Having your
own opt in list is essential if you want to succeed
on the internet. Its common knowledge that email marketing
is one of the most reliable ways of generating consistent
free targeted traffic for your website.
Once you have your own responsive opt in list it can
open up a variety of different opportunities, such as
selling advertising space and setting up joint ventures
with other list owners.
The first thing you need to do is collect email addresses
from your visitors and you can do this by offering a
free report or starting a newsletter using an auto responder,
allowing you to set up a series of messages that will
be sent out automatically on your behalf on a timeframe
you specify.
Its important to choose the most reliable auto responder
at the start because it can be very stressful and time
consuming to transfer your opt in list from one place
to another.
For best results you should not use a free auto responder
service because advertisements will be added to all
your outgoing emails. You will have no control over
which ads are shown and this will distract your subscribers
and dramatically reduce the response rates to your emails.
You can either pay a monthly fee and use a third party
hosted auto responder service like Aweber or Get Response,
or you can pay a one time fee and install an auto responder
script like Auto Response Plus on your domain.
The problem with auto responder scripts is that the
number of subscribers you can store will be limited
depending on how much disk space you have with your
hosting plan, and you will also need to backup your
list on a regular basis in case a problem occurs and
all of the information is lost.
It's much easier and safer to use a third party hosted
auto responder service because you will not have to
worry about installing a script and your subscribers
will be stored securely on a dedicated server with no
limits.
It's essential that you focus on one specific topic
for your opt in list as this will dramatically increase
your response rates. You need to create a landing page
consisting of a short sales letter that encourages visitors
to subscribe, and a subscription form that allows visitors
to enter their name and email address. You should also
offer some quality bonus gifts to increase your conversion
rates.
Double opt in lists are becoming more popular because
they provide extra security as subscribers must confirm
their email address, but many people will forget to
complete this confirmation which results in fewer active
subscribers so you may prefer to use the single opt
in feature.
Once you have set up your landing page and follow up
messages you will need to start sending visitors to
your website. Submitting content to article directories
and writing press releases are the most effective ways
of generating unlimited free targeted traffic.
This article was written by Simon Akers who is the
editor of the Marketing Oasis newsletter, a free internet
marketing ezine packed with tips to help you succeed
and increase your profits: http://www.marketingoasis.com/
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