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Tonight’s discussion is also an exercise in list building. A few weeks ago, the question was asked about the importance of building a list. Depending on your niche, business or marketing tactics, building a list can be very important for you, but also, very hard to do as well!
I’m not trying to scare you off from doing this, but you need to be aware that when you decide to build a list of subscribers, that this will not happen overnight. Building a good list can take months or even years before you have enough loyal subscribers that will enable your list to start making you money.
Now, before I go further, let’s step back and look at what is needed to start building a list. Let’s assume you want to start your own eZine (electronic magazine) or your own monthly newsletter. Of course, the first thing you need, is the eZine or Newsletter. Writing an eZine or newsletter is not the same as writing a blog post. Your eZine should have a format worthy of your niche and your newsletter, likewise, should have topics in it that aren’t normally found on your blog, web site or podcast.
Once you have your eZine or newsletter and are ready to start producing it on a weekly, monthly or whatever basis, then the next thing you need to do is to setup an autoresponder. An autoresponder will be your 24 hour Assistant for signing up subscribers, opting out subscribers, sending subscribers follow up notices and the like. There are many autoresponder services out there like Aweber, GetResponse and others that will charge a monthly fee to use there service. Aweber, for example, offers a 30 day free trial of their service so that you can test drive the service for yourself.
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Simply fill out the form above to get your free 30 day trial with Aweber.
Ok, once you have your autoresponder setup, you must go out and setup the messages that will go out to your subscribers. The first message should be a welcome message, welcoming the new subscriber to your eZine or newsletter. Also, let your new subscriber know that they can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the link that is always found at the bottom of each e-mail you send. This will give your new subscriber a little more confidence in subscribing with you.
Once the autoresponder is setup and all the messages are in place, next, you need to grab the HTML code from your service and place this “Subscribe to me” box on your web site or blog so that people can easily subscribe to you. Once this is in place, it is time for a promotion on your blog, site and podcast letting everyone know that they can now subscribe to your eZine or newsletter easily and tell them how to do this!
Once your autoresponder is setup, you will receive an e-mail every time someone subscribe or unsubscribes to your list. Now is the time to start producing good content so that your subscribers will stay on and continually receive your e-mails and enjoy what you are sending out. Here is your chance, once you have some subscribers on your list, to slip in a extra e-mail or two every once in a while, with a special offer or promotion you have going. DON’T start spamming your own list or else you will lose everyone before you even get started. If you are producing a weekly newsletter, send one e-mail every week, usually the same day each week, announcing the newsletter is ready or that the e-mail contains that weeks newsletter (however, you may be sending it out) and likewise, monthly, once a month send out this e-mail. After you get your list started, and your subscribers have began receiving your weekly or monthly e-mails, THEN you can start slipping in the extra one or two every now and again. Haste makes waste, and you don’t want to get hasty when starting your list.
When setting up your eZine or newsletter, you will need to decide on the format, like I mentioned earlier. Are you going to send it out in HTML, like a web page, will it be a blog post or page, will it be in TXT format or PDF? Are you going to include audio or video as part of your publication?
There are lots of things to think about, however, mainly you will want to send it out in a format that will benefit the majority of your audience. PDF for example, can be read on PC’s and Macs, and this is the most popular way of sending out a newsletter, however, TXT or text format is also good, unless you are wanting to include links, audio, video, etc. that will not work in this format. HTML e-mails or good for links, adding audio and video and can be read on most e-mail readers. Of course, having a separate blog post or page is also universal for you as well.
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This week’s challenge:
Decide on whether to produce an eZine or a Newsletter for your site, blog, or podcast. You don’t have to actually start one, just decide on which you would want to produce. Then go to the show notes for this show and leave a comment on which way you decided. The challenge winner this week will receive a copy of AutoResponder Unlimited, a $37.95 value, self hosted script.