My name is Connie Ragen Green, and I’ve been making money online since 2006. I have successfully built a five figure a month income with a very small list. In fact, I was making 10K a month long before I had one thousand people on my list, and I can teach you how to do the same thing by following some simple marketing strategies. I am now a list relationship coach, helping others to build a relationship with the people on their lists in order to increase their online income.

The mission of this site is to teach you how to monetize your list, no matter how small it is. I will share what has worked for me, and welcome your comments and suggestions for what other information you would like for me to share with you.

Even though it is important to be continually growing your list, you certainly do not need a huge list in order to make an excellent living with your online business. Thanks for being here, and be sure to sign up on the right to receive an email notification when I write a new post twice each week. Feel free to leave a comment on any post that resonates with you, and share your own experiences about making big money with a tiny list.

Creating your own group on the social networking site Facebook will help you to increase your profits. Start a group on your niche topic, using your best keywords in the title for the group. Add a tagline that states a benefit to those who join, such as some specific information they will receive as a member. When starting and maintaining your group on Facebook, you will want to keep a few things in mind. Take a look at some of the other groups on your niche topic to see what they have to offer the group members.

When people are searching for information, they are not setting out to purchase anything. They just want to know more about a particular topic at that point in time. The idea with creating your group is to have a central place where people can exchange ideas, ask questions, and find resources. You are the administrator and facilitator of the group, so they are coming to you for all of this.

You may want to invite your Facebook friends to join your new group, but only do this once every six months. Everyone is already inundated from a variety of requests to join groups, attend calls, and other types of invitations. Instead of pushing your information on them, allow those who are interested to pull the information for themselves. This is a web 2.0 concept that works extremely well.

Be sure to let your list know that you have started this new group. Offer them an incentive for joining, such as a short report or a teleseminar. This will help you to build the excitement and buzz that works well on the Internet. On a regular basis, at least once a month, message the group members with new information, updates, and other pertinent details on your niche topic.

This is yet another strategy for building your credibility and visibility on the Internet. You want your list to know that you have lots going on, and that you are an expert in your niche. Spend some time setting up your group, starting several discussion threads, adding appropriate links and resources, and interacting with your group members. This is excellent for connecting with people one on one, and for building a relationship with those people.

As far as social networking sites go, Facebook is one of the most effective. I have created a course to teach you how to set up Facebook Fan Pages. Take some time to learn your way around, and then you will be ready to jump right in.

What kind of relationship are you building with the people on your list? Do they feel comfortable with you, and trust you enough to ask you anything, knowing you will give them an honest answer every time? Creating this type of know, like, and trust factor does not come easily, but it can be accomplished if you spend some time with getting to know your prospects. I believe it has worked for me because of my email messages, my teleseminars, and my follow up techniques.

My emails almost always include a little something personal about me. I share what it was like to get started online in 2005, when I did not have a clue about starting an Internet business. I relate my current business to what it was like to be a classroom teacher and also work in real estate at the same time.

I have shared my successes, like winning twenty-five thousand dollars in Armand Morin’s contest at the Big Seminar in November of 2009, along with my mistakes, like the time I kept pressing send and accidentally sent out hundreds of messages to my list. By showing my vulnerability as a human being, my list has been able to relate to me.

Holding teleseminars has made this even more pronounced. I will never forget the time someone asked me when it was that I got serious about being an online entrepreneur. I got choked up as I answered. I said that I got serious the day I received a letter from the bank saying that it looked like my payment were coming in later and later each month, and that if I were late on my next payment they would begin the foreclosure process. I had not planned on sharing that type of personal information, but it sure felt good to know that I could share it with the people who looked to me for guidance in how to build their own online business.

My follow up with the people on my list is also very different from what I have seen other marketers do. When one or two people email me and ask about something they are struggling with, I send out an email message to everyone and address the problem head on. I know if one or two people are having difficulty or confusion, there must be more people who need help with the same exact thing.

I answer all emails and create new products and courses based on what my list has asked from me. I believe this is the best way to build a relationship with your list so they will come to you with all of their questions. They also feel an extreme loyalty to me, asking me for my affiliate link whenever they decide to purchase someone else’s product. That means the world to me.

There are many ways to connect with the people on your list. These are people who have come to you to learn what you are teaching online. You can share secret or other insider information with your list, and this will make them see you in an entirely new light. We all love a secret, so when someone we only have a small connection with offers to divulge secret information or insider tips, we suddenly feel like we are part of the group. This will help you to quickly build the link, know, and trust factor in your business.

When doing this, make sure the information you are sharing with them is valid and applicable to their specific type of business, give them a reason for needing to know what you are telling them, and give them an opportunity to respond or further communicate with you on the topic. This is important in order for you to maintain your credibility with your list.

A secret is only valuable if it helps us to achieve our goals. Think about it; we want and need insider tips and other information if we are to achieve what we want in our personal or professional lives. When I was a classroom teacher, I was often privy to information that helped to decide the best course of action for my career. These secrets helped me to save time and money when I was deciding to return to school for an advanced degree and taking a closer look at changing from one school district to another. Make sure the insider tips you share are truly ones that will be helpful to your prospects.

This is a method to start making money right away, before you have your own product or course to sell online. You can teach someone else’s program or product to build a relationship with your prospects. This works well when you are very new to Internet marketing and want to build your credibility quickly. When choosing a program to teach, look for one that offers an excellent product, requires ongoing or additional support, and pays you an affiliate commission that will compensate you adequately for your time. Spend some time finding just the right program to teach, and then jump in with as much enthusiasm as possible. I continue to do this with several programs, including the shopping cart, where I hold a webinar training once a month for everyone signed up through my affiliate link.

Find a program that offers a level of excellence that you respect. This will be your best bet, because you will be able to become a spokesperson for both the course and the person who created it. I have taught several programs using this business model, and I will tell you that it can be very rewarding. It also helps you to build a relationship with the person who created the program to begin with, which may lead to joint ventures in the future.

The best programs to teach are ones that require additional training and assistance for those who sign up. One of the products I teach is the one I mentioned earlier; a shopping cart and autoresponder system that can be quite confusing for those who are new online. Once a month I hold a webinar training where they can ask their questions and watch me set up the various parts of the system. There is no charge for them to attend; I am receiving a commission each month from the fees they are paying. This works out well for everyone involved.

You must decide up front how much your time is worth. Once you decide what that is you can begin to plan how much time you are willing to spend teaching the program, course, or system. I knew that I would have more people signing up over time, so I was willing to spend more of my time in teaching. Within a few months I was earning twice my hourly rate, so this was a good idea. You’ll have to evaluate what will work best for you and how you will teach the people who come to you.

You can see that this can be a business model that will work well for you, especially when you are new online. I encourage you to find at least one program to teach that falls into this category and watch as your business grows to new levels over time.

An e-course is a series of short lessons that teach your prospect some basic information on your area of expertise. I love e-courses. They have proved to be extremely profitable for me and thousands of others who are working on the Internet. When you are creating your own e-course, think about the topic, what else you will promote, and how you will follow up with the people who sign up to learn from you.

The only mistake you can make is in trying to provide too much information on too wide a topic. Instead, choose just one slice of your niche and create about 5 lessons on it. Each lesson can be two or three paragraphs long – just enough to fit comfortable into an email message that is set in your autoresponder sequence. Each lesson can include a recommendation for one of your products or that of an affiliate. You may want to also include an assignment for them to do to encourage them to connect with you by email. Here is an example of an e-course that has done very well for me in terms of building my list and increasing my income.

Building a relationship with your list can be a simple process if done from the very beginning. Storytelling is a natural and powerful way to connect with your target audience on a much deeper level than what most marketers are doing. You can learn to craft and shape these stories to retain their integrity while still making a point related to your business. Storytelling is comfortable for our audience, can be used to explain what we are doing, and is the basis for list relationship marketing.

We all grew up listening to stories told by the adults in our lives. In school we heard even more stories, especially those related to the history of our country and the world. Over time we become accustomed to hearing stories that shape the way we make sense of the world around us. When you think of someone who has motivated or inspired you, it is very likely you will connect them with the story they tell. Craft your own story to let people know who you are and where you came from. It will allow them to make sense of who you are and how you can help them to succeed. This is a comfortable medium to use with your prospects and clients.

You can explain what you are doing by telling a story around it. For example, I am teaching people how to hold teleseminars when they are new and have no list. The story I shared with them is how I started doing teleseminars by making up a list of names and questions. These were my make believe friends, and they asked questions that moved my calls along. As I began to build a list I no longer needed this pretend list of students, and my business was launched successfully. The point is that anyone can hold a teleseminars, even if they have no one on their list.

Craft stories to connect with your prospects and teach what you know. This is an excellent way to monetize even the smallest list.

You can create raving fans very easily on the Internet. Responding to your prospects’ emails is one way of doing this, and you will be connecting with them on a deeper level. We can probably all remember when we were brand now to online marketing and needed help with some of the smallest things. I know that it would have been extremely valuable to me to have someone I could have asked a question and received a reply. Instead, days went by before I could move on. Be the person the people on your list can write to with their questions and you will build a list of loyal and raving fans in a very short period of time.

You need to establish this as part of your business model from the very beginning, because we are not expecting anyone to be open to receiving emails from us. By telling your list to hit the reply button and tell you what’s on their mind, you are opening yourself up to taking your relationship to a whole new level. Imagine your list feeling like you are the one to ask before they make a purchase or other major decision for their business.

I believe this can also be enhanced through teleseminars. I still offer a free call each month for people to ask me anything they want or need to know. During those calls I answer all questions, give advice, and recommend my own and affiliate products and services. When people hear our voice they feel like they know us, and this gives us the opportunity to connect with them. It’s all about the relationship, so build that relationship with your list through your emails and teleseminars.

This idea was hard for me to grasp, but now it is a solid part of my marketing strategy. Setting up a series of autoresponder messages for each topic and product you create gives you the opprtunity to stay connected with your prospects and clients for an extended period of time, rather than for just a short time after they sign up with you initially.

When someone first signs up, send them a message every day for the first ten days. Then go to once a week or so, making sure to stay on topic. This gives you a reason to send them more information and appropriate offers over time. If they stay on your list for a month, they are more than likely to stay with you for an undetermined period of time.

When I was just starting out, the idea of setting up a year’s worth of autoresponder messages seemed like an impossible task. Now I just set them up for the first 30 days, and then add to that during the next month or so. The result is that I now have sales of both my own and affiliate products every single day. Many of those sales are from products and services I have recommended. The idea is to create a system where you do not have to do any additional work in order to profit for years to come. The most popular system to send out these autoresponder messages is Aweber. They are currently offering the first month for only $1.

Even if someone has been on your list for quite awhile, they may not be a prospect. The reason I am saying this is that we all join lists to get the free giveaway or because we were interested at the time we signed up, but now we just don’t care as much.

If there are people on your list who fall into this category, and I know there are, then you must get their attention. Videos are an excelllent technique to get people to sit up and take notice. Video has never been easier, so there is no reason to not include this as part of your list marketing strategy.

I don’t like to be in my own videos, so I use Camtasia to record me narrating as I teach or show something on my screen. It is personal because I am speaking directly to the person watching the video. If you want to be in your own video, use a Flip or Kodak camera to make short videos (under 5 minutes is best) and then upload them to YouTube. I recently discovered TubeMogul as another free site that distributes your videos. You can also video a PowerPoint presentation and use that as your video.

Shake up the people on your list by sending them a link to your video. This could help to turn them into good prospects for your online business.