It is critically important to know how to build a list if you intend to be marketing an online business. What we are addressing here today are the steps involved in your preparation for building a list before you even begin to generate traffic. By taking the proper steps ahead of time you can avoid having to make adjustments later thereby allowing you to grow a business that much faster.

Here are 5 things you will want to do BEFORE you open the flood gates to traffic in your preparations for building a list online.

Niche Focus

The starting point for anybody intent on marketing an online business will be the focus it is going to have in terms of a niche. Upon determining the direction you are going to take you now have a theme around which you can set out to build a list. Remember, you only want to attract targeted traffic or it is otherwise useless therefore adhering to your theme will be important!

Free Gift

With the expectations that people will leave their contact information also comes the need to offer them a free gift in exchange for this information. Squeeze pages by design tendered a minimal amount of information since their focus is on nothing other than to build a list. Therefore the gift is used to help encourage/entice people into leaving the requested information. The gift, in whatever form you may choose, needs to have some relevance to your niche.

Squeeze Page

Squeeze pages are suppose to be very plain and contain the least amount of content you can put on them. With that said all you want to appear on this page is an engaging headline, 5 to 7 'benefit' your free gift may offer and an opt in box where people can leave their contact information. Display the opt in box prominently and you are good to go!

Auto Responder Messages

The need for an auto responder service will be required to make this work however the outgoing messages are your responsibility. Create and schedule the messages you want to send out to list members BEFORE your squeeze page goes live online! Take advantage of the automation these services provide by completing this task ahead of time and then watch how it can grow a business almost on auto-pilot!

Pulling it Together

Now you are at the point where you go through your 'checklist' to be sure the previous tasks are all completed to your satisfaction. Marketing an online business is not necessarily difficult but it does involve many details the first being to position yourself to build a list as you have done here. The time has now arrived to go live with your squeeze page and then get busy generating the traffic you are going to need.

Knowing how to build a list starts with the proper preparations before you begin generating traffic. This strategy is one of the best approaches to use for marketing an online business but it needs to be set up correctly for it to be effective. As the discussion above reveals none of the steps involved are difficult and merely require patience on your behalf. When done correctly in advance however it will help you avoid wasting any traffic you have already generated and make building a list much easier for you! The final result will be in your ability to grow a business faster based upon the repeat sales you can generate from list members!