I get questions about the [tag-tec]list building tools[/tag-tec] I use and recommend frequently. Below you will find the tools I use to build my opt in lists to incredible sizes.
All told our properties have a combined list total of over 40,000 members. Now that’s not nearly as much as others, but the way we have cultivated and nurtured our lists has provided us with a more responsive group of subscribers. We consistently out-pull lists up to 10 times the size of ours because of the tools we use to build our lists.
The best tools for list building are:
1. AWEBER: AWEBER is the only list management tool that builds lists with the highest delivery rate due to their undying attention to staying in good graces with the major email providers such as AOL, MSN, Comcast, Google and many others.
This is no small feat and it is something not to take for granted. If you use an email script on your own domain to gather and manage your list, you are 100% guaranteed to have a far lower delivery rate than using AWEBER. I am talking the difference between a 40% delivery rate (my average deliverability when I was using a script and mailing from my own hosting account) and between 85% and 98% using AWEBER.* *(My personal results.)
AWEBER is the industry standard used by tens of thousands of site owners from extremely large companies to the smallest mom and pop sites on the web and everything in between. Don’t bother building a list if you don’t use this tool!
2. XmailWrite: This free email creation, formatting, and deliverability tool has become the most widely-heralded email tool on the web in the short time it’s been around. It formats your emails (line wraps to any number of character widths) and does all kinds of checking to make sure you aren’t using too many words that will set off ISP filters and render your mails less deliverable. Everyone I know uses this one and we love it. And it’s FREE!
3. What Would Seth Godin Do? This is a WordPress plugin that cookies your visitors and presents any kind of message you’d like to them about subscribing to your email and/or RSS feed. It turns itself off for visitors who have been to your site the number of times you specify. Many major bloggers use this tool and love it for simplicity and its inability to break your blog or cause conflicts with other plugins.
4. How To Build and PROFIT From Your Own Lists: This is the only course you will need to purchase to teach you about the fundamentals through advanced list building tactics. It is by my buddy Mark Hendricks and it covers everything you need to know about effective list building to build both fast and cultivate an active, hungry list.
5. Exit Grabber: This is a new list building tool that is pure genius and highly effective. What it does blows my mind and I still don’t know how it works on the technical level. Basically it senses when someone is about to leave your site and presents them with a message of your choice. The best use from feedback on this tool is to grab people leaving with a special offer to join your list. This is probably the best list building tool to come out in 2007, hands down.
6. You Ask Them Survey Software: List building is not just how fast you can add optins to your list. Having the biggest list is not the goal. Having the most responsive list is. To do that you must constantly check in with your list members and find out more about them to better target your offers to them. We use You Ask Them to survey our lists frequently about all sorts of things that make our mailings and our product development higher performing and more profitable.
7. Peel Away Ads Software: This is very cool, very effective, unblockable advertising for your list that gets attention. I have heard from clients who use this on their pages that they have drastically increased their conversions and list opt ins using this novel software. It’s extremely effective and extremely inexpensive.