Are You Building a Lens or a Business?

This is the question that Lee McIntyre asks in his recently
released e-book, Mailing Lists Unleashed
(note: not an affiliate link).

Lee makes the point as do other list building experts that
you need to leverage the present to build the future.

In other words, you should be focusing on building your list.

This means that your Squidoo lenses (the more the merrier)
should serve to capture subscribers to your email list.

The reason - the real income is not in the one-off sale
up front but the on-going sales from your list at the back end.

If you simply send visitors to affiliate managers' websites,
you are building their list and business, not your own.

It's a simple but profound concept. I've heard it one more
time but this time it seemed to have more impact. Lee
emphasizes the need to build a sustainable internet business.

Lee challenges many of the myths of list building. He argues
that the money is not in the size of the list but in the
relationship that you have with your subscribers.

He attacks the myth that you should not give your subscribers
lots of freebies because they will develop a "freebie mentality".
His own results from relatively small lists tend to contest
this viewpoint.

Lee's Mailing Lists Unleashed (80 pages) is full of sound,
practical advice about squeeze pages, confirmation pages and
relationship building. His step-by-step, honest approach is
really refreshing.

For instance he reiterates the importance of having your
squeeze page focused on benefits not features. He stresses the
need to ensure that the squeeze page highlights the sign-up box
and does not have distracting information or links.

After reading this e-book I realized that I have lots of work
to do to tidy up my squeeze page and improve my confirmation
page. Lee makes the point that a minor change can improve
your subscription rate immensely. Ten new subscribers a day
is a lot better than 3 or 4.

The other key thing that I have to do is to make sure that
all my lenses promote subscription to my list(s) which are
hosted on Aweber.

So far I have found that Aweber is the best autoresponder
for my mailing lists (after testing 5 others). Aweber's
service is outstanding.

Ewen Chia reinforces Lee's message. He suggests that effective
list building and relationship building are two key features
of Super Affiliates.

I would recommend that if you do nothing else, you visit Lee's
Mailing Lists Unleashed and sign up for his monthly email
newsletter (and associated freebies).

Product of the Month

Well this is not really a product in itself. During the week Dr. Mani
was promoting his "A Day for Hearts" designed to fund operations for
children with chronic heart disease. Dr. Mani recently retired as a
heart surgeon to devote himself to his very successful internet
marketing business and his Chronic Heart Disease Foundation.
Here's where you can save a child's life with a small donation:
Donate to Save a Child's Life

************************************************

Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
provides free resources for Squidoo affiliate marketing
on his Squidoo lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies

Ron is the author of the ebook:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies


************************************************
Technorati Tags:
squidoo affiliate marketing, social marketing, squidoo marketing, Squidoo traffic, list building, relationship building