Well I am no King Richard and my “War of the Roses” concerns building lists rather than building empires.

By the way King Richard lost that war!

It has been almost 3 weeks since I stated right here on my blog that by the 18th June, 2010, I would have “at least 500 subscribers.”

I could parade a whole variety of reasons why that target is going to be a real stretch for me but in the end it’s either “put up or shut up!”

Total List Building Focus

So over the next 10 days I will have to really give all my focus to this one critical factor of being successful online – building my subscriber list

I have done all the tasks I set out on my “List Building…Getting Started” blog post and even added a few more. The message for you here is do not accept that getting started from zero subscribers is as easy as many online marketers make it out to be.

List Building Tactics I Didn’t Use

Of course, I could have used our excellent marketing platform we have been trained in by Alex Jeffreys, done some realistic market research and associated testing, selected an affiliate product that fitted the market needs and PAID for advertising to drive traffic to it.

This option called “pay per click” or PPC for short and when done properly, can quickly drive your traffic and build your subscriber list. But I am focusing on the “free traffic” option and it does take a little more time, more focus, more work and more follow-up than I initially realised.

Or I could have gone down the viral membership site approach that would gain me subscribers quickly, especially if I took the upgrade membership offer. However, I just didn’t want to go through the monotonous process of opening thousands of emails in order to earn points that would enable me to promote my offer (and opt-in) to the thousands of members.

This may be a strategic error of mine but time will tell.

Right now my statistics show a steady increase of visitors to my blog but my results in converting these visitors to join me on my journey have been slow.
Is my current slow list building rate worrying me? Of course not as it is very early days and there is so much more I have to learn AND IMPLEMENT.

Two Great Resources for You

I have come across some excellent resources in the last week that will greatly assist in building my list in the best way possible. I will be using these resources in addition to my previously stated strategies. It’s far too early in my development to make a call on whether this or that list building strategy is working or not…so I will continue with all of them.

I want to share these 2 resources with you so you see what I am doing and you can try them out with your business. They’re free so don’t worry about that.

The first is an outstanding resource for new comers called “Instant List Building System” This free resource has a great system that will help my list building requirements. I have joined this system and you can see the banner promoting the offer on this web page. Strongly recommend you also give this List Building system a shot!

My First Joint Venture

Secondly, I am fully involved with a huge Giveaway even called “The World Cup Giveaway.” I actually paid to upgrade to be a Platinum member status as there was an outstanding deal offered to me by another marketer. Yes I know I said free traffic and you can take the free option and not upgrade…but a guy has to invest in himself sometimes!

I now have my (first ever) Joint Venture partner who wanted me to take the upgrade offer – no money in that for him. But by doing so he can then organize more than one gift for me to place into the giveaway as well as having my offers placed in premium spots for the thousands of members to look at.

In addition, he will be adding “one time offers” (OTO) to all my free gifts, setting up my squeeze and download pages plus creating all the back-end systems like autoresponder configuration, submissions and extra bonus offers…for free! He even has organized for me to have a special login offer to submit to the giveaway that may earn me a few dollars when members log in and buy.

BUT my focus is building a list and we are making sure the free gifts we offer are of the highest quality plus relate very strongly to my market niche – “helping people to grow their business online.”

I am aware that giveaways are full of freebie seeking members who may never want to buy anything. But by carefully selecting our offers and then making sure I follow up and surprise them with even more high quality free resources I am confident over time that I can generate a responsive and appreciative list of subscribers.

Skype Facilities

So I am excited that this will help me accelerate my list building progress. My JV partner and I have already shared lots together via Skype. He wants to use the results gained in the giveaway as part of a report he wants to publish. We have already spent quite some time together on Skype discussing viable product gifts and associated bonus offers.

This is a whole new world for me but I am learning fast.

By the way did you know that Skype also has the facility to share computer screens? In this way my JV partner can work with me on every single step and I can see exactly what to do and how he does it – fantastic way to learn …and it’s free technology.

That’s where I am up to at this stage and by the end of June, 2010 I want to be able to provide you with all the details of my first “list building adventure”

Tell Me What You Think

This is such an important topic and I urge you to leave your comments. In this way we will all learn and be able to share the very best ways to build your list. Take a minute and tell me what you think OK?

Related posts:

1. List Building…….Getting Started