Aspiring professional Internet marketers should understand that building a

big list is the key to financial success. It's the difference between becoming

an Internet marketing "hobbyist" making a few hundred bucks per week,

and a professional Internet Entrepreneur who makes a comfortable full time

living from home in his or her pajamas.

As a seasoned 6 year full-time Internet veteran and mentor, I have selected

5 of the most powerful, most up-to-date list building secrets my top students

are using to build huge lists at lightning speed. Use these secret techniques in

your own marketing campaigns and watch your list and your bank account grow

like wild vines in the springtime.

Secret #1: Define your target market

Before spending one minute of your precious time driving traffic to your website,

you should first write down who your target market is and what characteristics

they might possess. From there, you can quickly determine where these people

might shop, eat, live and most importantly, where they surf on the Internet. I'm

sure most people would agree that selling porn to a priest, marketing a multi-million

dollar home on craigslist or running a "drug free" campaign in High Times magazine

would be a complete waste of time… in most cases!

Secret #2: Give Crack Samples to the Information Junkies Via Auto Responder

Most of your clients and customers must have three things before they will buy

your product(s) and services(s). They must be salivating at the mouth for more of

your information after you've given them a sample, they must have some sort of

urgency to buy your product and they must have M-O-N-E-Y. Don't market to people

who are broke!

In the heart of the information age, it's no secret that most people are eager to

exchange their name and email address for a free sample or a "snipit" of useful

information via your autoresponder. In fact, every day there are tens of millions

of people surfing the Internet in search of useful information on everything from

how to fix a broken toilet handle to how to get mega rich on the Internet overnight.

If you sell information products (which you should be), all you have to do is write

a few great articles or a "top 5" list (or "top 10") like this one and then give it away

for FREE through your autoresponder. If your article is written correctly i.e. if your

free crack sample is good, most people with money to will gladly pay you for more.

Secret #3: Follow the "Relevancy Rule"

It still amazes me how many Internet marketers get this wrong. For example, you

simply cannot give away a chance to win a free IPOD in exchange for someone's

information and actually believe these people are interested in anything you are

selling. If you are running a contest for people that have already signed into your

list, then this is fine… but in most cases this technique will not produce results on

the front end. You might end up with an enormous list, but 99.9% of these people

will never respond to anything you send to them in the future, and a lot of them will

even mark your future email(s) as spam, which is not good.

Secret #4: Become an "Editor" and not a "Writer"

Throughout the years, I have noticed that a good percentage of Internet marketers

are NOT good article writers. But most people can take someone else's articles, emails,

sales letters and press releases and put their own "spin" on them to make them their own.

Even some of the most skilled writers would rather edit someone else's work rather than

write their own stuff from scratch. This saves hours of valuable time… and time is just

as important as money.

Secret #5: The "Horizontal Mambo" Usually Happens "After" the First Date

Just because you are able to drive targeted traffic to your website with a nicely crafted

landing page that captures people's information in exchange for a free eBook or other

free information does not mean you are going to "score." And if you do score on the first

date, it still doesn't mean that you are done. As Sir Mix-a-Lot once said "Some punks like

to hit it and quit it, but I'd rather stay and Play." If a customer buys something from you

immediately, just think of all the other great stuff they might buy from you over the next

several years!

In order to make sales in the future, or if you didn't score on the first date, you should

make sure the messages in your auto responder are well crafted and provide a call to action.

It's your job to provide some sort of urgency to get your prospects to do whatever it is you

want them to do. Some suggestions would be: one-time-offers, coupons or discounts,

special events (webinar or in person), "limited time only" offers, etc.

Keep in mind that you also need to have a delicate balance. You cannot send a sales letter

every day to your list for 3 weeks. You must provide information and then ask for the sale.

Provide more information and then ask for the sale and so on. In other words, you have to

create the need for something and then show your customers the solution to that need.