Archive for the ‘List Building Tips’ Category
We’ve mentioned before that opt-in email lists are crucial to affiliate marketers nowadays to gather more traffic and ultimately, more sales. Everyday, the internet is growing at a rate that neither of us can’t imagine so if you are in the online marketing arena, you should look for people who are already online and those who tends to do business online as well.
Using an opt-in email list is still an effective way of marketing your online business whether you want to sell a product or simply looking for someone who could join your network. The people who join an email list do so because they want to have more information about what you are offering or what you are promoting. Opt-in list are populated by these people who have agreed to receive email from specific types of marketers and most of these consumers welcome these kind of emails because it’s an effective way to get offers from not just one vendor.
However, the real question is what kind of customers do you really want? When you are in the internet marketing business, getting your product to the right buyer is primarily the first thing that you should consider. Do you just want to go ahead and flood email inboxes with information on your products or do you want to target a specific market where you know that most of these people will read all your emails and not just skim through it or worse delete them every time they get one from you?
There are two basic types of opt-in list. First is when a merchant includes an opt-in form in their site and collects information that way. Example of that are newsletters, where you, the merchant will send occasional information to the subscribers. Another type is a list purchased from a researcher or a company whose sole work is to collect information from willing buyers of the same products like the one you are promoting in your site.
Most marketers used both types. They have an opt-in form in their sites and they also purchased list of email addresses. As an internet marketer, your goal is to put your products or service at the hands of people who will most likely buy it. So why waste with random email list that have a response rate as low as 1% when you can purchase a list that has a 10% click through rates? It goes back again to the overrated reason of having no money while starting an online business.
There are actually a lot of opt-in email list service providers that you can use which is reliable and the cost is based on your needs too. Several names that come to mind are Constant Contact, Vertical Response, iContact, Emma, Aweber and Get Response. I have tried some of them and each of them charged pretty much the same depending on the features that you are after.
While many people have questioned the effectiveness of this type of marketing due to the rapid increase in unsolicited mail in recent years, it still proves to be a very effective means of promotion on a budget.
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Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing, Home Based Business Tips, List Building Tips, Traffic Generation | 2 Comments »
Some people find posting and participating in forums a strategy that’s boring and hardly ever use it, however, the huge traffic it can help generate is invaluable especially for newbies to the online world of marketing. In forums, people from all over the world can engage and interact in a conversation as a person asks questions and others react, further generating responses. If you want to guide visitors to your site at no monetary expense, try using forums and you’ll notice more guests signing in to your site.
There are several steps for you to take in order to use forums for your marketing needs. There are five main steps to go through and these are as follows:
- Searching of forums. You need to search for forums that carry the topic that you are interested in. Find forums that are related to your website. Use keywords in searching for them and for sure, a lot of results will come up. Since there are numerous results, you might want to try to register to all of them or most of them as you want.
- Prioritization of the forums. This step entails picking the cream of the crop out of your list of forums. Not all results that you found on search engines are accustomed to your needs. You need to select the forums that have more people interacting with each other and that is always active.
- Registration. This is another tiring process because most forums need you to be a registered member before you can post topics or reply to existing topics of your choice. Being a registered member gives greater access to more posts some of which restricted to members only. You can include backlinks with your answers to guide interested people to your site and increase traffic to it. When you have more visitors, marketing your address becomes easier.
- Introduction. To generate consistent traffic, make your introduction as appealing as possible but make sure what you say is true. Online guests are used to false claims and lures and can determine if you are only creating a false image.
- Keep Being an Active Member. After registering and introducing yourself to the people in the forum, keep yourself active by posting comments and starting a new thread yourself. Never comment on certain issues where you lack substance to make useful contribution. You can pick topics related to your expertise and post answers or clarify doubts of other members. Always follow forum rules to have a good credential.
Forums create a sense of community where everyone’s opinion is open for others to criticize. And since people always wants to be in the know, they’ll jump on the bandwagon when they see a thread take off because everyone wants to share their opinions whether they know what they are talking about or not.
Using forums as a way to generate more traffic to your site requires time. However, the relationship it creates with your readers can produce a more substantial rate of success, one you’ve never imagined. With backlinks attached to your signature name, readers can instantly be guided to your site and thus increasing your traffic.
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Email Marketing is the use of email in marketing communications. People who are unfamiliar with email marketing often wonder what all the fuss is about. They thought that spam have killed email as a marketing vehicle. And another reason why they think it is outdated is because of the many clever ways that we can communicate online using blogs, Twitter, Facebook and all other social media sites.
Although there are a lot of strategies now for marketing, email marketing still works because it allows targeting, it is data driven, it drives direct sales, it builds relationships, loyalty and trust and most of all it supports sales through other channels.
Modern email marketing services and solutions support database integration, segmentation and various other tricks and techniques for improving the targeting of outgoing messages. Advanced methods generate on-the-fly emails customized down to an individual recipient basis.
And every email campaign you send out generates a heap of actionable data you can use to refine your approach and messages.
Email promotions and offers generate immediate action: sales, downloads, inquiries, registrations, etc. Informative email newsletters and other emails send people to offline stores and events, prepare the way for catalogs, build awareness, contribute to branding, strengthen relationships, encourage trust and cement loyalty.
Convinced? But don’t get carried away…
Just like trees only bears fruit if managed properly, so is with email marketing. We know it works but you have to get the basics right. The basics of building a list of people who want to hear from you, crafting a message and ensuring the emails get through to those on that list. And when you have the basics right, there’s a whole spectrum of more sophisticated tactics you can employ to drive further success.
Now, several marketers used a lot of forms of advertising and they believe that it is not worth it to use email marketing anymore because of spam. There have been numerous challengers to email marketing’s throne, not the least of which is social media. However, email is still a vibrant, growing medium that has a future for a number of reasons.
Many people are getting very frustrated by how hard it is for them to make decent sales online via email marketing. Are they doing something wrong or has things really become that hard? In reality it is a combination of several things.
First of all the way to make email marketing work has changed for the simple fact that many consumers are getting used to the way many online marketers email. Another thing is that too many marketers are putting their eggs in one basket, thinking that a big list is the key to online profits. Some are even blasting email after email promoting a certain product, while their email list is getting tired of them.
You have to avoid the things that everyone else is doing online in order to make email marketing work for you. Responsible email marketing is based on the idea of permission. This is a complex issue and the subject of intense debate in the marketing community.
Essentially, you need an email address owner’s permission before you can send them a commercial email. If you don’t have this permission, then the recipients of your mail may well regard your message as spam.
Email has been around almost since the advent of the Internet. It’s a staple of the marketing world and one of the most commonly used forms. It’s still effective, both from a cost and conversion standpoint. Marketers should bear in mind that email marketing can co-exist with any marketing channel and it can help leverage social media and vice versa. Consumers are not choosing one medium over the other; they are just utilizing more mediums.
So for me, email marketing is not dying….it’s simply going up and working with any other medium so it doesn’t have its own spotlight anymore though it is still working effectively.
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Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing, Home Based Business Tips, Internet Marketing, List Building Tips, Traffic Generation | No Comments »
In our the last installment of this series we went over how to create your “Initial Offer.” You can see it by clicking here.
Today, I wanted to go over the actual process of how to cultivate a list.
You see most people have a warped concept of what list cultivation actually is.
In fact many of the gurus out there actually don’t even know how to do this themselves.
After speaking with quite a few of these people and my mentors I realized soon enough that most of these so-called gurus never really learned how to actually cultivate a list.
That’s probably the reason why many of these gurus fail to ever successfully build a long-lasting Internet business.
Here’s what I mean…
Most of these guys and maybe this includes you, (don’t be ofended though) understand how to actually build a list – what they don’t understand is how to make that list actually “like” and apprediate them.
Think about this… after a person opts in and subscribe to your newsletter and actually makes the decision that they want your offer, most people tend to send them an e-mail a day for about seven days.
That’s nice but...
What they fail to realize is that human beings take about 45 days of consistent activity to form a habit.
So in other words… they have not formed a habit of actually accepting you into their lives and into their day to day lifestyle.
What that means is that you can send them an e-mail, but if they’ve never built the habit of opening your e-mails and accepting you into their life, you’ll never build that relationship with that person after they opt into your offer.
One of the other purposes of list cultivation is the simple principle of reciprocity. The principle of reciprocity is actually a very powerful human emotional trigger. This trigger almost forces you to give back to those that give to you.
In fact, many religion’s worshiper recruiters use this extremely well.
Have you seen this principle triggered and used by yourself?
This is the primary reason why many corporations and government offices do not allow their employees to accept gifts from outside parties or clients. The principle of reciprocity is so powerful that it is one of the primary reasons why people feel compelled to show unreasonable favoritism to those who have given them gifts… although inside they feel it is unfair.
I am NOT saying that you should cultivate your list in a way that forces them to give you money for just about any garbage product you find; I DO expect that you will use this knowledge in a ethical manner. Trust me, there is usually hell to pay when people figure that out that someone is taking advantage of them.
So here’s how to cultivate a list after they accept your initial offer in how to build a long-term relationship with people who actually want to hear from you and appreciate what you have to say…
1. Once they opt in to give them a high-quality free report or some form of high-quality content. This can be either your free report or some kind of free audio or video that helps them to solve the problem they are looking to resolve.
2. Every other day for the next 45 days you should send your new e-mail subscriber some form of quality content or about their particular topic of interest. What this does is it helps them to realize that you actually do want to help them solve their problem. When your subscribers feel that you’re actually giving them something of value they will not have a problem opening your e-mails and giving you their money… or should we say their hard-earned money (which many of those gurus out there don’t care about)… in return for your solution.
Just remember that people work for their money, so you should have respect for it.
3. Whether you’re an affiliate marketer or you are a product owner, you can freely space offers between the days of content. For example: on day one you give them the actual item they requested when they decided to accept your offer. On day two you begin to ask them how they liked the content and also recommend certain sections all of your content for them to refer back to and why it is important for them to apply or to read that content.
On day three you can freely begin giving quality articles or reference material related to the content they receive when they signed up for your newsletter or offer. From then on every other day in between your content e-mails you can make an offer of some sort. This can be either an affiliate offer for a related product that you are promoting if you’re an affiliate marketer; or if your product owner you can promote your own product or products.
You should continue to do this for 30 to 45 days.
If creating content is a problem for you don’t worry about it. You can easily find the questions people are asking on forums related to your topic or you can simply go to his website like Ezinearticles.com and look for their hottest articles and base your content around those.
What starts to happen as you provide content and offers is your subscribers will feel comfortable and freely open your e-mails read your content and respond to your offers. In other words they will either click through on your offers and check out whatever affiliate offer it is that you’re promoting and either decide to buy the recommended offer OR they will buy your offer.
(Sidenote: Be sure to check out anything you recommend FIRST!)
Remember this… cultivation is not necessarily about trying to make people buy immediately is about building a long-term relationship and trust with your subscribers so that they actually feel and know that when it comes time to delivering content and real value you are the one they want to read and listen to.
Here’s the thing… when my mentors originally opened my eyes to the reality of what cultivation was – I soon understood exactly why I felt so strongly about them as my mentors as well as about quite a few other people in different topics of interest that I have.
One interesting topic I have a very very strong interest in is self-help. No we’re not talking about the the law of attraction gurus and that sort of stuff. What I am talking about is how people in the self-help industry tend to always give you some level of high-quality content that has the ability to help you.
As a result of this content we generally stay focused on what they have to say and follow through on what they ask us to do.
So basically to cultivate a list your only requirement is to… give something of value in your initial offer, give quality content at least every other day for 30 to 45 days, make recommendations and offers between your content days.
If you did nothing else (bare minimum stuff) and all you did was build your list through your initial offer and allow that lists follow through on your cultivation sequence which you will place in your auto responder, you will literally have autopilot income coming in to your bank account 24/7/365 like clockwork!
This is one of the ways I’ve been able build the kind of income that I now have.
PPV and other advertising methods have been VERY good to me but that is one-time income and I need to keep advertising in order to sustain it.
When you build a list and cultivate that list; no matter what industry it is; you now have the ability to make money on demand.
In my next installment I’ll discuss how to create backend offers for your new cultivated list.
This is not the same thing as making offers and between your content e-mails.
If you have questions regarding this post please feel free to leave your comments below…
Please only comment on subjects related to this post… all other comments will not be approved by my staff.
Love and peace,
John
Technorati Tags: list building, list cultivation, make money with email
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Posted in Affiliate Marketing, List Building Tips, Money Making Tips | 6 Comments »
What is Email Marketing software? And how can it transforms your business?
Nowadays, when everyone seems glued to the net, it seems much wiser and totally understandable to try to make business online as well. No harm done on that part however you need to be keen on how to conduct your business dealings online.
For starters, when putting up a website, you would want to have an option of tracking down the number of viewers on that particular website. You would want to have subscriptions on your website through various possible subscribers. You would want to maintain a commitment or a bond of communication where in you can have an opportunity to advertise, up-sell and cross-sell your products and services. You would want to generate repeat sales. You would of course normally want to increase your sales conversion. These options can be open to you through Email Marketing Software.
We have to face the facts. A website visitor may not wish to subscribe on their first visit regardless on how good your products and services may be. Their visit in reality may not be then a sale on your part. Customers especially the wary ones will have the need to visit the site again and again and again before making a decision in filling the Sign-Up form.
The key there is to spark the interest of a prospect subscriber, once you’ve managed to attract the visitor’s interest and fills up the Sign-Up form with her name and email address for example then that will be a good start. You now have a relationship with the subscriber leading to a possible sale. Getting the particulars of a visitor isn’t just the main thing, It may be the first thing but its not the only thing.
From then on you will have to make sure constant communication to keep the interest going. By using simple email marketing software, it is quite easy to create a series of email messages (auto-responders) that will automatically follow up with offers on the goods and services you are offering. It wouldn’t hurt to do promotions, or up-sell or even cross-sell as most customers would prefer lots of options. Email marketing software enables you to work the job of 50 people in one sitting making it more reasonable and profitable for you.
Now you also have to realize it isn’t just about sales, therefore a good business allows the customers to have a say on what they think might be a good way for them. You should be open to feedback and suggestions to ensure a smooth sailing business. Not only will you have inputs on what products and services to provide, you will also have ideas which specific market would need a particular product or service, at the same time you will have a unique way interacting with your customers healthily.
By quickly and smartly responding to the needs and wants of your subscribers through the feedback
and suggestion form, your site can grow up to 30% if you handle it appropriately. Appropriately means giving your subscribers the option to unsubscribe if he or she so chooses. Ethics dictate that you will give options to your subscribers even if it means them unsubscribing their subscription.
But through email marketing software, you have the opportunity to review that particular subscription and analyze what went wrong, You can even put up categories for that matter to make it more easy. Then from there on, you work on how to set it right. By getting the necessary feedback from your software, you will have the right data to make the needed changes to your website and create more business opportunities.
The feedback are from your subscribers who has 50% probability to be a sale, so never underestimate the power behind their comments and suggestions. Email Marketing software can be customized whichever way you would want it but if used appropriately and smartly, it can transform your business sales greatly.
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Opt in forms are crucial to affiliate marketers nowadays. It is one way for you to build trust with your customers and eventually will gain you more sales in the long run. But how does opt in forms really work? I’ll discuss some details of it in this post.
Have you ever wondered why you received a bunch of messages like special offers, coupons, and sometimes newsletters on your email? When you go to a particular website and you enter your name and email address on the Sign Up form also known as Opt In form. Your details are saved in the internal database and is linked to the website.
After successfully entering your details on the Opt-in form popularly called Sign-Up form, a thank you page will then pop up. Just as the website visitor or you for that matter is being redirected to the Thank You page, a special tool called Autoresponder then recognizes and acknowledges you as a new subscriber, thus automatically sending out a Welcome Mail to the email you entered on the Sign-Up form.
This Welcome Mail is a default pre-compiled message text. However for verification purposes, you will not start receiving email messages not until you have click on the link on the confirmation email sent to you by the website on your email address. Clicking on the confirmation link on the email confirms that you agree to receive such newsletters, coupons and special offers, etc by the website.
Depending on what kind of autoresponder the website has, it can send from a single message (Regular Autoresponder)
or up to multiple messages which varies at any hour, day or week or at a given time depending on how you program it.
This autoresponder is also known as Multiple Autoresponder. The technical aspect of the Opt-in form, can also
be personalized to your preference as to what particular details you want to display on the Sign-Up form on your website. You can manage the mailing list and export the list for the further use in your email newsletter sending program. Users can have the option to update their subscription or unsubscribe if they so chooses to.
Opt-in form allows you to manage your email list even with a subscriber who has default mail settings. You have the freedom to schedule your broadcast as per hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis. Much more, you have full control under your email newsletter’s design and its content.
No need to worry on this one as most online marketing service providers usually has a wide range of solutions for you,
that specifically fits your need.
Having an Opt-in form on your website is advantageous, for it broadens your target market ranging from busy housewives to businessmen. This is one simple yet powerful way of reaching out to potential customers and possible clients as it virtually informs them of any upcoming offers and sales promotion that could be beneficial for them.
You can follow up and maintain communication with your prospected customers by sending them a series of newsletters, coupons, special promotions and such to their email addresses. This is a great way of strengthening your sales, as customers would much prefer the more convenient way of knowing what’s new at their own pace and time.
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What you’re about to read here is something many people pay over $5,000 to learn… and many never actually DO IT!
Making money online is NOT a big secret.
SURE… I’ll admit there are quite a few secrets online. Mainly they are the methods that different people use to make money, some are in fact secrets, but most are not all that unique.
Today, I’d like to share with you the absolute best and most proven way to make money online that I’ve ever witnessed. In fact, my mentors drilled me so hard, almost kicked my butt and nearly stopped dealing with me because I was too thick skulled to listen to them at one point.
Yes, I was VERY much against doing business this way because I didn’t “believe” it was possible!
Whether you’re a Product Owner or an Affiliate Marketer, this is the exact model you need to follow to me a success online.
Here are the 3 secrets…
- The Initial Offer
- List Cultivation
- Back End Offers
Lets dive deeper shall we?
Today we’ll discuss “The Initial Offer.”
Your “Initial Offer” is going to be either a free product, report or service you are offering OR a paid product or service that you are going to build an email list around. This can be done either way. When you offer something for free or paid, your goal is to make sure you solve a problem. In other words, you must find a “solution market.”
Your first step in creating an initial offer is “Confirming Demand.”
Find a market that needs a solution. This type of research is extremely simple. It’s often referred to as a “Solution Marketing” and for a very good reason. Solution Marketing is the extremely powerful and profitable process of finding a solution to a specific problem and creating a product that solves that problem. Don’t worry; you don’t need to even create a product! Like I said, “This is REALLY easy and FAST!”
QUESTION: What is a market that needs a solution to a specific problem?
THINK: Need to Weight Loss… Need to make more money… Need to train my dog… Need to improve my mind… Need to fix my relationship… Need to improve my golf swing… Need to clear up my acne… (No, I don’t have acne, but it’s a common problem)… Need to whiten my teeth… Need to be a better lover… and so on.
Side Note: Did you know that “teeth whitening” is one of the largest selling solutions on the Internet? I was shocked when I found out too! People love to look and feel good. I’m not saying everyone that reads this post should start selling teeth whitening products. That would be silly. But it does give you an idea of what is selling extremely well these days, right?
SEARCH: The final steps are to search 2 very important places. This confirms that there is enough demand for this solution. The worst thing you can do is try to build a list around a market with low demand.
First, go to Google.com and look for keyword phrases that a person looking to solve a problem would search for.
They would search for things like:
- Lose weight fast
- How to housebreak my dog
- How to improve my golf swing
- How to get rid of pimples…
At the top of the screen, blow the search field you will see how many competing pages there are for that search phrase.
On the right side and sometimes on the top of the screen you will see paid advertisements.
As you can see there are millions of pages about that phrase and lots of people paying for ads about it.
What all this means is that there is “REAL MONEY” being made in this solution market.
Second, go to Clickbank.com and click on the “Marketplace” link on that page. This is your secret weapon to confirming that there are solutions that you can easily sell.
There you’ll find a massive category listing and within that listing you will find tons of products that solve a problem and that you can make money from!
If you see a solution for a problem in the category you are searching, and there are more than one site selling it, then you have yourself a money making intro offer.
You can do one of two things here.
1. You can create an ebook, audio or video based product that answers the biggest questions about this problem OR…
2. You can offer a free report on an opt-in landing page in exchange for collecting the names and email addresses of people interested in your topic.
In either case you are collecting the person’s name and email address so that you can stay in contact with them.
In Part 2 of this I’ll go into “Cultivation” and how to keep making money for what seems like forever!
Stay tuned… and in touch… leave your questions below.
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Posted in Internet Marketing, List Building Tips, Money Making Tips | 14 Comments »
Before the weekend starts I wanted to give you enough time to read this so that I could open your mind to some really amazing possibilities…
You see, not so long ago I was struggling.
…I was Living paycheck to paycheck.
Always on the brink of “self-inflicted” financial disaster.
Why would I say that?
Well, here’s the thing…I was one of those people that always believed that “The Law of Attraction” and that kind of stuff would work for me if I just stayed positive and kept my mind nice and pretty inside.
NOTHING… let me repeat… NOTHING could be further from the truth.
So what made the difference?
A little work and a little knowledge.
In other words taking ACTION made the difference in my life… not the LOA mumbo-jumbo the self help gurus preach.
… In fact I think that, although there is some merit to it’s effectiveness, THAT stuff keeps people complacent and NOT making progress. (but thats a story for another day)
At first… affiliate marketing EXPLODED my income.
With PPV of course.
Then things settled and income came in, but I wanted to make even more.
THAT’S when I discovered the power of list building.
BUT… I need to be honest, I HATED it because I could never make it happen before my mentors taught me HOW to actually build lists in various markets to create the kind of income I wanted.
I’m sure you’ve heard before that “traffic” is the key to success online, but that’s only part of the story.
Now get this… when you build a list the real secret is that you have captured traffic. So it’s not that there’s traffic there today and none tomorrow. Once your list is being built, you now have a captured source of internet traffic that actually buys your products and services.
The best part is, you can practically push a button and make money online 24/7/365!
There is some down side of course. You see, building a list of subscribers is somewhat difficult if you don’t know how to do it. At first anyway. But… once you do know how to do it, you’ll be sitting on easy street for a long time to come.
Let me give you a snapshot of what the 3 Secrets to Constant Online Income are:
- The Initial Offer
- List Cultivation
- Back End Offers
That’s really ALL there is to it. I’ll post the specifics on this tomorrow.
The truth is, list building is the same today as it was 10 years ago and it’s the same as it was 50 years ago. The only thing that’s changed is how you generate your list.
In the next few days we’ll get into the specifics.
Enjoy the rest of your day…and remember you’re about to open the door to AMAZING possiblilities!
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