Building a list is the most important job any Internet marketing person has. Without a list, you’re just another random person out there trying to sell something. People are sure you’re out to cheat them, and it’s hard to sell anything at all. People don’t know you, and if they can’t trust you, you won’t make much money.

You can’t ignore list building, and it should have been your first priority when you moved into the Internet marketing world. But many of us put it off and don’t give it the attention we should. We are short sighted and want immediate profits by selling, when all along an email address is a commodity more valuable than one sale, because with it you can make multiple sales to the same person.

Now that you realize the importance of having a list, the first step after deciding your niche is to buy a domain name. It should be a name that’s easy to remember and that fits your niche. For example, if you’re selling natural perfumes, your domain should have “natural perfumes” in the domain title if possible.

Then, you need a web hosting account. If you’re serious about your Internet marketing business, it’s going to grow and you’re going to need to add more than one domain to your account. So, get an account that has mySQL database availability. That will be important when it’s time to start a blog or add an affiliate program. Look into the future when choosing your hosting account, and also look for reliability. You need your website to be up 99.9% of the time.

Your next step is to get an autoresponder service. The main concern here is deliverability. Will your email arrive at its destination? With spam filters in effect today, if you don’t have a great autoresponder, your email marketing efforts won’t be very effective.

After all of this is in place, you’ll need to build your first squeeze page. But don’t worry. It’s nothing more than a few bullet points, which provide the benefits of your offer, and and opt-in form, which you get from your autoresponder service. Images of yourself or of something you’re giving away in exchange for getting people’s names and email addresses work well, too. When you’re done with this step, you upload the squeeze page, and you’re ready to build your list.

Significant Internet marketing success rests on the size and responsiveness of your list. You need to gather a group of people who know and trust you, and who are grateful for the knowledge you can give them about your niche. When they get a recommendation from you, they’re more likely to follow it. If you follow through with the steps above, you’ll have your list growing in no time. All you have to do is concentrate on sending some traffic to your page. Then, get ready for your Internet marketing to start growing by leaps and bounds.

Now, I’ll be honest. Tellman is not my favorite email marketer. He likes to promote products and sell often. I get tired of getting so many product promotions. I’m sure you can relate if you are on the email list of many marketers. But with that being said, if you want to learn how to build a big list, Tellman is the guy to teach you. He made $800,000 his first year online. Now he makes millions a year. He knows what he’s talking about.

Ok, back on topic. The List building Club is an extremely thorough resource that walks you through every aspect of how to build a list. It has detailed videos that walk you step by step through every step necessary to do everything from setting up a hosting account, signing up for an autoresponder account, setting up a blog, putting your autoresponder code on your squeeze page, getting traffic, and a boatload of other things.

It also covers writing articles, press releases, ppc, and every other list building method out there. It also has tons of audio and written resources, and some nice bonuses. There is too much beneficial information for me to mention it all here. And once again, there are tons of step by step instructions. I am honestly not aware of a more comprehensive resource out there for list building.

For the current promotion, you can try it out for free for 7 days and you get free cd (you do pay $8 to cover shipping and handling). After the the 7 day trial, it’s $97 a month. Unless you are already a list building expert and know everything you want to know about list building, I’m pretty certain you’ll benefit a lot from it.

The primary decision you’ll make in terms of autoresponders is whether you will choose a subscription based service, or software that you will host on your own server. I’ll go over some benefits and problems with each option, then I’ll reveal my verdict on which option you should go with.

Self-hosted Autoresponder Scripts

Benefits

One time cost- this is obviously a good thing because in the long run it ends up being less expensive than subscription based services. The price ranges from free to several hundred dollars.

No restrictions on imports- if you have an email list from another program or service, you can import the entire list at will. If you are switching autoresponder programs this is a huge benefit because you don’t have to worry about losing subscribers through a reconfirmation process.

Problems

Complex to install- If you are tech savvy, then maybe this isn’t an issue. But if you are like me and are not that comfortable with technology, installing a self hosted script can be complicated. To be fair though, you can just hire someone to do it for you.

Limited deliverability- some web host servers will only allow you to end a limited amount of emails per hour, such as 500. If your list is really big, it might take a day or more to email your entire list. Most people only have a list of a few thousand people at most, so this wouldn’t be a huge problem for many people. But if there is a time sensitive email you need to send, it can be a big problem. And if your list is really big, it can be a huge problem. Who wants to wait days for all of their emails to be sent?

Domain Blacklist concerns- If your build a list and subscribers are too quick to press the spam button, your domain could be put on a blacklist for spamming. So you deliverability can become extremely poor because of this.

Subscription Based Autoresponder Services

Benefits

Easy to use- you don’t have to worry about complex installations. Obviously, this makes your life a whole lost easier.

Safe – you don’t have to worry about domain blacklisting because the email autoresponder services have personal relationships with Internet Service Providers to significantly increase the odds that blacklisting doesn’t happen.

Unlimited list size- you can deliver to a large list immediately, no matter how large the list.

Reliable ongoing customer service- assuming you have a reputable autoresponder company, you can count on having ongoing customer support as long as you subscribe for any issues you have. There is a learning curve with these autoresponders, so having dedicated customer support is a big plus that can’t be underestimated.

Problems

Restrictive- you will have problems with some services if you want to import a list from another source.

Expensive- sliding scale of costs, so for some, the bigger the list, the more the monthly costs

What’s the Final Verdict?

After weighing all of the negatives and positives, it is a no brainer to get a subscription service. Sure, it will cost you more money, but you can’t expect to run a business for free. If you can’t afford $20 bucks a month for an autoresponder service, that’s a problem. Most people can spare that much cash. And if you are serious about an Internet business, you absolutely need to.

The biggest benefit is the deliverability. If your emails aren’t getting delivered, you can’t make money from your list. So clearly, you need to maximize the odds that your email will be delivered.

There are a number of email autoresponder services available. The industry standards for Internet marketers are Aweber and Get Response. Both work fine. Aweber gets better reviews overall though from my experience. And the most successful email marketers typically use it. So there is no need to reinvent the wheel. You can get an Aweber subscription by clicking here, and start building your list today.

The main reason for this message is to convey the importance of paying close attention to and studying the autoresponder messages of effective email marketers.  What do they say in their email copy and how do they say it?  How much personality are they using?  Do they provide you with valuable content?  Pay attention to all of these key points.

The reason you should pay such close attention to these points is so you can use their messages as a foundation to write your own.  Do you think you have something to learn from someone who makes $30,000 just by sending a single email?  Probably.  As is common in the copy writing industry, a swipe file is something you should have.  But this swipe file will be of emails, not sales letters.  Look at the email copy that made you purchase a particular product or service and use that as a basic model for some of your products.

I’m not advocating wholesale confiscation of emails, unless of course you have have been given explicit rights to do so.  I’m talking about ideas to use as a foundation.

For me, a few email marketers stand out from the rest.  One of them is Michael Rasmussen.  When he sends an email recommending an affiliate product, he doesn’t just send a two line email saying in so many words- “Buy this.”  He gives a thorough rationale for why he is recommending a particular product.  And some of the stuff he gives away for free is pure gold.  So Michael is alright with me.

Another marketer who is quickly building a name for himself and who impresses me quite a bit is Jason Fladlien.  He’s an interesting guy.  And in email marketing, being interesting sells.  He’s also a top class copy writer, which helps tremendously in writing emails.  I recommend you check some of his stuff out.  He makes like 20 products a year it seems- if not more.

Frank Kern’s stuff is some of the most “borrowed” stuff out there- particularly his email subject lines, like “bad news”.  He is a trend starter, so he’s definitely one to pay attention to.  If he starts to do something, expect others to follow soon.

I think my point is clear.  Pay attention to the Internet marketers who actually provide value in their emails.  Pay attention to the marketers who draw you in with their autoresponders, the ones who make you feel like you are being somehow compelled to buy. Then use some of their ideas in your own email copy.

Unfortunately for those who want an easy way out, there isn’t one.  You absolutely need to invest in an email autoresponder service.  There isn’t any way around it.  You won’t find any successful Internet marketer who doesn’t have one.  If the money is in the list as they say (and they are right), then an auto-responder is essential to communicate with your list.

Now that you have decided to get an email autoresponder service, which should you use?  Most agree that the best on the market is Aweber.  Sure, there are others, but you should just stick with the industry standard and the one most trusted or its reliability.  It only costs $19 a month to get started.  If you aren’t willing to invest $19 a month to build your business, then quit while your ahead and just keep your day job.