Before you can start creating a list, you first need to understand exactly what a list is.
A list is really just a database of names and email addresses. Since you want to grow a TARGETED list, this database should contain the names and email addresses of people who are interested in your niche and what you promote to them.
So why is it important to create a specific list? If you were promoting a product on email marketing, would you want to spend your time and money promoting that product to someone who is interested in dog training? Of course not! You want to promote only to those who are interested in what you are actually selling.
By targeting your list, you are searching for and finding only those people who are interested in your specific niche. And, if your list is targeted, it will be much easier to sell the products you are promoting than to a large list of people interested in other topics.
Some new marketers think that the bigger the list, the better. They think that although John Doe is interested in dog training, he might be interested in one of the products they are promoting. Could not be farther from the truth. People search the Internet for the specific information they want to learn about, not a bunch of information that doesn’t add to their knowledge.
Just remember that you are spending a lot of time, energy, and maybe money, acquiring every single subscriber for your list. It’s common sense to spend all that effort finding only those subscribers who are actually interested in what you’re promoting.
As your business grows and begins to expand, you will need many different lists. You’ll need different lists for different product campaigns, because someone may opt in to your list for Product A but not be interested in receiving emails related to Product B. You may need a different list for your newsletter, another list for any e-course. you create, and so on.
While you may want to have a master list of all your subscribers, you’ll need multiple lists depending on the messages you want to send to subscribers. Set up multiple lists before you even start building your subscriber base.
You can always delete a list if it doesn’t work the way you want. For example, you might set up a list titled List X but then find that very few people join that list but many join List Y. So you may want to delete List X.
However, before you delete any list, think about how much it costs to get just one subscriber to join it. While you may not have spent a lot of money (perhaps just on a domain name and hosting), you will surely have spent time setting up the signup form, maybe a capture page, ethical bribery, etc.
So, before you delete a list entirely, you may want to split-test the wording on your capture page, rework your ethical snippet, or even create a new one.
To build your list of subscribers, you will need to invest in an autoresponder service. These services allow you to capture the names and email addresses of your visitors so that you can send them future email messages.
There are many autoresponder services, also known as email marketing companies, available on the Internet. Do some research to find one that meets your needs. However, under no circumstances choose a company because it offers the lowest price. And NEVER use a free autoresponder service.
