Issac G's Blog

Your list is your most valuable asset in the online world.  Period.

Your list isn’t necessarily a bunch of email addresses, although it commonly is.

Your list may be your Twitter followers, your Facebook fans, your “crew” at your favorite forum.

Really, the generic network marketing description of your “luke-warm list” is the best:  A group of people over whom you have influence.  Every single thing you do in online marketing should be focused around expanding that circle on a constant basis.  That’s why social media marketing is so powerful – because it works perfectly alongside this principle.

One of the classic methods of doing so are with squeeze pages.  If you’ve read my book, then you know that a squeeze page is just like a splash page but also has a lead capture form.  Classically, you’ll have some offer on the page as “bait” to get people to sign up.  I often offer my book.

But it’s also really important to think about what to do after you have them on your list.

Some people do nothing, which is a mistake, because the next time you send them an email, they’ll have already forgotten who you are and why they were ever interested in you, and may just unsubscribe.

Some people set up a massive autoresponder full of canned messages and send them over the course of a month.  That’s how I personally started, and while it’s not optimal, it’s MUCH better than doing nothing.  I built my list to 2,000 members and made $500 a month from an autoresponder that was based on canned mails which I lightly editted to make them sound more like me.

Not bad, eh?

Now, after several years in the business, I’m applying a lot of what I’ve learned and redoing my list from scratch.  All my own content.  Using new copy.  And new information that’s up to date for 2010.

And I’m not focusing only on one list.  I have several lists.  One for each “niche” of people that my various signup forms might interest.

That way, I can pick the users whom I want to market a new product to, and I’ll have a better chance of making sales.  Because the email will be better targeted.

Building your list, learning to talk with them, and earn their respect (remember that your goal is for them to enter your circle of influence!) and willingness to hear a bout new products from you is not an easy task nor a short one.

It takes time to build a quality list.  You need to select your target market up front.  You need to get them on the list.  You need to follow-up with them to keep them interested in you and what you have to say.

Only then will you find it easy to sell to them.

The bad news is that I can’t offer you a product to make this easier.  It’s really more your own discipline than any tool to make it work.

Try.  Track.  Learn from your results.  That’s the only way to do it.