‘Building a list of permission based subscribers is essential to your online success’.

In part 2 we are going the most important element of building a massive list;

The Squeeze Page

The squeeze page, otherwise known as ‘optin page’, ‘optin form’, ‘name squeeze’ or ‘email capture page’ is a simple 1 page site that’s sole intention is to capture the email address of the visitor. As mentioned squeeze pages have been used for years by internet marketers for one simple reason, they work! There you were thinking that in order to succeed in internet marketing you had build a site that rivalled Amazon, when in actual fact all you have to do is build one single page!

You may not be aware of it but squeeze pages are all over the internet. Big companies and newbie internet marketers are using them all the time. Remember when you were reading that story on CNN but in order to continue you had to enter your email address? Or remember that website you visited that made you hand over your email address before you got the free report? Well you were having your email address squeezed out of you.

The deal is very simple; you hand over your email address in return for something of perceived value (usually free). There nothing more to it, you set a page and squeeze the email address out of a visitor.

Eben Pagan is frequently referred to as the godfather of squeeze pages for his infamous squeeze page for Double Your Dating, which you can check out below.

Eben Pagan claims that it wasn’t his concept; however I can’t remember the name of the person he credits it too. Whoever takes claim one of thing is for sure, Eben Pagan certainly understood the power of a list building because apparently at one time he had a list of over million opt in subscribers and now has a multi million pound internet business, coincidence? I think not..

Anyway that’s another blog post. The important thing is that you understand that a squeeze is a simple 1 page site that sole intention is to capture the visitors email address. There are certain guidelines that you will want to follow when designing a squeeze page, however before we look at any of these guidelines; you need to understand one the most important tools in your internet marketing arsenal.

The Autoresponder

An autoresponder is your best friend in the internet marketing world. It is a simply service that allows you to automatically send out emails to your list at predetermined times. When you have your squeeze page, you are going to want to send the person who gives you their email address a free download/report. Now of course you don’t want to do this manually. So you need an autoresponder, this will send you subscribers a follow up email the moment they give you their email address.

Furthermore you can load your autoresponder with a series of follow up messages and you get to set when they go out. For example you may load your autoresponder with 10 follow up messages and set it to send the messages out every other day. If you include some kind of offer in your follow up messages then you can literally make money when you sleep. There are many different companies that who provide autoresponder services, Aweber and Get Response are probably the best known ones but there are other ones such as Mail Chimp and Infusionsoft. They’re all pretty much the same, you’ll find lots of varying opinions on each service. I’ve personally used Aweber with no real problem and recommend them quite strongly. If you are building a squeeze page then you must have a autoresponder.

Successful Squeeze Page Guidelines

There are no exact rules when it comes to designing a squeeze however there are certain guidelines you can follow to help you get a higher optin rate.

Of course you’re never going to get 100% optin rate, which is something called marketing utopia which just doesn’t happen. But I certainly know of some marketers that get around 60%- 70% and 20% is not uncommon. You want to be doing all that you can to ensure that as many people as possible hand over their email addresses to you.

Here’s a few tips to help get you started

1. Write A Powerful Headline.

The headline is your best chance of grabbing your visitor’s attention. All good copywriters know the importance of a powerful headline. Always start with your best foot forward, make it powerful and immediately show the visitor, what’s in it for them.

Remember a visitor to your website could care less about how pretty the site looks and how much work you have put into your site. They want to know right away how they are going benefit. Your headline is your chance the show the visitor how they are going to benefit, so don’t screw it up with colourful language, bizarre illegible fonts or by talking about wonderful you are. You want to write a headline that literally smacks your visitors in the face with a sledgehammer and then punches them in the gut for good measure.

2. Offer An Ethical Bribe

How many times have you seen, ‘To Receive this free report please enter your name and email address’? The reason that you have seen it so many times is because it works! People love receiving free stuff if they think it is going to benefit their lives and they are more than happy to trade their email addresses with you. You must offer a free report in exchange for people email addresses.

3. Make a bullet list of the benefits that they’ll get from the free report.

You need to clearly and succinctly add a list of bullet points showing the benefits people are going to get from reading your free report. As I said before, people want to know what’s in it for them. Make it sound incredibly enticing, as if their life is going to be massively different with the information that you are going to give them. Ultimately this comes down to your copywriting skills but it doesn’t take much effort to learn how to phrase things to make them seem attractive.This is your squeeze and you just need to make it attractive enough to pique peoples interest.

4. Add some audio or video.

Adding some audio or video to your website can really help increase the number of people that sign up. In the audio you have the opportunity to tell people to give you their email address. Believe it or not people like being told what to do. Tell them twice in a strong voice that ‘In order to receive their free report they need to enter their name and email address and press submit’. Explain to them exactly what they need to do. Don’t give them an option, they either give you their email address or they don’t. There is no other option.

5. Keep it above the fold.

Studies have proven time and time again that people in general, don’t like scrolling. You need to make sure that all the copy is kept above the fold as well as the optin box. It’s only a small point but it can make a big difference.

6. Keep graphics to a minimum or have none at all.

It always amazes me how much time and energy people put into creating amazing graphics. The reality is that copy sells, not pictures. If you don’t believe try creating a squeeze page with no copy but only graphics. See how many people sign up then…

You don’t want to do anything that is going to distract your reader’s attention away from the copy and the audio. So my advice is to keep them to a minimum or don’t have any at all. Remember I mentioned the infamous Double Your Dating Squeeze page? That had no graphics and it managed to capture the email addresses of over a million people. Why fix things if it’s not broken? Plus you’ll save money on graphic designers fees.

I hope you enjoyed this and now have an understanding about what you need to do to create a good squeeze page. I also highly recommend you check out Ewen Chia’s post about designing a successful squeeze page.

To your massive success.

Guy.

P.S. If you enjoyed this post then please link to me.

In a previous post I mentioned that if you learned nothing else about SEO (search engine optimisation) you should at least learn that in order to rank well, you must build backlinks or get backlinks naturally. This is critical information that you must etch into your brain. By the same token, please understand that if you are marketing on the internet you must actively build your list of optin subscribers. I cannot overemphasise the importance of this.

If you want to make money online then you must commit to actively building a list of optin subscribers!

List building is a fundamental tenet to the whole spectrum of internet marketing. Your ability to earn money online is directly related to the size of your list of optin list. Now of course there are ways of making money online without a list. However I am fairly sure that if you ask some of the world’s best internet marketers what the number one priority is in running a business online, they would tell you, building a list!

Just like any other business you need to build a relationship with your customers. A list of permission based optin subscribers is fundamental to your online business. It’s a fantastic way to interact with your customers, build value and make you money. I am sure that you have heard it many times before but it is worth repeating,

‘The Money Is In the List’

Every visitor to your website is a potential lead or prospect; you must do everything you can to get the email addresses of as many visitors to your site as possible. Once you have their details you have permission to carry on a conversation with them and develop a relationship. Developing a relationship with your prospects is critical to your success online. All serious internet marketers know this. As you develop the relationship, prospects will start to trust and value your opinions which all helps to build up your credibility. Credibility is more important in the online world than anywhere else. If you can interact with your prospects and really build trust, value and credibility then you are putting yourself in a strong position to make serious money.

I’m sure that you have experienced this. I know I certainly have. I subscribe to a number of newsletters from great internet marketers. I really like the information they give me and when they talk about new products I listen and yes occasionally I buy their products or the products they recommend.

The process is very simple.

1. Capture email of website visitor.
2. Interact, build value, create trust and establish credibility.
3. Monetize – either direct subscribers to your own products or other people’s products.
4. Carry on working on building the size of your list. Rinse and repeat.
5. Site back and count the money!

There really isn’t much more to it. Often in the internet marketing world there is a tendency to overcomplicate things. Stick to the basics, keep it simple and you’ll find that you success flows to your naturally. Internet marketers have been using this formula to line their pockets with cash for years. All you need to do is copy what they’re doing.

Why You Need To Build A List

We have had a quick look at the formula that internet marketers have been using for years to make money. We have established that building a list is fundamental to your online success. Let’s look into more detail about why you need to build a list.

Just like the real world, in the online world not every visitor buys the first time they visit a website. Imagine that you have 100 people visiting your website; taking a conversion rate of 1% you will make 1 sale off 1 person. If you make no effort to capture the email address of the visitors to your site, then you will only end up with 1 email address. Conversely if you have a system in place to capture the email addresses then you could end up with anything from 1 – 70 email addresses (conversion rate on optin can range from 1% – 70% which some internet marketers getting 80%- 90%).

That means you have a far higher number of people to market to and you will make more money. Furthermore once you have their email addresses you can keep on marketing to them for the rest of your life. You can send them info on new products or new offers, or when you start another blog or website then you can let them know about that.

Imagine, for a second, if you didn’t capture the email addresses of your website visitors, you would only get an email address when you made a sale. Would you not prefer to market to a pool of potential customers that is maybe70 x larger.

Let’s take an example looking at 2 different websites, website A and website B. Website A has no lead capture mechanism in place and only captures the email address of a visitor when a sale is made. Website B, has a lead capture system in place and captures 20% of the email addresses of all web visitors.

Let’s assume that each website is selling a $47 ebook and gets a 1% conversion rate. Let us also assume that each website follows up the prospects after the sale and makes a further 2 sales of $20 each for each prospect. Let’s see what happens when we send 100 targeted visitors to each of the websites.

Website A – No Lead Capture in Place

1 Sale @ $47 = $47
2 follow up sales @ $20= 40
Total money earned $87.

Website B – Lead Capture in Place

3 sales @ $47 = $141
6 follow up sales @ 20 = $120
Total money earned $261

Now these figures are going to vary in the real world they are just examples to show you the value of collecting peoples email addresses.

Collecting email addresses is going to earn you more money!

Remember that people do not necessarily by first the first time they visit a website. You must capture their email addresses so that you can carry on building a relationship with them and keep on marketing to them. Maybe after the 5th email they’ll buy. Furthermore you are going to want to carry on marketing to these prospects in the future. How many people would you rather market to? 1 or 20? Which number is going to earn you more money? The larger number of course!

So again, as if I haven’t told you this already, you must start collecting the email addresses of visitors to your website or even collecting email addresses period. As long as you are collecting the email addresses of people who have an interest in the niche your are promoting, you’re starting the right way.

I hope I have demonstrated the value of building a list. You absolutely must do it if you really want to succeed in internet marketing. You list is what is going to make you a lot of money.
In the second lesson I will introduce the tools you need to start building a list.