Expresso List Building
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I do several one-on-one consultations a week, and the biggest issue I hear is that people can’t build their lists fast enough. So, we go through all the particulars–opt-in box… EVERYwhere. Right? I mean on your blog, on your MySpace account, at Squidoo, wherever you’re allow to place it. Then, you have to drive traffic to those places, and it’s very, very slow.
The fastest way to get traffic and build a list is undoubtedly joint venturing with other people who have huge lists. But in lieu of that, you may want to consider co-registration.
Co-reg is when you advertise your newsletter, ezine, special report, or some other free bonus with that of other businesses. Depending on the service, it could be less than 5 others or it could be as many as 20. Check the service to be sure. The fewer, the better, because people choose what they want to subscribe to, and if you’re lost among a sea of other offers, you’d better have a kick-ass headline to make people look.
You will pay for this service in most instances, but free co-registration services are around. List Hero is one I use on my main site (http://ovweb.net), and it gets me several opt-ins a month. But it’s not as fast as services that you pay to use. Still it’s great if you’re doing this on a shoestring. Plus it’s run by my friend Brian Terry, who’s partners with Tellman in the business. Brian is awesome and is making improvements to the List Hero site all the time. It’s incredible for people just starting out.
Eric James’s List Builder Pro is my paid co-registration company of choice. I pay $57 for 250 subscribers a month. That means that they advertise my offer until that many people sign up for my list. It’s guaranteed, and what ends up happening is that you usually get more than 250 subscribers.
But…
There is one drawback.
If you’re an AWeber user, like I am, you’ll be disappointed to find that AWeber will not allow you to process co-registration leads. It’s against their terms of service. So, you will have to find another autoresponder for your co-reg leads. I use Smart Autoresponder, which is an adjunct to List Builder Pro, and it’s okay, but not nearly as advanced as AWeber. They give you no indication of what was delivered and what bounced as spam. I really dislike that about the service. And they keep no record of your broadcast messages at all. Once you’ve written it, it’s off and gone. AWeber is just far superior. Other folks I know use Icontact.com I’d like to recommend it, but have never used it and have no idea what it’s like. It’s just another suggestion for you to check out.
Co-registration leads also have to be trained to know you better. You need to write to them at least once a week. Give them things–information, free software leads, or whatever. Just be sure to deliver content that they’ll enjoy, and about every fourth message you can enter in a product that you’d like to sell. They don’t mind so much after you’ve made them friends.
You can find other paid co-reg services, too. You’ll just have to try them yourself. I haven’t used any but List Builder Pro for about a year now, and I’m quite happy with it. My list has grown enormously over the past 12 months. Tellman had something to do with that. 
It just never hit me until I met him how important a list is.
Duh, duh, and triple DUH.
A list is everything! If you don’t have a list, you don’t have your own group of people who trust you to recommend great products to them. You can’t joint venture with any other business owners because… what’s in it for them? If you don’t have a list or you have a very slow-growing puny list, think about co-registration. It could take your business to the next level.
I hate to be tedious, but here’s the deal: The Money Is In the List
Good luck!
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