Master List Building Tactics

Just in case you don’t know, your ‘LIST’ - is you list of optin
subscribers who have taken the time and effort to personally
subscribe to your newsletter or ezine………..

Treat them like GOLD!

However, after nearly 7 years online, seeing quite a few classic
examples of how to use, abuse and lose your list (including one
or two made by myself) - and of course, the mega-hype (and well
deserved it is) about the rock-solid, vital importance of your
list…… people still mess things up……..

Here are my Top Ten ways to avoid getting things Soooooo wrong….

1. Backup your list of subscribers regularly. Don’t expect your
web-host to do this for you, or to be reliable. If the server
crashes, is hacked, infiltrated with a virus, blows-up…… your
list could be gone forever. I personally lost 12,000 subscribers
because one host I used simply closed down without notice.

2. If you spend half your time building up genuine optin
subscribers, only to be tempted into buying a ‘ready-made’ list
in order to boost your numbers…… watch out! Unless you are
paying Top-Dollar per subscriber name on one of these lists, the
chances are the list is useless, worthless and has been
harvested by a spammer. This will result in spam complaints, and
have you closed down.

3. Deliver WHAT you say. If you tell your subscribers that you
will send them a newsletter or ezine, which contains new
informative articles, plus possibly guest articles, maybe on a
certain subject, perhaps maybe tips, jokes, Q&A section, special
offers or discounts which are only available to subscribers (and
nowhere else) - then DO IT. Look, if you promote your newsletter
as providing great content targeted at say, ‘Female
Bodybuilders’ - don’t include content on non-related subjects,
or even subjects that may be considered unrelated, but which you
think have a tenuous link.

4. Deliver WHEN you say. If you say your newsletter or ezine is
published monthly, then the subscriber is within reason to
expect 12 copies a year. If you then send them 37 copies - or
even 3 in a year, that will disappoint them. Some publishers
chose daily - that’s fine, providing you tell your subscribers,
and the daily newsletter isn’t too long, and has quality
content. You must also be one time (within reason). A Monthly
Newsletter should be sent on roughly the same day / date each
month. Weekly, on the same day if possible.

5. Don’t offer free ads to new subscribers. This is a HUGE
pitfall by many publishers. In order to get more subscribers,
they offer a free classified ad to each new subscriber. I have
seen newsletters / ezines which do this, and because they do,
they must publish each new subscribers ad. The reason why it’s
so wrong is simple. Firstly, it is typical for someone ONLY to
subscribe, in order to get a free ad. If so, they are worthless
on your list, because they are not interested in your content,
or for that matter, interested in anything else apart from
getting THEIR ad in your newsletter - they will never read the
rest of the content - just look for their own ad. Next, if you
have a number of new subscribers, and each one has submitted a
free ad for your to publish, this will simply fill-up your
newsletter with free ads, which most people won’t even read.
I’ve seen ezines with up to 200 free classified ads. Would YOU
read each one? No.

6. Limit your paid advertising. Unless you are providing a
newsletter or ezine which is completely aimed at providing
advertising, and your subscribers WANT to see all adverts, don’t
cram it full of Ads. A few well placed, chosen adverts to
break-up the newsletter or ezine is fine - after all, if you can
make a few bucks without reducing the quality of your content,
that’s fine. But if you really think that subscribers really
will actually READ your newsletter from top to end, every issue,
which has more adverts and less valuable content - you are sadly
mistaken. Here’s another tip….. as subscribers get bored with
high levels of ads, and lower levels of good quality content,
they will read less, which means they will not click on ads
(even the good ones), the advertisers will notice that the
click0thru rates are low, and will not be willing to pay to
advertise in your newsletter or ezine. It’s a vicious circle.

7. Multiple Newsletters. If you run multiple websites, it may be
that you try to get subscribers from each one. Perhaps one
website is Female Bodybuilders, another is Niche Marketing for
Mums, another could be Homeworking Secrets, and then perhaps
Direct Mail Tips. Whatever the categories, it is likely that
they are all different, and if you promote a newsletter which is
meant to target each category, make sure the newsletter content
really is targeting correctly. Too many publishers / marketers
use this multi-list approach, but abuse it by sending the exact
same content to different targeted lists. If you sign up for the
Females Bodybuilders Newsletter, and receive content aimed at
Niche Marketing….. wouldn’t you be annoyed?

8. If for some reason you decide to move web-host, this of
course, means a new server, with a new email server, new IP
address…. etc. The chances are, you will use a shared server,
meaning other people will have their website(s) on the same
server as you, or others have shared the server before. What
this means………..could be trouble for you. Many of the anti-spam
agencies, black-list or block emails which are delivered from
certain servers or IP Addresses. If by chance, the server you
are on, has been used previously by some moron spammer, it may
be that it’s the server / IP Address of the server which is
blacklisted. This means anyone else (other than the spammer)
trying to legitimately send email / newsletters / ezines, could
also be blocked. Check first with the web-host provided if their
servers are blocked or blacklisted anywhere. If they can’t or
won’t tell you, ask them for the server IP address which you can
check with certain spam blocking services to see if its already
blacklisted. If you web-host won’t even tell you this, find
another host.

9. Don’t treat your subscribers as if they are Money-Banks. Some
publishers think that they should squeeze cash out of everyone,
and do it multiple times a year. Not everyone will buy products
or services from you, not everyone will click on the
advertising… it might be difficult to believe, but some just
like reading articles and good content!

10. If you exclude your readers, you will alienate them. Ask
them for feedback, questions, comments, even articles - and use
them or at least reply to them. Readers like to see you showing
an interest in their opinions.

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