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.

Twitter is an amazing little idea that has changed on-the-fly communications worldwide. It’s basic premise of posting a status message of 140 characters or less was designed for those using cell phone with text messaging capabilities to let their friends know what they are doing or where they are. Yet Twitter has grown from a simple platform of status message communications to that of a full enterprise development opportunity through networking among followers and followers of followers. As a complimenting tool to social networks like FaceBook and MySpace, Twitter gives online marketers a hand up on viral communications. And, this viral communications has given rise to a whole wealth creation process of information and opportunity distribution.

Now a days, anybody who has a product or service of substance can make money by using Twitter. And the cost of doing business using Twitter is minimal, needing only a free Twitter account, a website (in some cases you don’t even need a website), and limited knowledge of how to use social media to aid in your promotional efforts. I have known a few people who simply used their i-phone and an affiliate links system to earn money without even having the need to be ‘online’ or using a computer.

Here are some tips on how to use your Twitter account to earn a living through affiliate marketing programs that are easy to set up and start earning an income.

1) Start building a quality following of people that you find interesting. These are individuals who are not continually promoting some product or service every time they Tweet. Ideally, your best followers are those who have something positive and engaging to say, who have legitimate business interests, and a large contact list (follower list). This is not to say that you do not want to add people who have small followings on Twitter, as those may be as quality of leads as someone who has tens of thousands of followers but very few quality leads, i.e. Twitter list builders using automated Twitter add software to build their following.

2) Do not become a Twitter billboard by only being known for posting advertisements every post you do. This is one of the fastest ways to be UN-followed by people who are looking for more engaging interaction with those they follow. Get to know your followers through direct messaging, reposts, and interaction using the Twitter tools you are provided People tend to trust those they know over those they do not. If you are familiar to your followers for having great content (tweets) and being seen as smart in the area of your Tweet expertise, when it comes time to share something with them, they will be more apt to respond positively to your offer or to promote what you have to offer to their following. Again, avoid plastering people with advertisements lest you be seen as a Twitter Spammer and un-followed.

3) Market products and services that your followers need. The only way to do this is to know what they are interested in. The only way to know what they are interested in is to observe what they are posting about, discover what they are passionate about, and ask what their greatest need is. If you know the needs of those around you and seek to meet those needs, you will become the source they will turn to when they have a need – whether that need is information, services, or products. As an example, if you are a real estate appraiser, see that you post helpful information about your industry that helps realtors in their job, then when it comes time to find an appraiser, they will visit your ‘appraiser network website’ to find an appraiser in their area through your website. Ultimately, knowing the needs of your followers simply comes down to research, whether you visit their Twitter profile or ask them directly. Research rules!

4) Twitter is not about quantity, but the quality of your relationship with people. There are lots of tools to add people to your twitter account automatically, and these tools will enable you to build a following in a relatively short period of time. But, keep in mind that it is the quality of leads one has that makes money and not the quantity of leads you have. I would much rather be following ten thousand people personally, and have 100 followers that trust what I have to say and that I can depend on for information and assistance in their area of expertise who will take my advice and buy from me what I have to offer when I suggest something, rather than to have 10,000 followers who barely know I am there because they have added my through automation and have no idea who I am or what I am doing. Yes, maybe having just sheer numbers of people is potentially profitable if you can get enough of them to look at whatever you are offering, but keep in mind that like any contact list, you must nurture it, refine it, and learn to properly harvest it for financial success if you want to make a living using it.

5) Spend 20 minutes a day in building and maintaining your Twitter account and followers list:

• Follow interesting people who are in your industry or share your passion. You can do this by visiting their Twitter profile.
• If they have a FaceBook account listed on their Twitter profile, request them as a friend on your FaceBook. In the meantime, write them a message on FaceBook letting them know you are following them and let them know you hope they might follow you if they are adding people they follow to their twitter account.
• Promote your followers to others through re-tweeting their posts, sending direct messages to them as encouragement so they can become familiar with you.
• Learn something new about your followers that you can use as a point of conversation with them on Twitter. This will get you noticed to their followers as they begin to post your Tweets and re-tweet you as the relationship grows. This will in turn build your followers list even faster of people that are interested in what you have to say. The key here is to be engaging them in their area of interest or passion.
• One sure way to build rapport with those you follow or who are following you is to visit their Website and if they have a re-tweet option for the article they have posted, re-tweet the article for them. This only takes 30 seconds to do. Then immediately direct message them and tell them you just re-tweeted the article to your followers, and really appreciated what they had to say in that article. This builds HUGE rapport. Of course, I don’t recommend that you promote articles that are without substance or that are not what you would feel of interest to your own followers. But, when provided with a good article, by all means, promote it to your followers. Your followers will appreciate it as well. Once a person of interest is following you, be sure to re-mention any article posts they send you that you have already read and re-tweeted yourself. This will generate huge favor with them and allow you to become a well respected online marketing peer. This leads to greater opportunity to do business with them in the future.

As you learn to capitalize on the power of Twitter as not only a lead generation tool, but an effective communication and sales tool, you will see whatever business or enterprise you are involved with grow as you become known by your follows as a legitimate voice on the Internet amidst all the clutter and noise that is found online and in social media networks.