List building is a cornerstone of any online business. You might have even heard or read that “the money is in the list.” First of all, let’s answer the question, “What exactly is a list?”
A list in Internet marketing terms is a database of your prospects and their contact information. If you have a product or promote products and I sign up for your list knowing that you might promote to me, then I’m a prospect that you can now market to repeatedly, with my permission, until I unsubscribe.
So why is building a list so important? Let’s say you start off as an affiliate marketer. You find a niche to promote to and you start working what you’ve learned into some traffic for your affiliate links.
Over a period of 30 days, imagine that you funnel 5,000 prospects from the Internet who are interested in your niche straight through your affiliate link to the product owner’s site.
To continue our example, let’s say that some of them even buy the product you are promoting. If you’ve made a 50% commission with a 2% conversion rate, for example, that means 2 out of every 100 people you sent bought the product, and your share was $26.00 (as an example). That would mean you earned a cool $2,600 this month – good for you!
But you’re leaving money on the table. Those 100 people who bought from your 5,000 clicks? They’re now on the product owner’s list, not yours. So what he’s going to do is send them more offers over the coming weeks.
After all, they are proven buyers. Over the next 30 days, those buyers fork over some more money for products that complement the original one they bought. That money goes to the product owner, not you – because you passed on building a list the first time around.
A better way to build an Internet marketing business is to start with a list from day one. Before you let a single person slip through your link without capturing their name and email address, have your system set up to build a list.
You can have unlimited lists for different niches using a simple tool, called an autoresponder. Every day you can log in and see how many people have signed up, and you can create automated messages that get sent out to help convert your list into more sales.
Why should the product owner get to cash in on that person again and again when you’re the one who brought him the customer in the first place? Stake your claim to each prospect and leverage your relationship with him or her for future sales and commissions.
Watch for another marketing tip real soon, and good luck with your online marketing efforts!
Here’s a great resource to help you build your business:
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