The title of this post is another question I get from time to time.
People realize that they need to build an email list but they’re not sure of how to go about it and what tools are needed to put things in motion.
It comes down to needing 3 basic things…
- An autoresponder service to capture and store email addresses and to send out emails to your subscribers.
- A lead capture page / squeeze page / landing page or a popup to present to visitors an optin form where they enter their email address.
This blog post explains lead capture pages and autoresponder services and how they tie together.
- An incentive (called a lead magnet) to entice people to sign up.
This is a place to start if you’re in the internet/affiliate marketing niche and are stuck for reports to offer potential subscribers.
Autoresponders
MailChimp is not a good autoresponder to use if you’re in the internet marketing niche, especially affiliate marketing.
They don’t like these niches and will summarily cancel accounts found to be sending out emails on these topics.
I know because it happened to me.
There are several alternative autoresponder services that are happy to work with internet / affiliate marketers.
The top two are GetResponse and Aweber. Other services tend to be more expensive and offer more advanced features which you don’t need when starting out.
Lead Capture Pages
There are 3 basic ways to create a lead capture page:
- Create one with your autoresponder service – all provide basic templates for creating these pages and code to integrate them into your own website.
- If your website runs on WordPress, then there are several plugins you can buy that will allow you to create customized lead capture pages.
These pages will be on your site. Some plugins will also allow you to create popups – those smaller windows that appear over a webpage asking you to sign up for something.Buying a plugin usually requires just a one-time payment. Some will offer maintenance contracts where you pay an annual fee to get updates and ongoing support.A good place to start is with the free Elementor plugin.
- The third way is to use a web-based page builder. You do not need your own site to create lead capture pages here. They will be hosted on the service’s webserver for you.
There are two types of service – ones that are page builders and ones that are popup builders.Page builders tend to be on the expensive side running from $99/year to $97/mth and all the way up to $297/mth, depending on the features you want.Popup builders are in the $10-$20/mth range.Since these are subscription-based services, the pages you create will only remain online as long as you continue to pay your subscription.
The lead magnet is one of the keys to getting people to sign up.
If you can offer something exclusive, all the better. It could be free training, a basic level membership in a membership site you run, a free report or ebook, etc.
If you find it hard to come up with ideas or you don’t have time, you can always outsource the work or subscribe to a service that provides this material for you on a regular basis.
If your niche is something other than internet/affiliate marketing, then finding sources of material you can repurpose will be harder. In these cases, you either have to create your lead magnet yourself or hire a ghost writer.
All the best,
Gary Nugent
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P.S.: Don't forget, if you want to create an internet income of your own, here's one of my recommended ways to do that:
