TRUE Results To REPLACE YOUR JOB

Archive for the ‘List Building’ Category

In my last post, I mentioned that I’ve changed the tagline for this blog. Thanks to those who have suggested some great taglines to be used for this blog. I really appreciate your inputs, and have used them to change the sub-tagline of my blog to include my name for branding purposes.

My autoresponder messages are currently also being revamped. It’s 70% done. Still working on the remaining 30%.

It (the new autoresponder email series) is already LIVE though, since the remaining 30% of the emails that are not done yet are those email messages at the END of the series, which will go out to subscribers more than a month after they first subscribe.

Since the new autoresponder series has just gone live, I can take my time to add more messages to complete the remaining 30%.

Why do I need to change and revamp my autoresponder series?

It’s all about CHANGE!

In business, you need to constantly CHANGE and INNOVATE if you want to thrive and prosper. If you don’t then your competitors will EAT YOU UP!

Even though change and innovation is important, some basic concepts remain the SAME. For example, if you take a look at the digital information business model, the business flow is still the same.

You drive visitors to your sales funnel. At the top of the funnel is your squeeze page which you capture visitors’ contact info. Then you sell them your front end product - this is the second phase of your funnel. Most are not going to buy right then and there, which is where your autoresponder messages come in - they’re going to follow up with your subscribers to try to close the sale. The third phase of the funnel is more RELATED products that increase in price and value. At the bottom of the funnel is where you make your profits.

The more visitors you put into the top of the funnel, the more money pops out at the bottom of the funnel.

Here are a few tips about email marketing (that I’ve also applied into my new autoresponder series):

1. Don’t be afraid to email your subscribers

Some marketers I know are too afraid to email their subscribers. They are afraid that they will unsubscribe because they sent them too many emails. As long as you don’t send more than one email every day, there can never be too much emails, provided that your emails are NOT BORING.

The purpose of driving traffic to your squeeze page is to capture visitors’ contact info so that you can follow up with them to demonstrate who you are and build trusting and beneficial relationships with them.

If you’re too afraid to email your subscribers, then you might as well save your time, money, and effort by not creating your squeeze page in the first place.

2. Email more often in the beginning

You should email your subscribers more often in the beginning of your autoresponder series when they have just subscribed to your list.

This is because peoples’ interests change a lot very quickly, and you want to CAPITILIZE on what they are interested in NOW.

They are HOT now!

3. CONSISTENCY in following up is key

It’s very important that you follow up with your subscribers on a CONSISTENT basis. This does not mean that you should email sales pitches all the time - it simply means that you maintain some form of communication ALWAYS. In fact, you should NOT be emailing sales pitches all the time because if you do so, you’re going to lose your subscribers faster than you can get new subscribers into your list.

Maintaining some kind of communication means following up with them and educating them about tips and tricks in your marketplace, entertaining them with your personal stories to let them know you better, and of course, selling them your product.

It’s better to email them twice a month CONSISTENTLY than emailing them once a day for 5 days, and then stop emailing them for the next 30 days, before emailing them again every day for 6 days.

4. Let Subscribers Know YOUR NAME

If you’re doing double opt-in, once people have opted-in, you want to IMMEDIATELY direct them to your sales page where you sell your front end product. At the top of this sales page, you MUST let them know that you’ve emailed them the freebie they requested and they MUST click the confirmation link found within this email before they can get your freebie.

VERY IMPORTANT: When opening emails, people 100% ALWAYS look at WHO the sender is before looking at the subject of the email. Thus, you MUST let them know YOUR NAME so that when the confirmation email arrives in their inbox and they see your name, they want to click on it.

A lot of marketers focus too much on the subject of the email. You should instead focus on letting them know YOUR NAME first.

Failure to do this will result in them not opening your confirmation email and therefore not clicking the confirmation link. This means they are not going to be added to your list and you will lose the opportunity to follow up with them FOREVER!

What do you think? Do you have anything to add or say about email marketing or autoresponder messages? I’ll be glad to hear your thoughts, so leave them in a comment below…

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In my last post, I explained what Internet continuity programs are and why they’re so profitable.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to build a successful continuity program - or to be more specific, How To Build A CONSISTENT Online Business FAST Using Continuity Programs so that you can REPLACE YOUR JOB!

Step 1 - Overcome Information Overload And Focus On ONE Thing Only

With all the information out there about making money online, I’m 100% sure that you’re suffering from information overload. The first step you need to do is to overcome this illness.

Stop chasing one business opportunity after another. Stop looking for the “next big thing” because there is no “next big thing”. There is only hype attached to the “next big thing”.

Focus your mind and attention on only ONE thing - and that is to build a CONSISTENT Online Business FAST so that you can REPLACE YOUR JOB. Ignore the rest that have nothing to do with this.

Please pay special attention to the word “CONSISTENT” - you want your income to be consistent month in and month out. So what if you can generate $1000 today but fail to make any money tomorrow and the day later.

What you want is CONSISTENT income every month so that you can have a REAL business and peace of mind.

Step 2 - Learn Direct Response Marketing Skills

When soldiers go to war and fight for their country, they equip themselves with weapons and shields. You need to do the same by equipping yourself with Direct Response Marketing skills.

Why?

You are a small entrepreneur with limited budget to spend on your online business, thus you need to make the best use of your money.

You can’t afford to spend (and WASTE) BIG money like all the Fortune 500 companies. Every dollar counts, which is why you MUST learn direct response marketing skills so that you spend your money wisely on things that do WORK!

Step 3 - Learn Technical Skills

A lot of the “make money online” sites and gurus say BOLDLY that you don’t need to have ANY technical skills at all to be able to succeed in your online business.

(worse, they claim that you only need to click a few buttons on your mouse and you’ll make thousands instantly…)

I COMPLETELY DISAGREE!

Don’t cringe first at the thought of learning technical skills…

What I’m saying is that you MUST, at the very least, learn basic technical skills such as:

- how to connect your domain and hosting together so that when people type www.yourdomain.com, they are actually directed to your website

- how to create a BASIC html static web page

- how to set up a WordPress blog from scratch

No, you don’t have to learn programming. You can outsource the programming stuff to professional programmers who know what they’re doing and who can do the job A LOT BETTER and MUCH FASTER than you.

Why don’t you also outsource the three skills I mentioned above as well?

Because if you outsource even the most basic skills such as these three skills, then you’d have to wait for your technical guy to fix it for you if you need to make even the smallest change to your web page. This will take up a lot of time with the back and forth communication. Another reason is of course to cut down your expenses.

Step 4 - Create Your High Quality Freebie

Make sure that you actually create a HIGH QUALITY freebie that you give away to your website visitors in exchange for their email addresses. Don’t simply put together some low quality PLR stuff and use it as your freebie.

This will hurt your image and brand, and once it’s tarnished, it’s VERY DIFFICULT to regain and make people trust you again.

Before you create your freebie, think of it as a paid product that you’re going to sell. This way, your mind will focus on delivering high quality content since it (your mind) thinks that it’s going to be a paid product.

Step 5 - Set Up Your Squeeze Page To Capture Leads

Now that you have your freebie ready, the next step is to set up a squeeze page to capture the names and email addresses of those people who requested your freebie.

The basic HTML skills that you’ve learned earlier (in step 3) will help a lot in creating and setting up a simple squeeze page.

Of course, you should have some nice and professional (but not too fancy) design to your squeeze page and freebie, and you can do that by outsourcing this to graphic designers. This will increase your squeeze page conversion rate.

Step 6 - Create Your Continuity Program

This is the MEAT of what your customers are paying you money for. They pay you money to access your VALUABLE content to solve their problems.

The content of your continuity program, of course, have to be GOOD (as should your FREE content).

When people give their names and email addresses to get your freebie, they should be IMMEDIATELY presented with your continuity program offer.

Why immediately?

Because as mentioned in my previous post, people’s interests change VERY QUICKLY all the time. If you don’t ask for the sale immediately, then they might no longer be interested in your topic a few days later.

And one more tip: you do NOT have to create ALL the content beforehand before you actually roll out your continuity program. In fact, you only need to have the first lesson created and you’re good to go.

Step 7 - Package Your Continuity Program To Make It SELL

With tight competition in almost every market, simply presenting your “naked” continuity program for sale is not going to be good enough.

You need to MASSIVELY PACKAGE your continuity program so that it becomes irresistible and really ENTICING. Package it in such a way so that if people do not take up your continuity offer, they’ll really miss out on a lot of good, cool stuff.

You want to make your prospects think like this in their minds:

Join your continuity program = I can solve my problems

Don’t join your continuity program = My problems remain unsolved and I’ll continute to feel excruciating PAIN

Step 8 - Generate Visitors To Your Squeeze Page

I’m sure you’ve heard and seen this a thousand times before, but without visitors to your website, then everything is useless.

You can have the best continuity program in the world, but if nobody knows the existence of your program, then not a single soul is going to join your program.

This means zero sales and zero profits.

Once you have your freebie, your irresistible continuity program that is MASSIVELY PACKAGED, then you can start driving traffic to your squeeze page.

A small percentage of that traffic will be your customers, and most will just be freebie seekers who won’t join your continuity program. This is perfectly fine, because in EVERY MARKET that you operate and sell information products in, there are only a small percentage of buyers compared to freebie seekers.

Step 9 - Build DEEP Relationships With Your Leads/Subscribers

After visitors opt-in to get your freebie, they are presented with your continuity program offer. Let’s say that the conversion rate for your continuity program is 2%. This means that for every 100 people who see your offer, only 2 join your program and the remaining 98 did not join.

So what happens to these 98 people?

Simply leave them alone?

NO WAY!

What you should do is to build deep, trusting, and beneficial relationships with them via email marketing. Remember that they’ve already given you their email addresses!

Give them cool and valuable content that will help them solve their problems, and give them on a CONSISTENT basis.

Frequency is key here.

The Internet is full of scams and is filled with tons of dishonest people. You want them to receive REPETITIVE exposure from you that will result in a POSITIVE perception of you being a nice, trustworthy person whom they regard as their trusted advisor.

Step 10 - Use KILLER Email Marketing Tactics To SELL Your Continuity Program

In Step 9, you build deep relationships with your subscribers by giving them valuable free content that they can use. In Step 10, you SELL your offer.

Simply giving away free content all the time won’t make you money. SELLING your continuity program will!

Therefore, even though you often give your subscribers free content, be sure to sell to them also. Otherwise ALL your efforts will be gone to waste.

The way to do this is to have a mixture of free content and sales pitch emails. For example, you can use the following tactic:

Email 1: Free content

Email 2: Sales pitch

Email 3: Free content

Email 4: Sales pitch

Etc.

Where Do You Go From Here?

So there you have it, the 10 ESSENTIAL steps to building successful Internet continuity programs. If you do them correctly, you’re bound to REPLACE YOUR JOB on the Internet!

If you REALLY want to learn IN MORE DETAIL where I show and teach you STEP-BY-STEP How To REPLACE YOUR JOB On The Internet Using A Continuity Program, then I have some good news for you.

My brand new coaching program that teaches you EXACTLY this is going to be released Wednesday, 6 January 2010 @ 11am EST.

(…and I’m sure you’ll be in for a surprise when I reveal to you the tiny investment to this coaching program)

Just the perfect time for you to make your 2010 resolution - to REPLACE YOUR JOB On The Internet!

Stay tuned for more info on this alright?

In the meantime leave me your comments and questions below about Internet continuity programs…

Here’s to a Happy and Prosperous 2010!

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… if you build the wrong list!

Almost every Internet marketer who knows what they’re doing is engaging in email list building activities.

As the famous saying goes “The money is in the list”…

(…by the way if you want to learn 2 proven ways to build your list fast, click here)

A Requirement

And no doubt about it, having a list to really make BIG money online is a requirement. You can argue that you make money via Adsense and as such you don’t need to build a list.

Well let me tell you that if you focus your time and effort instead on building your own list, building TRUSTING and MUTUALLY BENEFICAL relationships with this list, and presenting them offers that they’re interested in, you’ll earn SO MUCH MORE than just Adsense alone.

But making big money online, or should I say building a real Internet business, is not just about building ANY kind of list.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see beginner and intermediate marketers alike make when they build their lists. I’m guilty of this mistake too (yes even to this present date I sometimes get sidetracked as well).

The BIG Mistake

The mistake I’m talking about is focusing on building a FREEBIE list.

What do I mean by that?

A Freebie list is a group of people who do NOT buy your products and services. And by FOCUSING your time and efforts on building this kind of list, you profits will be very INSIGNIFICANT.

You should instead FOCUS on building a BUYER list.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t build a freebie list. You should and must, because in order to build a buyer list, you first need to build a freebie list.

You build a FREEBIE list - you build relationships with this list so that your subscribers know, like, and trust you - you present them with low cost offers to get them to your BUYER list - you offer more value with your higher-priced products and services (backend).

This is where the real money is made - via the buyer list and NOT the freebie list.

Convert Freebie Seekers Into Buyers

Again, my point here is once you have a DECENT lead-generation system in place to pour in leads into your sales funnel on a consistent daily basis, you should think about converting as much of these freebie leads into your buyer list.

Do NOT wait until you have the perfect lead generation system before you convert them. Notice I use the word “DECENT lead-generation system” and not “SUPER lead-generation system” above? By decent, I mean it doesn’t have to be super powerful like generating 50 fresh leads per day. Even 20 or 30 leads per day are good enough (at least for the time being).

If you wait until you have a super powerful lead generation system before you start converting your freebie list into your buyer list, then you’ll be missing out on a lot of profits.

Want me to give you another strong reason why you should convert them as soon as possible?

People’s Interests Change All The Time

Well, people’s interest or “hotness towards a particular topic” change around a lot very quickly. For example, today I might be interested in learning how to play golf. Next week, I’m no longer interested in golf but instead interested in fishing.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Since people’s interest change around a lot quickly, you want to make sure that you convert as much people in your freebie list into your buyer list as soon as you can. Because if you wait around too long, your subscribers may no longer be interested in your subject.

To build your own BUYER list, you need to have your own product. But don’t cringe at the thought of this yet, because creating your own information product can be done in 1 day or less.

How To Create Your Own Product In 1 Day Or Less

You simply interview an expert in your marketplace over Skype and record the interview and you have an audio product ready. If you want to learn more about how to create your own high quality information product in 1 day or less, go take a look at my Instant Product System guide.

Another tip for you: you can make money from your freebie list even before you have your own product and before you build your buyer list. The way to do this is to promote an affiliate product that is closely related to what your topic is about. For example, if you’re building an audience who are golf beginners who want to learn how to play golf well, then offer an affiliate product about learning how to play golf for beginners.

Never, ever wait until you have the perfect, super-duper lead generation system before you convert your freebie list into your buyer list. Because it will never be perfect. No system in the world is perfect.

Now that you understand the importance of a buyer list, go build one today. Leave your comments and thoughts below about email list building, as I’d LOVE to hear them…

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More often than not, FREE is not really FREE. Especially when it (the word “FREE”) is used in marketing messages. In the Internet marketing (IM) world, the usage of “FREE” is even more commonplace.

Everyone and his dog is offering FREE ebook, mp3, or video downloads of the best guide or course on how to make money online, on how to lose weight fast, on how to get the perfect lady/man, etc.

But to get the “FREE” downloads, you have to “give up” your name and email address.

So in this case, is FREE really FREE?

Different Opinions About The Word “FREE”

Some people believe that when something is Free for grabs, it should mean just that - Free unconditionally. They don’t have to enter their name and email addresses just to be able to get the Free stuff.

Others (especially marketers), on the other hand, think that getting something for Free BUT with certain terms and conditions, is perfectly fine.

Do you want to know what I think? Honestly?

As you’ve probably already have guessed, being the marketer that I am, I think the same way as other marketers do - Free can be Free only when certain terms and conditions are met. In my case, since I’m running an Internet business, the Free stuff I give away would have to exchanged with the email address of the person requesting the Free stuff.

It’s All About Leverage

As competition gets tougher in every market everywhere, offering something for Free in exchange for an email address is “almost” required. We’ve all spent so much time, effort, and money to bring visitors to our sites, and if we simply let them download the good Free stuff without getting their email addresses, then we’re NOT leveraging our work.

Every time we want to get new visitors, we have to do all the hard and tedious work all over again. Think article marketing, forum marketing, blog commenting, etc.

Spend 40 hours driving traffic = 100 visitors = 1 sale

To get 10 sales, you have to spend 400 boring hours to drive traffic!

But if you collect visitors’ email addresses, then you can LEVERAGE the work that you do today for the future. You have the power to send visitors to any web page you please since you have their email addresses.

This is exactly the reason why every marketer is trying to bribe you with “FREE” ebooks, audios, or videos in exchange for your email.

(…by the way, if you want to know how to build your list fast, I reveal 2 proven ways in this article – and this time it’s REALLY Free without any terms and conditions. I promise! )

But is it ethical to do so? To say that it’s FREE when in fact you have to “pay” for it using your email address?

This is very subjective and there are always two sides to every coin.

Visitors, if given a choice, would almost always prefer getting the Free downloads for Free WITHOUT any buts or ifs.

Marketers (the website owners), always prefer visitors “pay” with their email addresses in order to get the Free downloads.

So Where Do You Draw The Line?

In my opinion (and YES I’m a marketer and I’m PROUD to be one), as long as you DON’T abuse visitors’ email addresses by sending them sales pitch emails every day or sending them emails that are totally unrelated to the Freebie they downloaded in the first place, it’s okay and fine.

What I’m saying is: if your Free download is about how to get the perfect dating partner, then you DO NOT send them emails about making money online, and vice-versa.

Some people (visitors and marketers alike) would argue that you should provide the Free downloads TOTALLY free without any conditions at all, including NOT requesting visitors’ email addresses. They say that if your Freebie is REALLY THAT GREAT, then people would subscribe to your list VOLUNTARILY without you “forcing” them to give up their email addresses just to be able to download your Freebie.

That makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?

If they like your Free report, surely they want to get into your list even without you “begging” for their email addresses.

I’ve tried this method before, but I find that “forcing” visitors’ to leave their email addresses in order to get my Freebie works better for me.

It Is Human Tendency To Forget

I think part of the reason is because all of us are busy. Even when John gets so excited and impressed by our freebie, and he says to himself that he’s going to get into our list to receive further related information, he might not REMEMBER to take the necessary action to subscribe to our list.

John wants to subscribe but he forgets. And with people living busier lives than ever before, people get more forgetful.

By getting John’s email in the first place when he requested for the Free report, even when John forgets a day or two later that he has already downloaded the report, we can send him an email reminding him to consume the report and follow up with him again in the very near future to build good relationships with him.

Good relationships = easier to sell products/services = more $$$

Your Thoughts?

I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts about this. What do you think have to say about ethical Internet marketing? Do you think FREE should really mean TOTALLY FREE without any terms and conditions? Or do you think it’s alright to “force” people to give you their email addresses VOLUNTARILY in order to get your Freebie?

Let me know your thoughts in a comment below…

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Loyal readers of this blog most likely would have noticed that I put up a slide up opt-in form on the bottom of this blog a few months ago.

This slide up opt-in form is called Ultimate Footer Ad.

In addition to using Ultimate Footer Ad for this blog, I’ve also been installing it on my other sites. And today I’d like to share my results with you.

Apart from this blog, I’m also running an Internet Marketing blog for my local Indonesian folks in the Indonesian language (be warned thought that you won’t understand a single word there since it’s written in the Indonesian language).

I installed Ultimate Footer Ad on this Indonesian blog on March 17, 2009. Before the existence of this opt-in form (February 15 to March 15, 2009 to be exact), there were 16,469 visits and 1,488 opt-ins according to Google Anayltics. This equates to a conversion rate of 9.04%.

From March 17 to April 17, 2009, 17,788 visits and 2,869 opt-ins were recorded. This means a conversion rate of 16.13%.

By leaving everything the same except the addition of Ultimate Footer Ad, I’ve managed to increase my opt-in conversion rate from 9.04% to 16.13%, which is a 78.43% INCREASE.

If only Ultimate Footer Ad had come out earlier to the market, I’d have grabbed this great script and would’ve have increased my subscribers my 78.43% earlier!

Ultimate Footer Ad Pros

1. Increase Your Conversions (Like In My Case)

Right now, there are not many scripts like this in the market where you literally capture the visitors’ attention by having something “slide up” from below.

It’s too obvious not to notice it, yet not too disturbing and intrusive compared to a pop-up. It gets the job done by increasing the conversion rate, especially if you’re installing this script on a blog where you have a lot of outgoing links that distract visitors. The more links you have on your blog/site, the lower your conversion rate will be.

Did I also mention that Ultimate Footer Ad can also be used to display whatever ad or sales message you want to display to visitors? If you don’t want an opt-in form to slide up, and instead want a sales message or some kind of ads to show up, no problem!

2. Very Affordable

At a retail price of just $47, Ultimate Footer Ad is very affordable. Any serious business owner and marketer who markets on the Internet MUST have this tool to boost their profits.

3. License Is Good For UNLIMITED Domains

You can install Ultimate Footer Ad on as many domains or websites as you like. No more paying additional fee just to install this script on different domains or websites.

Pay ONCE and you can use it infinitely.

4. FREE Lifetime Updates

When you purchase Ultimate Footer Ad, you’re also entitled to receive FREE lifetime updates of the script.

A lot of people do not understand this, but having a script that provides Free lifetime updates is AWESOME!

Why?

Because due to the nature of scripts, there is a high possibility (almost certain) that scripts contain bugs that need to be fixed. In addition, as time passes by and new technologies and methods are found, the script needs to be updated as well in order for it to work effectively.

Just three months into the purchase of the script, it has undergone one update from version 1.0 to version 2.0 (Just  a few days ago, I’ve also updated my 1.0 to the 2.0 version).

5. Several Pre-Made Design Templates

Another thing to note about Ultimate Footer Ad is that it comes with several different design templates ready for you to use in your slide up opt-in form.

However, if you want to have a custom design that matches your website or the offer you’re giving away, then you need to enlist the help of a graphic designer to help you do that.

In my case study above, I used an existing pre-made design template that was included in the package. I’m pretty sure that if I were to custom design my opt-in form to match the offer I’m giving away, my conversion will increase even more.

Ultimate Footer Ad Cons

One of the cons of this script is that some people might find slide up opt-in forms to be disturbing and intrusive, although this is A LOT LESS annoying than pop-ups.

That said, it must be noted that you can’t please every single person out there. As the saying goes “you can’t make everyone happy”.

My advice is to make the MAJORITY of your CUSTOMERS happy.

Do you know that most people who complain all the time are those freebie seekers who will never buy anything from you. Forget about them and instead focus in making the majority of your CUSTOMERS happy.

Conclusion

At $47, Ultimate Footer Ad is VERY affordable.

Actually, it’s a STEAL!

Can you imagine increasing your opt-in conversion rate by 78.43% like I did for just ONE of my sites?

I highly endorse this product as I know the small investment you make will pay itself MANY times over!

However if you currently don’t have a website/blog yet, then please don’t buy it because you’ll simply be wasting your money as you simply can’t put it to good use.

GOOD NEWS

The good news I have in store for you is that you can secure a 21.28% discount by buying Ultimate Footer Ad from my link (but don’t buy it from the link I’ve given you above). This means the regular retail price of $47 is going to come down to $37.

IMPORTANT: To claim your $10 (21.28%) discount, DO NOT BUY from the link I’ve given you above. Instead submit a support ticket and I’ll be sure to give you the discount link. I’m sorry for the extra step, but Graham Cox, the owner of the script, does not want me to publicly advertise this discount link to everybody.

Hence the reason for having to contact me via my support desk to ask for the discount link. Click here now to submit a support ticket and you’ll be on your way to getting yourself a very powerful Ultimate Footer Ad script that will boost your conversions at a discounted price.

Enjoy!

PS. Let me know your comments and feedback in a comment below…

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