A critical component of any serious internet marketer’s business is his or her list of opt-in email subscribers.  Why?  Because internet marketing studies have shown that it often takes up to seven communications with a prospective customer before that person is ready to make a purchase!  If they come to your site only once, the odds of a sale are low and the visit will likely be wasted.  And if you’ve spent money on advertising like Google AdWords to bring that visitor to your site, that money will have been wasted as well.  On the other hand, if they opt-in to your email list during their visit, you can continue to communicate with them long after they have left which increases the chances of making a sale down the road.

So, if you intend to build a thriving online business, an opt-in list is essential and is something that should form a part of your marketing efforts right from the start.

Building Your Opt-In List

Incorporating an opt-in list into your online business is fairly simple.  First, create your site or a “squeeze page” for the product you want to market.  Once your site is starting to take shape, subscribe to an “autoresponder” service such as Aweber and create an “opt-in” subscription form on your site which will allow you to collect names and email addresses of your prospective customers. (The specific how-to’s of creating your web page and incorporating your autoresponder and opt-in form are covered in my Ebook, 7 Days to Online Profits.)

Keep in mind that you can’t just slap an opt-in form up on your site and expect people to subscribe to your email list.  Visitors to your site are looking for information to help them solve a problem.  People generally won’t opt-in to your list unless you offer them something of real value, like a free bonus report, ebook or email course which provides information addressing the issue that brought them to your site in the first place.   The more exciting and valuable the bonus is perceived to be, the higher the opt-in rate you will experience and the better your return on investment will be.  So get creative when it comes to the incentive for people to sign up to your list!

Maintaining a Strong Relationship with Your List

Once you have started capturing email addresses and building your list of  “leads”, you will have an asset that can be leveraged over and over again. You can use that email list to deliver offers, drive traffic to other websites and sales pages again and again.  In order to maintain the value of this asset, you need to treat your subscribers with care and build a strong relationship with them.  You want your subscribers to feel like they know you personally and have them value your advice and guidance.  If you pamper them and deliver real value, you will build a strong foundation of trust.  On the other hand, if you simply email them one product pitch after another, they will feel abused and will likely unsubscribe from your list altogether.

Here are 7 key tips that will help you build a strong relationship with your opt-in list:

1.  Send emails regularly -  Determining the appropriate interval between emails is a balancing act.  I would suggest that you aim to reach your subscribers every five to seven days.  Occasionally, you may be able to reduce the interval to as little as three days between emails but, if you email your list too often, the perceived value of your communications will go down and you run the risk of becoming a nuisance.  On the other hand, if you don’t communicate regularly enough, your subscribers will lose interest, get their information from other sources or even forget who you are completely!

2. Provide real value – Send your subscribers really useful information and tips. Remember that your subscribers are looking for a solution to a problem so your emails should always contain something that the customer wants or needs to help solve that problem.  Providing specific content and targeted information that interests your prospects is a great way to build trust and your readers will look forward to hearing from you.

3.  Limit your sales pitch ratio -  As a general rule of thumb, I would suggest that you send at least three or four purely educational emails for every one sales pitch email.  If too many of your emails are sales pitches, your prospects will no longer look forward to your communications and will stop opening your emails. Again, focus on more than just what you sell and aim to over-deliver when providing content and helpful information.

4. Include audio or video in your emails -  People are busy and easily distracted.  You can send an email with the greatest written content in the world but its value will be lost on your subscribers if they are distracted by every day life (other emails coming in, screaming kids, TV, the internet, the phone…).  Providing your content in video or audio format  will help you maintain their attention, particularly if you are trying to communicate a large amount of information in one message.  It’s also more personal and helps to build a better sense of trust.

5. Ensure that your subscribers can read your emails -  Although fancy graphics, animations and logos can look really cool, they are often blocked by email and spam filters.  Generally, you should keep the body of your email limited to simple text.  (If you are going to imbed audio in your email, make sure that your message is displayed in text format as well in case your reader cannot hear the audio file.)  To deliver a video message, upload it to your site and include a hyperlink to the video in the text of your email. Once the subscriber arrives at your site, you can show them as much fancy content, graphics and animation as your little heart desires.

6. Allow your subscribers to interact with you –   If practical, include a discussion forum, comment system or email submission form on your site.  Blog style websites which allow your subscribers to comment on your blog content are particularly good for this.

7.  Track your results – Once you have set up your series of emails, track your results to see which ones are being opened and getting good click-through rates (Aweber provides detailed reports on this).  You can then experiment with different emails, get to know which email strategies work best, and continue using those that work to reach out to your subscribers.

If you follow these 7 tips, you will have an eager list of subscribers who look forward to receiving your communications and value your advice.  In turn, you will enjoy an explosive boost to your bottom line.

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