Having your own blog in our niche is always a good idea. Use it to opt-in visitors. Remember that individual blog posts can easily be indexed by Google. If you write posts well-optimized for specific keywords you can often get them to show in the search engines–free traffic, it’s the best kind. –Mike

One of the best things you can do, (and you realize this) is to create a product of your own and get affiliates to promote for you. They already have lists and can send you traffic. That traffic can be opted-in to your list and grow it fast. It doesn’t need to be a big product either. There are many people with big lists who will promote even a 5-7 dollar product if the sales page converts well. You can make it a 100% commission so affiliates get all of the up-front money and then use OTOs or up-sells to make money on the back end.

Use your download page too to promote products to tweak your sales even more. You can also offer big affiliates banner ads on your download page in exchange for mailing for you.

One thing: A lot of affiliates hate promoting products with opt-in forms on the sales page. These forms can leak visitors away from the order form and affiliates don’t like that. You’re better off using something like Exit Splash to create a “pop-up” and with the first one and offer a discount when people try to leave your page followed by a second one which offers them a bonus to opt-in if they decline your discounted offer.

Affiliates work hard to drive traffic to your sales pages. Keep them happy by not incorporating “leakers” on your sales pages which drive visitors away from the order form–the business part of your page. –Mike

One thing here, while we’re on the topic of list-building, is the issue of deliverability. If you’re using Aweber, GetResponse, or any top-level autoresponder service–you can count on the fact that your emails are being sent. And these companies work hard to maintain good relationships with the major email providers: AOL, Gmail, HotMail, MSN, etc.

But because an email is sent, does not guarantee it gets delivered to its final destination. There are many filters along the way that can trap it. I always recommend you set up accounts at gmail, MSN, HotMail, YaHoo, etc. and subscribe to our own lists.

Frequently check to make sure your emails are 1.) getting delivered, and 2.) making it to the in-box and not the spam folder. I am subscribed to hundreds of lists–really! And I can’t tell you how many big-name marketers emails hit my spam folder every day. This has a huge impact on their open rates (and not in a good way).

Take time to look in your spam folders and see if you can find characteristics of the emails that hit there. Do some research and homework. You can often find reasons why they get filtered as spam. Avoid doing those things yourself. –Mike

When you’re just starting out, list building should be one of your main objectives. John T. is an expert at this. If you’ve read many of his posts or been involved in any of his membership sites like I am, you are aware of the importance of building a targeted list of subscribers.

One thing a lot of people miss when starting out and that is the importance of keeping in touch with subscribers. You don’t need to send an email out every day, but really–if you’re not mailing 3-4 times a week, some of your subscribers will forget who you are and your open rates will go down. A good list can easily turn into a “zombie list” in a matter of months if you don’t stay in contact.

Contrary to popular opinion, I have found my own open rates are actually higher the more I mail–I don’t mail more than once a day, but you have to keep in front of your subscribers.

Good luck with your list building! –Mike

I would suggest putting opt-in forms on just about any page on your websites, look at this blog and my products for examples.

John

I did my first ever JV with my first ever product and it resulted in a really good payday for me.

And it made me realise just how important a list of customers is.

So I’m thinking I need to start one but Im really confused by it all.

I want to send out broadcasts instead of using an auto responder. That way I can talk about what’s relevant today.

But it seems pointless taking the time to write quality content for 15 subscribers.

What do you suggest?

Thanks

Ben

I had to disable W3 Super cache for it to work but I would rather have a slower loading blog and more signups that a faster loading blog and not so many signups.