Today, ask any successful marketer where the best earnings opportunities are and they’ll tell you “the money is in the list”.

As a local business owner, the same can apply to you as well.

By list, they mean their email mailing list, those who have opted in to receive emails from that particular marketer or business. It may seem obvious to those who have been online for any length of time, but there are many website owners who do not have any way of capturing visitors email addresses on their website.

This means they’re missing out on earning a lot more profit, for very little extra effort.

You may have heard the terms “cold list” and “warm list”. A cold list is a list of subscribers who haven’t been contacted in a long time, so their response to any emails would be low. However, a warm list is when the list owner has been regularly contacting their list, interacting with them and offering them a reason to stay subscribed to that list.

Having a warm list is very important.
Not only does it mean that any offer, special sale or announcement you send will get a better response, but it also means that your ‘conversion rates’ will be higher.

Your ‘conversion rate’ is the number who actually buy or call, or visit your business, divided by the total number of subscribers you send the email to.

After you’ve developed your list for a while you should know what your conversion rate is for different mailings. Knowing this will tell you how profitable each new subscriber can be to you, as well as existing subscribers. This is the main reason building a mailing list is important. Once you know what your ‘conversion rate’ is, you can almost guarantee how much more traffic and sales you can drive to your business.

To keep a list ‘warm’ there are some things you should do, especially building trust with your list. Let your list know a bit about you, your business, your staff, and be approachable. Try to send quality, non-sales information regularly and only sprinkle in sales emails and affiliate offers at intervals.

Be upfront about the offers that you send out. Think long term profits from your list rather than quick profits that could ruin your long term future. A good list, properly worked, can add excellent profits to your business over many years! It’s a real asset.

Unfortunately some business owners, after hearing that the money is in the list, start to spam their lists with offers and advertisements hoping for that big pay day. It’s very easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe and chances are they will never resubscribe either. So, since your reputation on the line, you have to be careful.

There are numerous ways to build your mailing list. It’s important to note that by testing and measuring which methods bring the most opt-ins, you can create a highly effective list building strategy. Experts in local list building can help businesses take advantage of this new way to market.

Copywriters Resource List – Compliments of BruceRuby.Com

The following is a brief list of Websites and Copywriting Books/Courses
that can help almost anyone launch their copywriting career or just improve their copy skills. There’s a whole education here for ‘Free’ or a few bucks!

Websites:

Thegaryhalbertletter.com

Free information on copywriting, business and life authored by one of the premier direct response copywriters. Since his passing 3 years ago, the site has been updated and organized by his son Bond. Includes all the back issues of newsletters and the Boron Letters.

MichelFortin.com

Collection of superb copywriting articles and other resources by one of Canada’s most successful Direct Response copywriters. Michel Fortin also is generally acknowledged as the #1 Internet copywriter working today.

John-Carlton.com (Marketing Rebel Rant)
Premier copywriter offline and now online as well. Has many successful controls running in national magazines and direct mail campaigns. For some time conducts live workshops and has a product line of copywriting materials….whatever you do, read his damn blog.

Clayton Makepeace makepeacetotalpackage.com
Arguably the #1 earner in Direct Response Copy, specializing in Health and Wellness Newsletters and Financial newsletters. 30 year copy veteran whose earnings exceed 2 million a year, it’s reported. He has the chops, so to speak.
There are a couple years worth of his newsletters on site. His educational products are excellent as well.

Books and Courses:

THE ULTIMATE SALES LETTER by Dan S. Kennedy– Great basic Copywriting book. Excellent value as little as $10

GETTING YOU CAN OUT OF ALL YOU’VE GOT – by Jay Abraham
The best overall look at Direct Marketing and Understanding Offers.
Also a steal for only $10 or $15!

ADMAGIC COURSE by Brian Keith Voiles (Master Copywriter)

Brian receives $25,000 or $30,000 for one sales letter!
This is a very comprehensive course on ad copywriting that takes a rookie from square one to competency. It’s only available as a hard copy in a binder with cds included.

I personally own this course, and considering what copy courses cost today, this one is a steal. It can be had for around $100 on Ebay and thru resellers.

One of history’s greatest copywriters, David Ogilvy, Founder of Ogilvy & Mather Agency, had this to say about Testing:

“Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”

This comes down to elementary common sense.

If one headline gets you twice the response as the other, which headline do you want to use?

If one price increases your gross profits and your profit margin by more than 30% each, which price do you want to use?

Now. Now that you know which kind of headline and which kind of price you want to use, how are you going to find out which ones they are?

Only one way. Testing.

David Ogilvy