The Master List Builder

By Anthony Treas C0-Founder of Listcrusade.com
(c) 2005 All Rights Reserved.

Joel Christopher arrived in the United States 16 years ago as a licensed Physical Therapist. Four years ago he discovered the world of the Internet and began building mailing lists for products he wished to market. Mr. Christopher asked people what their biggest business problem was and over 60% said that they had problems building a mailing list from scratch. He began to build a mailing list and using specific techniques, tripled the list members within 99 days. The important knowledge, however, is how to mine the gold from your list. Converting a mailing list member into a customer list member is the key! Personal bonding with your prospects will lead to sales.

The size of your list is not as important as your personal bond with the people on your list. If you can’t connect with the people on your list, you will not be able to profit form the list. Your mailing list can be a gold mine only if you can truly relate well to the people on your list.

Mr. Christopher says, “It’s not just about building a list of names and emails, it’s about building relationships and connections.” He also states, “It’s not about huge numbers, it’s about conversions. Converting names and emails into prospects, then into customers/clients, and finally into people who will promote you,” is one major key to successfully mining the gold from your mailing list.

One concept Mr. Christopher recommends for building a mailing list is ‘personal branding postcards’. These postcards, whether hardcopy or electronic, should be very humanized by including photographs of yourself and your products. The cards should also include your website’s URL and a little information about the products. Personalize the card by making the written message appear to be hand-written. Whenever you meet anyone who may be a member of your target market, ask for their business card. Then follow up the meeting with a simple postcard indicating how happy you were to chat with the prospective client.

Another concept for building your mailing list is ‘cross-promotion’. If you are selling and shipping a product and wish to advertise another product line, you can insert your personal branding postcard into the package with a note thanking them for their order. Up to 5% of people who receive these cards will convert into clients for your business.

Another conversion tool is to create a ‘web card’ which is just a snapshot of your website. You can use “pay per click” advertising to generate web traffic and require the visitor’s mailing address in order to obtain a FREE product sample, audio tape or CD. These prospects can be easily converted into clients.

When visiting a trade show or speaking at an event, you can provide a prospect with a FREE audio tape or CD which provides product information. Pique the prospect’s curiosity by providing something for free. The free item should have information on your website so the prospect can find you and become a list member. Ask for their business card in exchange for the CD or tape. Then, you must follow-up with your prospect in order to mine the gold from these prospects.

Offline lists are a lot more responsive than online lists. People who actually meet you are more likely to actually purchase your products. Meeting the seller generates a bond with the client. This bond makes it much more likely that the client will convert into an online client. Turning offline prospects into online clients will truly create your gold mine generated from you mailing lists!

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To listen to our interview with Joel Christopher, where he reveals
amazing insights into creating your very own opt in list,
Click on the link now --> listcrusade.com
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