Driving traffic means getting motivated and bona fide prospects to your sales page. There are many methods used for this (PPC ads, JVs, forum marketing and others), but the workhorse for many marketers is list building. Not just a random collection of email addresses, but subscribers who know, like and trust you.

• They know you. Your emails are recognized and opened. They don’t get deleted offhand.
• They like you. When they read your material, subscribers identify with you and think of you as a friend.
• They trust you. Readers believe what you tell them and expect (rightly!) that you won’t lead them astray.

Built into these considerations is that while you are out to convince people to make a purchase, you do so in a fashion that is moral, ethical and legal. If you think about it, ethical practices elevate you above the crowd and having a good reputation is one of the best ways to build a solid, productive list.

List building as an essential marketing practice-
List building is invaluable. Imagine you were starting from scratch, trying to build a presence on the web. Sure, there are other important things, but one of the first things you would want is a productive list, a list that let you reach the prospects you need to get off the ground. Building a list would be a priority.

So what are the core concepts?

A key element is continual contact with many subscribers through permission-based email. Permission-based means ‘click to subscribe’ or its equivalent. Continual contact just means a cyclical or ongoing relationship through emails, e-newsletters or ‘updates’. Note that this is independent of any particular sales practice. Text, images, coupons/specials or affiliate offers are all techniques that can depend on good list management and best practices. The best copy in the world is useless if it doesn’t get to the proper email address.

Other forms of marketing feed into list building. Forum, ezine and other types of marketing can be focused primarily on building a useful and productive list. Long-term success is dependant on list growth and maintenance.

The best marketers can actually use a well built list to pre-sell prospects over and over again. Because they trust your judgment, subscribers might even skip past any sales copy and respond immediately. The subject line and opening paragraph might be enough to sell a properly managed list.

The economics can’t be denied.

In the rush to find new customers and increase ‘the numbers’ we sometimes forget that previous sales and relation building with existing customers has a much better ratio of sales to effort. Don’t sell, when you can resell is the motto. Nurturing better relationships with existing clients helps on two fronts- keeping valued customers you have already sold, and turning those customers into even better customers by reselling them. Long-term profits are dependent partially on keeping your bread-and-butter clients coming back.

The bottom line? List Building shouldn’t be overlooked as an important piece in your overall online marketing strategy. If you are a beginner, learn all you can about it; if you have been around for a while, take a fresh look.