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

Articles, What to Write, Where and How to Post Them

By Mike Collins

The most essential step any business owner can take is to get your business recognized on the Internet. It may be your new business, it may be your current business; it doesn't matter. What does matter is that you become a household name, 'Brand Recognition'. To achieve this you need to start letting everyone know you exist. And the most efficient way to get that recognition is by writing and submitting articles.

Stop groaning, I can hear you. Before you say I can't do this, I can't write articles. Let me tell you how effective this is and hopefully show you the benefits of sitting at your keyboard for twenty minutes every day and knocking out a simple article.

This is your business, you are passionate about it and you intend using it as your vehicle to earn your living online and retire from the daily grind. To achieve this you must crawl outside your comfort zone and do what needs to be done or, carry on with the daily grind until you are old and tired.

Article posting is one of the most effective methods of gaining brand recognition and all important quality back-links to your business, so now you're going to learn what to write, how and where to post and you are going to drive back-links and traffic to your website.

What you must do is carefully select your main keywords, just the main ones for now. And you must write articles relating to, but not directly advertising your business. Let's take a simple example: you are operating a business that advises people on pet care and in particular 'dog grooming to competition standard'. Your business and site name is Shaggy to Shining and your main keyword / phrase is 'dog grooming'.

Your article title would be something on these lines 'From Shaggy to Shining in Three Easy Steps, Dog Grooming to Competition Standard'. Can you see what's happening here, you have got your business title and your main keyword / phrase contained within the title of your article, but it doesn't appear to be a direct advertisement? Now, this is your business and if you are passionate about dogs and dog care I am positive that you could write an article, 500-800 words describing the most effective methods to groom your dog to competition standard. Thereafter, choose each keyword and write articles using your keywords in the title and at various places throughout the article and what you will see happening in record time is links to your business appearing highly ranked for your main keywords.

Each time you write an article you also add what is known as 'a resource box'. In the resource box you are allowed to advertise your site and your business. When your article is posted, it is posted with the resource box intact, and anyone who decides to use your free article does so on the understanding that they must also include the complete unedited resource box.

But, who is it who reads this material and who would want to use your article? Simple when you think about it. I'm sure you have noticed the explosion of AdSense advertising online at the moment. These people are now your best friends. You may disagree with the quality of the content of these sites and the fact that they are nothing more than advertising vehicles, but it's the content that matters. These publishers are mad hungry for content and they trawl the article sites picking up articles, yours included in order to have content for their AdSense sites.

You could write a simple article and it could be viewed along with your resource box maybe 10,000, 20,000 or even 100,000 times and each one of these AdSense sites is advertising your business as its main feature and creating a link to your website. The search engines pick up on this, and this method is by far the quickest way to get your site indexed with the search engines and this can happen, as it did for me within 48 hours of going live.

Another added bonus is that you quickly become recognized as an expert in your field. You have hundreds, if not thousands, of articles describing your particular business buzzing about the Internet. This affords you the kind of business credibility that otherwise could take years to achieve and it pushes your website up the rankings at breakneck speed.

Right, you've composed your articles and now you need to post them, so what do you do? You don't want to do it manually, which means visiting thousands of article directories and submitting your work. So now you need an article submission service, and for something this important you need the best. The best is Article Marketer. This is the premier online submission service and one of the few where your article is actually scanned by a person and not a computer prior to being distributed. They will distribute your article to thousands of article directories, and you can submit as many articles as you wish.

I have tried submission software, it's not very effective. The software is never up to date and it will submit your articles to directories that no longer exist. The other major benefit of using a submission service and dealing with people in preference to a piece of software is, they are there to help and advise you, they will help you get the very best exposure for your articles.

One final point on articles, you've no doubt heard the term 'Content is King'. Every article you write and some that are relevant to your business that you can pick up should become a part of your website. It doesn't need to be visible in a public area of your site. Hide it away within your site map if you choose, but the moment you add these articles to your own site you are adding fresh content and the search engines will re-index your site. I would advise that you leave your articles on public view within your site with a link in your navigation bar; it allows prospective customers to read them and further establishes you as an expert in your field.

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