David Ogden asked:

In your home based business marketing efforts, one of the most valuable pieces of real estate an Internet marketer can own is a mailing list. Whether you have your own products, or not, you can still build a mailing list fairly easily on the Internet today. Here are four easy steps to building a mailing list that anyone can do with a little bit of effort.

1. Use your own autoresponder to store names and email addresses. Your autoresponder should also be used to send follow up messages to the people who are subscribed to it.

The autoresponder is the key to developing a mailing list into a valuable piece of real estate. How you use your autoresponder will be of the utmost importance to the future success of your home based business marketing efforts.

2. Develop a pre-sell page with an opt-in form on it. Many affiliate marketers fall into the trap of sending their traffic directly to their affiliate sales page. Even people who are marketing their own products online make the same mistake.

You are much better to use a pre-sell page where you warm your prospect up. You can even put an opt-in form on your pre-sell page and ask your visitors to fill out their name and email address before you send them on to your sales page.

This is a good way to build your list while warming your prospects up at the same time. The key is to make this pre sell page as targeted as possible without causing your website visitor to lose interest and leave before they fill out your opt in form.

3. Your sales page is where you sell your products or affiliate products. This is where your prospects will be sent after they go to your presale page. If you’re utilizing your opt in form correctly then once they fill the form out you will redirect them to the sales page where they now have a chance to purchase a product from you.

Obviously your home based business marketing goal is to sell products to make money on the Internet. You do this on your sales page, but if your visitor chooses not to make a purchase on the first visit, you still have their name and email address that you can follow up with your autoresponder.

Since many people take several exposures to a product before they make a purchase this gives you an excellent chance to still make a sale in the future if they don’t buy from your sales page right away.

4. Market your pre sell page like crazy all over the internet. You need to learn how to promote your pre sell page to get traffic to it. The only way the previous three steps will work is if you are getting visitors to this page.

These are four home based business marketing tips you can use today to start building your own list. If you’re serious about making money in your business, then list building needs to be on the top of your daily priority list… every day.

Tom McMULLEN asked:

If you want to make sales you need to do some home business marketing unless you are lucky enough to get all of your customers from word of mouth. Most businesses, no matter how large are not that lucky.

People from kids to 80 year olds now buy things on the internet. It is becoming second nature to compare product prices, and look at various merchants online before they actually make a purchase.

This is good news for business owners who are using the internet to make money. You can sell more, and make more money if you are being found online. So how do you do that.

First of all, if you do not have a website or blog of your own, you need to get one. Part of your home business advertising efforts will revolve around sending traffic to your site and you can not do that effectively using any old replicated or affiliate website.

When you set up your site make it easy to get around in. One mistake many business owners make is they clutter their site with useless junk that actually detracts from their main products. Solicit some outside opinions on your site as it is easy to fall in love with your work and be blinded to any problems it may have.

Another important factor to keep in mind is how fast does your site load. Slow loading sites lose visitors who will not wait around. They will leave and go somewhere else like your competitors.

If you are unsure about how to lay your site out look at what the top websites in your industry are doing. This should give you some ideas for your own website.

One more point to keep in mind is that everyone who visits your site will leave. It is to your benefit to have an opt in form where they can join your newsletter, or access a free report.

You will greatly enhance your home business marketing efforts if you capture information for future follow up. Imagine that you have thousands of visitors coming to your site everyday and only a small percentage will buy anything from you.

The best thing you can do is get as many names and email addresses to follow up with and turn some of those into future customers. You can not do that if you let everyone leave to never hear from you again.

So how do you get visitors to your website? You do that 2 ways.

1. Offline marketing

2. Online marketing

If your business has a strong offline presence already you can add to that by adding your website to any newspaper ads, yellow pages, radio, flyers, direct mail, your business cards, and so on.

It is amazing how many small businesses and home businesses do not have a website. You can use this to your benefit when you get one.

Online marketing can come in many different ways as well. Much of this will depend on your budget. Here are a few ideas.

1.Pay per click advertising with Google, Yahoo, MSN, 7Search and other pay per click search engine programs.

2. Article marketing where you either write, or hire a writer to write, articles about the niche your business is in. Include a bio box for your readers to find your website in.

3. Ezine advertising is a great way to cheaply reach thousands of readers who are on someone else’s list. This is great when you do not have a list of your own to email to.

There are many directions your home business marketing efforts can go. Always remember that the more eyeballs you have viewing your website the more potential business you can have.

Assassin Marketing asked:

Before starting up any kind of business, one must set up a plan to earn more than we spend and avoid mistakes along the way. Here are a few internet marketing mistakes that you should watch out for and avoid:

1. Making viewers wait.

Don’t regret paying more for a hostile package that could bring you to people fast. If your website is constantly down, your server is slow, your graphics take two minutes load, you can say goodbye to your potential customers.

2. Technical arrogance.

Never assume that everyone has the latest version of a program to view your site. Always have plain HTML and text versions ready for these users who do not have Macromedia’s flash installed. Also, take notes from successful sites. Outsource to a pro for SEO writing, web design, and programming to invest in a good template for your site if you’re not that confident on your technical prowess.

3. Not marketing offline.

Complement online traffic to your site by marketing offline as well, because no one is online all the time.

4. Not remaining timely.

If you want to attract customers, you need to be updated on recent and upcoming events that are relevant to your site. If you’ve got marketing materials on your site about Memorial Day special and it’s June 15th, you’re losing customers.

5. Poor linkages.

Focus on building long-term passive traffic rather than bulk traffic packages or trying traffic gimmicks. However, be very careful with whom you align yourself. Some companies operate co-registration and affiliate programs that violate the CAN-SPAM act and other rules and regulations. Check out any company that offers you anything , especially those who offer you anything that’s quick and easy.

6. Giving users the third degree.

Signing up for newsletters or making purchases should be easy for your customers. Avoid making them go through a number of links or asking too many questions before complete tasks. You loose 10-15 percent of your potential customers for each question you ask them.

7. Not using viral marketing.

Let your customers create ‘buzzwords’ for you through simple ‘forward to a friend’ links or ‘two for one offers’ or offline marketing on t-shirts and other accessories that your customers can wear. Viral marketing or ‘word of mouth’ (in offline marketing lingo) could create an exponential growth of your site’s visibility by spreading from customer to customer and then business to business.

8. Resorting to cheap gimmicks.

Some marketers resort to goofy and even phony campaigns just to gain brand exposure. These could be entertaining and even viral but sometimes those could backfire because they are irrelevant to the customers and sometimes even to your product or service. Provide something that convert to sales and not just to generate shock or surprise. Connect with your buyers in a positive way by providing products and services that are worth talking about. Associate your site with quality rather than gimmicks and you’ll have customers coming back.

9. Not collecting email addresses.

This is not the same as spamming email addresses because unlike spamming, you ask for your customer’s permission to send them your newsletters and other updates to your site. Remember that spamming could cost you because fines could be very heavy when you are found to be in violation of CAN-SPAM laws. By collection email addresses, you maintain your target audience and your potential market.

10. Mistaking Traffic for Results.

Only because a lot of people seem to be clicking on your ad doesn’t mean that they are buying. Remember that some sites actually buy traffic just to maintain top-line business. But if these people aren’t buying, how do you expect to even earn off it? Continuously paying for this traffic can be expensive. On the other hand, just because you have enough traffic, it does not also mean that your income is guaranteed for the next months to come. What you should really focus on is, how much of this traffic actually converts to sales? Everyday is a challenge to offer something that your client really needs, to persuade them that they need what you’re offering and that you are offering the best of what they need. Online customers actually know what they want, so it is up to your to tell them that what they want is what you are offering.