What Works Best Now In List-Building?

By Willie Crawford
Posted Friday, August 20, 2004

We all know the saying, The Money's In The List. We can appreciate the truth of that saying. If you're in business on-line, to make sales you must drive targeted traffic to your websites. More importantly, you must drive REPEAT traffic to your websites. A list is a great way to do this.

Conducting an on-line business is all about building relationships and developing long-term customers. People buy from people that they know, like and trust. Repeat contact with your subscribers through your lists allows them time to get to know, like and trust you. Having them visit your website repeatedly, allows them to get to know like and trust you. Your list and your website should work synergistically but you DO need to build that list.

The fact is, that list-building, like all other business strategies evolves over time. What worked just a few years ago, perhaps only MONTHS ago, may no longer work. So if you're using outdated techniques, you may be "swimming against the current" and not even know it.

If you're an Internet marketer, and you offer free ebooks as a list building incentive, you may have missed some signals. Ebooks often aren't 1/10th as effective as they use to be at getting people to join your list.

Internet marketers caused the ebook to be less effective as an incentive for list building. How? We taught "everybody and his brother," that giving away an ebook was the perfect way to incentivize potential subscribers. So everybody decided to create an ebook just for this purpose. They also often hoped that the ebook would go viral, get passed around, and generate lots of website traffic.

The real problem started when many people apparently stopped caring about the quality of information in those ebooks they were giving away. They started compiling collections of completely out-dated, rehashed, inaccurate JUNK. Some of the people putting these ebooks together probably didn't even realize just how bad their products were. They also probably didn't realize that the advice they passed along in these ebooks actually SEVERELY damaged the businesses of those who followed their terrible advice.

The market of potential subscribers soon caught on though. After downloading dozens of completely worthless ebooks, potential subscribers soon began to think that most free ebooks would probably be like that! They simply concluded that their time was too valuable to waste sifting through all of the clutter for a few gems. Those who haven't yet figured this out, can't be achieving any real business success yet. They are wasting too much time reading too many ebooks that can't teach them anything useful.

So what's the solution to this dilemma? What do you offer potential subscribers to get them to join your list? Give them something with a much higher perceived value than an ebook. Give them useful software. You can get the master resale rights to some excellent software very inexpensively. Use that as your new, much more enticing incentive.

One objection you may have against giving away software instead of ebooks is that you could also often build backend sales into the free ebooks. You branded them with your affiliate links prior to giving them away.

You can do that with many pieces of software too. In fact, I'll GIVE you a free piece of software that you can brand and use to build 20 income stream at once. The software allows your subscribers to build a no-cost, content-rich, search engine-friendly, 75-page website automatically. They will love the software, use it, and pass it around. Offer this as a signup bonus!

There are two secrets behind the software above that makes it pull double duty for you. The first secret is that if those downloading the software aren't affiliates for the programs in the software, they can sign up and become YOUR sub-affiliates. They brand the software, and in the process start earning you a stream of second-tier commissions.

If for some unimaginable reason, they choose not to become affiliates for a given product, your affiliate link stays in that part of the software. So, in that case, they are earning you first-tier commissions by passing along a great piece of software as a list-building incentive.

Grab and brand a complimentary copy of this software from:
(http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-621/mega.html)
I know you'll love it and so will the stream of new subscribers you generate.

There are many other great pieces of software that you can use as incentives. I offer a ton to members of my private membership site at: (http://TheRealSecrets.com/private/)

You can also get an inexpensive programmer, located through a site such as Elance.com, to create a custom piece of software if desired. Create it, brand-it, and then send it viral. A good piece of software has the potential to generate 100 times more subscribers than any ebook did. There's simply more incentive to continue passing the software on.

So, there you have the latest in what's actually working to build a responsive mailing list. My personal lists number in the hundreds of thousands. YES, you read that right, hundreds of thousands. These are list built for varying purposes, and using different tools. The most powerful tool that I've used lately is the very one I just revealed to you. All you need to do is start using it too.

About the Author
Willie Crawford has been teaching others how to build successful on-line businesses since late 1996. Frequently featured in radio, magazine and newspaper articles and interviews, Willie shares exclusive teleseminar recordings, brainstorming sessions, and useful ebooks and software at his exclusive membership site. Grab these resources now at: (http://TheRealSecrets.com/private/)