing.

Double Opt-In

Autoresponder services may also include systems that allow you to require a double opt-in agreement from a subscriber. A double opt-in agreement will send the potential subscriber an email requesting that they confirm their agreement to receive information from you.

This double opt-in format protects the recipient in cases where someone might use their email address without their permission and it also protects you from spam allegations as you have confirmation of their agreement to receive information that you send.

Another item that helps protect you from spam allegations is the opt-out link that the autoresponder service places at the end of your emails. If your service does not do this, look for another one.

Other Considerations

Now all you have to do is create some more quality content and information on your products to share with your list in the form of follow up messages. These follow up messages can be created in bulk and scheduled to be sent to your subscriber over a given time frame automatically. The creation of a follow up message series can take a fair amount of time, but this too can be outsourced to a ghostwriter if you so choose.

An additional tip that many marketers use in conjunction with their email lists is to place a beginning portion of a post or article that they have written into the body of their email message. They then provide a link to the post or article where people can go to read more and comment if they so choose. This helps them increase traffic to their sites and helps them to gain feedback from their readers.

The last consideration to think about is the frequency of your contact with your list. A rule of thumb that many use is to keep this contact between 2 and 3 emails per week. If you are not in touch enough, people may forget why they are hearing from you.

Contact that is made too frequently or aggressively, can be viewed as spam and only ends up annoying people. Above all, if you have promised to send something like a newsletter at a set time, make sure that you follow through.

Well now, that was quite a bit of information to digest at once. Feel free to read through these list building tips on autoresponders and email list building once again and when you are done, please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com