Big Opt-In Lists, Trade Secrets & Fishing Trips

How To Create a Huge Opt-In List
Big Opt-In Lists, Trade Secrets & Fishing Trips

Last weekend, on a beautiful Saturday morning, I went fishing with a friend on the Pecos River here in New Mexico. We had been fishing for a couple of hours when my friend decided he would carefully approach the subject of getting more opt-in subscribers for his newsletter. He knew I had over 400,000 opt-in subscribers for T-Shirt Kings newsletter and he wanted to know how I did it. He was afraid that it was a trade secret and I would brush him off and continue to fish. That was my reaction initially.

You see, I get this type of question all the time. When it comes at a time when Im fishing, a simple answer like that is the easiest, and it keeps us fishing instead of talking. However, this morning I was a softy and, after some prodding, I gave in.

To begin with, let me quickly explain that there are two sales tools that all online retailers should use regardless of what you sell. You should have a newsletter and an affiliate program. My friend already had a newsletter and an affiliate program and Im going to assume you do too. If you need one - http://www.manzanomarketing.com/Resources/ultimateaffiliate.html

We put our poles down and sat on the edge of the river to discuss how my friend could build an opt-in list of over 100,000 this year. He had a lot bigger expectations for his opt-in list than he did for this fishing trip. He never did get back to fishing.

His first question was about getting people on his site to opt-in. He had an opt-in subscription box on his site already and it was prominently placed. But, with over 5,000 daily visitors, he was only getting about twenty subscribers. It was a real disappointment.

So, my first suggestion was to set up a contest. He could give away just about anything he wanted to from a free t-shirt to a free fishing trip. I use a free t-shirt a day on T-Shirt King. To join the contest, you just have to join the newsletter (opt-in). Check it out http://www.t-shirtking.com/

The next suggestion was to use a pop-up to promote the contest and the subscription offer. Of course, my friend immediately groaned at the thought of adding a pop-up to his site (for a minute there, I thought we might get back to fishing). However, I told him about using a cookied pop-up that occurs only once a day for each user. This way it minimizes the annoyance of pop-ups. Plus, anyone that really hates pop-ups already has pop-up blocker software. But the proof is in the results. When I added our contest and a pop-up, we did better than quadrupling our subscriber rate. For my fishing buddy, it would take him from 20 opt-ins a day to over 80.

Note - Free Pop-Up Generator: http://www.manzanomarketing.com/popup.html

The investment for a contest can be minimal when compared to the cost of gaining subscribers any other way. You know that you can find companies that will sell you subscribers for fifteen cents a piece or more right? Why pay such a high price for poor quality subscribers when you can make a smaller investment and get more subscribers of much higher quality?

At $.15 per subscriber, thats $15,000 for 100,000 subscribers of questionable quality. Using these methods can cost you less than a hundred bucks for 100,000 high quality, targeted subscribers!

Alright now for the big guns. Uh, er, the heavy tackle - since were fishing. Lets take your list building operation and put it on hundreds, or even thousands, of other websites. There are two methods. Building a newsletter co-op and arming your affiliates with a secret weapon.

These methods use two inexpensive pieces of software that will become a key to selling your product successfully online. Of course, they help you build your opt-in list, but the true end result of a big high quality list will be increased sales. Youre going to love the feeling of sending your newsletter out and watching the sales immediately begin to come in! Its a great feeling. So is waking up the next morning and checking your sales before you take the day off to go fishing because you can.

These tools take some effort to set up but once theyre established, they run on auto-pilot which leaves you the time to go fishing. Your co-op members and affiliates do the promoting and list building for you.

The first tool is Opt-In Explosion. This is a newsletter subscriber co-op. Youve probably seen them run by other people. You could join one of these co-op programs and you would substantially increase your subscriber rate. Or, you could start your own co-op and build your opt-in list at hyper speed.

You see, when you join their lists, typically, you get your newsletter subscription offer shown four times for every time you show the co-op subscriber box. Not bad. But start your own co-op and its your members that get four exposures for every one time they show the subscription offer. You get your newsletter offer shown on every exposure, on every website, to every visitor every time. If you even get a small number of members, your subscription rate will explode!

To see this tool, visit: http://www.optinexplosion.com

At this point, my friend was so excited, he wanted to leave this beautiful Saturday morning, quit fishing (hes obviously not making enough money) and start right away. However, I saved the best for last.

Newsletter Syndicator! How about putting your subscription sign-up box prominently on hundreds, or even thousands, of websites? And, you can offer the webmaster credit for the sales of your product generated from their list? What a great idea! This little program allows you the ability to give out subscription boxes to your affiliates. They can put them on their site and begin building opt-in subscriber lists specifically for your newsletter.

Using Newsletter Syndicator, when you send your newsletter out it will automatically replace your standard url with their affiliate url. Your newsletter with your url and the affiliates get your newsletter but with their unique affiliate url. Its easy for you to set up and its easy for your affiliates to set up. Makes you money and makes your affiliates money. Even if you have a small website with very little traffic, one good affiliate can sign-up more opt-in subscribers in a month than you would get all year.

To find this tool, go to: http://www.newslettersyndicator.com

At this point, my friend was no longer interested in fishing. When I was done talking, he packed up and headed for the car to get back to his website. I was glad we drove separately. I settled back in to a nice day of fishing. I could afford to because I knew that I was getting a whole lot more opt-in subscribers during that day of fishing than I was fish. In fact, theres a limit to the number of fish I can get in a day. Theres no limit to the number of opt-in subscribers.

You can get both programs for under a hundred dollars. At fifteen cents per subscriber, thats only 667 subscribers. Youll get more than that in no time. With some honest effort, 100,000 high quality opt-in subscribers this year is very possible.

Its not rocket science and its a lot easier than catching those Pecos River Browns. Give these three methods a try and you will get to know the excitement of sending your newsletter out and watching the sales roll in. Theres nothing like it.

2003 by Bill Broadbent ----------------------------------------------------------- Written by Bill Broadbent Free eBook Available Affiliate Detective 1.0 Visit: http://www.affiliatedetective.net -----------------------------------------------------------

About the Author

Written by Bill Broadbent http://www.ManzanoMarketing.com Free eBook Available Affiliate Detective Visit: http://www.affiliatedetective.net