For every new home based business owner just starting their Internet marketing career building an email list of hungry buyers should be a top priority. To be effective your list should be comprised of people who are interested in your website and your product or service. In other words it should be an opt-in email list. An opt-in list is made up of potential customers who have expressed an interest in your home business by providing their email address.
There are many different Internet marketing techniques you can employ to entice your website visitors to provide their contact information and I am going to explore in this article what I consider to be the top ten methods for creating a responsive opt-in email list.
1. Place a squeeze page on your home business site offering a free subscription to your newsletter for providing their name and email address.
2. Place a login page on your home page so that your visitors have to provide their contact information in order to gain entry to your website and the information they’re looking for.
3. Give your potential customers a free e-book for signing up as a member of your home business website which will grant them certain privileges such as weekly updates pertaining to your website, a monthly newsletter related to the overall theme of your home business and a password for access to the member’s only area.
4. Create a monthly contest or drawing for a free gift and have them register for the opportunity to win. This not only captures their information but is also a great way to have them return on a regular basis to see if they were the lucky winner.
5. Create a course in your area of expertise. For example if the theme of your home business is Internet marketing you could introduce weekly presentations covering different related topics. One week you could cover driving traffic to your website and the next week you could discuss article marketing as a strategy to attract free traffic, and so on. In order to gain access to the presentation your visitors would have to register and be supplied with a password for entry.
6. Display any testimonials you may have received on your home page as a way of enticing people to sign up for your ezine.
7. Offer discounts on their first purchase if they register for your free ezine or newsletter.
8. Offer a free test drive of your product if they subscribe to your members area. For example, a 30 day free trial of your offer after which they must decide whether or not to purchase.
9. Place a sales letter on your home business site highlighting what your product can do for your potential customers and what problems it can solve. Place a sign up form at the bottom of the letter for them to purchase.
10. Offer your visitors a free membership to your affiliate program for registering for your free newsletter.
These can be very effective opt-in list building strategies if employed correctly and creating a responsive email list can take your online home based business to the next level.