8 Simple Ways to Build Your Targeted Email List From Scratch

If you have been doing online marketing for some time but you haven’t made the kind of money you want to make, it is probably because you do not have a good-size email list. A targeted email list is a collection of your prospects’ names and email addresses. It is the core of your online business. The size of your email list decides the size of your business. It is vital to build an email list of your niche market from the very beginning.

For many people, building an email list from scratch is a slow and somewhat painful process.  In this blog, I am going to share with you 8 simple ways to build your targeted email list from scratch.  In order to build a solid mailing list, you should have an opt-in form, an AutoResponder and an attention grabbing landing page.  I assume you have these three elements ready.

1. Place your opt-in form above the fold of your website. If you have a WordPress website, you can easily add an eye-catching opt-in form to the primary sidebar using a text widget. In this way, the form shows on every page of your website unless you block the sidebar.
2. Pop-up forms on entry or exit are proved to be very effective. When I started using a pop-up form on goldenvisiontraining.com, I saw an increase of 400% in subscribers. It is phenomenal!
3. Add an email subscriber box to your most popular posts. You also need to use a call-to-action in your blog post to explicitly invite readers to join your email list. Believe it or not, it does catch people’s attention.  Some of them will indeed submit their email addresses to you.
4. In order to get people to join your email list easily, it is better to have an individual subscribe page named something like: http://www.yourdomain/subscribe. It is easy for people to remember and share with each other, as well as on social networking sites.
5. Collect email addresses using your offline resources. One effective way is to ask your existing customers, prospects, friends and family members to join your email list. For example, if you host free seminars, put a sign-up sheet on your registration desk and invite people to join your email list. If you are a restaurant owner, invite your customers to sign up your mailing list to receive coupons and special offers.
6. Use free eBooks, samples or coupons as a “bribe” to lure people to join your email list. These incentives can greatly increase the sign up rate.
7. Use your Facebook and Twitter networks to build your email list. You can place an opt-in form on your Facebook fanpage or send your followers to your landing page.
8. Once you are confident about your landing page and free offers, you can use paid traffic to build your email list quickly. For example, PPC is the fastest way to bring targeted traffic and build your list. If PPC sounds a bit risky for you, running solo ads is a type of low risk paid traffic that can build your email list fast. You pay someone for sending a promotional email to his or her email list and collect the leads.

The above 8 ways give you a quick start to build your email list from scratch. Building a mailing list is an on-going process. Be creative, you can always find new ways to get more people to join your email list. You are welcome you to share with us what other methods you use to build targeted email list.