From websites to marketing, every step of an online entrepreneur’s  journey is filled with challenges.  But, challenges shouldn’t stand in your way of harnessing one of the greatest marketing tools ever.

A subscriber list is the cream of the crop, one of the greatest secrets to ever hit the marketing world.  Your email subscribers are like a life-long friend and constant companion.  It is any business owners’ dream.  But a subscriber list is not without its fair share of challenges.  Some are ongoing, like content and interesting information, others are more learning curve focused, like set up and implementation.

Regardless of your level of technical know-how, starting something new is always a challenge.

The Big Challenges and How to Overcome Them

The decision to build a subscriber list is one of the best and most lucrative business models to implement.

But there are some challenges that will arise during the course of your list building efforts…

1)      Setting up an autoresponder.  Autoresponders come with so many neat features, it can get overwhelming to even get started.  The best way to navigate this confusing business resource is to start small.  Create your first list.  This will get you headed in the right direction.  Then, set up your first welcome message in the follow up section.  Then compose your second message.  Design a web form  to be placed on your blog or squeeze page.  Taking these activities as small steps, makes the process much more doable.

2)      Getting a squeeze page up.  Setting up a squeeze page can be the most frustrating experience.  But, it is a lot easier with the right tools to make the job 100x easier.  Optimize Press can make this task simple with step by step, fill-in-the-blank actions.  It will save you hours on the learning curve and therefore, I highly recommend it.

3)      Offering an incentive for people to join your list.  Just having a place where people can enter their name and email address to join you is not going to elicit many takers.  There needs to be what is commonly referred to as an incentive or free offer or free goodies.  I cover compelling free offers in more detail, but the idea is to give people something of value in exchange for their name and email address.  Creating something like this can be nothing more than taking your blog posts and compiling them into a report.

4)      Fear of the unsubscribes.  Watching that list of unsubscribes go up, as your list grows is no fun.  So just stop it.  Unsubscribers are a part of your business.  In fact, they are doing you a favor.  Really!  They narrow down your list to people who are more targeted to what your business is offering.  See 5 Reasons Why People Unsubscribe from Email Lists to put your mind at ease.

5)      And finally, what/how often/when to market to your email list.  First of all, there are no “rules” on email marketing.  Because everyone’s business is different, everyone will have a different outlook on this criteria.  I suggest to email them as often as you have something neat, important, cool, interesting, helpful, and otherwise riveting content to share.  People don’t mind and in fact, enjoy getting useful information; it’s the boring “click here for the newest thing I’m selling” emails that get subscribers irritated.

Building your subscriber list is an important marketing aspect to embrace.  And fortunately, for every challenge you encounter, there is a solution right here at your fingertips.  And just think, once you overcome and “figure it out,” bigger success is just an email away.

What are your thoughts – What else have you found to be challenging in building your subscriber list?

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