List building - 4 top strategies to build a long opt-in list

Internet marketing may have developed a sudden surge these past few years, but many in the know, have felt its rise even more. As more Internet-based businesses are developed, the need to design new marketing skills and awareness have come about. New marketing strategies are being discovered and developed almost on a weekly basis to manage the evolving business to business world.

The demand for Internet marketing tips and strategies have significantly evolve, thus creating d a new business model, Internet marketing. While there are companies that are all too eager to assist web site owners develop a large opt-in list a fee, there are also many free or low-cost strategies that can provide more visibility to a web site. One such strategy is opt-in email marketing, also known as permission marketing.

Opt-in marketing requires the permission of a person to subscribe to your marketing material, such as newsletters, products and promotional e-mail. The more opt-in email sent to a list, the more chances there is to develop paying customers. To do this, a web site owner must build a list of subscribers who wish to receive further information by opting in.

From a developed opt-in list will come targeted customers. these are hot leads as they have already shown an interest in obtaining the initial offered information by subscribing to a list. Many Internet marketers believe that building a list takes a lot of hard work and effort to collect names and email addresses. This does take a bit of time, but like anything, effort is rewarded by results.

The Internet abounds with reference material and articles on list building. Like all industries, Internet marketing has as many list building strategies as it does marketers.

Here are four of them that I have found most useful:-

• Design a professional looking opt-in web form for visitors to enter their name and email address. The location for this form is very crucial in that it should be placed above the top fold of the web page. The fold of a web page is the portion above the screen bottom when scrolled to the top of a respective web page. Research has shown that form placement is vital as to whether a person enters their data or not. If your home page does not command a visitor's attention and the form does not stick out, they are likely to leave.

• Designing an attractive opt-in web form is not difficult to do. Any autoresponder service will offer this feature, such as Aweber or 1Shoppingcart . Once a form is designed on their site, simply copy and paste the html code provided into the html code page of a website and Presto, the exact form that was designed appears. Because the form is linked to the autoresponder, once a person enters their data it is automatically collected into a database, which is then used to send marketing emails.

• As described above, the web site must be professional looking. Adding informative and topic specific articles will assist in providing sticking power for visitors. Make a web site useful and easy to navigate will also add to the attraction of search engines, thus providing a higher Page Rank (PR).

• Any Internet business web site should provide good services and product offerings. It is easier to sell to a returning customer than to attract new ones. As in retail stores, satisfied customer will always recommend a business to their friends and family. Word of mouth and recommendations alone can rake in more business than expensive advertisement. As a web site's visitor list and opt-in list grows so shall profits. Like is any sales environment, a person is more likely to purchase an item from someone they know , like and trust. In the Internet marketing world, this is done with sporadic, but constant email contact.

• Privacy above all else. If an opt-in visitor or customer finds out a web site owner passed on their email address, and thus start receiving spam mail, the web site owner will lose a list very quickly.

In the Internet marketing world, reputation is everything and will assist in attracting an avalanche of traffic and subscribers as well as strengthen the loyalty of your customers.

[examiner]