7 Easy Steps to Building a Massive Targeted Mailing List!

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This should be the main focus of anybody trying to create a business online. No if’s no but’s!

1. Define your market
2. Develop an ethical bribe – Solve a problem for your market
3. Create an Aweber account
4. Create a WordPress blog
5. Adding your opt in box to your site
6. Add relevant unique content to your blog
7. Drive traffic to your blog

Define Your Market

That’s it just 7 steps, and by targeted I mean that using this 7 step process you will attract visitors that are actually looking to your content for a solution to their problem. Define your market, find out what problems they are having and give them the solution.

So how do we “define” our target market? Well as luck would have it my one of my previous blog posts covers just that. It’s a journey of discovery and it is dreadfully easy. All we need is Google and a few other online tools, a couple of hours and we are done.

Check out that article here and I strongly suggest you do this first. Actually even if you are not trying to build a list, getting amongst your market and finding out what they are up to and what problems they are having is an excellent thing to do, it can become a great source of ideas for other content too like blog posts for example.

If done extensively and correctly you should end up with some idea of your potential client fears, frustrations, dreams and aspirations…. This knowledge is pure gold, I might of mentioned that before!

Develop an Ethical Bribe

Ok so we are armed with some fantastic knowledge of our market and potential clients. It is now time to create our “ethical bribe”. All we need to do is solve a problem for them. A prime example of a good bribe is my last report 7 Simple Step To Really Ramp Up The Traffic To Your Website. This addressed the problem most people have online which is getting more traffic, the report worked really well and I added a load more people to my mailing list.

The average internet surfer is getting more and more sophisticated so I am starting to find that one needs to push the envelope to get their attention. “The Crash Course” is something with a lot more perceived value than a simple report and is definitely worth giving a try.

After searching your market you should have a set of frequently asked questions that people in your niche are constantly asking. Create a multi part PDF or better still a video series that answers all of these questions. At the end of the video promote your products or services or simply your website. This is a solid piece of content and will create an excellent first impression. Hopefully they will be opting in left, right and centre!

Open an Aweber Account

The next important thing to do is open an Aweber account, this is where your email list will live and where you create your opt in forms. Instead of me taking you through the process I have added a link here on how to set up your first campaign. Opening an account is easy and you get the first month for $1. Check out his video on how to get started once you have opened your account.

Create a WordPress Blog

The next step if you have not already got a blog, is to set up a WordPress blog. This has is quite a simple process which is outline in this video tutorial. Bluehost will quickly walk you through the steps to get you started. There is obviously a lot more that can be done with the functionality, SEO, the design but you can source information on that very easily on my blog or with Google.

Adding Relevant, Unique Content

The next thing to do is populate your blog with relevant unique content, if you struggle to write blog posts you can outsource to a company such as Task Us. But remember the market discovery we did earlier, this can be a great source of inspiration to you for writing blog pots, again think about your client’s fears, frustration, their dreams and aspirations. Look to other articles for more ideas, Ezine Articles is a great place for this.

Being unique, interesting and maybe controversial are ways to grab people attention so bear that in mind. There are some great articles out there with information on how to create great content. Here is a post from one of my favourite blogs Pro Blogger

Install Your Opt in Form in Your Sidebar

Your sidebar is the best place to put your sign up form, top right is prime real estate on a web page and your visitors eyes are naturally drawn there. We simply go to the widgets section of the dashboard in WordPress and drag and drop a spare “text widget” to the relevant position in the sidebar, we then go to Aweber to get the form code and drop it in and click “save”.

Here is a video that shows you exactly how to create your form in Aweber and to install it on WordPress.

Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Once you have all the above set up it is time to turn on the traffic! My report I mentioned earlier about ramping up traffic to your site is a great place to start. This will help get your brand out there and give you plenty of exposure.

Traffic generation does not stop there obviously there are loads of other strategies and tac tics you can use to pull in the punters.

I’ve listed some below with links through to a third party “how to” of each one.

• Read my report “7 Steps To Really Ramp Up The Traffic To Your Website”
• Use Pay Per Click advertising at Google, Yahoo & Microsoft
• Go to Stumble Upon and create an account, use their Ad program.
• Use Facebook Ads – Connect with more than 500 million potential customers
• Install the All In One SEO plugin
• Submit an XML site map to Google
• Use Ryan Deiss’s Authority Code Strategy to create quality back links to your site
• Keep writing great quality, original, fresh content – This is the most effective means for increasing traffic to a website; offering people something that they cannot obtain elsewhere, or at least, not to the level of quality that you are offering it.

Conclusion

Creating a mailing list is one of the best things you can do for your online business, you are creating an asset and in time it will be your ATM, anytime you need more money you email your list with a fantastic offer!

It is a simple formula that Jeff Walker created originally TT + IB = HFL! Now excuse the Americanism but the formula is simply

Targeted Traffic sent to an Irresistible Bribe = A Huge Freakin’ List

On that note I will wrap this little post up.

I would love to hear your successes or otherwise in your quest to create a massive mailing list, feel free to leave a comment below.

Related posts:

1. List Building Doesn’t Work
2. 11 Easy Steps To Effective Market Research