Don’t laugh; it is not what you’re thinking. Although the jolly old guy could probably teach all of us a thing or two about lists and list building. Just the mention of his list can still send shivers down my spine, residue from all those childhood wonderings if I was naughty or nice?

However, this article has nothing to do with Santa directly, but in a way it has everything to do with him!

You see indirectly, old Saint Nick played a prominent part in my list building education; a very important role. Please let me explain and it may help you in your own list building efforts.

Like every webmaster or online marketer I kept hearing from Day One how vitally important it was to build your own opt-in or permission based contact list. It would be the key to building traffic and revenue from your site or online marketing. The one key element you must have.

But building a list is easier said than done, anyone who has tried to build a list will know this fact. I soon realized I needed help with my list building. For more details simply visits www.craigs-list-profits.com. I have an art background, that’s not important, but it did show me how to learn or dissect a subject. All artists develop a hands-on “let’s dig in and dissect this creature” attitude; they learn by exploring and studying the masters/techniques that have worked in the past.

This inquisitive learning becomes a second skin.

It was extremely helpful when I started to build my lists. I first examined how other well known marketers were building their lists. One common theme that keeps repeating itself was: free gifts.

Almost all these marketers gave away a free gift: report, e-book, recourse, article, software program, marketing tips or knowledge – all in exchange for the name and email of their visitors.

This simple tactic worked like a charm. Maybe it has something to do with our unbreakable belief in a Santa! Or maybe it has to do with that entire gift giving; we all like to receive gifts. Who doesn’t?

Soon I had my own free gifts (e-books, recourses, and free software programs) on all my sites, attached to follow-up auto responders to keep in contact with all my visitors and prospects on my lists. My lists grew

But I didn’t stop there, as free gifts was a key to building lists, I needed a creature to dissect!

Then a few years ago, such a creature stumbled out of my email inbox. This was “The 12 Days of Christmas” give-away package by Mark Hendricks.

Countless marketers all donated valuable gifts to an online package/promotion in exchange for building their contact lists. Great idea and the gifts just kept on coming for well, 12 days.

Everyone builds their lists compliments of dear old Saint Nick.

However, I used the Gift package in another way. I signed up for whatever marketers or gifts interested my fancy but I then did an in depth study of how each of these marketers handled their follow-ups. To know more about it simply login to www.confessions-followup-marketing.com. What they did to build or lose my loyalty. Which ones held my interest, which ones I unsubscribed from and why. Analyzing a whole group of marketers and webmasters through this online package was a valuable lesson or training in list building.

A direct, hands-on experience that pointed out the techniques and methods of building a responsive contact list. What you really need to know about building an effective list.

One of the fastest, easiest ways to get started with an online business is to promote affiliate products. This way, you eliminate the time-consuming task of having to develop your own product. Promoting digital e-books through Clickbank is an easy way to go. You can simply pick one of the 12,000 plus e-books listed, run some pay-per-click ads, or write an article or two, and wait for the checks to roll in. And there’s nothing wrong with this model, if you want to make a few extra bucks on the side.

But as you become more experienced, you will quickly learn, as I did, that the customers you send to these affiliate links are now long gone, and they are no longer YOUR customers. They are now your affiliate program’s customers. So, while you may have made a few bucks in commissions, you were really working for free to build a nice list for your affiliate program. They now have those customers for life and can continue to promote new products to them.

Now, think about it. What if 1,000 people read your ad and clicked onto your affiliate website? Well, you may have made a few sales, but what happened to the 1000 people who clicked on your ad in the first place? Someone else has those names, and you gave them away for free! This is a big mistake and one that is easy rectifiable.

I’ll bet you’ve heard the phrase, “The money is in the list.”

I know I ignored this important bit of wisdom for a long time. I knew that the right way to promote affiliate products was to have customers go to your website first and then on to the affiliate sales page. This way YOU could capture their email address and they could become your customers. But if you’re not a techie, the thought of building a website, getting an autoresponder to capture email addresses, and following up with emails might send shivers down your spine. The thought of it all made me dizzy.

So I tried a few different things. At first, I bought a CBMall,
www.clickbank-success.com and signed up as an affiliate. This is a wonderful concept. You simply run ads or write articles to promote this Clickbank Mall and when someone visits the mall, all nicely sorted by topics and buys a product from Clickbank, you get a commission. You as the mall owner, are allowed to purchase any Clickbank product at the affiliate discount, which is a wonderful benefit. I save tons of money because I buy LOTS of e-books. Another great benefit is that once a customer makes that click, the CBMall sends a free newsletter and does the follow-up for many months. The only downside is that you don’t capture the email addresses and you don’t build a list.

So then I also joined a plug-in Clickbank affiliate website, which means that you can build a basic website without techie knowledge. You simply point and click to the Clickbank products that you want to offer and they magically appear on the screen, image and all. You write a little copy and presto, you’re done. Now you have your own website. What you don’t have is an autoresponder. You can purchase one yourself and add it to the website, but this is where it gets a little tricky. You have to know how to use a Cpanel, which is very complicated if you don’t have the training and you also need to have some knowledge of HTML. If you visit www.home-biz-advisor.com, you’ll notice that I didn’t get that far. If this isn’t a problem for you, then this company has some good benefits.

Finally, I discovered a new idea created by a pure genius!

It works like a plug-in-website in the sense that you simply point and click to instantly create a website designed to promote any affiliate products that you choose. You simply enter your affiliate codes. However, the features are incredible. You just point and click to set up a free autoresponder and a sign- up page to capture email addresses. You choose a domain name, write some sales copy and that’s it. You can easily add audio if you’d like, by calling a phone number and taping your message. Ad tracking is included and is very clearly set up, so you can see where your clicks come from. The instruction manual is well written and everything is clearly spelled out, step-by-step. Anyone can follow the process.

The benefits…well, finally YOU can have your own mailing list and you need no technology knowledge, whatsoever! It took a total of about 45 minutes to get my website online, from start to finish. Take a look at it at http://instant-web-builder.smmsite.com.

So if you’d like to promote affiliate products, remember that the secret to making big money is in the list. Check out the myriad of opportunities, and see what works best for you. Then GO FOR IT!

By zimbio.com
Internet Marketing Product Launches