Building Your List, The Art of Effective Email Capture

By Mike Collins

Whenever you purchase a product online you no doubt had to surrender your name and email details in order to do so, and as such your details are now on a list. So, why would they want your details and what use will they make of them now and in the future.

But let's look at your reasons for email capture, how you should do it, why you should do it, what system you should use, and when and how to follow it up to ensure that you are always not only adding to your list but at the same time you are building a relationship with your list in order to gain trust so that should you wish to, you can approach them with another of your quality offers.

Whatever website you have, you must have email capture facilities within the site and if you don't at this time then make it your main priority to remedy that unfortunate situation. Building a business is all about building customer relations and no where is that more important than online.

The Internet is a very impersonal trading environment and whilst you may make a sale once, if you don't have, keep and maintain that customer's details then you have had all the sales you are ever going to get from that person.

So, how do you effectively build your list?

The most effective method of building your list from scratch is to either give something away on your website or, compile something that is very useful to other marketers and sell it very cheaply.

If you think back to your last online purchase, you were directed to an email capture box where you submitted your details, then you were prompted to confirm your e-mail address and finally you were able to complete the purchase.

During that process, they managed to obtain your first name and your email address and also ensured that the email address was genuine when it was required that you confirmed it before you were allowed access to the product.

This is exactly what you must do every time you give or sell anything. Never allow any visitor to your site to leave without first having given you their contact details and always completely assure your visitor that you fully respect their privacy and never sell, rent, or allow any third party to use your list, if you do, you will lose them and the trust you are working to build will be gone forever.

How do you maintain your relationship and why would you want to, after all you have had a sale, what more can you ask?

When you initially make a sale to someone online you probably do so with a low ticket item, something relatively inexpensive. You may have done this already but purely because the product you are selling is of low ticket value. Low ticket value items can build your opt-in email list very quickly, but you will never get rich online if you simply sell a few thousand e-books at $7.00 each, or if you give the e-book away.

Once you have a person on your opt-in list you have to contact them on a regular basis, and that doesn't mean that every time you contact them that you should be trying to sell them something. You first need to build your relationship and to do that you have to give value.

They have to learn to trust your judgment and trust that when it's time to up-sell to them that they can be confident that the product you are selling is of the highest quality. Which means that within the first 28 days of having obtained their details, you must contact them and they must want to hear from you.

The best way to keep them interested is to give them something of interest. Produce a monthly newsletter, fill it with useful content appertaining to the content of your business and send it to them. Articles are a great source of useful content, and they don't need to be your articles. Build your relationship and use that relationship to up-sell a higher ticket value item at least four times a year.

This may not seem much, but if you consider an information product that can be delivered instantly as opposed to a physical product then the profits can be massive.

Because you maintained your relationship with that customer there's a very good chance that when you do up-sell your high ticket value item that a reasonable percentage your list will be at the point where they trust you and value your opinion and will probably purchase your item.

This is simply because you have supplied them with quality information for the past few months and never asked for anything in return. Now they will trust you enough to think that the product you are selling is of even better quality and well worth the asking price.

At this point or ever, don't try to sell junk. You will have a mass of returns and the relationships you have worked hard to build will be instantly destroyed.

So, what system should you use to capture your emails, send your monthly newsletter and so maintain your online relationships?

Do your research and choose the company who have the facilities to handle all of this from one application. Ensure it will generate the html code so you can add your email capture box, you can set the system to suit you so that it replies to your entire list at once, sends your newsletter, replies to your new sign-ups and all on autopilot.

It's not coincidence that the majority of the top online marketers use one company in particular. They use them because they have been around for a number of years and really truly know exactly which tools you will need, and offer sound advice on how to use them to the greatest effect.

Don't go for cheap alternatives, in my opinion it's false economy.

Check your email, I'm sure you receive emails and newsletters from other online businesses. Just do a quick survey for your own benefit and check those marketers and see who they use. This should tell you something!

Right, you have your list, you're maintaining it regularly so how do you protect it? Your opt-in list is your MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION and as such you should have it backed up at least on cd, if not on a removable memory stick. Although your list will be on file you must take steps to ensure that your list is safe from all eventualities and the only way to do that is to copy it onto a removable storage system just in case.

It may seem paranoid, and you might be thinking it’s safe on my computer. But my computer memory crashed a while back and I was unable to retrieve any of the information contained on it, and if I hadn't had a back up for my list I would have lost it. If I had lost my list I would have lost my means of trading online and would have had to start building it all over again.

Treasure it and protect it, it's your future.

Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com

Mike Collins Owner and CEO Rotata The Internet's first and only Search Sub Engine For all your advertising needs. No spam, guaranteed. Download your free copy of the Seven Secret Steps Now visit my site www.rotata.com