For most website owners, the single biggest mistake they make is trying to sell a product or service on the prospects first visit to their site, and not building a list of future customers. It’s amazing that only a small percentage of business owners treat list building and email marketing with the urgency it requires.

It’s been proven that over 98% of people who visit your website for the first time will leave without buying anything. By capturing your visitor’s name and email address when they arrive, you have a chance to build a long-term relationship with her, and you can potentially turn her into a long-term customer.

Focus On Building A List Instead Of Getting A One-Time Sale

Instead of trying to make a one time sale, focus your efforts on getting your visitors to opt-in to receive a Free Report or a Mini Course on your topic. If you can their name and email address to access this information, and you’ll multiply your profits over time by simply following up with your readers. Once you’ve got your interested prospect onto a list, continue to follow up regularly with free information and offers related to their area of interest. Using this two-step system will increase your chances of making sales to every one of your readers.

If you watch all the best Internet marketers, you’ll see that they use tools such as mini courses, free eBooks or other forms of “ethical bribes” to get their visitors to opt-in to a list. You should also be doing this because it flat out works. By building a list of people who are interested in your area of expertise, products or services, you are creating a real asset that will pay off for a long time into the future. As smart marketers say – the money is in the list. Well actually, the money is really in the relationship you develop with the people on your list.

Business Is All About Relationships. It’s Not About Selling Products And Services

Building a profitable business is all about creating relationships with people one at a time and solving their problems. if you do this and you will prosper, but if you miss this key point, you will never be as successful as you could be. I’ve heard marketing genius Dan Kennedy say that the only real asset your business has, and the asset that gives you virtually unlimited leverage, is your list of customers. Your future success depends on having a loyal list of repeat customers – without this group of people, you ultimately have no business.

It’s been shown that your most difficult sale will be the first sale to a new prospect. Buying from you instead of somebody else is a high risk proposition to somebody who has never dealt with you before. Research shows that your existing customers are at least 4 times as likely to buy from you again than somebody who you don’t have a relationship with. Having a list of prospects and customers who know, like and trust you, a group that you can follow up with easily via an email autoresponder system, is one of the surest ways of setting up a series of auto-pilot streams of income you’ll ever find.

Building A Customer Email List Should Be Your Number 1 Priority

If you haven’t made building your email list a priority, you really should get started today. By having your visitors give you their names and email address (and their physical address too if at all possible) you could double or triple your profits by simply following up. And once your email sequence has been created, it works invisibly in the background to increase your sales day in, day out.

You simply cannot invest time more effectively than by building a list of people who are interested in the benefits they will receive from the products and services you offer. It really is a no-brainer, and nurturing that list should be part of your core business strategy.

Rocky Tapscott is a Site Build It mentor and mentor who works with small and medium sized business owners to quickly boost their sales and profits. He has developed a Free 27 page Report that teaches how to create multiple income streams using a simple but incredibly effective email marketing system – Grab your Free Report now.

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