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Email List Building Strategies

By Niels Witthoeft on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | No Comments

Honestly, everyone making money online has an email list. This is the most important factor in your long-term success. Once you have a list built, you can market to it again and again. Just push a button and print money – literally.

Now you now why. Here’s how:

There are 3 factors in list building you need to consider:

  • Your Landing Page
  • The Bribe
  • The Thank You Page

Your Landing Page – Your opt-in page is the page you send visitors to to build your list. This page is the one that asks them for their email. This page needs to look professional. And have an easy to understand opt-in form. And have a clear call to action.

If you fail to make a strong close, you’re wasting your efforts. Your call to action tells the visitor what to do. Without this your opt-in rate will plummet. It’s strange, but if you don’t tell people what to do, they won’t do it.

You can take your opt-in page to the next level if you add a video to it. You only have a few second to get your visitors attention – video helps! And you can repeat the call to action several times int he video. And you can have the video just tell them to fill in your form after it’s done playing.

It’s OK, if you’ve never made a video before. You can hire freelancers to do this for you for a few hundred dollars. Or you can get email list tools that give you squeeze page templates.

The Bribe – The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. You have to give people a compelling reason to give your their email. Email privacy is very important to most people. So you have to give them a good reason to do it.

You have to provide value in your bribe for it to be good. Then it becomes something people want to get from you. And can benefit from. Here’s some examples:

  • A report
  • A piece of software
  • Training videos
  • An email training series

It all boils down to content. Something that’s useful and helpful to your visitors. And nothing sells like “free”. Bottom line is it’s got to be worth more to them than their email address.

Once again, don’t worry if you don’t know how to create the freebie. You can just pay someone else to make it for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. One easy and effective bribe is a 5-part email training series. Each email will cost between $20 and $25. So, a great premium will cost you around $100 – $150.

There are also list building products that include the follow up email series. Two critical aspects of using a follow up series. First, it must provide value to your subscribers. It also has to generate revenue for you! One very easy way to make some money from your list is with affiliate marketing. This allows you to get started with no products of your own. And you can earn some commissions immediately from your emails.

The Opt-in Success Page – Finally, you need to consider your opt-in confirmation page. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. It’s a great idea to give them some valuable information right on the thank you page. Then they feel good about giving you their email address. It also helps to build the relationship. So when they get your email, they’re happy to hear from you.

Again, a simple solution to this is to get an email marketing package that includes everything. Or you can go the DIY route. And write it all yourself. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.

In closing

Whether you decide to build your email funnel yourself. Or hire someone else to do it for you. Or if sign up for a “complete package” solution. The key is to start building your list. Once you’ve got it built. You’re free to make money at the push of a button.

Technorati Tags: email marketing, internet marketing, list building

Affiliate Business Tips

By Niels Witthoeft on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 | No Comments

The importance of preselling

The number one strategy to increase your affiliate sales is preselling.

Before we start, let’s talk about what preselling actually is. There are two components to it – art & science. It’s a process of taking your reader and getting them ready to buy. Then when they’re ready, refer them to the product website so they can buy it. When done correctly, your reader will not even notice.

Basically, you give them some content. And then refer them to the product website. In just a minute, I’ll explain exactly how to presell. Before we get into that, you should understand what’s in it for you. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

  • It builds trust – Once you have your readers’ trust, they will click your links more readily. And the more traffic you can send to the sale page, the more commissions you’ll earn.
  • It disarms your reader – Nobody likes to be sold something. By not doing that to them, your reader is less defensive. This means they are more open to what you’re saying. So your content get absorbed.
  • It preps them to buy – Now they’re open to hearing what you’re telling them. And in turn, they’re open to other messages, as well. For example, the sales message on the page you’re linking to. Being open to a sales message is what it means being in a buying mood.
  • You make more money – Now your reader arrives at the sales page in a buying mood. With the guard down and trusting your recommendation. The only possible result is more sales!
  • Your customers are happier – Plus, they feel they’ve made the buying decision on their own. Versus being pitched or convinced. And this makes them feel better about the product they purchased.
  • Preselling increases your bottom line – A satisfied customer doesn’t ask for a refund. Less refunds means more affiliate money stays in your pocket.

Obviously, it’s important to presell. You earn more commissions. And produce happier customers. Everybody wins!

Now, here’s how preselling works:

Now you know whey preselling is critical. So, hopefully you’ve decided to start preselling. So, it’s time to break down how it works. Remember, there are two components – art and science.

The art of preselling

First, you have to gain the trust of your reader, so they let their guard down. This can only be accomplished by providing actual value in the information you’re presenting. But you can’t give them so much that they think they have everything they could need, and that’s what makes it an art. So you send them to the product website with a hunger for more of what the product provides. And since they’re more open, they are more likely to make a purchase.

It’s also a science

You also have to include some very specific things.

The first is how you present the information. You have to have your end in mind. In the end, you want to sell a specific product. There are two ways to accomplish this with great content. The first method is to provide enough info to get them started, but not enough to finish. The other method is to explain all the details and expose how difficult it is to do what you’re explaining. Either way, the product sales page solves the problem.

But you can’t link to your affiliate link. You have directly to the home page of the product. That’s because nobody likes to click on affiliate links. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? Well, that’s part of the science of this whole process. You use the “covert cookie” strategy.

Next, you want to make sure you’re linking on related words and phrases. Hyperlinked words are clicked more than anything else. And when the words are in context like this, it makes perfect sense for your reader to click them.

Putting all of this together creates a powerful affiliate marketing formula for success.

Unfortunately…

This process is not easy – at all! Let’s talk about everything required to put this plan into action: Good content. First and foremost, you have to be able to write a great article that provides valuable information. Which means you need to be both knowledgable on the subject and capable of writing a high-quality article. Strategic writing. Yes, you must providing useful content. And you have to make the content accessible in order to provide value. While at the same time making them want more. Or make the information so overwhelming they realize they can’t do it on their own.

Choosing your products. You also need to determine what products you’ll be preselling. If you can manage to get the article written well. You’ve wasted all your effort if the product doesn’t sell well.

Techy stuff. One of the keys to this system is using “covert cookies” for the tracking. This is pretty easy – you just make a 1 pixel X 1 pixel image with no border and make the “source” of the image your affiliate link. (But if you do it wrong, you won’t get paid for the traffic you send.)

Summary:

Now you’re armed with the information needed to effectively presell. And doing this increases your affiliate commissions by over 500%! The important thing is to use these techniques for everything you promote as an affiliate. Take action now. Make the extra effort required to propel your affiliate business to the next level.

Technorati Tags: affiliate business, affiliate commissions, internet marketing

Traffic Generation Tips

By Niels Witthoeft on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 | No Comments

Everyone knows the number one thing you need to be successful online is traffic to your website. Obviously, this assumes you actually have a reason for wanting this traffic. What you do with the traffic when it gets to your site could be any number of things. The important thing is getting the traffic and sustaining it.

How, then do you get traffic to your site?

These are the best and fastest ways to get free visitors coming to your site:

  • Web 2.0
  • Article Websites
  • Video

And here’s how to use each method…

Web 2.0 Methods

By web 2.0 we mean any site where the users actually create the content. What this means for you is that you can join into the community and add your own content. The other interesting thing about these sites is that all the search engines (including Google) treat them as “authority sites”. The benefit of this to you is that your content is now considered as part of these sites. And any links in your content that point to your own sites count as a strong “vote” in favor of your sites – lending you credibility in the search engines. This is the hidden benefit of using Web 2.0 sites. How to generate web 2.0 traffic is something we’ve only scratched the surface on. I don’t want to be exhaustive – I want to give you an overview of all the methods…

Article Websites

The next thing we want to talk about is article marketing. Article directories fall under the category of web 2.0 sites. Article directories are sites where users (including you) can upload articles they have written. And just like other web 2.0 sites, you get all the SEO benefits from having your content on them. But you also get the extra benefit of other users taking your article and putting it on their site. And in return for getting to use your content, these other users include links back to your website that gives you further search engine ranking and more free traffic. Here are a couple article marketing traffic tips:

  • Figure out what keywords you want to go after
  • Write your article for the keywords you’ve chosen
  • Hyperlink these keywords to your website – both in the content of the article and in your author’s info section.

Video Sites

The last of this group is video marketing. Just like article directories, video sharing sites also rely on user-generated content. And it carries all the same benefits of article marketing. The extra top secret benefit of video marketing is that it’s much easier to rank for competitive keywords than in any other medium.

Here are just a few video marketing tips:

  • Set up your YouTube account
  • Turn off all the modules in your account profile
  • Add tags to your profile
  • Add a link to your website
  • Add 1 or more videos to your profile
  • Include your keywords in the title, description and tags

Summary:

If you want to get traffic to your site, then follow the advice in this article.

Technorati Tags: free traffic, internet marketing, traffic generation

Membership Niche Selection Tips

By Niels Witthoeft on Monday, July 26th, 2010 | No Comments

In order to make sure your membership business is profitable, you have to select the right market. Here’s how.

First – Look for Fanatics

The number 1 thing you have to do is find fanatics if you want a profitable membership website. Fanatic is defined as someone with an irrational enthusiasm. These are the people you’re looking for because they are so enthusiastic they’re willing to spend money on their topic of fanaticism. Here’s how to find fanatics:

  • One simple idea that’s easily forgotten is to scan the magazine racks when you’re out and about. Because it’s becoming harder and harder to keep print periodicals profitable these days, if you see a magazine on the shelves, you know it’s making money. And that means there are lots of people interested in it. This is a very good indication that it’s a good niche for you to go into.
  • You’ve got lots of opportunities every day to see what people are interested in. Just pay attention to what people talk about on the radio, at social gatherings, at the store or restaurants and anywhere in public. If people are talking about something, they probably want to know more about it. Which means you can start a membership business providing information on it.
  • Don’t forget about clubs and organizations. If there are enough people to to build a club, there are certainly enough people to start a membership site on the same topic. Conventions are expensive to hold and attend, so if one if going on that’s another strong indication of a good niche to go into with your membership website.
  • What about your interests and hobbies? If you’re interested in something, it’s highly likely others are, too. Making money is fun and it’s even more fun if you can do it in a niche you’re excited about.
  • One simple and easy way to find out what’s hot is Google Trends. This service shows you the current most popular search terms. These are the things people are actively searching for in Google. They’re searching because they want information. Building a membership business around things people are actively searching for is a great way to ensure your success.

Step 2 – Determine the financial feasibility

After selecting a possible niche to build your membership site around, the next step is to find out if it’s a profitable niche to be in. The quickest way to find out is to determine if others are profiting in your potential niche.

Here’s a punch list for figuring out if anyone’s making money in your niche:

  • Are there blogs or forums in this niche? Take the name of your niche and search for “niche name blog” & “niche name forum” in Google to see if there is an active group of people talking about and interested in the niche. This lets you know there is a market (a group of people actively interested in the niche.)
  • Search Amazon, Google shopping and eBay to see if people are creating and selling products in the niche. If other people are creating and selling products in this niche, it means there is money to be made.
  • Monitor Google Adwords to determine if people are running the same ads for weeks in a row. If they are, this means they’re making money on these ads – otherwise, they’d stop running them. Which means there is money to be made in your niche.

Last, but not least… How hard will it be to break into this niche?

OK, so you found a hot topic and you know other people are making money on it. Will you be able to get involved and do the same? Here are some things to look at to figure this out:

  • Look at the product types in this niche. You want to find a niche where information products are being sold as the norm. The easiest membership website to create and maintain are information membership sites.
  • Competition. How many other people are trying to sell to this market? You want to start in a market that’s not completely saturated with competitors.
  • Unless the market is just so big that it doesn’t matter how many competitors there are, you want to limit the competition. So evaluate the size vs. the competition.
  • How ready is the market for marketing messages, and how willing are the fanatics to buy. Depending on the market it can be anywhere from a couple minutes to a many months between when someone starts the investigation process to when they actually make a purchase.

Summing it all up

So far, we’ve talked about exactly what it takes to pick a great niche: One with a hungry crowd of fanatics, who are ready to spend money on information about their topic. And you’ve determined your barrier to entry is small enough to give it a go. If you’ve followed along with these steps you’re success in practically guaranteed. The only thing left to cover is exactly how to run your membership business…

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, membership business, membership website, Online Marketing

Traffic is King, but this comes FIRST

By Niels Witthoeft on Sunday, July 25th, 2010 | No Comments

The best way to ensure your success is to build automated traffic sources to send you visitors day and night.

But, first…

Before you begin trying to get traffic to your site, you need to do your keyword research first. The reason this is so important is that you are going to be building content and traffic sources for specific keywords. This means it’s critical to select your keywords properly.

While doing your keyword research, keep the following in mind:

  • How competitive are the keywords you’re going after? Take a look at the “strength” of others websites (and how many) are already targeting these keywords.
  • Are these “buying” keywords? Certain keywords are good for generating a lot of visitors who don’t buy anything. You want to generate visitors ready to buy.
  • Another thing to think about is affiliates. Generating your own customers is great – having other people do it for you is even better. This means that some of your traffic focus should be on getting affiliates to your site.

This is critical to your business, but it takes a lot of time and effort. Experts are expensive and don’t guarantee results. Which is why practically none of your competitors will do this! What I recommend is using website traffic software to save the time of doing it yourself and the money of hiring someone else. This way you get this critical step done fast and done well.

OK, now we can talk about traffic…

Only after doing your keyword research correctly can you start targeting these keywords to get you traffic.

Powerful Traffic Tactics:

  • Surveys
  • “Help” Websites
  • Video

Surveys

People love filling in surveys. You can use this fact to provide “sticky” content for other website owners. And when they put your survey on their site, they will include a link back to your website. This allows you to get free website traffic from other people’s sites! Most people think surveys are just for collecting data, but in this case you don’t even care about the answers. The only thing you have to do is think of a novel question for your survey.

“Traffic Traps”

These sites, like answers.yahoo.com are filled with people asking and answering questions for each other. However, you’re interest in these sites is not to ask and answer questions. What you want to do is use these sites to generate traffic and leads for your business. One thing you can do is to visit sites like Craigslist and Yahoo! Answers and manually extract contact info to contact other users. The good news is that it’s easy to find website traffic software that can do this automatically. Then you just get a daily batch of fresh leads delivered to your inbox.

Video Websites

No doubt you’re aware of YouTube and other video websites. These sites generate massive traffic and people watch over 2 billion videos a day on YouTube alone . If used properly, video sites can get you more website traffic than you know what to do with.

And don’t worry if you don’t have any idea of how to make a video. You can even take a webpage or article that you’ve written. Then simply record yourself reading the text and you video the screen with a simple screen capture program. You can even get software that will automatically do this for you.

Summary

Getting traffic is not that difficult. Just be a creative and think outside the box a bit. Plus, there’s lots of great software out there to help you.

Don’t waste any more time:

  • Do your keyword research
  • Set up some viral surveys
  • Build your traffic traps
  • And don’t forget about video

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, keyword research, traffic generation, website traffic

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