Welcome back to Day 4 of my Quick Tips – how I would get started from scratch again, starting a business online or taking my business online, knowing what I know now.
The next thing I need, to capture the names and emails of all the traffic I’m generating via my blog, my Facebook profile and page, my Twitter timeline and perhaps my YouTube channel, is a mailing list host.
This is an online service, that generates a bit of code, that I can drop into the sidebar of my blog, where folks can give me their name and email in return for a free gift of some kind.
(Don’t worry if you don’t have one, I’ll come back to that in a minute)
How to choose?
The question you have to ask yourself is………..”Am I ever going to want to sell anything of my own – a product, service, workshop, coaching…..anything at all”
If the answer is yes, then you should really look at the service I use, which is TotalBusinessCart. You can start with the basic level and work up to the all-bells-and-whistles version, which offers product management, affiliate management, ad tracking and all sorts. Everything you need in fact, to run your online business. Enjoy a 30 day trial here, with my best wishes http://bit.ly/nctbc
If you never intend to sell anything yourself, then you probably only need an email / newsletter service, such as aWeber or Get Response
The main benefit of aWeber is that you can set it for single opt in still. This is good because you can build a list of prospects who you gradually move over into your main “buyers” list hosted by Total Business Cart. You are running the risk of sp.am complaints if you use a single opt in list because your prospects may not remember signing up to your list, so it’s vital to keep in touch with them at least weekly – and give them info of value without selling all the time. But you will get more prospects initially because they don’t have to confirm their interest – you just have to work harder to convert them to customers via a free product that they “buy” and enter your main list. Of course, you then have to mail your ezine or info to two lists but I think it’s worth it.
Another reason you might want to use Get Response for initial contacts is because it has a feature where you can show your prospects a list of other GetResponse ezines (after they have confirmed onto yours!) and you earn credits so that your list gets shown too. It also integrates very nicely with a listbuilding service called Listcrew. I’ve only just started using Listcrew – on Martin Avis’ recommendation – so the jury’s still out but as soon as I know whether I can recommend it to you, I will let you know.
Back to the free gift………..if you want to give your people something cool for joining your mailing list, there are a number of ways to do that.
You could use one of the free reports from The Money Gym, covering everything from wealth creation to internet marketing.
You could use one of the many ebooks or bits of software that many give away as bonuses with products you may purchase.
Your can create your own report or ebook using OpenOffice.org - a bit like Microsoft Word but it’s free and the Write part of it has the function of allowing you to turn your written document into a PDF file easily.
Or you could simply interview someone for an hour via a teleconference line, record it, and give the MP3 download away as a gift.
Unique, cheap and a high perceived value to your potential mailing list subscriber.
I hope you have enjoyed this email and I look forward to sharing more good stuff with you soon.
Warm regards
Nicola
