If you’ve ever done any research into making money online, you’ll have seen this guru and that expert say that the best way to make money online is to build a list. If you’ve then tried to understand more about this mystical, magical tactic of “list building”, I’ll bet you’ve run into a lot of jargon that made you say, “Huh?”. If not, then you’re a lot more intuitive than I am, because it took me a while to figure out what all those terms meant. So, for those of you who might still be new to the buzz word language of list building, here’s a quick glossary of basic list building terms.

Before we begin, maybe we should first do a quick definition of List Building itself! Building a list is the process of compiling a list of names and email addresses for the purposes of using them in future marketing email campaigns. Most lists are built by offering new subscribers something in return for their information – usually either more information (such as a newsletter) or a free download, like a white paper or ebook. The larger your list, the more opportunities you have of selling products to the list members in the future.

One thing I believe is extremely important – you should give more than you expect to get. Don’t build a list and then just bombard the list with sales pitch after sales pitch after sales pitch. That’s the quickest way to have all your subscribers unsubscribe! Be prepared to give, give, give to your list members. Give as much or more as you would on your own website or blog. Build a relationship – not just a list.

Ok, now on to the glossary.

Autoresponder

An autoresponder is an automated service that lets you send email messages to a group of people on a pre-determined schedule. For example, if someone signs up to receive your newsletter, you could have an autoresponder automatically send a Thank You email to that person. Autoresponders are usually set up to send a series of emails at set intervals. For instance, after the service has sent the automated Thank You email to your newsletter subscribers, it would also automatically send a different message a week later, and a third email 3 days after that one, a fourth message two weeks later, etc. Once you set up the autoresponder, telling it what to send, and when, it does all the work for you.

Example of autoresponders: Aweber is the grandaddy of them all and has been around long enough to be most people’s choice. Another very popular option is GetResponse. Finally, Mailchimp is the newcomer that is working to invade the leaders’ territory. It may not have quite the status of Aweber or GetResponse, but it’s getting there. There are other choices as well, of course, but those are the top three, in my opinion.

Black List

A Black list is a list of senders who have been blocked from sending email to someone’s email client (such as Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.)

Bounce

Bounce is a term that refers to an email that was not delivered to the recipient successfully. For example, if you send an email to an email address that no longer exists, the email will “bounce” back to you.

Broadcast

A broadcast simply refers to an email that is sent to an entire list of people at one time. If, for example, you wanted to tell everyone on your newsletter list that you are having a one-day sale on a popular product, you would “broadcast” one email out to the entire group.

Call To Action

Call to Action is a popular marketing term that refers to a particular action that you want your user to take. Some common calls to action might include having your newsletter readers click a particular link in the newsletter, reply to the email, or call a phone number that you’ve listed in the email. Getting the right wording in your call to action, or placing the call to action in just the right spot, can mean the difference between the user taking the action or not.

Campaign

A campaign is a limited-time marketing effort designed to increase awareness of a particular product or service, or to increase sales for a particular product or service. A 3-day Mother’s Day sale is an example of a campaign.

Click-Thru

Click thru simply refers to the act of a user clicking a link. If you’ve placed a link in an email, and a reader clicks that link, they’ve “clicked thru” to the desired web page.

Click-Thru Rate

The click-thru rate is the percentage of people who clicked a particular link. If your email message was opened by 100 people, and 20 clicked the link you provided in the email, then the click-thru rate for that link was 20%.

Confirmation

Confirmation is the step someone takes to verify that she truly does want to subscribe to a mailing list. We’ve all been through this step. You join a newsletter or enter your email address into someone’s opt-in form, and a few seconds later you receive an email asking you to click a link to confirm that you really do want to subscribe. This confirmation step is part of a double opt-in (you’ve opted to subscribe twice – once when you entered your email address in the form, and once when you clicked the confirmation link).

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate refers to the percentage of email recipients who bought the product or service advertised in the email you sent them.

Demographic

A group of people with common characteristics are referred to as a “demographic”. Some common characteristics include age, gender, ethnicity, and geographic location. You may want to send certain email offerings to a particular demographic, as they would likely be more interested in the offer.

False positive

In this context, a false positive refers to email that is labeled as spam by a recipient’s spam filter, even though it is actually NOT spam. In essence, the spam filter has “positively” identified the email as spam, which is a “false” determination.

Offer

An offer is the “deal” that you are offering to buyers for a particular product or service. For example, your offer may be Buy One, Get One Free, Today Only.

Open Rate

The percentage of emails that were opened (of the total sent).

Opt-in Page / Opt-in Form

The opt-in page is the web page that contains an opt-in form. The opt-in form is a sign-up form where users enter their email address and name (and possibly additional information). Essentially, this is the beginning of the list building process. This page should give readers solid benefits for subscribing to your list, enticing them to fill out the form.

Permission

When users enter their email address into your opt-in form, and then confirm their subscription, they’ve given their permission to send them emails, which may include marketing offers.

Personalization

Personalization simply means automatically including personalized details in an email, such as the recipient’s first name.

Squeeze Page

A squeeze page is a common name for an opt-in page, with the purpose being to encourage users to subscribe to your mailing list or newsletter. Free downloads are often given as a bonus enticement for opting in.

White List

A white list is the opposite of a black list. It is a list of email addresses that are specifically allowed to send email to your email client, usually by adding the sender’s email address in the address book. Don’t forget to ask the users who subscribe to your list to white list you. Explain in your thank you message that by doing so, your email won’t wind up in their spam box by mistake (as a false positive).

That should get you started. If you run across any other list building terms that you’d like to see defined, just let me know!