Bear in mind that it isn’t secret or special if just anyone can access it with just a little effort. You’ll get the best results if you make your offer truly limited. For example, you could grant access to the first 100 subscribers or make the secret pages only available for a limited time, such as 30 days. You can use your autoresponder system to manage this aspect of this opt-in mailing list campaign.

Creating secret pages on your landing web site is rather easy. You make a password protected directory on your web site. You’ll use a single logon ID and password that all of the subscribers you select can use. I recommend using a name for the directory that generates interest like “private-stash”, “secrets”, “treasure-trove”, “black-arts”. I think that names that imply something slight pirate-like, shady or hidden tend to generate the best interest while those that are blatantly marketing oriented, like “money-makers” are generally less well received.

Now that you have everything setup on your web site you are ready to distribute the landing page URL to your opt-in list via your autoresponder. Alternatively, you could work with other list owners and bloggers to distribute this information to their subscribers. However, it is best that you keep the offer limited to some degree. If everyone gets an invite then this lessens the special-ness of the offer. People want to feel like they’re going to get access to information that few others will be seeing. If they don’t, they’ll write off your offer as yet another lame marketing ploy.

In my opinion, you should make access to these secret pages free. I have seen some try to extract a gatekeeper up front fee of a few dollars. I don’t recommend this for most offers. People love something for nothing but don’t like feeling like they’re paying to get something sold to them.

Also, you must have something of value on your secret pages. One of the worst mistakes you can make in this kind of campaign is not having something of value there for them to collect on when they visit. If you just offer a page chocked full of affiliate links you’ll make your opt-in subscribers angry with you, probably enough for them to decide to opt-out of your list.

I know, you feel like you will be giving away something for free, that you’ll be losing money. Believe me, you won’t. You’ll be gaining valuable and loyal subscribers to your opt-in list. Over time, this can insure a steady income stream.

I think that will a little trial and hopefully not too much error you’ll discover this is a fantastic marketing tactic for a variety of digital information products, membership sites and other such money makers.

One way to avoid this problem is to educate your subscribers. When someone signs up for you autoresponder or opt-in email list redirect them to a page where you can give them instructions on how to ‘white list’ your emails. Almost all email clients maintain a list of permitted email addresses where the owner of the account can indicate that specific addresses that should never be considered spam. All you need to do is provide a short and to the point article on how to permit your emails past the spam filter. 

Another good way to prevent this problem is to use a double opt-in system where the subscriber has to respond to an initial email in order to subscribe to the list. This serves as a test run of the autoresponder system and emails you have in place and gives the subscriber a chance to place your email address on the white list if it gets marked as spam the first time through. The potential subscriber will be motivated to deal with the problem at this point where they won’t be as motivated at a later time in most cases.

A good, proactive, way to insure that your emails are not being marked as spam is to run your emails through various online spam checkers and popular free email services. Just setup your own test accounts and send test emails as well as you regular marketing emails to them. This will let you know if your emails pass muster. This will allow you to check your marketing emails for key words and phrases that commonly trigger a spam alert by common email clients. By doing this spam check ahead of time you will be able to avoid having emails sent to your opt-in list from being sent to the spam filter and thus, never read by the intended recipients.

Naturally, you first option might be one that is provided with your web site hosting account. If one is provided it can easily be configured via the control panel of your website. Another plus is that it is very rare for them to contain advertisements from the web hosting company. Of course, they may have restrictions on its use so make sure you read the fine print before you use it in your online marketing efforts.

If using your web hosting account isn’t an option for you there are many other free autoresponder services to select from. These free services make their money by placing a small advertisement in each message that you send out via their autoresponder. These ads may be inserted at the top or bottom of the message, depending upon which service you decide to use.

You will also discover that several paid autoresponder services also offer a free version of their service as well. Sometimes these free or lite versions includes ads and sometimes they do not. However, they almost always have restrictions and limitations that you have to consider when selecting one of these free autoresponder service options. If you don’t need to have all the bells and whistles of a full blown autoresponder then one of these lite services may be the right choice for you.

You should taken into account that most free autoresponders place a strict limit on the number of subscribers you can have on your list. This works to the advantage of the paid autoresponder services because they have found that many people begin with the lite free version and then have to upgrade to the paid versions once their lists have become large enough to exceed those limits of the free account. This is kind of a win-win situation since you probably don’t want to go to the expense of using a paid autoresponder services until the list that you are generating is turning a good profit.

As the owner of a opt-in marketing list business, you have to make the decision if a free or paid autoresponder service meets your business needs. In general, if your list is relatively small you should find that a free autoresponder should do everything that you need it to do in this area. However, as your list grows in size, you should take into account that you will probably need to consider upgrading to a complete autoresponder solution. You should certainately consider that the inserted advertisements that most free autoresponder services place in their outgoing messages may be competing with the product or service which you are trying to sell to your opt-in list. They could even be a problem even if they do not directly compete with your business.

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.

Myth #1: Not a lot of people use email

Actually, one of the most effective marketing methods today is Email marketing. Almost everyone uses email either at work or at home. Some people do both. A person without an email address is becoming a lot like someone who does not have a phone. It’s quite rare to find somebody who doesn’t have email in one capacity or another.

Myth #2: Email marketing campaigns annoy a lot of people

Spam does annoy people but what we’re talking about here is permission based advertising. The person gives their permission for you to send the marketing emails and other information. Since they requested it or ‘opted in’ it isn’t spam.

Myth #3: It’s a waste of time to send email to a lot of people

The key here is to maintain a clean opt-in email list so that you know which group of people will provide you with the highest return on investment.

How to Build an Opt-in List

Now that we’ve looked at some email marketing myths, here’s how we can use the power of an opt-in list email marketing campaign.

Tip #1: Collect Data Strategically

First, you will need to know which information from your audience will help you achieve the best return on investment. Which provides the biggest opportunities to lower expenses and/or make sales grow. To gather this data, devise a way to encourage people to voluntarily provide you with this necessary information. Once you gather it you will be poised to create a higher conversion for your opt-in email marketing list.

You do want to avoid data overload. Start off by asking only for basic opt-in information, their full name and email address. Once you’re successful with this you may then choose single points of data to add to the mix as you continue to pinpoint your opt-in marketing campaign.

Tip #2: Track Your Results

Track your opt-in email marketing results to insure that your campaigns are being effective. If you do not track them you will often waste time and make your marketing effort unmanageable. There is no reason to impose this great hardship upon yourself. There is software available that will help you maintain this aspect of your marketing and to make it a lot more manageable.

Tip #3: Use Websites.

Use forms on web sites that solicit your visitor’s email address and consent. Polls about popular topics in the news are one of the best ways to do this. You can also use print ads, business cards and even sales receipts to send visitors to this site where they can sign up for your opt-in list.

Tip #4: Use Tact

You should use adequate caution and be tactful when applying these opt-in marketing campaign techniques. You must focus on earning the trust of your opt-in list. If it is seen by subscribers as a way to simply collate data for your own benefit they will reject it. You should always insure that the forms you use will be easy to use. Otherwise visitors won’t bother to subscribe.

But, it didn’t work for you even though you followed the pattern you were given. In fact, you lost money. Why?

Perhaps you hired writers and put together a big list but only got a quite small return on your investment. As you view your statistics and sales figures you consider what might have gone wrong with your plan. Why have others been successful at building a profitable opt-in list? Why didn’t it work for you?

One of the most common mistakes is diving right in without laying the proper groundwork first. Many people just pick a topic that they think will be popular and profitable without doing any research first. Just because you built an opt-in list doesn’t mean people are going to buy from you right away.

For those of you who are starting and for those who’re trying to recover a failed project, here are three quick and easy ways to construct a profitable opt-in list.

1. Build Customer Trust First

First, you have to work on getting your customers to both trust you and the product you are offering. Simply because they joined your opt-in list doesn’t make them think of you an expert. It’s a simple fact that people aren’t going to buy something based upon your recommendation if they don’t know you or have any trust in your opinions. Here are some ways to build trust:

• Write many articles before you start an opt-in list.
• Write about the topic you know well.
• Create a web site that uses your articles.
• Get involved in forums on your topic to both gain knowledge about the topic and of your potential customers.
• Provide expert advice and recommendations on opinion and advice sites like Yahoo Answers and Squidoo.

When it becomes obvious to you that people are beginning to trust your opinion, you will be ready to start your opt-in list. You can build a starting base with forum members as well as people who you’ve helped in other areas. Ask them to join your list. Also use your web site or blog to describe your offer. This can also build trust.

The truth is that people will only part with their money when they think that they can trust what you’re saying.

2. Fill a Need

The next key to constructing a profitable opt-in list is finding a product that people want to buy. You have to fill their needs. While it is generally better to sell something that you have a personal interest in, this isn’t always the most profitable or popular route to take. You can waste a lot of time and money trying to sell ice to Eskimos or bicycles to fish. If you do your market research well you will see the profits come rolling in.

It is also a good idea to provide your subscribers with free promotional material. This would be something that they could get some use out of themselves and they might spread it around to other virally and thus increase your list as people come back to you for more.

3. Form Joint Ventures and Partnerships

Essentially this means making friends with other opt-in list marketers for mutual benefit. This can help you if you if you can hook up with an experienced opt-in list marketer who has the hands-on experience with this kind of venture. If you have had successful campaigns yourself it might be helpful for you to work with a less experienced person who has a unique proposition they’re offering or where there is market synergy.

While you can find many articles on many topic from various sources, it is always better to work with someone who has first hand knowledge and who you can trust.

It Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Creating a profitable opt-in list just doesn’t happen overnight. It takes research and effort to pull it off. Grow your list, maintain the quality of your list, stay organized and get/hire the help you need. Remember that the goal is to keep your subscribers happy and buying your products.

Opt-in Email Marketing Basics

There are many laws and regulations that are designed to protect the privacy of Internet users, especially from spamming. Since email has become popular as an advertising medium because of its low costs, many companies have taken the opportunity to flood many peoples’ inboxes with unwanted promotional mail.

However, with an opt-in list, you avoid annoying people because they have purposefully subscribed to your list. They have indicated that they want to receive your promotional materials. They have given their consent to being place upon on the list by manually subscribing themselves to it. The important thing to remember is to always put an unsubscribe link in every email to your opt-in list. This allows you to avoid any confusion. Also, sometimes there will be cases where the actual email owner didn’t subscribe.

Opt-in Email List Management

The first order of business with a opt-in email marketing list is to keep your list clean and manageable. You can manage it by utilizing software tools that are on the market for this purpose.

Keep your business operation out of trouble by following this rule:  Keep your operation legit and clean. You can’t afford to deal with potential conflicts with law enforcement. You will also want to avoid the hassle of problems with your Internet service providers. Having a reputation as a legitimate business site and keeping a good reputation depends entirely upon you being a straight and narrow email marketer.

Now let’s get to our 3 tips:

1. Pay Attention to Your Unsuccessful Sends

There will be emails that bounce, ie undeliverable messages. These are messages that, for whatever reason, did not make it to the intended recipient. Occasionally bounces occur because a server was busy at that time of delivery. There may also be bounces because the target inbox was full. This will usually go through OK on a second sending.

Then there are bounced emails that cannot be delivered, period. There are several reasons for this including: an invalid email address, a misspelled email address, or an email address that was abandoned and deleted. Manage your list by marking email addresses that bounce. Remove, aka srcub, bad email address from your list so that you have accurate statistics on how many subscribers are actually receiving your mail.

2. Always Provide an Unsubscribe Feature

The ability to unsubscribe from the opt-in list should be prominently featured on your site and an unsubscribe link in your mails as well. When someone in your list files an unsubscribe request you must always take that request seriously. Should you not take them off your opt-in list and keep sending them your e-mails, you have stepped over the line and become a spammer. When you are reported as a spammer, you can get into a lot of trouble. First of all, you will be likely to lose a lot of subscribers this way. You may get blacklisted by Internet Service Providers. You could even be reported to law enforcement authorities.

3. Stay Safe For Work

You do not want to send pornographic or other potentially disturbing content in your opt-in emails or newsletters. Since it is very difficult to determine the age of the recipient this is just good business sense. You would be surprised at how many complaints stem from this kind of situation.

Controversial issues, such as politics and religion, should also are to be avoided unless this is the overall theme of your site or newsletter.

Keep these tips in mind. They will help you develop a healthy relationship with your subscribers. Plus, following them should keep you within the boundaries of what is allowed when it comes to sending mails to an opt-in list.

One of these methods is Opt-in email marketing, also known as permission marketing. Opt-in marketing requires the permission of a customer since they sign up to subscribe to your marketing emails. These emails may take the form of newsletters, catalogs and other promotional material. As you might guess, the more opt-in marketing emails you send out, the greater the chance is of these emails converting to sales.

To accomplish this, you must construct a list of subscribers to your opt-in marketing list. Your list will then, of course, consist of targeted customers. This is a good list to have since the subscribers already have shown interest in what you are selling and have willingly signed up for your list. These people may have liked what you’re selling or they may have purchased one of your products previously or have another reason why they chose to receive your marketing emails.

Some people think that building a marketing list takes hard work and a lot of time. This is not the case. It does  take a bit of patience and a little strategy but nothing too difficult. Make the effort to move your online business to a new level. If an increase in traffic followed by good profits is what you want, an opt-in list will work wonders for your business venture.

Different people have different approaches to building an opt-in list. However, no matter how diverse their methods are, there are always some crucial things to do when you construct your list. Here are four of them:

1. Use a Good Subscription Form

It is a good idea to have a subscription web form that immediately follows the end of your content. Remember that the purpose of your homepage is to provide a good impression quickly. If your site does make this kind of impression, having the sign-up form up front helps close the sale to get the subscription. Otherwise the visitor might simply forget to sign up.

A good opt-in list subscription web form is easy to create. All you have to do is write a simple short statement emphasizing that if the visitor would like to find out more and get updates they should sign up.  You may also make it a limited time offer to apply a little time pressure. Also include reassurances that their information will be treated as confidential information.

The form itself should be only 2 input fields, name and e-mail address, and a submit button. That’s very basic web site building 101 stuff and you can even get templates that will do this for you from accepting and validating the input to saving it to a database location.

2. Have a Great Homepage

You will need to have a homepage that impresses a visitor enough to have them sign up for your list. This means that you will have to have well written articles and other compelling content to entice the visitor. You must catch their attention enough so that they feel that they will miss out on something important if they don’t sign up.

You will need to make your site user friendly. Don’t assume that everyone is as tech savvy as you, even if you’re in a technical field. Invest in having good and reliable programming in your site. Use good graphics while keeping them compact to optimize the load time. Avoid excessive use of Flash and other animations. Videos are OK but you probably want to host the on YouTube or other free video service to reduce the strain on your server.

3. Provide a Product That People Want to Buy

Well, that should go without saying but, yes, you must provide a good product or service that people actually want and will buy. Always remember, a returning customer is considerably more likely buy and will often help you bring in more business by word of mouth. This kind of recommendation can often bring in more business than an expensive ad on a busy website.

4. Keep Your List Clean and Private

Your subscribers are trusting you with their information. Don’t violate their trust. If you sell their information to a third party who spams them all of your hard work building your list will be lost. Subscribers will unsubscribe, they’ll stop buying from you and, worst of all, you may get branded as a spammer by Internet Service Providers. Remember, a good reputation is priceless.

Because of a lack of trust, many people go to great lengths to protect their email accounts from spam. Most free-mail Internet providers, like GMail and HotMail, and Internet Service Providers offer spam protection. There are also companies that provide lists of spammers for other companies to use to protect themselves against spam emails.

With an opt-in email list, the emails you send that contain your promotional materials will go through to their intended recipient. They will be able to read and view what you have sent. This means that you have made a successful transfer of your marketing information. In order to be allowed to initiate this transfer of information you will need permission from your recipient. In order for them to provide you with this permission you will need to be able to get their trust first. Because there is a general disregard for privacy in the Internet, getting the trust of someone you don’t personally know is a big achievement.

In order to develop a good opt-in list you need people to trust you. For this to happen quickly you will need to develop a method that will get your opt-in subscribers to trust you quickly. The quicker you develop your opt-in list, the quicker word about what you are offering will get spread. The larger the scope of your opt-in list, the larger the traffic numbers you will get. This all means more profits for you.

It is just a numbers game, however, getting the numbers is not that simple. But there are ways to make getting the numbers you need easier.

1. Demonstrate That You are a Legitimate Business

Provided that you do have a legitimate business it should not be that hard to win the trust of your clientèle. Your opt-in subscribers should come to trust you based on your expertise. People do rely on others who clearly show that they know what they are talking about. Make sure that you do actually have the correct knowledge and information about your business. You should not venture into something where you do not have any interest in it.

2. Know What You’re Talking About

You must show your opt-in subscribers that you do know what you are talking about. You should provide them with helpful hints that pertain to the product or service that you are selling. If your subscribers see you as someone who knows the product or service, as someone who knows what they’re saying, they will come to trust you quickly.

3. Be True to Your Subscribers

If you want to hype up your products and services you must be ready to provide guarantees in order to build up trust in your opt-in subscriber list.. The more happy and satisfied subscribers your email gets, the greater the  probability becomes that they will recommend you to others. In most cases, people will trust someone they know. Therefore, when someone recommends you, you will then be able to add a new subscriber to your list.

4. Offer an Escape Hatch

Always provide your opt-in subscribers with an escape hatch. This is another way to quickly develop trust. Demonstrate that it is not your intention to trap them. Maintain a clean list that would enable opt-in subscribers to unsubscribe from you list at anytime they want to do so. Make sure that your subscription web form provides information on how to unsubscribe from your list. Make an iron clad guarantee to them that they can quit the subscription service whenever they wish to do so. Many Internet users are wary that they may be stuck for life. They’re concerned that they would have to abandon their email account because they might get pestered with spam.

A newsletter can be used to inform the public about your company and its products. You can use a opt-in newsletter to keep your subscribers updated about what is occurring within your company. You can use it as well to highlight your promotions and new offerings. Newsletters sent to your opt-in list subscribers remind them that you are still around and that you are willing to provide them excellent deals and good service.

Newsletters also give you a chance to impress your opt-in list subscribers. You can use them to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise about a particular topic. They can also be used to highlight the many benefits you can provide to your subscribers. People who’re impressed with this will often become customers. Another plus is that they may recommend your company to their family, friends and colleagues and thus result in even more customers.

If you do not already have a newsletter for your site, then it will be a good idea to examine how to publish one. It is not as easy as it may seem. However, when you get the right idea and process down pat, it will be smooth sailing from there on out. Take the time to try and learn what you need to learn. Then you will be prepared to create your opt-in newsletter. And, once it is delivered, it will begin to attract subscribers as well as traffic to your site.

Next, I will provide you with five things to consider when publishing your very own opt-in newsletter:

1. Stick to Your Topic

You must make sure that the content of your newsletter is closely associated with your business and the site it represents. Do not stray too far from your field of expertise. Remember, you want the newsletter to highlight your expertise in your designated area of knowledge. You could include content about your company and your staff if you wanted. People always enjoy hearing about you. 

Always bear in mind that people visit your site and subscribe to your opt-in newsletter because they’re interested in something the site or newsletter has to offer. You must be certain that your published newsletter is providing something that fills the needs of your subscriber’s interests. 

2. Content Rich Articles.

It is quite important that you take the time while writing your opt-in newsletter that you have created a well written and information packed articles. Your articles will be the body of your newsletter. It is essential that this rich content should be able to enthuse your readers on top of simply providing information to them.

Your articles have to be well written. This means having them checked for errors in spelling and grammar. Your opt-in newsletter must appear both professional and believable. This is absolutely essential in developing the trust of the newsletter recipient in both you and your newsletter.

3. Fact Check Your Articles.

Another requirement for a successful opt-in newsletter is to make sure that you have provided true and correct facts and figures. You must do this so that your reputation as an expert the field is not open to question. If you commit blooper after blooper you will lose the trust of your subscribers. This simple mistake may may persuade your subscribers to go ahead and unsubscribe from your newsletter. If you are not careful you could lose many potential subscribers and, thus, sales this way.

4. Provide Fresh Content

You have to provide new articles to your opt-in list subscribers. You cannot simply republish stale and old news in your newsletter. If your subscribers already have read the articles they will lose  interest in your newsletter. Worse yet, they wont take the time to read what is most important to you, your ads. If they don’t see anything new and fresh coming from you they may stop opening your emails. Once they’ve lost interest, they’ll stop visiting your site and thus no longer be available to make a purchase from you.

5) Never Use Copyrighted Materials

This includes both article text and media items such as photos and videos. This could get you into a lot of trouble. You could even lose your business over copyright infringement. If you do not have the time or ability to compose your own articles, you can easily find professional article writers who can do this for you in exchange for a reasonable fee.

An opt-in list permits a company to market their wares via email to subscribers who have given their permission to receive promotional emails. This is a win-win for both parties since subscribers can get valuable updates and other information from your newsletters while you can use it to promote your latest products to a large group of willing buyers.

Because there is consent between the two parties, mail sent to the members of the opt-in list is not considered spam. You can use this list to send all kinds of promotional materials, such as catalogs, new product announcements, newsletters and so forth and so on. Because the members of the opt-in list have signed up for them this means that they really do want to be sent these items and will probably read them as well.

Building a list is crucial because only a small percentage of the list that actually subscribes for an opt-in list actually takes time to read it on a consistent basis. Many people find promotional mails annoying, even if they signed up for them. However, if you provide a good newsletter or other promotional material that can capture the attention of potential buyers, you will see your list grow.

As long as your site is of good quality you can also achieve a higher percentage of readers. If your content is good people will like what they see and read on your site. Your  opt-in list would act as a teaser to attract them back to your site. 

Other than marketing your wares, an opt-in marketing list can be used in other ways in order to earn an extra profit. Most of these methods should only be used after you have already build a successful opt-in list with a large number of subscribers. It’s really simple: The more subscribers you have, the more money you can make.

Here are seven ways to make money using your opt-in marketing list:

1) Sell Advertising Space.

There are many corporations who are willing to pay to place their banner and text advertisements on a list with a good number of subscribers.  For many companies, it works well for them to place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. By placing ads that fit well with your newsletter you could make some good money.

2) Develop Affiliations

It can be a good idea to have affiliations with other companies that have a complementary product or service.  In your mailing, these other companies would provide links and short descriptions of what they have to offer your subscribers. Payment for this service could be a flat fee based on the number of subscribers, pay per click throughs to the target site or a commission based on purchases made by your list subscribers.

3) Use Affiliate Marketing

This is similar to #2 except that you work through an advertising broker that connects you with companies who will pay you for sales to or actions by your opt-in list subscribers.

4) Consignment Sales and Classified Ads

You may offer the opportunity for subscribers to your list or others to place advertisements for products in your newsletter. They would place descriptions, articles and photos of the product in your mailing, much like a classified ad.

5) Sell eBooks

Another good technique is to sell e-books that are a compilation of your articles or that are complementary to it. You will find that How-To Manuals are quite popular within many niches. People are willing to pay good money in order to gain additional knowledge about their favorite subjects. Since your existing list trusts your expertise and knowledge in your niche, an ebook should be well received.

6) Create a Network

Use viral marketing techniques or just simple contests to get people who are already on your opt-in list to invite more people. This can greatly increase the size of your list and, of course, with more people this means more clicks on advertisements and more purchases on items you are selling.

7) Build Partnerships

Often you will find that a few of your subscribers may have complementary skills and knowledge. By working with them to develop a way to market their skills through your list, such a partnership can work to both parties mutual advantage.

A subscriber who is on the opt-in list will receive these updates through their email. If the promotional material catches their interest they can then go to the originating site in order to learn more or to even make a purchase of the advertised product. For the web site owner, this email represents a great opportunity to remind their subscribers of their continued existence as well as providing an good way to advertise their products and services.

Let’s now return to my experimenting friend. His goal was to try and find out which opt-in marketing strategies really grabbed a subscriber. Which emails encouraged the subscriber to beg for more? Some of the lists he subscribed to would send in very simple fashion. Others produced very outlandish mailings. However, there were some that were in between these extremes. Some had gotten the idea of an effective opt-in marketing strategy while others had clearly failed at it. If they were effective that meant that he wanted to go to their site and learn more. A few really persuasive ones even had him reaching for his wallet.

There are as many ways to present promotional materials as there are companies to present them. Each company has their own distinctive style and designs. That is a given. However, there is more than just the outline and the presentation. The content and the articles are what attracts and keeps the attention of your subscriber, aka potential customer, locked on to your opt-in marketing spiel. Creativity is the key.

From discussing this with many satisfied and dissatisfied opt-in list subscribers, here is what I have discovered as to what is essential in opt-in marketing, in particular, what makes subscribers beg for more instead of simply unsubscribing from the list.

Light, Creative and Original

Many people could care less about getting yet another stuffy business proposal or a generic sales spiel. A warm and friendly article or picture is almost always a lot more welcome that a stodgy sales letter. Although you do want your customers to take your promotional materials seriously, you must also show them that you know how to have fun as well.

Splash Some Color

It is a great idea to include some photos and other graphical elements in your newsletters. This helps keep the mood light and eye catching. Effective use of this method can greatly encourage click throughs to the site.

Good Content

Of course, having good content is essential. You may need to invest in an experienced, professional, copywriter to write these articles for you if you can’t do it yourself. Also, it should entertain and inform as well as trying to lead them to buy from you.

Outline Benefits

A good article, or ad copy, should outline the benefits of your product and services to the reader. It will let your subscribers know why they need what you are offering. However, you should not look to overeager, desperate or too much like a huckster trying to con your readers. 

Be Clear and Concise

Don’t leave people guessing. Your promotional opt-in list email materials should be clear and concise.  Your goal is to lead them to your site, not to lead them away. Make sure that you explain to them what they need to do in such a way so that they won’t be confused. You should also try to anticipate also what your subscriber needs. This is all just a matter of you doing your research.

Good Images

You should provide clear and crisp images of what you are offering. If your subscribers know what you have in store for them, they are more likely to want to see more of what you have to offer. You should only provide a taste though and encourage them to go to your site for more.

An opt-in list, or permission based marketing if you will, allows you to email marketing newsletters to subscribers with their consent. When people sign up, they do it knowing that they will be receiving regular email updates about your site. You might also include industry updates and other related news as well in your email newsletter.

However, just because you send them doesn’t mean that the recipients will ever read them. Many build lists based on things like free software, promotional discounts, previous order opt-ins and so forth. Some of these subscribers aren’t really that interested in receiving e-mails from you after they get what they wanted. They essentially treat them almost like spam, a waste of cyberspace that they delete without a second thought. In fact, a term for this exists: B’acn or Bacn, named after a fake bacon bits product.

With a little effort though, you can change that attitude so far as your newsletter is concerned. While sending an email message is relatively easy, getting people to open a marketing email is not so easy. If people don’t want to read your emails then you are wasting all of your time and effort in making the newsletters. You want people to read them. You want them to become interested in your site and what you have to offer. You want them interested enough from your marketing newsletter to go to your web site and look around. And, most especially, you want them to purchase the products you are offering there.

One of the very best ways you can persuade your subscribers to open your marketing newsletter is by having a well written subject line. The quality of the subject line of an email is what is most often prompts a recipient of a marketing email to open and read the email. The subject line is perhaps the most key component of your promotional e-mails.

Must be Short and Concise

A good subject line should provide a very short summary of the content of the email. You need to give the recipient some basic knowledge of the content. It is very vital for the subject line to grab the attention of your subscribers. You will want your subject line to instantly gain the attention of your subscriber. Your subject line must intrigue them enough to get them to open up your marketing email message.

Tickle Their Curiosity

A great subject line tickles the curiosity of your recipient. It must be almost to the point that the reader is physically compelled to open the email and read it. This is done by triggering an emotional response. This means that it is essential that you the specific words that you need in order to get the reaction you desire, opening the email from your email marketing campaign and reading it. You should bear in mind that the average subscriber only spends a few seconds, if that, looking at the subject line of the e-mails they receive. It is imperative that you grab your reader’s attention immediately.

Subject Line Ideas

Your subject lines of your permission marketing emails can take many forms.

A common tactic is to use a subject line that promises to teach the subscriber something on the newsletter topic. For example, you can use your keywords with such phrases as: “How to” , “___ Tips for”, “A Guide to”, “___ Methods to” and others along that same path.

Questions are another good way to construct an effective subject line. These may include questions, once again on topic, like, “Are you sick and tired of _____” Or “Is Your ____ Always _____?” Of course this question should be very focused on the topic of your marketing newsletter. Your subscribers signed up for this information so you need to make sure that you give them what they want. The reason that this form of a subject line is so very effective is because it reaches out to your subscribers’ emotions. As they read the question, their mind starts answering the question right away.

Another method you can also use is a subject that commands your reader to do something. For example, a statements like “Act now to take advantage of this one time opportunity”, or “Double savings on _____, today only”. When combined with a sense of urgency this can compel a great response. 

The last tactic I suggest is to use something that’s breaking news, current events or hot in popular culture as your subject line. This can intrigue your subscriber but you must be careful that it doesn’t backfire. Avoid tragedies and other sad events but celebrity foibles and the like can work wonders.

An opt-in list gives you the opportunity to introduce your site and the products you sell there to new visitors. It can also help convince previous customers to buy again because of the good service you give them. Opt-in marketing is a marketing strategy that is very low cost and does not consume much time. In this kind of marketing, sometimes known as permission marketing, you get the consent of your web site visitors to receive your promotional newsletters, catalogs and other promotional materials via email.

You use a list of these email subscribers in your opt-in marketing efforts. These emails contain the promotional marketing materials you want your subscribers to see and to act upon. It is very essential that you present your promotional items in such a manner that they will catch the interest your subscribers. The objective is to keep them wanting for more from you. Perhaps the best way to accomplish this goal is to provide entertaining informational articles.

Well written articles full of useful information will greatly assist you in building your list of opt-in subscribers. These articles will be what entices them to subscribe to your list. When they read a samples of your articles on your web site you want them to be intrigued as to what will come next in the series. The only way they can get this is to subscribe to your newsletter.

One important side effect of having great articles is that they can aid in search engine optimization. Serving the right information to the right people via articles on your site will almost certainly increase the flow of your web site traffic as well as the number of subscribers to your opt-in marketing list.

This means that there has been a rise in the importance of having well written, informative and keyword packed articles for both site content as well as for newsletters. These articles supply the important information that many people are seeking on the Internet. If your site fills this need then more people will be going to your site for this information and will, in turn, subscribe to your list. 

Having well written articles will also boost your site’s reputation as an authority on a subject. If your articles are filled with good information about your topic you will find yourself to be regarded as an expert on the subject.

It is very important that your articles be well researched. You need to do this so that the people will trust you. Once you have gained their trust, they will begin to come for your site to get their questions answered for the topic at hand. Plus, they will probably subscribe to your promotional newsletter. 

Most people search for articles that are tips, guidelines, methods, reviews, manuals and so forth and so on for the topic that they have an interest in reading about more. Should you be the one that provides these articles to your visitors and, provided that your site gains their trust, they will return your site for help and advice on your topic and will, in all likelihood, subscribe to your list.

As I noted above as you build the the loyalty of these visitors, it becomes much more likely that they will see the value in may subscribing to your opt-in list. They will want to receive all the information you make available on your topic. Should you give them the answers for that need, they will be happy to use the resources you provide on both your site and in your newsletters as well as other promotional materials. With a little luck, they may even forward your newsletters to other people when they find a certain article interesting.

It is very important to ensure that you keep your subscribers interested in receiving your newsletters and other  promotional materials. To accomplish this you will need to keep on writing great articles for your site and for your newsletter as well. Should you not have the time, interest or ability to write quality articles, you should consider contracting with an experienced and knowledgeable writer. I think that you will find such and an investment will pay for itself many times over.

As you bring more traffic to your site, it is a good idea to try to entice as many of these visitors as possible to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. This is a list where web site visitors give their permission to be sent promotional materials. These may be newsletters, catalogs or simply just site updates. These promotional materials are sent via e-mail to the members of the list. 

When using email as the advertising media of your marketing efforts, you then eliminate the need for many high cost options. Email is free plus if you can handle creating your own promotional advertisements you can also save some money there as well. With an opt-in subscribers list, you can almost be sure that what you are sending out to your subscribers is being received, viewed and read and not simply being deleted. This is because they have signed up for subscription service saying that they have consented to receiving promotional emails.

The advantage of this method is that there are constant reminders being sent to your subscribers about all your products. This can be for new products and services as well as any promotions and special deals you are running at the time. There is also the chance that they will forward you promotional emails to other potential customers. Word of mouth as they tell their friends and families about you and your site can drive more traffic and buyers to your site.

Of course, you should be also aware that a subscriber may unsubscribe whenever they like. This is usually when they feel that they aren’t getting what they expected from your materials. It is quite important to make sure that they are highly satisfied with your opt-in marketing materials. You must absolutely keep them excited to receive your newsletters and catalogs.

Here are some tips that you can use to help you build a list of eager subscribers.

• Make your promotional materials interesting and fun. Try to use a little creativity but don’t go overboard. Build your promotional materials around whatever your product is about.
• Research what people are looking for on Google and elsewhere. This way, you will stay one step ahead of them at all times. This will help make them eager to receive what you are sending to them. They will think that you always have fresh and new things to share with them.
• Write good informational articles that are light at the same time. When your subscribers enjoy the articles, they are much more prone to go to your site or clicking advertising links that you will be putting on your newsletter.
• You should write articles that can connect to many people. Try to be diverse in how you write your articles.
• Use both humor and information together and separately.
• If your writing skills aren’t that good or if you don’t have time to devote to article writing consider hiring a professional and experienced article writer who can do the job for you in exchange for a minimal fee.
• Add e-coupons in your newsletters that will avail your subscribers of special discounts. You will probably want to use a control number in your e-coupon so that they can only be used once. When people get a discount via your newsletters, they will be eager to receive the next newsletter because they anticipate receiving yet another coupon.

When your subscribers get benefits from your newsletters, they will become very eager to receive them.