Profitable List Building With Relationship Marketing

February 20th, 2012 by Diane Conklin under Information Marketing, Marketing, Social Media. 1 Comment.

Want to know more about getting people to opt-in to your list?

List building is one of the most important aspects of your business – no matter what kind of business you have.

You always need to have a way for prospects opt-in to your list so you can continue to market to them and be in touch with them. You have to have a way to capture people’s names, emails and addresses, if you’re ever going to send direct mail you will need their physical address and it’s easier to get it up front than it is to go back later and try to get it. At the very least, you want to capture a name and an email address when people opt-in to your list.

Recently, the trend is that people aren’t asking for a name, but instead just asking for an email address. The purpose of the opt-in, whether it’s on your main website, on your blog, or on a stand-alone squeeze page, is to be able to go back and market to people again, over time.

As a small business owners or entrepreneurs don’t think you need to sell somebody something the first time they come to you or the first time you see them – please, get that out of your mind. Marketing and business success is about bringing the client in, getting them to opt-in, and then being able to market to them over and over and over again. You want to market to them over time so you can make not only the initial sale, but many sales after that and keep your clients with you for a long time to come as you provide them with great products and services. I’m not talking about a year, but what if you had to send three to seven emails to them before they said they want to invest with you. That would be ok because you could do that in a week or so and it gives you time to build the relationship with the client.

On your opt-in, it’s not enough for you to just offer people a subscription to your ezine or your online newsletter.

People want solutions to their problems, they want solutions to their challenges and they are looking for help…your help. If you offer a free CD, or a free report, or a free e-book, or video that will tell your prospect the number one secret to whatever it is they’ve come to you for, they will give you their name and email, so they can get that information from you.

And, the best part is you can market to them later with other things. If you can solve that one thing they came to you for, that issue or challenge that got their attention and you have a unique spin, or something that you have that gives them the wow effect, or that was a really great idea, or a great reminder of something they already knew, but you have a different angle. If you can do that for people, they want your information and they want to hear from you again. They will want more and more of you and your great information, content and help.

More than likely they don’t want your newsletter, they don’t want your online newsletter, and they don’t want to think that’s what they’re getting. They want you to solve a problem for them and they want it solved as quickly as possible – most of the time, they want it solved yesterday.

So, give them that. Give them a free CD, an e-book, or whatever, but make sure what you give them is something of great value to them. If it’s high content, high value, and it’s free, they will naturally come back. You want your prospect to get so much out of your free content that the thought they have in their mind is if I got me this much great information and it was free, what in the world is in the other information they are offering that I could invest in.

They will come, they will buy, and if you continue to keep giving them high content and high value for their investments. They will keep coming back because you have built a real, authentic, valuable relationship with them and that’s what the world is all about today. It’s about building relationships in whatever form that happens, whether it’s live, one-on-one, via email, in social media, however it is the communication happens, that’s when the magic starts.

Tags: Communication, Complete Marketing Systems, Diane Conklin, entrepreneur, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Persuasion, Relationship Marketing, Social Media, squeeze page.