If you plan to have a successful, business, blog or membership site, you must build a list of clients or subscribers. Success is not necessarily measured in money or whether you get rich, but that you accomplish the goals you have set for your business, site or blog. Success is in your list.

I can vouch for that first-hand. My tutoring business started out strong this summer because I had a list built from 3 years of tutoring students while working for a tutoring company. (The company closed so I was on my own). I made sure to keep all the student contact information I received and contact information for all the schools those students attended.

When I needed a substantial number of clients to launch in August 2009, I emailed my list. It’s not that big compared to many website lists, but the conversion rate is far higher. High school tutoring in math and science in my city is a very targeted niche so a small list works fine. I have about 40 contacts, and I got 5 clients right away for multiple sessions per week from it. I’ve used free marketing techniques such as Google Local and my homeschool blog and my membership in a few local homeschool groups to market as well.

This example demonstrates that to be successful in the physical world as well as the online world, you need a responsive list. The more targeted your list the better your conversion will be. I’m not talking specifically about sales conversion, but getting people to do something you want them to do when you email them.

If you run a non-profit and are seeking volunteers for an event, you want a list of people who are very likely to say yes and show up when you ask them for help.

Here is a second video by Yaro Starak about list-building for a membership site. The same ideas are easily transferable to your local business. Here it is:

Slide Show Video

I am considering a math and science tutoring membership site online for people who need help but can’t afford private one-on-one tutoring in person. I could provide a month of online service for the price of one to two hours of private tutoring.

More about Yaro Starak: Yaro is a lifestyle guru. He makes about $200,000 US a year from his online endeavors, and he travels the world whenever he wants. Last year he traveled around the globe for most of the year. He can run his business from anywhere he has an internet connection. He isn’t a millionaire and doesn’t strive to be one. He just wants to be able to spend his time any way he chooses.

If you want to set up a membership site and need a course to walk you through it, get the Membership Site Masterplan free report at that link and read it. Then you will be ready to decide if the course is right for you. You will be on an opt-in list to receive the report so you will be emailed when the course opens. You can opt-out at anytime and you won’t be spammed.

Membership Site Mastermind opens again on Tuesday, October 27 and closes again on Friday, October 30 at midnight. It will open one more time in 2009 for about 36 hours at 9 am on November 3rd and will close again on November 4th at midnight. All times are U.S. Eastern time.

If you’re interested in setting up a really great blog, Blog Mastermind is open continuously and you can sign up for that class anytime. But be sure to read the Blog Profits Blueprint first!

Here is the link to the video again:

Slide Show Video

Here’s to your success,
Sherri
Graduate of Blog Mastermind and Membership Site Mastermind

Membership Site Masterplan
Blog Profits Blueprint

I have been poking around on my favorite social media sites, and lately I’ve seen more than a few people plugging various new autoresponders, not for the service and reliability they offer, but for their commission payout terms.

This is ridiculous. No one should ever pick a service that is an integral part of their business because of its commission payout terms. All these users say about their service is how much you get paid if you get someone to sign up under you. They mention nothing about the actual services they provide.

Try AWeber Email Marketing Risk-Free

What Is An Autoresponder Service?

An autoresponder is an automated email service that you can use to contact your email list automatically with a series of newsletters that start at the beginning for each new user, to send them a new blog post they’ve subscribed to, or to broadcast a message about an offer or program you want subscribers to have first crack at.

Your list should receive value from you in the form of free information that would be useful to them. You can sell to your list as well, but your first priority must be to provide value. If you don’t, your subscribers will unsubscribe.

This service should be chosen for reliability, customer service, training, ease of use and utility for your purposes, and most of all, to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Price may be an issue, but when you are ready for an autoresponder, you should be making enough money to cover the cost. It’s only $19/mo or less to start out. One account can support an unlimited number of lists and automated messages. The price only goes up when a list exceeds a certain threshold of subscribers. This is a small price to pay since most of the money in an online business or increased sales to an offline business from online marketing is in your email list and email marketing.

If you can’t afford a paid email autoresponder, you can improvise with a free service by Google called Feedburner. You can start a blog (paid or free) and get subscribers to join your free email list through Feedburner. Instead of sending autoresponse emails, you would write everything to your blog as posts and subscribers would receive emails of your posts from which they can read your content and perhaps buy something you might be marketing in a given post. Feedburner requires a double opt-in before it sends messages to subscribers.

Why Double Opt-In?

You want double opt-in to be sure your list complies with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. You do not want to spam your list ever. Spamming is the fastest way to get a very bad reputation and essentially put you out of business in a heartbeat. You don’t want that to happen. Even if you’re just blogging for your own personal satisfaction, you don’t want to spam anyone. If someone doesn’t want to get your emails, you don’t want them to get your emails and you must encourage them to unsubscribe. Otherwise they may mark you as spam, and you don’t want that.

When you have an email list of subscribers, you want to first be sure the subscribers have double opted in to your list. It works by the user signing up using your web form. Then the user receives an email from the system making sure they want to join the list. They must click on the link in the confirmation email to become subscribed. If they don’t, they are not subscribed and won’t receive emails from your list. This is necessary to cut down on the number of your automated emails that get marked as spam, even though subscribers had to confirm their opt-in.

Your autoresponder provider should measure the number of emails sent in a given broadcast, the number opened, the number not opened and the number marked as spam. If they can’t provide this data for you, they aren’t worth a penny. You need to know how well your messages are being received.

Another way to decrease spam complaints is to put a notice at the top of each message a subscriber receives that they signed up and opted into the emails they are being sent, and if they don’t want to receive them anymore to scroll to the bottom of the message and unsubscribe instead of marking your message as spam. I started getting a bunch of my emails marked as spam on one of my lists, and after I put that message in them, my spam complaints decreased about 20 fold, below the threshold at which I was about to be contacted by my autoresponder provider.

If your provider is worth it, they will contact you if you present a spam problem, and they will shut down your account if you don’t fix the problem and reduce your spam complaints. Spam by you also puts their reputation on the line and they won’t have their business ruined by a user abusing their service.

Who Are Good Quality Providers?

First on my list and the autoresponder service I use is AWeber. I have 12 blogs and websites, and I have all my email lists for them through AWeber. It costs me $19/mo for all of my lists, and I can add many, many more before my fees would increase. When my lists exceed 500 subscribers, the price will go up. If you are a non-profit or a student, AWeber has special pricing for you. Learn more here:

Another very good quality provider is Prosender. I’ve never tried them, but I know others who use them and they tell me the service is equivalent to AWeber. The cost for 500 or fewer subscribers is also $19/mo.

Another service I’ve heard of and seen a few marketers use is GetResponse. It offers very similar services to AWeber and Prosender, but is a much newer company. Their price for 500 or fewer subscribers is $18/mo, not really a difference.

The only free service I recommend is Google Feedburner’s email blog broadcast service.

Remember, always pick services you need for your business based on the service provided for the price, not the affiliate commission it pays if someone signs up through your link. An affiliate commission is nice, but it’s not the primary reason you should choose a service.

Technorati Tags: autoresponder, AWeber, best autoresponder services, Email Marketing, Feedburner