As any Internet marketer worth his or her salt will tell you, “the money is in the list.” In my opinion an opt-in email list is worth its weight in gold and is crucial for achieving any level of business success online. For any type or size of venture on the web, whether it’s a small home based business or a large e-commerce website a credible opt-in email list is a must and should be a top priority for anyone just starting out with a home based business on the Internet.
According to afirst.com: “an opt-in list is email that people sign up to receive because the subject matter is something they are interested in.” Names and email addresses are collected in various ways including squeeze pages, requesting email information in return for a free gift and requesting an email address in order to gain access to information on your website. Once you’ve compiled your list this allows you to market your offers and website via a mass e-mail campaign. Because of how the contact information was obtained sending messages en masse isn’t considered spamming.
Contacting an opt-in email list is usually the most responsive Internet marketing sales strategy you can employ because your recipients have already declared an interest in your products by signing up and agreeing to receive messages and updates on a regular basis. Your opt-in list also allows you to inform your customers and potential customers about any updates to your home business website and inform them of any upcoming specials or discounts.
As a webmaster you can rest assured, because of the nature of the relationship between sender and recipient, that more than 50% of your messages and announcements will be read and your response rate should be between 1% and 3%, according to net-market.com. Sign up rate and hence response rate will increase exponentially as the quality of your home business website content increases. The more valuable your visitors find your information the easier their decision will be to agree to become a list member.
After you have compiled your opt-in list and it has reached a number large enough to satisfy your comfort level then you can begin sending offers and promotions. These are some of the ways you can use your list to make money online:
(1) Sell advertising space on your list email. Many large companies will pay top dollar for ad space on a large, responsive opt-in email list. This saves them the time and money of having to build their own list and it allows them to reach a large audience in their particular niche. Each ad means money in your pocket but don’t over do it. Too many promotions can be overwhelming for your customers and list members therefore negating the effect of your advertisement.
(2) Create affiliations with other home business owners whose theme closely resembles your offer and whose list would be interested in your product and vise versa. You will allow this business to send a particular promotion to your list in return for the same so you can reach a lot more perspective customers.
(3) You can take this arrangement a step further and ask the business owner for a percentage of the sales made using your list. Therefore the more sales they make to your list members the larger your profits.
(4) If you’re into article marketing and article writing compile your editorials into an e-book which you can promote to your list. E-books are one of the hottest selling items online today and this would be an excellent way to create another income stream from your home business website.
(5) Create an incentive program which you can promote to your members. Ask them to recommend your home business to their friends and family and offer a bonus for each one they recruit who joins your email list and or becomes a paying customer.
(6) Create a joint venture with another business whereby you’ll market a product together and advertise it to both email lists. This is another great way to add another income stream to your business and increase your profits.
These are some of the ways you can profit from your opt-in email list and as you can see it provides an excellent opportunity to explode your profits and put your online home based business on the Internet marketing map.