When starting out in the online marketing industry, most people who are newcomers to the industry do not fully understand the powerful nature of building a prospect list of names and email addresses of those who have shown an interest in what they have to offer or what they have to say. What we have discovered in working with clients through SD Ward & Associates is that there are two types of people who have only a vague understanding of the importance of list building. They are people who have never been in business for themselves who are wanting to make money online, or people who have owned their own brick and mortar business in the past and ended up going out of business for lack of enough business.

There is no mystery about what a prospect list is. It is simply a list of individuals who appear to have a need for your product or service, or who have expressed an interest in what you have to offer. In the Internet business world it is known often as a prospect database. Your prospect database is your potential customer list, and in many ways, if your business is primarily promoted through lead generation pages (Websites or pages on a Website that captures names and email addresses) it is your potential market. And, the goal of any successful business is to grow your market, i.e. your prospect list.

Just as in the real world of brick and mortar business, if you want to stay in business you must have a continual flow of fresh prospects who are interested in what you have to offer. I can say that after almost 20 years of consulting that in almost 100% of the cases where someone has come to me in a last ditch effort to save their business, the #1 reason they were at a place of critical failure was not their management (as bad as it was at times), the ability to keep good employees (as poor as the human resource management was), not even their customer service philosophy (as poorly as they cared for their customers after a sale). It was their lack of new prospective customers and/or their inability to capitalize on those prospective customers’ interest in what the company had to offer.

In online marketing, your list is your future in online business. And, as lists go, there are only three things that you must be completely responsible about concerning your list: 1) consistently building it, 2) consistently refining it, and 3) consistently converting it from prospects to customers. All three of these require a marketing strategy – how you will get yourself out and in front of the world and how you will get them to subscribe to or buy your product or service. The eight most basic questions a successful online marketer asks themself when building an online marketing strategy and prospect list for their business are:

1. How will I get exposure to my potential prospects?
2. What will be the motivation I will use to get people to come to my Website?
3. What is the reason I want people to come to my Website?
4. What will be the one thing I will want first time visitors to go away with from my Website?
5. How will I get my first time visitors to return to my Website?
6. How will I convert return visitors into qualified prospects?
7. How will I convert qualified prospects into sales?
8. How will I keep my new customers coming back to my Website?

And, while these questions do not relate to your personal or business branding strategy, they do complement it in that you will become known for what you most promote and offer to your Website’s visitor, subscribers, and customers. As you build your brand, those who follow you or that know of you, will warm up to the idea of doing business with you. The most effective way to do this as marketing strategies go is to keep your name, your product or service, who you are as an individual or as an entity, and how and why someone would do business with you.

When it comes to online marketing, the best, and really only way other than pay per click advertising or being a part of a success alliance team or network, is to communicate with your prospects on a periodic basis. The only way you can do this is if you have a ‘list’ – there’s that word again. It is in the effective use of your list that you will be able to build the trust and the respect necessary to get your potential customers to become your paying customers. The same is true for non-profit organizations as it is with commercial businesses. You must remain in constant contact with your ‘list’ if you want to be successful in raising awareness of, promoting, and funding your cause.

In my next installment on List Building 101, I will discuss common mistakes that newcomers make when getting started in online marketing and how to implement a successful list building strategy without breaking the bank. For now, take the time to consider and answer the questions I have posed to you in this installment. Having answers to these questions will help you in formulating your list development and marketing strategy.

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