Hey Guys,
One of the best things that I did early on in my internet marketing career was to build an email list of customers.
In this post I want to share with you some of the best tactics that I have used to grow my email lists in the various niches that I am in, so that you can copy my success and grow big email lists as well.
Before I discuss how to build an email list, it is important that you understand the very basic concept of a squeeze page. In case you are a newbie, a squeeze page is a basic page that is designed to get the visitor to leave their name and email address, so that you can move them onto your email database.
Squeeze pages can come in many shapes and sizes, a few being flying popovers, exit grabbers, videos and standard pages. The key element is that you must make sure you are giving the visitor a good reason to leave their details. Giving away a free mini course of some type is a great thing to do.
I am not going to go into the do’s and don’t’s of a squeeze page now, but I encourage you to spend some time learning how to make a great squeeze page, because it is a very valuable skill to have.
Now I am going to outline 7 strategies that work for me, however keep in mind this is not an exhaustive list, but these tactics work well indeed!
How To Build An Email List
1.) Forum Signature Links
Forums are a great resource for internet marketers, as this is where your target market hangs out online, and they are ideal places to find candidates to join your email list. The best way to do this, is to have a link in your signature that goes to a squeeze page. The more you post in the forum the more your signature link is placed, and the higher the likelihood of someone clicking the link and signing up.
The great thing about forums is that people use them to search for answers, and Google indexes them quickly, so the 
more your get involved, the more traffic you can get to that squeeze page through your signature link. This works exceptionally well in the Internet Marketing Niche.
2.) Blog Commenting
Blogs can be a great way to get a back link to your website for SEO, if of course the blog has the no follow tag switched off. However even if the no follow tag is switched on, if the blog is a high traffic blog, then this is another chance for you to leave a link with your comment, that goes to a squeeze page. Once again these are relevant leads and cost you nothing to gain, except your time.
A good way to find out how much traffic a blog gets is to use Alexa.com, and analyze the sites stats there.
3.) Content Network
You can of course pay for traffic to your squeeze pages, and this works for me, however I’ve experienced the best results when using Google Content Network. The volume is large when you are using the Content Network, however if done badly can actually be a disaster.
With that said, if you use the Google Placement Targeting feature, you can tell Google what sites you would like your ads to appear on. Then all you need to do is search in Google on high volume keywords, look at the first page results for each one, and take note of the ones that have Google Adsense on them.
These sites obviously get traffic, and you are choosing the keywords, so if done well the result is higher CTR (click through rate)
which means lower CPC (cost per click) and more leads onto your list.
One last point to note is, make sure you track what you are doing, by placing Google’s tracking code on the page a visitor reaches after they have left their name and email and clicked submit. You can also set up reports within Google to track what websites are giving the best conversions.
4.) Buy Products In Your Niche
This tactic works better in some niches than others, nonetheless one tactic is to purchase products in your niche market that have active forums for members. By doing this you can get involved in the forums and once again have a link in your signature to a squeeze page. The great thing about this tactic is that you are getting ‘Buyer’ leads onto your email list, which is worth gold.
5.) Twitter
I’m pretty sure a vast majority of the people reading this post will have a Twitter account. However a great way to gain even more leads is to have a link to a squeeze page in an auto-reply message that people get when they follow you.
Alternatively you can have a link to a squeeze page above the bio field in your Twitter profile, like I do.
6.) YouTube
More and more people are using Youtube every month, and an easy way to gain leads is to create a video in your niche that has a strong and very obvious call to action. The video can either direct the user to click the link to your squeeze page on the right, or go to the page directly, with a very easy URL to type into the browser.
7.) Free Traffic on Longtail Keywords
One simple way to drive traffic to your websites and blogs is to continually be getting new content indexed that is optimized for longtail keywords. Longtail phrases are less competitive and therefore little SEO is required in some circumstances to get a high Google ranking.
If you do this regularly, and have a sign up method on the pages, then you will also gain leads this way too. Although the traffic on longtails is less, of you regularly add more content then it will add up.
That’s all from me, I hope you have learned some valuable tricks on how to build an email list.
I would love to hear from you, so please feel welcome to share your own tricks or simply comment below!!
Related articles
Matt,
Good stuff as usual. I think the advice regarding “buy products in your niche” is good.
I also think that when you go searching for PLR or MRR in your niche…and you find none…you might need to reevaluate. It’s amazing how difficult it seems to be to find your first niche.
I think everyone struggles with that and most people think that picking a low competition option is the easiest way to make money. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to workout.
-RS
Matt Carter Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Hey Rob,
Good to hear from you again my friend. You raise some good points, about PLR and MRR. And yes a lot of people do struggle with finding their first successful niche, but the process of doing it is all valuable, because you are learning as you go!!
Thanks for your input
Cheers
Matt
Hey Matt
Great looking blog!
Some great tips on traffic generation too. So many people do not know about Google’s placement location. It’s a powerful traffic tool and people don’t pay per click as with Adwords, but instead per 1,000 impressions! So the ad would be shown on the targeted URL before the advertiser is charged.
FYI: A similar option to Google is AdBrite.com and some say it’s more user-friendly.
Dave Lovelace
WebsiteTrafficBootcamp.com
Matt Carter Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Hey Dave,
Thanks for the AdBrite.com tip, I will have to look into this as I can’t say I have any experience with it.
Thanks for the tip
Cheers
Matt
Matt,
good,solid info. again..I watched your 12 videos and saved them and refer to them often.
I am just wondering why you say “the content networ can be a disaster” if you don’t use placements because I am using the content network at the moment and am getting good results in obtaining sign ups for my free book.
Are you suggesting that if you don’t use targeted placements the quality of the traffic is not as good?
John
Matt Carter Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Hey John,
Thats a very good question, thanks for bringing that up, I should have been more clear. Yes you are quite right I have found conversions lower and the traffic much less targeted when I don’t select the websites for the content network.
Great comment
Cheers
Matt
Hi Matt:
As usual, you provide great free advice! I really appreciate what I have picked up from taking your 12 part video course and reading your blog posts. I too provide free instructions on how people can solve a lot of their computer registry problems without having to spend any money.
Hang in there on providng the valuable assitance to a lot of us newbies and very soon down the road, you will receive your big pay-off. I am spreading the word on how great your course is.
Best regards,
Carl
Matt Carter Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Hey Carl,
Great to hear from you and thanks for your comments
I look forward to hearing from you again
Matt
Hey Matt,
Great post once again! I know my comments seem to be the same every time, but man that’s because you always deliver great stuff!
This morning before I received your email, I actually just asked for a quote from my provider in elance about writing a 6-part mini course, 1 sales email and a follow up email. This was because I decided that I need to start building a list on one of my sites that’s getting at least 50 uniques a day through SEO. So yeah, talk about timing. This post was very timely indeed!
Stay blessed.
Regards,
Renato
Thanks Matt for the info. I haven’t been list building this way. I would leave my site’s link but not to my squeeze page.
Linda M.
Matt Carter Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Hey Linda,
Thanks for sharing!
Cheers
Matt
Matt
Thanks for great info. Just the stage I am up to in my affiliate career. I’d like to thank you even more for the great free mini-course that you have provided, absolutely jammed with helpful info.
I’m using Mark Ling’s Affiloblueprint, which I see you recommend, and I do too, especially for the absolute beginner. Every step is explained and great support videos.
Enjoying your blogs.
Thanks again
Matt Carter Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Hey Ralph,
Thanks for your feedback!!
Matt
Matt Hi,
I have followed your 12 Part Video course and have tried to take as much as possible from it and have got as far as getting a work in progress website up which when tweaked will try and follow your advice on Blogging up for traffic and applying Google Adwords campaigns to.
Thank’s for your courses for getting me through some dark days.
Many Thank’s
Upkar Takhar
England
Matt Carter Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Hey Upkar,
Glad to hear I could be of service to you,
I know internet marketing can be tough sometimes, but hang in there and just keep learning, that is the key, the more skill you have the sooner you start to earn good money,
Cheers
Matt
Matt,
As always thanks for the great info. Your 12 part video series was awesome. Most “gurus” would charge at least $97 for that type of training and probably more and you gave it way. I bought Magic Article Writer and Submitter through your link as a way of saying thanks.
Ray
Matt Carter Reply:
October 11th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Hey Ray,
You are more than welcome my friend. I realize that there can be a lot of expenses when it comes to internet marketing, and to be honest some of them a necessary, but I also realize that not everybody has money to spend, so that is why I always make sure i give away as much free QUALITY content to my followers as I can, after all I know what it is like to start out,
Let me know if you need any help with your sites, as I am always willing to help.
Cheers
Matty
Great information I love it!! Thank you very much for sharing. Charles
Or another way could be subscribing to an RSS update like your one on the top right of this page?
Thanks
I make sure to comment on everywebsite i enounter so the back links can lead right back to my site. And its best to get back links from high pr sites
Thanks
Matt I am interested in an automated Twitter software, Which one is best?
Anyone can reply.
Thanks
i am a blogger everyday i browse different types of articles to get lots of new tips while i was browsing,i found ur blog your article is really awesome.Thanks for sharing such nice article here.i also want to share valuable how to build a list tips.