Did you ever visit an Art Museum or Historical Place? If you have, you probably noticed that they have a sign in book for visitors. This gives them proof of their amount of traffic. It shows how much interest there is in the place. They have a reason for this. The more visitors they have and the more interest that is shown directly effects the amount of grant money they receive. So, just signing a guest book can mean the difference in success or failure to these places.
They also have a greeter. A person to make you feel comfortable and welcome. They might offer you a free brochure or souvenier. Something to show that they appreciate you stopping by.
Well, guess what! It’s no different with your Opt-In list. Your sign-up box is your registration book. Just as with the museum, the more visitors you have that put their name and e-mail in your sign up box, the more money you are going to make.
Your greeter is in the form of your introduction to the sign-up box, and this is where you give your free gift or souvenir. This can take the form of a free report, e-book, newsletter or e-course. This is the way the process works:
The person sees your sign-up box – You make your offer of what they will get. At that time you show on the bottom of the sign-up box that you value their privacy and will not share their email details. Near the sign-up box you explain that they must confirm their subscription by clicking a link in their email.
After they click the confirmation link in their email, they will they see a thank you page in their web browser that your autoresponder sends. However, the thank you page sent by autoresponders is pretty bland. You can take advantage of this by using your own thank you page that you can customize with any other information. Such as a special offer, or just welcoming them to your happy group and what they can expect to receive from you in the future by emails you will be sending.
Although this might seem a little complicated to a newbie, this is mostly done by your autoresponder which makes it quite easy and painless.
At the same time you should also know what you should avoid in building an opt-in list. There is one thing that you should keep in mind as the big no-no of building a list.
Never ever spam your subscribers. You must get permission from your subscribers, or else you might end up with a bad reputation. Another thing to avoid is making every email an attempt to sell. This also applies to the frequency of your emails. Do not pound your list with sales offers. Sure, you want to make money but give good information. Timely tips and advice along with your attempts to sell.
I’m not a great fan of pop-ups. They can sometimes annoy the visitors. There are also pop-up blockers now, which will make your efforts futile.
On the other hand you should refrain from flooding your subscribers with information. You might end up as an annoyance so much so that when you do give good and relevant information it will be ignored. It’s just like a person that talks too much, after a while you just tune them out.
The aim is to have many regular subscribers and keep them happy. Let them know that you always have their interest at heart, first and foremost and you will reap the benefits of their trust. You must always keep in mind when building the list that things don’t end there.
Once you’ve built up a substantial opt-in list, make sure that you maintain it well. Keep in contact with your subscribers. Send them updates. Keep giving out special offers and helpful tips. Freebies from time to time will be helpful too.
Just follow this and you’ll see, things can only get better.
Comments on this entry are closed.