Regardless of the type of  home-based business you promote, if you are not building a list, you are not building a business. Period! One of the most crucial components of marketing, whether it be online or offline, is compiling a list of potential customers and communicating with them on a regular basis.

Through regular communication you can establish rapport and a foundation of trust and familiarity that will make people feel comfortable about purchasing from you or acting upon any of your recommendations.

Marketing studies have proven that people need to be exposed to a product or service at least 7 or 8 times before they’re ready to make a purchase. So regular communication with a prospect list allows one to take full advantage of this fact.

Now this may seem like a matter of simple common sense, but remarkably most aspiring home-based entrepreneurs are not doing this or they’re not doing it properly. I made mistakes when I started out that are commonly made in the high-ticket direct sales industry.

When I was involved with a company called Liberty League I would buy $400 worth of telephone verified opportunity seeker leads and call them once or twice in an effort to get them on a conference call about the opportunity. In the rare event that I did get someone to attend the conference call, I would try to follow up with that person to assess their interest level and then initiate a 3-way call to my sponsor. This was a horribly inefficient and painful way to build a business. Some people, through strength of will and sheer determination, were able do this successfully but it did not work out for me. Just writing about this is painful to me considering the ease with which I make sales nowadays by applying sound marketing principles.

 Today I can take that same $400 dollars that I used to spend on telephone leads, advertise one of my lead capture pages and quickly compile a list of 100 – 300 people and market to them repeatedly over the course of time using email autoresponder messages which maximizes the effectiveness of my advertising dollars. My autoresponder messages contain valuable information about the program as well as helpful marketing tips. Sometimes people see the value in what I promote in a few days or it may take months. I once  had one individual purchase a product from one of my recommendations after getting more than 7 months worth of my periodic messages. The best part is that its all automated and I never have to chase after people over the phone. This is the power of list marketing! If you want to be successful in your  business you must practice list marketing! 

So if you are starting out, what is the fastest way to build a list? Assuming that you already have a lead capture system and an autoresponder system in place, fastest way to get your own list is to “steal” one from someone else. This can be done by advertising on someone else’s newsletter or ezine.

Let’s say someone has a list of 20,000 of people who receive internet marketing tips through an online newsletter. You contact the owner of that list and place an ad which costs $125 that goes out to all 20,000 members. Let’s be conservative and say you only get a .5% response rate. So that means 100 people see your ad, visit your website and subscribe for more information. Bingo! You have an instant list of 100 people!

You can build a relationship with them and send them your marketing message as often as you like. Now if you followup properly, there is no reason why you can’t convert some of them into paying customers! 

 In order to make ezine advertising work for you, you have to carefully research ezines with which to advertise. This can take considerable time and effort. Here is a method that is easier and just as effective.

You can rent a list from a company called Rent-A-List. Rent-A-List is a subsidiary of Multiple Stream Media, a rock solid company with a phenomenal track record of success in assisting home-based entrepreneurs build thriving businesses. Rent-A-List has compiled lists of hundreds of thousands of individuals who are interested in building a home business. They can blast your ad to their members and in a day or two you can put 100 – 150 people in your own list! Their pricing is affordable to everyone! It is a great one-stop-shop advertising source for beginners and a offers sophisticated services for seasoned marketers as well. I have been using Rent-A-List for several  years.

The trick to getting the most value for you money with Rent-A-List is to NEVER pay full price for the services because they regularly offer discount deals. After you create a free Rent-A-List account, just wait until they announce one of their discount promotions. I always wait until the offer at least a  50% discount. The advertising package I recommend using to create a big list quickly is called Targeted List Advertising .

 If you purchase a  Rent-A-List package through my affiliate link, I’ll give you a free  Learn2EarnNow.net  gold membership account! So sign up for your Rent-A-List account using the banner below and then contact me so I can verify it and award your bonus!