Obviously, if you never request the names and email addresses of your visitors, you will not create a list. Therefore, your first important task is to have people give you their names and email addresses.
Are you old enough to remember the Roll-o-dex? He would pick up business cards and then enter the contact information by hand on a small card. When you wanted to contact someone, you checked the cards and found the person. That's how we first did our list management, in the 80s.
In the 90s we graduated to contact the management systems in our computers. But still, the data had to be collected in "real life" and entered by hand.
It is much easier now! Your visitor management and check-in system of potential customers and customers can be done automatically, and everything is online. People only need to enter their names and email addresses on a form. No doubt you have done it yourself dozens of times.
There are several ways in which people can opt for your list. The most common way is to provide a subscription box or form somewhere on your site. Or even to create a separate compression page just to collect names and email addresses.
Either works very well, or better yet, use both methods!
Your ethical bribe
You also want to offer something in return when people choose to participate. Something related to your business that has a high perceived value.
A digital product is probably the easiest to create and deliver. You can consider any of the following as thanks to people when they subscribe to your list:
* Ecourse (delivered through several emails)
* Tips (7 to 15 tips, each in your own email)
* Downloadable pdf report
* Audio (more often an mp3)
* Video
* Podcast
And as this could be your visitor's first introduction to your material, you may want to brag a bit!
I don't mean to show off, since when creating an elegant and expensive video. I mean you should keep your promise too much. You want your subscribers to think "Wow! This is great!" when they download your free thank you gift.
You create the form, the thank you gift and the automatic response sequence once, and then it is automatically delivered when someone opts.