Archives for May 2016

Probably the single most important task for any online marketer is list building. As you are probably aware, getting people to opt-in to your email subscription list is one of the most critical ways for you to build your customer base. It’s the leading portal into your sale funnel.

Once traffic is being fed into your sales funnel … if you have high quality products, a great autoresponder and a good sales system … then the rest of your system is pretty much going to work on auto-pilot.

You are going to convert a certain percentage of those customers so that you can start driving revenues into your bank account.

Squeezing Every Penny from Your List

There are a lot of effective ways to build your list. There are lots of different ways to build your list. The first one we are going to talk about is something we have mentioned a lot but not really gone into a lot of detail: Squeeze pages.

A squeeze page is a website that you set up that offers something of value that people interested in your niche are going to want — except you give it to them for free in exchange for their giving you their email address. The squeeze page, or the opt-in page, is where you can offer such giveaways such as discounts and rewards, instructional videos, access to online webinars and other high-value/low-cost items.

As far as what you give away, it should be something that is going to be irresistible to your customers. For example, if your product is a series of videos on how to improve your golf game, the giveaway could be something like a short report that offers 10 tips on how to improve your backswing or your putting skills.

The keys to effective squeeze pages is that they are SEO optimized so people searching in your niche can find them, the giveaway you offer needs to be something they actually want and can use to improve their lives, and that the Call to Action is very clear: Give me your email and you get this great free product.

Sanctity of the Sales Page

Okay, the second way to build your list is to create sales pages. These are stand-alone websites that sell your product.

Like squeeze pages, sales pages need to be SEO optimized so they can be easily found online and their CTA needs to be crystal clear.

Because they are longer form, you have much more leeway on sales pages in terms of structure and content than you do with squeeze pages. Much will depend on the types of products you are promoting and the audience you are addressing. 

Exploiting Social Media to Build Your List

Social media platforms are critical to building your list because they are popular, inexpensive and powerful. Exploiting social media lets you promote your brand, product or business exponentially, rather than laterally, to rapidly build a network of customers who can then continue to promote your business for you.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous video, in today’s business environment, you need to have a strong presence on Facebook. It’s simply where customers are right now.

Once you have an account, identify your Facebook Friends who have the most Friends, then review their Facebook home pages, taking careful note of what groups they belong to.

Whenever they post a status update, always “Like” it and add a comment. Don’t stalk them, but be consistent in developing an interpersonal relationship with them.

Once you have a familiar online relationship, send them valuable content interspersed with promotions for your products When you post on their home pages, whenever they comment or “Like” your post, it will appear in all of their Facebook Friends’ pages.

List building is vital to your success. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

When you run an affiliate marketing business, long-term relationships are far more profitable than short-term revenues. In only a very limited number of cases is there high value to jumping into a hot market, making a big splash, then getting out as fast as you can.

In most cases, building long-term relationships with your customers in the end is the most rewarding strategy, both financially and in terms of your company’s reputation and brand.

If you consider your customers to be your friends, rather than simply your customers, you can improve the effectiveness of any marketing program.

Any time you contact your customers – whether via email, social media, in forums or anywhere else – you should try to personalize the experience as much as possible. Share details about your personal history and family life.

Give your customers the opportunity to develop a genuine emotional bond with you and offer them a vested interest in your success. This will result in a long, prosperous business relationship with a larger group of customers and it will help build your reputation online. Remember, that and you can continually grow your business for many years to come.

Putting Your Personality on the Squeeze Page

For example, how much is an email opt-in worth to you? In other words, when you get somebody to act on your squeeze page — they give you their email address in exchange for whatever high value, niche related content you are giving away for free — what does that mean in terms of cash business? A ballpark estimate is that each opt-in is worth about 50 cents to one dollar per month. And I would say that’s pretty conservative.

So if you have 1,000 opt-ins on a particular squeeze page per month, you can expect that to bring you at least $500 to $1,000 per month.

Every email opt-in you get, you put that person into your sales funnel. That means you are going to be sending them offers and affiliate product promotions interspersed with other high value content and personal information.

The Value of Customers

According to the industry average, each person on your list is worth about 75 cents per month to you.

Obviously, you can increase this average by promoting products people really want and by doing a great job nurturing interpersonal relationships with the people on your list.

Once people opt-in to your subscriptions list, ideally, you want to push your subscribers up your value ladder. This means that regardless of your niche, the purpose of the sales funnel is to push your customers so that they buy offers with bigger and bigger price tags.

You can promote these products using the multiple marketing platforms you have created, including your email subscriber list, social media, squeeze pages, article and forum marketing, and even paid marketing like CPC ads and Google Adwords. How prospects find your sales funnel is less important than what they do once they arrive there.

Gateway Offers

The gateway offer is the first product that you are going to ask your prospects to pay for. Your gateway offer promotion comes after any giveaway product from your squeeze page or elsewhere. The important aspect of the gateway offer is that it should have enormous perceived value for your prospects. In other words, you should over-deliver for what they are paying.

With digital products, it’s hard to lose money in distribution because you can re-sell the same product repeatedly without any additional production costs. Still, it should seem to your customers as if what they are getting with their gateway product is worth far, far more than what they are paying. One way to do this is to provide the highest quality products possible.

Offering your customers value and using your own personality and personal history to build relationships is vital to your success. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

People usually buy products to solve a problem that they are having: They buy food because they are hungry, they buy an education because they want to advance their career, they buy a car because they want to drive around and/or impress their friends.

Presenting a problem is therefore the first part of any marketing email. The problem presented in your email is simply whatever your product will solve.

A Real-World Example

For example, let’s assume your affiliate product is an eBook that teaches how to talk to the opposite sex. The problem then would be that the customer is shy, doesn’t know how to meet people, and is afraid that they are going to grow old and die alone as a result.

Frequently, the presenting the problem is done in the form of a series of questions:

• Do you get tongue-tied when it comes time to meet women?
• Are you spending your Saturday nights sitting at home watching television because you can’t ask women out on dates?
• Are you afraid that you will be a lifelong bachelor because of your anxiety around the opposite sex?” 

Offering Solutions

Next comes introducing your product as a solution to the problem. This gives your prospective customers hope that they can enrich their lives and remove this obstacle simply by purchasing your product:

“Introducing ‘How to Speak to Sexy Women: A Comprehensive Guide’ ”

After introducing your product, you want to explain the benefits your product has to offer your customer. These are different than your products features, which are a list of things that it includes.

This is actually a very important distinction: Benefits describe how your product will improve your customer’s life, how it will not only solve their problem but make them a better person. With this hypothetical product, for example, the benefits might include:

• Win the woman of your dreams and begin a long and happy life with your new family.
• Impress your friends and relatives with your confidence and self-esteem
• Become more attractive to all women and increase your sex appeal

Benefits are a better way to promote your affiliate product than simply listing its features. That’s because it give your potential customer the opportunity to imagine themselves as being a better person for having purchased your product.

A good way to remember it is like this: Features SELL but benefits TELL.

If you are offering any special bonuses or guarantees, they can be listed next. Or if you are directing your email recipient to a sales page where the text builds up to the bonuses and guarantees, it may be a better idea to simply wait until they get there so that it have more impact.

The Critical CTA

The most important part is your Call to Action (CTA). You need to be crystal clear on exactly what it is you want your reader to do.

There can be no ambiguity whatsoever. If it is to visit a sales page, then state that clearly. If it is to buy a product, tell your customer to do exactly that. Don’t hint, obfuscate or beat around the bush. There’s no time for that and your customer won’t appreciate it. Be direct.

“Get Your Copy of ‘How to Meet Sexy Women’ and Start Changing Your Life TODAY!!”

The final part, and perhaps the most important, is the affiliate link. If you forget to include this link, you have wasted the time of your customer because they can’t get to where you want them to go.

Make a point of double checking every email you send to make sure it has an outgoing affiliate link to the web page where your customers can buy the product you are promoting. And test that link every time. One little misspelling or a period in the wrong spot can derail your entire sales process.

If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Internet marketers tend to be highly predictable. They often make the same mistakes over and over again, especially when they are starting out. How many of these mistakes sound familiar to you?

Don’t Push It

The first mistake most newbie affiliate marketers make is to try to market your products to people who don’t want them. This is why it is important to use “permission lists” only. Permission lists are groups of email addresses of people who have given you their permission … either explicitly or implicitly … for you to send emails promoting your products.

Examples of explicit permission would include lists compiled of people who respond affirmatively to your inquiry, “Can we send you more information about promotions and special offers for our products?” Implicit permission examples would include people who enter their email address on your squeeze page.

When you purchase an email list from somebody else, for example, you are paying for a list of indifferent customers.

If the list is big enough … such as thousands or tens of thousands of addresses … sending promotional emails to everybody on the list probably will result in a very small percentage of responses, possible 1 to 2 percent.

But the cost of reaching that small percentage of potential customers is alienating everybody else on this list by sending them emails they don’t want and can’t use. You risk being considered a “spammer” and dramatically decrease their willingness to consider any product you offer in the future.

Plus, as we have seen, it can get you banned by the big email providers and perhaps even prosecuted and fined for violating the law.

‘Social Media? It’s a Fad!’

The second most common pitfall is ignoring social media. This is actually quite common among established businesses. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn offer some of the best ways to contact specific customer groups.

It also offers the ability to develop strong, interpersonal relationships with potential customers. That’s because these platforms tend to be more personalized and intimate than other more traditional marketing platforms.

For example, assume you have a Facebook page for your business that sells kits for converting your home to solar energy. The only people who are going to “friend” you on Facebook are people who are passionate about renewable energy sources, reducing them home power costs, and saving the environment.

Keeping Connected with Customers

You can nurture these customers by providing links to informative articles on the topic, hosting forums and web chats for people to share their ideas and resources, and even frequently posting pictures and videos about your personal life in order to establish a lasting bond.

Then, when it comes time to promote your specific products, your Facebook friends … or Twitter followers or LinkedIn contacts … will be very open to the idea of purchasing them because they feel as if they have a personal relationship with you.

Social media is often ignored by traditional businesses because they assume it is simply for entertainment purposes, is used primarily by younger people who are less willing to spend money, and takes too much time and attention to properly maintain. All three assumptions are dead wrong.

Facebook and Twitter are now considered one of the most effective ways to reach highly targeted prospective customers.

The average age of Facebook’s users has risen to 34 years old in recent years. And social media sites are simple to set up, fun to maintain, and free to use. Ignoring this growing marketing opportunity is a huge mistake because it is only expected to become more dominant during the coming decade.

Monitoring the social media marketing landscape is vital to your success. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.