Affordable Online Business Strategies
List Building
Did You Miss Out On List Control?
Mar 20th
Did you miss out on your opportunity to get in on List Control? Too bad you couldn’t spend that extra $2,000 on training that would have taught you how to build a list!
Note: I’m having a bit of fun here. I am a fan of Frank Kern, and if I had the extra cash, I would have considered buying list control.
It is necessary to your online success that you build a list. But it isn’t necessary to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to learn how to do it. What I want to let you know is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to learn how to build a list, and you don’t have to wait until you save up the money to invest in an expensive training system to get started.
You can get started right now for a fraction of what it would have cost for List Control. You can learn from one of the best in the business, Marlon Sanders, who has been building lists for over 10 years. Marlon Sanders is one of the pioneers of online marketing, and he was building lists when list building wasn’t cool.
Marlon has a product called The Promo Dashboard. In this product, he shows you how he started an internet business at home from scratch and sold $1,000,000.
It’s not about product launches or directly driving traffic to your sales page. What it IS about is building a list of subscribers that will buy from you over and over again.
What he does is take you from someone who doesn’t have a list through all of the steps needed to get subscribers, send them useful information and offers, and getting them to buy from you. Not once. But over and over.
Here’s what is covered in The Promo Dashboard:
- Discovering where your target market is hanging out – forums, blogs, what sites they visit.
- Creating a really cool bonus that you can offer as a free gift for subscribing.
- Setting up and creating your opt-in page.
- Setting up your autoresponder account.
- How to get people to your opt-in page.
- How to keep your subscribers eager to read your messages.
This is a complete course on list building. You get access to training that includes videos, audios, screen capture examples, and links to free tools you can use to build your list.
Yeah, you can spend a lot of money and purchase several list building products. The Promo Dashboard has everything you need, and it won’t cost you a few weeks salary. I use it, like it, and think you will too. If you go to the sales page, sign up for the free List Building Hover Pops that you can get just for visiting the site. Click here to get started…
Getting More Subscribers With Your Bonus Offer
Feb 6th
Most of the time when someone wants to get you to sign up for their list, they offer a freebie that you get after you subscribe. If you want to compete, you’re going to have to do the same thing. There is more than one way to do this, and that’s what I’m going to cover right now.
When you ask someone to enter information to get something, you have to motivate them to enter the desired information. The more information you ask for, the less likely it is that someone will subscribe. If you ask for name, email address, phone number, and postal address, you will find that you won’t get as many people willing to subscribe. The less information you ask for, the easier it is to get them onto your list.
That’s why most of the time all you’re asked for is name and email address. Once in a while you will come across a subscription box that only asks for an email address. And rarely you can get the free offer without having to give up any information at all.
This is something that you can test. The usual way of giving away your freebie is to offer it AFTER someone subscribes to your list. That’s the cost of getting the information. There are people who are willing to sign up right away, and there are other people who are reluctant to sign up for another list. Let’s face it, there are a lot of list owners who do nothing but send out promotion after promotion. I know you won’t do that, but potential subscribers don’t.
That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be requiring a name and email address before someone gets your bonus. It does mean that you need to be aware of the resistance that may be in the mind of some of your potential subscribers.
You can do things a little differently. You can offer your free bonus without any strings at all. No name and email address. Let anyone who wants it download it, and put info in your ebook that it can be given away freely. Why would you do this?
Because you are demonstrating the value that you’re delivering without someone signing up for your list. The key is to put an offer to subscribe to your list and a link to your optin form. You may not get as many subscribers this way, but the subscribers you do get are more targeted. And since you are allowing everyone to give it away, you could get more exposure for your offer than you could by yourself.
Another way to give away your bonus and still encourage them to subscribe is to give away your bonus and deliver great content. Then, let them know that you have more bonuses available for them absolutely free. All they have to do is subscribe to your list and they will get access to more of your great free content. There is no right or wrong way to get subscribers, just different ways. Hope this was useful for you.
Did you realize that there are really only 3 steps to building and profiting from a list? Marlon Sanders does, and he shares it in his FREE report (No Optin Required) called “ “The Only 3 Steps You Need To Make Tons Of Sales Online In 2010″. Get It Here…
A Simple Way To Keep Subscribers On Your List
Feb 5th
Getting subscribers should be your number one priority, but it’s getting harder to get people to give up their name and email address. Offering a freebie of some sort is a good way to get people to sign up for your list. A potential drawback to offering a freebie is that people will sign up just to get the free stuff. These people may unsubscribe immediately, use an email address they never use, or never read your email messages.
There’s not much you can do about people who only want the free stuff and don’t have any intention of reading your messages. For the rest of your list, you can do a simple thing to make it more likely that they will continue to open and read your messages:
Let them know that in addition to the freebie that they received when they subscribed that there is more free content coming their way. You could give away a report or video every month or so. The idea is to give away valuable content on a regular basis.
This does a couple of things. First, assuming that the free content you offer is good, ;your subscribers will look forward to the next freebie that you offer, and will continue to open your messages to make sure they don’t miss out.
Second, they will be more likely to buy from you. The idea here is from the work done by Robert Cialdini in his book on Influence. In that book he notes that when someone is given something, they are likely to want to give something back. It’s human nature at work. You give them valuable free stuff, and they will be more likely to trust what you recommend to them.
A way to make this work is to offer a multi-part training on a topic that is delivered over time. That way they have to say subscribed to get all of the content. Another way that I have seen work really well is to have a password protected area on your site that only subscribers have access to. Here you can add free reports, videos, and other content on a weekly or monthly basis.
Offering freebies on a regular basis is an easy way to keep your subscribers interested enough in your messages that they will actually open and read your emails. And that’s what having a list and profiting from it is all about.
Discover the 3 steps to building and profiting from your list. Here’s your free report - “The Only 3 Steps You Need To Make Tons Of Sales Online In 2010″
How Giving Away A Free Report Can Get You New Subscribers
Jan 23rd
I was going through a course on list building recently, and something got my attention. The teacher of the course said on one of the videos that if you have a list, you should be making $1 per subscriber per month. So if you had 1,000 subscribers, you should be making $1,000 a month from the offers you send out. With that in mind, it’s obvious that having a list is VERY IMPORTANT!
So getting subscribers is the main objective. There are a lot of ways to get subscribers, but I wanted to point out a way that doesn’t get mentioned very often, and it doesn’t have to cost any money.
You’ve probably repeatedly heard that you should create a freebie to get people to sign up for your list. With so many people trying to get subscribers, you really need to offer a freebie. You can include some affiliate links in the report to get some additional revenue, so you can profit at the same time.
Here’s how you can make it even better so you can grow your list without any effort on your part. Oh, and by the way, this is not new, or my idea. It’s just something that I am going to use on a new list I’m starting, and I wanted to share it with you. I’ll also keep you updated on the results I’m getting.
For this project, let’s create an ebook. It doesn’t have to be very long, but it does have to be valuable. It could be a few articles you’ve written or had written for you that you compile into your ebook. It could be a list of resources related to your market – free products, forums, blogs, other email lists.
What you do is to write an offer to subscribe to your list at the front AND back of the ebook. Write a mini sales letter with the benefits of being on your list along with a link to your optin page.
You may be wondering why you would take the time to put in a link to your optin page when the person reading the ebook has already subscribed. The reason is that once someone gets your free ebook, you are going to tell them that they can give it away to their subscribers and web site visitors. Now they have a quality freebie that you have written that they can give away – with a link to YOUR optin page. You get free distribution of your ebook and new subscribers without lifting a finger.
Let’s recap. Create your freebie and make sure to include a link to your optin page. Once someone subscribes and downloads your free report, make sure to email them and encourage them to give this report away to as many people as possible. The only other thing you might want to do is to send them to an optin page that offers a different freebie than the free report they already have! Give it a try and see what happens.
Discover how to trade products for dollars instead of your time by getting your list together and making your sales rock. Instant cash delivered straight to your PayPal account. More here…
Quick Cash From New Subscribers
Jan 20th
If you’re building a list, you need to generate traffic to your optin page. Some of you may decide to spend some money on advertising to get subscribers. While it’s true that building your list is a good investment, it would be a lot better if you could make some money up front so your advertising costs are covered. A way to make money before you warm up your list and start sending out offers.
There are two opportunities that you are presented with every time someone enters their name and email address and subscribe to your list. The first opportunity is on the page your new subscribers are sent to immediately after they subscribe. Here’s the first opportunity that you can use to make money right away.
When you set up your autoresponder and get the code you need so visitors can enter their name and email address, there is a page that they will be sent to after they hit the submit button. The service you use will usually have a default page that they are sent to that tells them that they have successfully subscribed. These default pages are very basic but useful.
There is an option to direct a new subscriber to a page of your choice after subscribing. Here’s where you can make money right away. Create a page that informs them that they have successfully subscribed, and then offer them the opportunity to take a look at some of your products. These can be affiliate offers, or they can be offers for a product of your own.
To make this work, the offer has to be really enticing. You could offer a substantial discount if they buy right now. Or you could offer a bonus that is not available to people who buy from the sales page.
Here’s your second opportunity to make some quick cash. After someone subscribes, they will get an email with a link that they need to click on to confirm that they want to subscribe to your list. Again, most autoresponder services have a default page that is very basic and informs them that they have successfully confirmed their subscription.
On this page, you would probably want to make a different offer. You could offer a substantial discount on a product. You could make this a one time offer. If they don’t buy from the page they’re on, they will miss out on the discount, and will have to pay the regular price if they wait to make a purchase.
It’s a good idea to make your offer one that is relatively inexpensive. They don’t know you yet, and they may be reluctant to spend a large sum of money up front. So concentrate on lower cost offers.
This is a way to make some cash while you’re building your list. It’s easy to do, and you can be sure that everyone who subscribes will see the pages that you create and will see your offers. Not everyone will be interested, but there’s a good chance that you can generate enough cash to pay for any advertising costs. And if they become a customer and are happy with what they’ve purchased, they’re more likely to buy from you again. Try it out and see what happens.
How I Started An Internet Business At Home From Scratch, Got 99,540 Opt In Emails And Sold a Million Dollars… If You Have One Hour A Day For 12 Days, You Can FEEL The Power
Do You Know Your Perfect Customer?
Jan 19th
Targeted traffic is the best traffic. We all know that. But it can be a challenge finding our target market, and sometimes we get it wrong. That’s why market research is so important. The whole idea of market research is to first find out if there is a demand for your product, and find out where your market can be reached.
A mistake that can waste a lot of time is to fall in love with a product, and promote it with the idea that if you like it, everyone will want to buy it.
A close relative of mine made this mistake. They decided to get involved with a company that sold nutritional products. They looked through the brochures and went to a couple of representative’s meetings, and was really interested. The products claimed to fix just about any health related problem anybody had. One of their premiere products was a weight loss package that promised effortless weight loss.
My relative was hooked. They decided that the products they were selling were so awesome that everyone needed them. In fact, they went so far as to say that no one could afford NOT to buy and use these products. She was sold.
As time went on, she got a few people interested, but it wasn’t as easy as she had hoped. She was sold on the products, but she wrongly felt that everyone else would too once they found out about these products. She had invested a lot of time and money in this business, only to end up with bottles of supplements and a big credit card balance.
What does this have to do with market research? Easy. Instead of trying to sell to everyone and convince them to buy your product, it’s a lot easier to find the people that are already looking for what you’re selling.
A key to doing this is to come up with a profile of your perfect customer. What are the characteristics of the people who would be interested in your product. What other interests do they have. What problems are they trying to solve or what do they want to learn more about? Where do they go online? What newsletters and blogs do they read? What web sites do they visit? Are they willing to spend money online?
When someone comes to your site, or comes across one of your offers, it should seem like you are speaking directly to them. One on one. If you have a profile of your perfect customer, it’s easier to relate to them. You’ll be able to write your marketing content just like you were talking to them across the table over a cup of coffee. And since you know what they want, you don’t have to sell them, you just have to show them what you have to offer, and let them take the next step.
You’re not going to get very far in business if you don’t sell products. But if you try to convince people to buy your products, you’re going to have a harder time of it than if you know who you’re talking to.
Want to get people on your email list and make sales? Discover how to do it faster, easier, and cheaper than any other method. More info here…
