Having access to a growing mailing list without having to build one

While it's absolutely true that building a "mailing list" is one of the keys to a successful online business, there are other ways of reaching "targeted" mailings lists, without having to go to all the trouble of building that mailing list.

To build a list requires some kind of squeeze page, for opt-ins. Developing squeeze pages is a skill all by itself. I know there are several promotions that will provide a squeeze page for you. I have one such promotion and it works pretty good, but I don't presently use it.

The best squeeze page, however, is one that you design yourself, with help from some software program, so that yours doesn't look like everyone else's. With all the competition in today's Internet Marketing field, uniqueness is what will attract the visitor's attention and get them to sign up for your program, over the next guy's.

Then, you have to find attractive items that you can give away, to get your visitor to sign up. Again, there are many promotions that will provide you with such. However, after a while, they all look the same and start to turn visitors off, because they've seen these promotions before.

Just ask yourself. Would you be interested in any of these "free" gifts? If the answer is "no", chances are your visitor would say the same thing.

On the promotions where I have given my name and e-mail address, again, the promotion was unique enough for me to want to find out more. You need the same uniqueness, to get the visitor to opt-in.

Now, that you have their name and e-mail address in your auto-responder, you have to find at least 10 other promotions that you can send to your list. When I was using my auto-responder, I had 10 week's worth of promotions all set up. I sent them to my list once a week.

If some real "hot" promotion came out that I thought they would be interested in, I would send out an immediate broadcast. All of this, however, takes a lot of work.

1. Setting up a squeeze page.
2. Finding an e-book or other item to attract your visitor to opt-in to your list.
3. Signing up with an auto-responder (I use GetResponse).
4. Finding promotions to send to your list, on a regular basis (I set up 10 week's worth).

I'm not knocking this process, as it has made many a fortune for people and continues to do so.

However, I am suggesting that this is another way. One that does not require you to set up a squeeze page or sign up with an auto-responder.

You will, however, have to have promotions, to offer people on a "targeted" mailing list. It works best, when you are using the promotion yourself. This allows you to "kick the tires" and see if it works, before you promote it to others. It also builds your credibility if you know if the promotion works.

OK. You've got your promotions working for you and you're ready to start building a business, using viral marketing.

One form of viral marketing is where you sign up people to your downline. You get ad credits. When they sign someone up, not only do they get ad credits, but you get more credits. There are viral marketing programs where commissions are involved in the levels of downlines.

A downline is simply the levels of people under you for a particular promotion. Some promotions go 5 levels deep; others 10 levels deep. You get something on each level, if you are at the Pro or Elite membeship level and, sometime, even at a lower level. Depends on the promotion.

Carl Goodnight