Mastering The Art of List Building

April 28, 2016

If you’re an affiliate marketer, I’m sure at some point you’ve either heard or been told that you really should build an email list.

List building can often be seen as something of a black art but at its heart is very simple in principle:

Put an opt-in form in front of your visitors
Add some incentive for them to sign up, like a free report
Add their email address (and possibly their name as well) when they sign up
Communicate/market and build a relationship with them by emailing them regularly

That’s the “what to do” of building an email list.

The “how” is what trips people up. These are common question that people new to building a list have:

How do I build an opt-in form?
What autoresponder service should I use?
How do I add an opt-in form to my posts and pages?
Where should I put my opt-in form?
What if i don’t have something to entice people to sign up?
How do I drive traffic to my opt-in page so I get more signups?

That’s when you need to learn about how to build an email list and list building strategies. There’s quite a bit involved and it’s not something I could cover in a blog post.

If you’re looking for that kind of training, then here’s a free PDF report that looks at what you need to do to start building your own email lists. If you want to skip that and you think you definitely want to go about building an email list then have a look at this list building course. It is an affiliate link but I am offering 8 high-quality bonuses to anyone who buys through my link (including a list building video tutorial series).

Why Should You Build An Email List?

List building can take a bit of time to set up. You need to choose your an autoresponder company to work with and you’ll have to set up each list you want to create.

Each list should be targeted at a specific niche rather than you building a single catch-all list. Segregating your signups this way makes it easier to send specific content or offers to select subscribers rather than everyone receiving everything you send out. You’ll get a better response from your subscribers if you send them only stuff they’re interested in.

If you’re just starting out, then using MailChimp is a good idea. If you have 2,000 or fewer subscribers, you can send up to 12,000 emails per month absolutely free with their Starter Plan. Other services like Aweber and GetResponse require a monthly subscription from the moment you set up your account.

Having an email list means that you can send offers and content to subscribers. They are, in a sense, a captive audience. Many will buy from you again and again. The only bit of marketing you have to do for an offer is writing an email; there’s no messing about with building and promoting a webpage, though you can do that as well.

Don’t Abuse Your Subscribers

One of the reasons people end up with unresponsive email lists is because too many promotional emails are sent out. Subscribers get tired of getting one offer after another.

You need to provide your subscribers with real value. Give them useful content to read. Give them free reports – not necessarily reports that contain affiliate links, just reports with useful information.

Engage with your subscribers as well. Let them know who you are. As they get to know you, they’ll trust you more and be far more likely to buy what you recommend.

If you abuse your subscribers, one of two things will happen:

They’ll unsubscribe (so all potential future sales you’d make are gone).
They’ll ignore your emails. This is actually worse than someone unsubscribing. You may have a large email list but if your subscribers pay no attention to you they’re just dead weight. You still have to pay for an email to be delivered to them, after all!

Don’t Be Lazy

Being a lazy email list builder means not taking the time to give your subscribers valuable content. It means pumping out promotional emails, one after another in the expectation that people will simply buy what you’re hawking.

It doesn’t work that way.

put yourself in your subscribers’ shoes. If you were one of them, what would you hope to get from a list you signed up to?

An engaged and happy subscriber can be a goldmine. So why wouldn’t you do whatever you can to give that subscriber value?

No one likes junk mail. So don’t get a reputation for just sending that kind of email.

Learn how to go about building an email list the right way.