A place for finding the Nuts and Bolts for Making Money Online with Affiliate Marketing Business Opportunity!

You have probably heard different Internet marketers use the words "sales funnel." Do you know what that means?

A sales funnel really involves all the things you need to do to make a sale before the customer clicks that link to buy, and all the things that happen afterward. But where should a person be when clicking that first link? Opting in to your list! Never send someone to your sales letter before list building.

If your list building page is about signing up for a series of tips or short newsletters, the very next thing your new customer should see is a thank you page, which says, "Thank you for joining my list, you may also find this interesting..." Then, offer them a product that fits you list building theme. "I read this ebook on (inset topic), and I would highly recommend it to you in preparation for the course," for instance. But it can be an ebook, a piece of software, or a report of some kind that you got at ClickBank or MyFirstAffiliateProduct that you will be paid for. This the first way that you can start monetizing your list.

Some of you are wondering, "How do I make that page come up after people opt-in to my list?"

You do it through your autoresponder. Autoresponders allow you to add special links for the verification letter, if you don't want to use their generic response. So, you upload your new thank-you page to your server, either through .FTP or the file manager. After you've done that, add the URL of your new thank-you page into your autoresponder. Then, the HTML code you add to the squeeze page for your opt-in box tells the autoresponder what to do--to send people to your offer, after they opt-in.

You do the same type of thing when you have a product of your own. Instead of people being led to a "thank you for joining my list" page, they'll be led directly to your sales page for your product because this time you've entered your sales page URL into your autoresponder. But what happens when they not only join your list, but buy your product?

Your new buyer goes first to your payment processor, and unless your autoresponder and payment processor are the same, you'll add the link to a "Thank you for buying my product, and you may also be interested in this..." into your payment processor for a back end sale. Does that make sense?

It all comes down to doing things the right way:

Create a list building squeeze page and get people to opt-in to your list

When someone joins your newsletter, send them to a "thank you for joining my list" page with an offer.

When someone signs up and you have a product of your own, send them to the sales page, then to the "Thank you for buying my product, and you might like this too" page for the back-end product.

Try to keep your list of buyers in a group of their own, too. They're your best customers, ones that will bring repeat sales.

Don't wait! Start list building today.

Tellman Knudson is CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc. and a master of list building. Learn the 9 Laws of List Building at MyFirstList.com