An opt-in list is a database of email addresses and other demographic information that belong to people who have given their permission for you to send them your promotional emails and newsletters. Although it may seem easy at first to collect email addresses it does get more difficult to increase the size of your permission marketing list once it reaches a certain size. What you want to develop is a list that contains hundreds or thousands of recipients.
You may think that developing a permission marketing list of that size entails a lot of work and costs a lot of money. Well, that is true up to a point. As the old adage goes, you have to spend money to make money. However, you should carefully budget exactly how much you will spend on creating your opt-in list. The tips below will help you make money but they will have some cost associated with them. Since developing and managing an optimal opt-in list will boost your earnings considerably these expenditures are quite essential to your success in email marketing.
Here are six secrets on how to develop a large opt-in list for your target market:
1. Create Good Web Sites
It’s rather easy to create a simple, but good, web site using WordPress or other blogging, marketing template and content management systems. I recommend using WordPress since it’s so flexible and, if done right, doesn’t look as much like a marketing hook as a squeeze or landing page generator.
It is often a good idea to develop multiple sites with slightly different demographic appeals that all feed the same opt-in marketing campaign. Your sites must be appealing to your visitors and must provide the right temptations for them to sign up for your opt-in mailing list.
2. Use Promotions and Freebies
Offering a freebie in exchange for opting in on a list is a common way to get people to sign up for your list. Some common ways to do this are free screensavers, free games, free toolbars and other programs. You can also offer promotions, like discount coupon subscriptions and the like. People are always looking for a discount or free ride. Give it to them in exchange to them signing up for your list.
3. Submit to Article Services
Writing articles for articles services, e-zines and other such sites is a good way to build to your list. All you need is a good landing page web site to greet the potential subscriber when they arrive.
The reason they come is that they enjoyed your article that was on the service. Offer them more by having them subscribe to your email marketing list.
4. Make it Easy to Opt-Out
This may seem counterintuitive but by making it easy to opt-out you make it easier for people to opt-in. Since they can see that it will be pain free to unsubscribe they’ll be more likely to sign up for your opt-in list due to their increased comfort level with what you are doing.
5. Develop Partnerships
You should find partners who you can work with on generating a good opt-in marketing list. This helps you split expenses and boost the power of your list. It is best to work with a partner who is in a complementary business area to the one you are operating in. You don’t want a direct competitor but you don’t want someone who is in a totally different business area.
6. Consider Offline Promotion
One way to build your permission marketing list is to place advertisements in publications related to your niche. This is best combined with promotional freebies and a good web site landing page. People see the ad in print, go to your web site to get more details and then sign up to get these details.
Another offline marketing technique is to use flyers or business cards stuck on bulletin boards for this purpose. I know several college students who used this technique at their school and surrounding area and made a tidy sum doing so.
Give these methods a try and watch your opt-in email marketing list grow and grow.
