The Money is in the LIST!
Business owners are always asking “can you give me some suggestions on how to build lists?”.
During my several years as a Virtual Assistant there was a common issue for business owners. You see most knew the saying “The Money is in The List” but really had no clear ideas on how to build lists or manage a database. In this post I will share with you some of the different programs used to collect and manage databases.
Before you focus on how to build lists, first, you need to look at your business and decide how you would be using your database and what you want to collect from it. Second, consider your budget – there are email marketing programs from free all the way up to hundreds of dollars per month (you can see some recommendations below with details on each including price)
How to build lists is a step in building your business – you will need to be sure to have webforms for not only your website but for your Facebook page as well. You should attach one to a QR Code and even have one accessible on your smart phone – make it easy to add people no matter where they go or where you are.
How to Build Lists tips!
How to build lists tip #1: You will want to offer something for free, like a give away. Free reports work great for this.
How to build lists tip #2: Have your form on a website that gets a lot of updating, preferably a blog and be sure to post regularly.
How to build lists tip #3: Make it easy for your readers to sign up – make labels clear about the information you want to collect.
How to build lists tip #4: Be sure to list a privacy policy clearly on your form – let your peeps know you are not going to sell their info or spam them!
How to build lists tip #5: Be sure your sign up form is on every page of your site – I have taken it off of certain pages on my site for specific reasons.
How to build lists tip #6: Speak with a virtual assistant company and enlist some assistance – you don’ t have to do it all alone.
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Mail Chimp is a standard email marketing program and will allow you to send an email to large numbers of recipients at one time and meets all spam regulations. There are templates you can use to customize and brand for yourself. It allows you to create a webform to collect email addresses on your website or squeeze page. You will find reports showing you the open rates, opt outs. There are tutorials on how to build lists and suggestions to make your emails increase in their “open rate”. Good Starter, down side if you want to move to a more robust system later you have to deal with having your registrants re-opt in and you could loose some of your list. Prices vary, you can start for free and later upgrade for a nominal monthly fee. |
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Constant Contact is a standard email marketing program and will allow you to send an email to large numbers of recipients at one time and meets all spam regulations. There are templates you can use to customize and brand for yourself. It allows you to create a webform to collect email addresses on your website or squeeze page. You will find reports showing you the open rates, opt outs, and see what links were clicked on by whom. There are tutorials on how to build lists and suggestions to make your emails increase in their “open rate”. It is a great program and has been around for a long time. Their customer service is very helpful and pleasant to deal with too. Prices vary, you can start for $15 per month and the monthly fee will increase as your list builds in size. The first increase is once you hit 500 contacts.
They also have different add-ons for your account like an image manager, survey marketing, event marketing – each will have a nominal monthly fee attached. |
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Aweber is a standard email marketing program and will allow you to send an email to large numbers of recipients at one time and meets all spam regulations. There are templates you can use to customize and brand for yourself. It allows you to create a webform to collect email addresses on your website or squeeze page. You will find reports showing you the open rates, opt outs, and see what links were clicked on by whom, it also allows you to target those who have not opened their email and resend it to them. One of my favorite items is when people sign up for my list it is attached to my blog so when I create a post my audience is notified in their inbox. There are tutorials on how to build lists and suggestions to make your emails increase in their “open rate”. This is a very comprehensive program – it is not as “pretty” to the eye to use as Constant Contact but after you are used to it they system is awesome. Prices vary, you can start for $19 per month and the monthly fee will increase as your list builds in size. The first increase is once you hit 500 contacts. |
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GetResponse is a standard email marketing program and will allow you to send an email to large numbers of recipients at one time and meets all spam regulations. There are templates you can use to customize and brand for yourself. It allows you to create a webform to collect email addresses on your website or squeeze page. You will find reports showing you the open rates, opt outs, and see what links were clicked on by whom,this one will also all you to tie your blog to the list and when you post it will let your audience know via their inbox. There are tutorials on how to build lists and suggestions to make your emails increase in their “open rate”. It is not as “pretty” to the eye to use as Constant Contact and probably one of my least favorites – but works great nonetheless. Prices vary, you can start for $9.95 per month and the monthly fee will increase as your list builds in size. The first increase is once you hit 250 contacts. |
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Comf5 is a very robust program – this is different from all the rest because it is a Video Email program. It too has templates you can use – and several options for sending out messages, not only group video emails but one off ones too. This program meets all spam regulations. It allows you to create a webform to collect email addresses on your website or squeeze page. You will find reports showing you the open rates, opt outs, and see what links were clicked on by whom. Out of all the systems this one is the most technical BUT once you master it (and with some great training it won’t take long) you will be senind some top notch marketing emails. There are tutorials on how to build lists and suggestions to make your emails increase in their “open rate”. Prices vary, you can start for $50 per month. The monthly fee changes with different options. This is the only one here on this list that allows you to generate a second stream of income if you wanted to go that route. |
If you have a shoppingcart program like 1ShoppingCart or InfusionSoft by Keap – these do it all. They not only handle your product link creation and management along with email marketing with a lot of bells and whistles. If you are someone who is contemplating selling products online and need to know more about these systems please send me a message through the contact page and I am happy to go into more detail with you.
Don’t forget being a strong marketer means you need to be a strong communicator as well and in order to communicate with a larger group of people you need to focus on how to build lists and where!
How to Build Lists
Tackle Tuesday we will discuss tackling your email marketing list….