Why I Love Viral List Building
I like to enhance my list building by using viral list builders. I wouldn’t rely on them completely, but I think they have their place. This is especially true if you’re a beginning marketer.
Some marketers have come out and given some reasons as to why they don’t like these tools. I think their reasons are valid, but perhaps they’re overlooking something. There are many tools that are quite effective when used in the right way. Those same tools can be a miserable failure when not used properly.
Don’t tell anyone, but I still use viral tools for list building. I believe that many who don’t like these viral methods simply either don’t use them well, or they’ve used the wrong ones.
A viral list builder maximizes your ability to reach potential subscribers by using other websites to promote your ezine subscription or autoresponder ecourse. It allows you to use existing subscribers to create new subscribers. Once set up, this type of advertising technique continues to work without additional input on your part.
These tools can help make every visitor or subscriber increase your opt-in list, often fairly quickly, and for zero cost. Some have criticized these tools, saying that they don’t build lists fast enough.
This might be true, but fast is a relative term. I hear from new marketers all the time that they can’t or won’t spend money. Obviously, if you can afford to pay for traffic using say, Google Adwords, then you will dramatically speed up your efforts. But, if you can’t spend the money, but you can drive traffic to a web page using other means, viral techniques can significantly increase your bottom line.
If you read some of what the top marketers have to say, making every visitor count is a key theme. Not everyone is going to be interested in what you have, and certainly only a small percentage of people will actually buy from you on one visit. If you go viral, you have a way of making the bulk of your visitors multiply your efforts, with minimal additional work on your part.
If you’re a beginning marketer on a small budget, or you simply want to give your subscriber base a good kick in the pants, this is a great way to do it.
Some viral list builders work by placing code on a page on your site, some use their site, some can be popups, and some replace a page entirely. Before I continue, I want to be sure that we’re clear that zero cost is referring to money only.
When using viral list building, there are some other costs you should consider and understand. These include an investment of time, and a certain amount of control that is lost. The fact that you’re often building someone else’s list or traffic as well as your own is often seen as a negative. The trade offs can be worth it, however, if you use these tools correctly.
In an upcoming post, I’ll talk about one of my favorite viral list builders, as well as a simple technique that I see very few (if any) people using to enhance the viral effect. We’ll talk soon.