Now here is the creme de la creme that no body really talks about to help jump start a list to several hundred  that takes 5 minutes to do!  If you do all of  the things mentioned in previous blog posts  you will build a list, slowly and surely of high quality leads as you have had a conversation with them.

Here is the way I went to another levelof list building  super quick:

Use JV giveaways.  JV giveaways still work they are not talked about much , they are not the holly grail of  list building especially in terms of  building a massive list, I use them to kick start a list to get to a couple of hundred relatively easily and then combined with other strategies of blog posting, forum posting and yahoo answers, and various social media interactions you have got some good traffic sources.  List building this way should get you to 500 fairly quickly, once you hit 500 that in my opinion is the magic number or I should say the bear minimum to start being able to use that list to make money and to get traffic, with 500 on your list even with an average open rate of 10% you should be able to generate  20-25 clicks per email meaning  now you can send a noticeable amount of traffic to offers and most importantly to OTHER jv partners.  Now you can start ad swapping which is using your list with another marketer’s list to send each other traffic and both build your lists.  This is incredibly easy and powerful to do and it amazes me how little people know about this this list building strategy.  Well that in a nutshell is how to start list building  from scratch you now now exactly how to do it!

If you found this list building series useful then leave a comment and share this as really you have all the instructions you need to get going.

When it comes to easy list building – I say go for the biggest pie with the biggest pay day – its’ the fastest way to lifestyle changing income

The most cost effective time effective way for list building in this niche is is to use joint ventures. This is what I recommend.  Build a starter list if you can get to a list of 500 you can start using your list to leverage and attract other list owners and do what is known as a reciprocal mailing or an adswap more on that later.

This is what you do, or shall I say this is what I did to get fast list building on auto pilot!

Simply grab a PLR product on the hot topics in the IM niche, article marketing, more traffic, web2.0. twitter, Facebook, blogging etc you got the idea.  If you can knock out a quality report yourself great if not use PLR. 7-10 pages in 16pt font is all you need.

Go and search the IM forums and blogs and start posting quality comments about your resource or product i.e how to add to the conversation.  Informing people without being promotional.  In your resource link have a link back to a squeeze page promoting your free report.

3 things are happening by doing this list building strategy

1. You build a conversational style authority worth people in the community that are reading your posts.

2. You build trust and expertise the same time

3. You actually get some back links!

You will be suprised how effective this is.  You have to do it religiously and consistently.  Doing a couple of days here and there is going to get you mediocre results.

You need to get focused for 4 weeks – make a routine to try and get 10-20 blog posts and comments done every single day, this should take you no more than 20-30 mins.  On the weekend spend an hour researching the sites that you want to post on so that you don’t waste time and  all you have to do is just post! Thisis th make or break of list building, if you get focused and take the bull by the horns you can get amazing results.

Now if your getting the traffic but not the subscribers, something is wrong with your squeeze page.  It can be the headline, the offer or a combination of both.  So change it up, but change one thing at aa time, otherwise you will not know what the weak point was.  the easiest way to do this is to split test between two pages changing one element at a time.  The free software to do this with is google optimizer.  It’s 100% free and it allows you to have two versions of your squeeze page online and it rotates between the two 50% of the time, which will give you statistics on which one is working.  It’s about trial and error and changng things up.  With the optimzer and split testing you will soon figure it out and get it working for you.

next blog post List building – becoming the expert in your niche

Ok this is what you do to build a list.  Hopefully if you have been following these blog posts yo know that every thing  you do online should be geared in someway to attract , retain and sell to your own list again and again.

Here are some sure fire ways to start list building in any market or niche.

1. List building  through community sites.

Ok so you are an expert in your own right.  All you need to so is build a presence online in some niche forums and community sites that will provide a ready made source of traffic for you list building efforts. To do this simply Google you keyword or niche or topic and under the discussions search results on the left had side, click that link and find the forums which are heavy with interaction, daily posts and with the relevant topics and threads that you can start posting in.

List building using forums

The key with forum posting is to use the signature link to drive people back to your website which should have a web form on there to capture traffic on to your list.  If you spend 20-30 minutes a day answering questions, posting debates and starting conversations in forums you will in no time at all attract a loyal following that value your opinions and content. You can easily become an authority in just 30 days if you add value first and never think about selling.  The money will come from your list building efforts later when you  send traffic that you have obtained from the forums to affiliate offers or your won paid products.

You can apply the forum posting model for list building to build authority, and traffic to any online community site where you have the ability to register and have signature files or links where people cna see your profile and if they wish be directed to your own web pages.  30 days of posting on 3-4 different sites every day will be a serious good effort in list building and will build you a small quality list fast.  When I say community sites I also mean social networking communities such as the host of social bookmarking sites, linked in, digg, facebook and so many more thar are cropping up with an inbuilt community and subscriber feature.  For example with linked in you can easily join 50 groups of your particular niche send out a brpadcast inviting group memebers to an online even such as  free webinar which requires an optin from to register and guess what you will  be list building  effortlessly as these social communities spread the word for you as they tell  people just like facebook does who is attending a particular event.

Next blog post list building in the IM niche

Simple steps to whilst list building to become an instant online expert in just weeks!

Go to the warrior forum the premier IM forum and start posting and conversing with ether people about your topic.  In just a few weeks you can become a trusted expert it  doesn’t take long at all.  Go into Google and set up alerts around you chosen report  for example if you have report on article marketing traffic, set up a Google alert on article marketing tips or article marketing traffic etc.  You will then get the feed delivered, as an email alert or you can read them directly in google reader.  That is your way of educating yourself and aggregating the info to pass on as a trusted  source, that’s how you can get quick expertise and provide valuable info!

List building + Authority is the key

This is what I did when I need content for my autoresponders I got a load of alerts gave them to my Virtual assistant at the time and asked him to turn them into short auto responder messages that added tips and value to my list! They worked great and saved me a bunch of time.  But you can do that yourself, remember the expert does not need to know everything that is impossible, but if they can give or pass on the information that can help solve problems that is equally as good.

Next more ways to get traffic in your list building efforts.  Go to Yahoo answers do the same as in the forums, answer questions have a link back to your site after you have helped people then suggest your link as a resource and bang you will start getting subscribers.  You can do this in a any social network community where the is regular readership and subscribers.  If you add value and show you know what you are talking about people will start quoting your intel and posts and you will soon be trusted and the expert in a number of different online communities thsi will help you with list building as other people will spread your link for you  I suggest you pick no more than 3-4 as you will be spread too thin an you will get into a potential rut.  Just dominate a few and get a schedule and routine together to make it manageable and to make sure you don’t end up wound up!  If you follow thse simple stpe snot only witll you become an expert but you will kill two birds with one stone whilst list building and getting kudos and authority at the same time!

next blog post list building -using Joint ventures for faster list building

Q: What’s the easiest and best niche to go into?

A: One that meets the following criteria

1. Has a a lot of competition!

2. Has hungry buyers

3. Have an irrational attitude to buying things.

4. Have plenty of products to sell in.

5. Has a lot of Google adwords spend (sponsored listings)

You want a market where people don’t think twice they just want the result.

Here is what I say.  The biggest and most hungry feverish market you can easily tap into and build a list  with rabid hungry buyers is  the Internet marketing make money niche.

Think about it -  What other niche do you see online that has several multi million dollar big GURU style launches a year?  In 2010 we saw a load of them.:

Video Boss – from Andy jerkins around $3m

List Control – Frank Kern $ 4m

Magic Bullet – Amish Shah $5m

Product launch Formula 3.0 probably $3-$4m

There were a load more that hit 7 figures such as social profit formula, Guru bluprint, etc you get the idea.  Just imagine for one second you could tap into just a fraction of that traffic and money being spent?

You don’t need a big list in that niche.  There are $1997 big ticket products being sold all day long right down to $7 dollars for quick easy promotion. The common need is the same: more traffic, more conversions, more way to get more traffic, and eventually more sales.

So my point here is unless you have a load of expertise and a load of leverage-able assets such as forum presence, loads of sites independently wanting to sen you traffic, facebook groups a large social media presence etc.  the for a new starter the best thing to do is the IM niche it is abundant with Joint venture partners tat are willing to hook up with you even as a newbie right now and help send you traffic in exchange for traffic or labour.

Next blog post  How to start List building in any niche

This is easy – You have  three  main  options:

Option 1

1. Write out a small 7-10 page report on a evergreen topic that solves a problem in your market or niche.

tips:

Tip1 – Write in 16pt  font so its spaced out over several pages, it it makes it easier to consume and gives value by making it quick and easy to read.  Do not create a 52 page report – it won’t get read, meaning you haven’t communicated your value and expertise to your prospect – meaning you have wasted your effort with report, but more importantly your list are less likely to listen to your follow up emails!

Tip2 -  Ask for some immediate feedback, take them to a blog post so that you build an immediate conversation, and testimonial!  This is important the more people that see your blog comments about your knowledge the more trust and credibility you build!

Tip3 - You can always take them to survey and ask them what they need as well, this gives you immediate research and  separates you from the crowd. People love two way interaction.  This shows that you actually care about what their needs are and also you start the engagement and differentaition from all other Marketer’s engaging in list building!

Option 2

List Building  via a PLR report, – PLR = private label rights

Thi is a fast way to start list building .It is a done for you report of product that you have the rights to rebrand and claim the authorship as if it was your own.  Think of some generic food you buy in the supermarket that have different versions across the supermarket chains they all most likely came from one source.

Option 3

List Building using an Interview or just speak into a mic and get it transcribed if you want a report or just offer the audio.

The report or free gift creation should be quick, I never spend more than 1-2 hours to wrap up the whole project I’m talking about writing and creating the report along with professional graphics ( which you should outsource if you can’t do), converting it to a pdf, creating the download page ( I use a template for speed) and creating the download link.  It really is that quick.  you should be up and running in 1 day start to finish.  If you want to know exactly how to do it step by step with high quality instructional videos then take a look at the 2 hour product creation case study.  A real life case study of doing exactly what I just said, creating a high quality free report in the most lucrative niche and building a list  the very first day it launched with minimal effort!  Click here for the 2 hour product creation case study

Next blog post List building – what niche to build a list in?

OK Your going to need some form of content to drive traffic be that blog written, or visual.

Before that you need the following list building tools:

1. Auto responder service -  Aweber, is the super easy way to get started with, it integrates with so many applications and software so you need to bear that in mind as you grow.  I also am a big fan of Getresponse, since I started with them in 2009, they have really improved their service and in my opinion are giving more value and better features than aweber at the time of this blog post, that being said these big auto responder companies are going all out and showing tweaks and improvements almost every month.   This is an important decision to make I stress this now because if you start getting a lot of subscribers having and auto responder service that comes up short when the time comes to add shopping carts, membership software etc that need integration seamlessly you are going to want a service which does all that in a powerful way with minimal compromise.  Without going into detail here since I have gone through this hassle I can tell you right now getresponse wins as they have huge factor which is critical – single optin for integration with shopping carts and membership scripts!  This is a big one.  aweber only allows double op-tin parsing which defeats the whole purpose of having a 3rd party auto responder for your follow up email software for your members.

2.  You need a basic web page that has a opt-in subscription form

3.  You need a reason why for people to opt-in to your list.  This is done using the principle of reciprocity.  Name and or email in exchange for a gift that is of value.

Typically this is a short report, a video. an audio or even a mind map, a process chart or any thing specific to that market or niche that gives them good quality content or information or even tools or software that make them want to receive more information form you in the future – this is known as a lead magnet.

Let’s really expand this idea.  So for example you are passionate about home cooking. You make these amazing dishes so easily that are amazing in taste, you even sell some to your local market or shops.  You decide you would love to sell your recipes or get a subscriber base and start teaching people your amazing recipes.  Using the steps above you should simply create a squeeze page giving away a recipe or even a instructional video to get people to optin to your list, then you would be able to email your list mow tips advice and recipes eventually leading them to buy a whole cookbook or maybe a full step by step dvd.  So you can see you can apply this in any market, any niche where the information is being searched for.

Think about what your market or niche needs

To keep it as relevant and viral as popular just spend 1 week in some niche forums and high authority blogs and see  what the latest or hottest trends are, also if you are in a niche already, see what other marketer’s are emailing about or what new products are being sold, chances are that’s the flavour to go for.

You will have to have some sort of hosting to host your web pages online.  yes you can do it for free through wordpress, weebly, hub pages etc, but you do not have complete control, if for any reason they wish to pull that site down kiss goodbye to your online business!  If you can’t spend $6-10 online on hosting especially through the learning curve weeks then with that attitude you Will most likely not make it online.

next blog post  list building – creating the free gift

Ok you know that a list is pretty much essential.  Let’s go and build one:

A list can be on a number of formats, you can have pure email lists, social media lists such as your twitter following and Facebook subscribers etc.  They all count.

Im focusing on building an email list using an optin form on a web page and then connecting that with a 3rd part autoresponder service.  I will talk about which autoresponder service to use and why in  a bit.

Let’s start List  building but first…..

1. Think about your attributes; what your good at and what your not good at.  This is important as there are so many ways to drive traffic to a squeeze page to build you list so think about it.

2. Are you a natural writer with more than enough time on your hands? If so  then article marketing  and writing quality blog posts is going to be a breeze for you and would make sense to use this as your traffic source.

3. Are you good with video and are comfortable on camera, I find videos are so easy to shoot and you can create a ton of content and chop them up into videos to dive traffic.  So think about it before you go down and choose which traffic source you want  to go with. This is really important just because you may hear that videos get great search engine rankings and can drive traffic easily, doesn’t mean you need to go and do them If it’s going to take you all day and a lot of pain and frustration to do just a short 3 minute video!  You need to be fast and efficient and get things out there quick

Don’t under estimate the importance of the 3 points I have listed above.   The shocking statistic is that 99 out of every 100 people looking to  make their first dollar online fail.  The reasons they fail is a number but the biggest factors are getting bogged down and into a marketing plan that is totally against their natural talents, flow and available time that they have to dedicate to making the traffic strategy work.  This stuff is important.  Just remember there is no PUSH BUTTON system out there.  You need focus and belief and of course strategy that works for your own individual needs and time.

next blog post what you need to start list building

This list building post is going to look at the asset of an email list with regards to the context of how you can use your own list in super powerful ways.

The one thing you must do with your list in any niche is to engage and have a conversation with them,.  It’s post 2010 now and people expect to be communicated to in a multitude of different media.  You must have a blog, you must occasionally use video, you must elicit the ‘conversation’ that is true engagement, that means your own prospect feel more connected to you,  that means they will inherently like you more and of course trust you more.  When  you have those three elements you get better sales.

Your own list building should be utilized in the following way as soon as possible:

Ask them what they want, how can you best provide value to your list.  You list is a segment of the market or niche that you are in- so make use of them:
find out their pain, find out there needs, ask them what they really need for product or a service and go give them the solution. Either create the solution of find it for them.

You should:

• use surveys to find needs and issues
• use blogs to get comments and engage
• use video to convey information in a different light

I survey a list of mine and learned so much in regards to what they needed.  It was eye opening, how many of you are asking your own internal market what they need?
So if your not doing any of the above you list is not working for you and your business, and you can certainly  increase the value you provide to your list by a factor of 10.

next blog post what let’s start list building

List building part 2

Why List building is such a good business model

In my previous post on list building I talked about why it’s still the number one business model online.  Forget about online it’s essential to any business that you have a database of customers or leads that either have expressed an interest in your product or service or have purchased from your before that you can go and provide additional services in exchange of value  that’s the key here it has to represent an exchange of value.  Your product or service must exceed the customers expectations in order for theme to come back again and again.

Lets talk about the power of a List building online.

Here is what having a responsive warm email list in any niche online gives you:

1. Positioning and deal flow if you have the asset of a list you are immediately more approachable in terms of doing deals:

• Being offered lucrative joint venture deals
• Being seen as the market leader
• Having the ability to drive traffic
• Credibility
• Authority

Deal flow, having people come to you again and again knowing that you have the ability to send prospects or even buyers to an opportunity is an incredible asset to have.

You have a completely sell-able high value asset. In the future when you start analysing exactly how much a subscriber on your list is worth per month that is almost as good as quoting a recurring billing figure!

Lists can be sold in the millions!.  Lots of companies that built a massive list of subscribers that use services for free can be snapped up by larger companies that need a position in the market.  If a company or individual has a business model that just needs qualified leads to plug into the system then having a high value list of subscribers makes you instantly attractive both as a business that you can sell or even lease out or joint venture with.  You must start list building  no matter what!

Next blog post on list building – the Power of an email list