The fact of the matter is that all good online businesses build email lists. It is the cheapest and most effective way to reach your prospects directly.

It’s more effective than social media, it’s cheaper than paid ads, and it gives you an opportunity to build actual rapport with your potential customers. So it’s important.

Now once people figure that out, inevitably the next question is, “Well how do I grow this email list fast so that I can start making money with it?”

And there is where many times, things go wrong for them.

Here is the real secret behind list building. When you build email lists, you want those people to be a part of your audience. And by that I mean, you want them to see you as someone who can help them accomplish their goals.

Sometimes people build audience before they actually put that audience on an email list, like with youtube or a blog. Sometimes they put people on the list first and THEN turn them into an audience, like with running paid ads to an opt-in.

No matter how you do it, you have to get the people on your list to see you as someone who can help them, someone they know like and trust, before you will see good financial results with your list.

Next week we will be talking more in depth about the concepts behind audience building and email marketing but for now I want to focus on ways to actually build your email list.

Building an email list starts with a lead magnet (something you are going to give people for free in exchange for their email address.)

This lead magnet can be a lot of different things. I’ve seen people use everything from a free workshop to a simple cheat sheet to build an email list. If you want yours to be effective and build you a big list that buys things from you, I would focus on these simple rules:

Promise of Brevity – It must be consumed by the prospect for it to create impact and help you build audience (so don’t make it extremely long and drawn out, save the 90 video workshop for something else) You are better off with a checklist, cheatsheet, or short special report.

Promise of Specific Solution – It must offer a specific resolution to a specific problem. Example: “How to Earn Your First $1,000 with Affiliate Marketing in 30 Days.” Notice how I am giving a specific dollar amount, a specific method, and a specific time frame? Very specific.

What They Want – When you are putting together a lead magnet you should be focused on putting together something you know that your target market wants. In the internet marketing space, for example, I know my market is interested in traffic, list building, and conversions. Make sure you know and understand your target market.

Immediate Gratification – This lead magnet is making a first impression. You don’t want to string them a long here. You want your lead magnet to provide immediate gratification with a solution to their problem.

The Shift – The best lead magnets do not just solve a problem for your prospects. It also builds some rapport and starts the process of getting them to know, like and trust you. That is the relationship shift from stranger to someone who can help them. You want your lead magnet to do that.

So how could we accomplish all of those things with a simple cheat sheet?

Well, we have “promise of brevity” built in by doing a cheat sheet. We can accomplish “Promise of specific solution” and “What they want” by being mindful of our title and subject.

We can get “The Immediate Gratification” factor by keeping the cheatsheet very actionable and high value. By “high value” I mean give them information that will actually help them when applied.

And the final one, “The Shift” we can get by linking each step of our cheatsheet out to a simple video with the promise of more in depth information on that subject.

The videos will be simple to do and will give you a chance to not only provide more value for your prospects but also allow you the chance to build rapport with simple stories about your own online journey. Even showing your face on camera can go a long way towards making you a real person that they can trust.

The great thing about linking out to the videos is that it is not necessary for them to consume the content and get the benefit of the cheat sheet. However, if on each step you put a little note at the end that says, “I made a video for you with even more great info on this step!” most people will click on them.

So go ahead and get yourself a great lead magnet together and in my next email I am going to teach you about what to do with it. For now it’s enough to just create it. It is an asset that you can use in many ways, but we will be using it for lead acquisition here.

Be sure to take action on this. Remember, it doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be. Imperfect action will always beat perfect indecision and procrastination.