List Building - You Have to Target to Hit Your Goal

You may have figured out by now that list building is your primary objective for Internet marketing. It's not getting money; it's getting people on your list who may be interested in products that you have to sell. Haven't you heard the old truism: The Money's in the List? It's true! List building should always be your main objective.

I've written so many times about how to get your squeeze page in front of people's eyes, and that remains true, also. You have to drive all the traffic you can to your list building page, be it from pay-per-click, a blog, or paid ezine advertising. But just what kind of traffic should that be?

You want traffic that's already interested in what you have to sell--targeted web site traffic. So, let's say that you're using press releases to drive traffic to your site, and that you write about the newest, hottest game on the market and how you've just invented it. There's a link to your site embedded in the release, right? OK, so people who click that link know that they're going to see something about gaming. They won't even be surprised when you ask them to join your gaming list. When they join and see that your thank you page is to buy your new game, they might even be interested in buying it, right?

You have targeted traffic in that instance. The people who come to your site already have interest in the niche, they want to know more about it, and they may be interested in buying your niche's products, be it your product or someone else's. You can get this kind of traffic from teleseminars, article marketing, and most of the 17 ways there are to get targeted traffic to your site.

People who know nothing about your or your product when they come to your list building page are untargeted. It's hit or miss. They may be interested, and they may not. Think about a radio advertisement. You're just forced to listen to it, unless you switch channels. So, let's say you hear a radio spot advertising lipstick. Well, how many of the people listening to the ad will be interested in lipstick? Probably just the women, right? OK. Do you think you'll sell much lipstick to the men in the audience? No! Will the ad make them change their minds on this? Of course it won't.

You also get untargeted traffic from banner exchanges, traffic exchanges, and any other form of advertising that is just served up to the viewer. Is it worth it? The price is right because it's usually free, right? But there are some things you should consider. The first is how much time do you waste on these untargeted methods, when you could be using it to get targeted traffic? Wouldn't it be more productive to write in a blog or make a podcast? Paying for untargeted traffic is pretty silly, too, unless you find that you make a reasonable return on investment. I doubt that you will.

I have identified 17 ways to generate traffic for your site. Though they aren't all free, most of them are and you'll probably find them much more productive. They are, not in any order:

1. search engine optimization
2. golden rule traffic
3. integration marketing
4. paid ezine advertising
5. direct mail
6. teleseminars
7. endorsed emails from joint venturing
8. voice broadcasting
9. bonus traffic
10. article marketing
11. writing press releases
12. blogging
13. podcasting
14. affiliate marketing
15. pay-per-click
16. viral video
17. viral marketing

Each of these ways will bring you targeted visitors. Take them one at a time and master each of them. You'll probably find that it takes less time and makes more sense to attract people who are already potential buyers. Targeted traffic beats untargeted traffic every day on every corner, and will help you to build your list faster and stronger every time.

Tellman Knudson, CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc., is a master list builder and well-known for his first project, List Crusade. Tellman teaches you his system for explosive list building at MyFirstList.com.