Internet Marketing Mistake #1: The Wrong Way To Build A List

They say, in internet marketing, the money is in the list. Everything you read about, learn about, take courses about internet marketing all say how important it is to build your own list. Knowing how important a list is, many make a fundamental mistake in building a list. If you make this mistake it could cost you big time.

There are a number of ways to build a list. For the most part you must create a marketing plan, generate traffic, get subscribers from that traffic and slowly build your list. As with most things, people are always looking for a shortcut. List building is no exception.

As people look for shortcuts, there is always an abundance of those who try and take advantage of that desire. You may have seen on the internet offers to sell targeted lists. These lists are claimed to be fresh opt in lists of people who really want to hear about what you are trying to market.

In most cases, this can't be farther from the truth. This particular type of list is know as co-reg lists. Usually the names and address come from leads inadvertently clicking a check box or even more commonly not noticing that they needed to uncheck a box on a website where they may have purchased a product or signed up for someone else's list.

The purveyors of these lists make it sound like this is the easiest way to get up and running with a list. They make claims like: get 60,000 fresh targeted leads each month. I have seen some offering 1 million fresh leads a month. Sounds too good to be true. You know, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. This is a classic example.

Here is what happens with this list. First, you have to have your own autoresponder on your own server. If you are using a third party like Aweber, you will find that there is no way to import those lists into it. That is because Aweber values their reputation and won't allow you to populate lists on their site with Co-reg lists.

Once you have your autoresponder that you can actually load the list into, and you start sending emails, chances are upon trying to sign on to your site a short time later and find this message: ACCOUNT SUSPENDED!

This is because unless you bought a dedicated server, which costs hundreds per month you probably exceeded the hosts bandwidth. That results in an automatic shutdown of your site.

The next thing that happens is the host starts to get spam complaints. The leads you bought usually don't know or forgot that they signed up so they mark your emails as spam. Your ip address becomes banned from the major providers like AOL and Yahoo. Even if you get the autoresponder shut off and your account reactivated, future communication from your site will be difficult because now your site is known as a spam site.

There are some who claim they have had success with Co-Regs. That may be the case, but you will notice in any information that shows you how to use Co-Regs, they warn you to never use your main website. In fact they basically suggest you use a throw away site. They know that eventually it will be shut down.

Building a good list is very rewarding. It is the basis for your online income. Don't try and take shortcuts. Trying to shortcut your way to a big list by using Co-Reg lists can be a big mistake.