List Building Expert

List building is an activity that successful internet marketers do every day. Adding people to your list results in all sorts of good things happening such as prospects for affiliate programs, customers, sales and repeat sales if you build it the right way. Are there shortcuts to building a great list to market to? No, but there are tried and true methods for adding people to your lists if you know where to look.

The one method I favor is what I call the piggyback list building method. You can take other people’s lists, borrow them and use them to build your own. Most people use this as a supplemental way to add people to their lists but it can also be used as a primary means of email marketing. One of the most commonly used lists that people borrow to build optin lists is safelists. Safelists are great but do have their limitations: Some are small and not great quality. You can get around this by using the services of a ranking service (one I use is TrafficHoopla). With the huge number out there, you can often shop and even get great deals on solo ads that cover a huge number of safelist members you can get to in one email marketing mailing.

Ezines are the second most commonly used method of accomplishing piggyback list building and are well suited for this purpose. Many ezines are targeted to a specific group and offer a great opportunity to build an optin list from people who are looking for what you have to offer. The problem with these is it can be expensive to run a solo ad although you may find some that offer cheaper ad options.

List builders are the superior method of using piggyback list building and are great because they have a proven success rate in people who sign up from your email marketing mailings. A few notables include ViralUrl, ListJoe, and ListBandit although there are others. List builders often run specials on their memberships and offer great value in their advertising. If you use them on a regular basis, you will notice that you will get a steady response rate which can be useful in planning an ad campaign particularly for affiliate marketing programs. They get my top recommendation for piggyback list building because they deliver and are totally reliable.

The trick with piggyback list building is to use email marketing mailings to mail to someone else’s list, get a decent response rate, and continue to add subscribers to your own list and to keep growing it at a steady pace. Once you start getting subscribers this way, you should nurture your relationship with them and give them something of value to keep them on your list. Smart internet marketers know the money is in the list, so make the commitment to grow yours and maintain it.