How Much Money Are You Leaving On The Table?
For anyone who has a business, product or service which they promote online – whether through social media, YouTube, paid advertising, etc. – you could be leaving a tremendous amount of money on the table if you’re not “building a list.” You could also be putting your business in jeopardy. This includes those who may have a home business through a conventional network marketing business model and those who market their own products or services.
What Does It Mean To “Build a List?”
Building a list simply means compiling a database of email addresses of your customers, clients, and/or followers. This is extremely important for any online business, but often overlooked by novices as an inconsequential assignment. It is not. In this article, I will show you not only the risk involved for your business if you don’t build a list, but also how to monetize your list and lucrative it can be.
How Big Business Builds a List
When you go to department store, upon checkout, what’s the first thing a clerk typically asks you? For your email address, right? In fact, they may even ask you for your email address at the grocery store, when you get an oil change and certainly it’s requested for any purchase that you make online. Why is that?
Here’s why big business asks for your email address: Having your email address allows them to send you promotions, reminders and to just stay in touch & build a relationship. It also allows them to do so for free.
It could cost millions to pay for a commercial ad spot to promote their latest sale.
But it is FREE to send that same information conveniently & DIRECTLY to your email inbox.
For many, email has become the preferred method of communication. Building a list is just a smarter and more cost effective way to interact with your customers or following.
Think of building your list or database of email addresses in the same manner & for the same reasons a major company would.
There are some other MAJOR reasons – no matter how small or how big your business – you want to start building a list. Let’s review the top reasons and we’ll go into more detail about each.
Top 5 Reasons You Should Be Building a
List For Your Small Business:
1) Free Advertising & Marketing
2) Build Relationships
3) Automate the Follow Up Process
4) Maintain Control Over Your Ability to Communicate
5) Monetizing Your List
1) Free Advertising & Marketing
As mentioned above, sending a promotion directly to one’s email inbox is the most cost effective way to communicate (because it’s free!) but is also extremely targeted as the people on your ‘list’ have an existing relationship with you in one way or another.
2) Build Relationships
Of course, we know, especially with small business, the relationship between yourself & your customer has evolved to more than just “I sell” and “You buy.” People have options. They have choices. You want to stand out from the crowd. You do so by building a relationship.
This starts by providing value to your customer base. This could be done by emailing them some free valuable, information at times. No sales pitch. Just content that would be of interest to your subscribers. It could be done by interacting. Asking their opinions. Taking polls. There are so many things you can do stand out, as not just a salesperson, but a friend. Having the ability to send emails to your subscribers plays an important role in that process.
3) Automate the Follow Up Process
I love automation! When you’re talking about creating real freedom in your life and with a business, you must have automation.
Would you rather follow up with leads one by one or all at once? When you build a list you can automate your follow up process using an email follow up system like Aweber or GVO. (Aweber & GVO both offer an affiliate program. At this time, I have affiliate account with each).
Using either of these tools, allows you to establish a pre-written automatic email follow up series. When someone subscribes or opts in to your list, they will automatically receive your email follows at the specified time. You can also send new broadcast messages to your entire list at any time.
4) Maintain Control Over Your Ability To Communicate
You are at risk! When your sole method of communication is through a free site or through social media, like YouTube or Facebook – that company is in complete control over your ability to communicate.
These sites reserve the right to delete content or even remove your entire page or channel. It seems far-fetched but I’ve seen it happen tons of times. In addition, so many changes pop on these sites all the time, you are really not in control.
Lastly, when Facebook becomes obsolete (like the next MySpace) would you rather have to then rebuild your following on a new social media site? Or never miss a beat by maintaining contact with them through email?
5) Monetizing Your List
Did someone say “Monetize?” 
This is the fun part, right? They say that “The money is in the list…”
It really blew me away when I was introduced to internet marketing, how much money there was!
For a complete breakdown of ways to monetize your list visit the article Make Money Now: 3 Ways To Monetize Your List
For the scope of this article, simply understand when you build a strong, responsive list you can charge others to market to your list. Does that make sense?
Say you’ve built an email list of 5,000 subscribers. There may be someone who doesn’t have a list that size yet. But they have a promotion they want to get out there. You many be in the same niche or market, so they pay you a certain amount of money for your to send their promotion to your email list.
Based on the size & responsiveness of their list, some people charge as little as $30, while some people charge several thousands of dollars to send an email to their list. And yes, people pay it when they have a profitable offer and it makes sense for their business!
How Do I Begin Building a List?
While there are other ways to build a list, the best method for building a high-quality, responsive list is through blogging.
When people subscribe to your email list through your blog it is an indication that they have interest in your content. They want to know about what you have to offer! This is a long term strategy but it’s been proven time & time again to be the most effective – especially for someone new to internet marketing.
For anyone new to internet marketing or even for experienced bloggers – I highly recommend the Empower Network blogging platform. It is professionally designed, ready-to-go, hassle-free and come with 11+ high converting landing pages. I was able to build a list of almost 800 subscribers in less than 6 months through various strategies taught within the Empower Network. They also have a lucrative affiliate program which means you can earn while you learn.
For additional details on how to build your own list refer to the articles Start Your Internet Marketing Business in 3 Simple Steps and 3 Proven Strategies for Building Your List.
Now matter what, start building your list for the long term success of your business. Feel free to share your questions, comments & experiences below. What value has building a list brought to your business??
Live Life By Design,
Alice Dymally
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