One of the most popular phrases you will hear in the Internet Marketing Industry is “The money is in the list”. I am going to explain in this article exactly what list building is and how important it is to a home/online business.

A list is a collection of people’s details (normally email addresses) who are interested in your product/niche. These people have opted in to become part of your list because you can provide them with useful products/information. A list of 100,000 people whom you know nothing about is not likely to be as profitable to you as a list of 5-10,000 people whom you know are interested in your product/niche.

Straight away let people who visit your site know exactly what type of product/business you are involved with. This is crucial because otherwise your list will become full of untargeted people, this is a poor form of list building. You want to make it clear to viewers what you are selling/promoting by having keywords in your domain name. For example I am an Internet Marketing Mentor so I have the keywords “Marketing” and “Mentor” in my domain name.

Now you have made it clear what product/business you are involved with go into further detail by creating a squeeze page. Here you explain in more detail exactly what you can offer the viewer and give them something for free or more information in return for their details (first name and email address are the best). This is how list building takes place.

You want to make it clear exactly what service/product you are offering so include bullet points to make it stand out and I recommend having a video on your squeeze page where you describe the benefits of what the viewer will receive if they opt in and some information on exactly what your product/business opportunity is. Not only will this bring you targeted traffic but by shooting a video people will know you are not some robot spammer and be more likely to opt in.

Now you have a keyword loaded domain name and clear squeeze page you need to drive traffic to your site. There are many Internet Marketing techniques that are good for list building but I’m going to talk about free techniques as not everybody can afford paid advertising at first (I definitely couldn’t when I first started out).

In my opinion I’d start with social networking, this is because you can brand yourself a leader within your Industry. The two social networking sites I recommend are Facebook and Twitter as they are the most widely used; after you have set up an account you want to look for targeted people to add as social networking friends.

I’m involved within the Internet Marketing Industry this is commonly popular with people who leave their corporate job to become an Internet Marketer or people who want to better their lifestyle; recently I have started adding people in real estate jobs as the economic recession has hit that Industry hard and more people are looking for an alternative way to make money and escape their Real Estate jobs.

To do this I simply search “real estate” or “estate agents” on Facebook and Twitter, this brings me a list of estate agents, I then add them as a friend on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. On your social networking account you want to have a brief description about your product/business opportunity and a little bit about yourself, this way a person can decide if they want to hear more from you or not. The ones who do follow you will be likely to be interested in your product. Now you want to have links to your squeeze page on your social networking sites, this makes it easier for you to convert targeted traffic into a valuable list. I recommend including them on your profile and status updates.

Now you should get the picture on how List Building works; let people know exactly what niche you’re involved with to filter out the people who will be interested in your product and get rid of the people that will not. Then get their details (through a squeeze page) and market to them whilst building a relationship. Building relationships with people will result in profitable list building.

This article came from the latop of Jonathan Pitts. Now one of the Top Online Marketing Mentors in the UK he uses his expert knowledge in Online Marketing to mentor others and allow them to reach financial freedom and really better their lisfestyle. Jonathan has produced a Truth Report giving the real FACTS on Online Marketing and how to make money from it. Get your Truth Report Here.

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