Building a List with the Right Mindset


The First Step

It is a common belief among Internet Marketers that having a mailing list is the best way to make money online. We have also heard that you can make thousands in a day with a mailing list. Sure, you can make thousands of dollars in a day with a list. The problem is that you don't build a huge, targeted, hungry market over night.
You have to understand that it is going to entail some hard work. You also must realize that you might not make money right away. It's not only going to take you time to build your list, but you also must build up their trust, before you start peddling products.
Far too often people get into list building thinking that they are going to be rich very soon. When they see how much work it can be, they get turned off. They think that they can create one product and or buy one product and pitch it to people, a huge list will ensue.

In reality you may have to pitch many, many products in order to build your huge list. It is an ongoing process, you don't just stop after a product or two. Look at some of the best list building guru's, they always keep coming up with products to help grow and build their list. Who doesn't want more subscribers and more money?
Now, there are certainly other ways of building your list. You can do it through eBay, but setting up a bunch of eBay auctions, is quite a bit of work. You have to have a product and you have to set up your sales page for each auction.
You could create an e-book, report, guide, newsletter or a mini-course. All of those things take work because you have to make sure that they are high quality. People won't subscribe to a mailing list for a bad product.

Even if they don't know that your product is bad, once they sign up and read your product and see for themselves how bad it is. How long to you think that they are going to stay on your list? They are going to be off it really quick.
Once you have the list, it's also work to keep them happy and eager to buy from you. Having a list is no good if they aren't happy with you or aren't willing to buy from you.
You have to give them freebies. You might have to create products to just give to your list. You also should come up with strategies to help them along with tips and hints. All this takes some work.

Having a list may be a lot less work than other money making strategies online, but it still takes some work. It's not something that you set on complete auto-pilot. It's an ongoing process and you need to stay on top of things.

The Second Step

The second thing that you must do is to get organized and plan a schedule. You don't have to plan things down to the minute. I know how working at home can be tough to plan a complete schedule, with all the distractions and things that come up, but at least set some goals for the week.

I'm a huge fan of setting goals for a few reasons. One is that it gives you something to strive for. Two is that it keeps you on track and keeps you on schedule. Third is that when you accomplish a goal, you get a sense of accomplishment and that's a great feeling. It gives you confidence to go on and achieve your other goals.

I love long-term goals and I think that everyone should have them and always think about them as motivation. I'm going to focus on setting short-term goals. Goals that you can achieve in a day or in a week or in a month.

I'm going to show you what I'm talking about. Say that you set your goals for the week to grow your list, create some new great quality content to give away and increase your traffic and keep my list happy. All of this is for the week.

Monday

1. Purchase an e-book about creating products that you have heard good things about. Read it and apply what you have learned about it.
   
2. Write a report that you believe your list of subscribers will love and be able to use to their benefit. Use this report to draw more subscribers.
   
3. Give them some additional hints in your email that you send with the free report.
   
4. Do some research on writing an e-book that you can sell to your list.
   

Tuesday

5. Start writing your e-book.
   
6. Write some articles and submit them and put a link to your squeeze page in your bio.
   
7. Test your squeeze page and try to increase conversions.
   

Wednesday

8. Continue writing your e-book.
   
9. Do some pay-per click to help get traffic to your squeeze page.
   
10. Send a helpful email to your list. Some tips or hints or something of that nature
    

Thursday

11. Finish writing your e-book.
    
12. Post in forums with a link to your squeeze page in your signature.
    
13. Search for great products that you can potentially do a joint venture with.
    

Friday

14. Come up with a sales email to send to your list.
    
15. Send your e-book to your list and charge x amount of dollars for it.
    
16. Get feedback from your list. Ways to improve it and get testimonials for your sales letter.
    
17. Write your sales letter and release your e-book to everyone else at a higher price.
    

You notice that I didn't put the hours for each task. To me the time isn't important. If you want to schedule things by hours and that helps you stay organized and on track then go ahead and set your schedule that way.

I don't because I believe that finishing the task and accomplishing your goals by the time that you set is what is really important. I believe that a person can do nothing for days and do all their work at one time, as long as they get their work done and accomplish what they set out to do by the time they wanted it done.

We work our own schedules. That means that it does not matter what time of the day we work and get things done. Just so that we get it done.

The Third Step

Realize that you should use more than one method to build your list. People join your list with different intentions. While I like giving away freebies to get people to join my list, there can be a problem with doing that.

There are plenty of people who just join your list to get a freebie. These people then unsubscribe to your list right away or else they stay on it and ignore any sales emails that are sent out. These people are basically dead weight. One of the many reasons that the size of the list can be highly overrated.

It may take longer to build a list from the people who buy from you, but they are going to be good for your list. There are several reasons for this.

The obvious one is that they have already bought from you. If they have already bought from you then there is a good chance that they will buy from you again.

You have built a trust with them. Hopefully your product was good and they really liked it. They now trust you enough to buy from you again.

Unlike some of the people who are seeking freebies. They are a proven buyer and have money to spend on products like yours. They obviously are interested enough in your information to pay for it. Having people like that on your list are golden.

Repeat business is the life blood of any good business and that's pretty much what you're running. You might not have a business title, but having your own list is your business title.

These people will buy your products over and over again. Just remember to keep making really good products and doing joint ventures with people with really good products.
If you don't think that you can wait awhile to make money while you build your list. I think that you should continue to build your list, but use another money making strategy online or get a job to support yourself.

You could always sell information products to people outside of your list. That is another reason that selling people something, in order to, build your list is a good idea. You are killing two birds with one stone by making money and building a list full of great buyers at the same time.

I use and highly recommend that if you are interested in building a list to promote your products check out AWeber today!