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By Terri Seymour in Featured

emailmktgOne of the most powerful ways to build a successful online business is by creating relationships with your visitors so they can begin to trust you and feel comfortable ordering from you. One way of building these relationships is by having a mailing list so you can keep in contact with your subscribers. This helps form a bond and will start to build that foundation of trust and credibility.

Sending out weekly online newsletters or mailings is a great way to solidify the trust relationship. But who do you send it to? Taking the time and effort to build a responsive email list is not easy but it certainly can be done.

The ten tips below will help you get started building that all important list of names and email addresses!

1. Privacy Guarantee – One of the most important things you can do is guarantee the visitor’s privacy. Be sure to let them know their information will never be given out or sold to anyone under any circumstances!

2. Easy Sign-Up – Be sure to put a quick and easy sign-up form for your visitors. You do not want your potential subscribers chased away by having to click through a maze of forms. Make the sign-up as easy and fast as possible.

3. Multiple Forms – Don’t make the mistake of just putting one sign-up form on your site. Be sure to have one on every page. Not everyone will go to your homepage. Also, be sure to add subscription forms to your Facebook page and other social networking sites.

4. In Plain Sight – When putting the sign-up form on every page of your site, be sure to put them on the top of the page on either the right side or the left side. I have read that the left side is more effective.

5. No Life Story – Don’t ask for a ton of information when trying to get people to sign up for your mailing list. You don’t need to know their phone number, address, gender, birthday, etc. The person is going to wonder what you want all that information for and they will be inclined not to give it to you. A name and an email address is all you need.

6. Double Opt-In - Always provide double opt-in for your subscriptions. So after they sign-up, an email will be sent to them to give them a chance to confirm their subscription. This will protect your subscribers from being added to unwanted lists and it will also protect you from being reported for spam.

7. Free Gift - Always offer a quality free gift to everyone who signs up for your mailing list. Show them you appreciate them and are willing to give something to them as well. I usually offer a free ebook with helpful, quality content. Put the download link in the welcome subscriber email you send out so they can access their gift immediately. Don’t make them contact you or wait for it.

8. Email Signature – Be sure to offer a sign-up form or link in your email signature. A lot of people will sign-up directly from an email.

9. Forward to a Friend – Encourage your subscribers to forward copies of your mailings to their friends and associates. Offer incentive contests. For example, whoever gets the most people to subscribe gets a free gift or big discount on their next order.

10. Ad Swaps - Contact other newsletter publishers and ask them to do an ad swap. You will run a blurb about their newsletter if they do the same for you. You can also exchange blurbs on your welcome email that is sent to all new subscribers.

Bonus Tip: Be sure to offer quality content and products in your mailings. Add some contests (for example: a trivia challenge), some fun and encourage your readers’ interaction with you. This will go a long way in building that foundation of trust which in turn will bring you much more business!

Don’t be one of the 95% of people who fail at their online business. Terri Seymour can help you make money online. Find out how to increase your traffic and sales with her popular “How to Build Your Online Business” ebook for FREE at: ==> http://www.SeymourProducts.com

By Sue White in Featured

opt_inEvery website or blog needs to be collecting names and email addresses from visitors to the site. Sometimes it’s called an opt-in page or box, a landing page or a squeeze page. Whatever the name, the purpose is to not waste the clicks to your website by not getting valuable information from your readers.

Why am I collecting this information? Any seasoned business person knows that without marketing, we have no game to play. You need to be continually marketing yourself to your niche. The best way to show that you are the best solution to their problem is to send them information that addresses those problems. Then, every once in awhile, you will have the opportunity to present yourself as the solution to those problems. The most efficient way to continue to market to your readers is with email campaigns.

What information should I be collecting? A rule to go by is that by asking for as little information as possible, your reader will be more likely to provide it. At the very least, you need to collect a first name and a valid email address. You can ask for more information such as a phone number or address, however, you are reducing the likelihood of completion of the form. And remember, as you build a relationship with your reader, you can always ask for more information later.

Where do I get the code for my page? An autoresponder is an important tool for collecting this information. Most autoresponders have a free trial period so you can check them out and see which one works the best for you. The top programs on the market are Aweber, IContact Mail Chimp, and Constant Contact. If you are a member of a Chamber of Commerce, you will want to contact them and see if they are participating in a program from Constant Contact, this can save you a few dollars each month.

Please remember that your opt-in gift is not there to sell anything – only to gather information. Make sure that you are providing valuable information to your audience. You can accomplish this by compiling a short report, a video or a collection of articles. It’s best to make your opt-in short and to the point. You should also include a statement on your form that you will not distribute their emails to anyone else.

As you can see, creating a place to gather information from your reader is imperative to good online marketing of your product or service. If you would like to know more about how to create a report for your viewers, visit EasyWebContentSecrets.com

By Lauren Hobson in Featured

advertising to facebookMany small businesses today have seen their target audience’s behavior shift toward using the web for communicating (email), getting news (web), communicating with each other (social networking), and performing pre-shopping research (Google). You may be tempted to think that if potential customers want information about your products and services, they will call your company and ask to speak with a sales rep. But that’s not the case anymore – instead, they will probably go to the web and either do a Google search, or go directly to your web site to find the information they need before making a purchase.

By Chip Cooper in Featured

businessI talk to clients all the time about not falling into the trap of believing that their privacy policy is really nothing but a lot of fluff, filled with vague, self-serving statements such as “we respect your privacy”. It’s actually way more than that; it’s viewed as an enforceable contract by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and as such it may be construed against you and subject you to substantial liability.

By Gary Packer in Featured

It doesn’t take much to realize why an autoresponder is of such importance to anyone running an internet business, providing it has all the required features and it’s an easy to use variety. Having an automatic email response system set up which successfully responds to all incoming emails 24 hours per day, seven day a week – 365 days a year, is without question, a big advantage in the world of online business.

There are a vast amount of autoresponder programs which can be set up on your own computer or on your own local server. Alternatively, there are many forms of autoresponders which can be hosted via remote servers although it should be taken into consideration, such services do cost money and on occasions, it can become very costly.

Obviously, for those wishing to avoid additional expenses, using your own autoresponder program, either on your PC or on your local server is the option of choice.

As mentioned above, opting to use your own autoresponder program will end up saving you a considerable amount of money while at the same time, saving you a lot of valuable time. Understandably, allowing an autoresponder to sift through responses and reply to incoming mail frees up a lot of your time which most businessmen can then put to better use on other aspects of their business.

Yes, sure we’re all entitled to our own personal opinions but, the fact is, with online businesses, lists of clients are what generate income. The more leads you get, the longer your list of clients become and the more clients you have, the more money you’re going to make. So, what has this got to do with autoresponders? It’s a proven fact that autoresponders are capable of generating thousands of leads in minimal time. It only stands to reason that the more customers you have, the more money you make.

In order to get the most out of an autoresponder, it’s fundamental that you include a subscription box within your website. By doing this, you’re making it convenient for visitors to sign up for you newsletters in order to learn more about the various products and/or services you offer. As soon as a visitor signs up, you can have your autoresponder set up in such a way that it automatically sends out an email while at the same time, it adds that address to your client list. This is an essential strategy in today’s world of online business management.

If you find yourself continually searching for new ways to improve your online business then you’re not alone and you can be rest assured, millions of others have already realized that autoresponders are one of the most essential, and valuable, tools available.

Firstly, as you won’t be required to personally reply to every email, your workload will shrink, thus allowing you time for more important demands.

Secondly, as your list of clients continues to grow, so too will your profits. The ultimate result of acquiring an autoresponder is that they boost income which far outweighs the initial cost of purchasing one.

Gary Packer has been using the internet almost since the beginning. He has worked in Design Studios in London and has worked extensively on advertising projects for TV. During the last 4 years he has turned his attention to creating an income from the internet. For FREE internet-marketing related information and e-courses, please visit Internet Marketing Strategies .

By Ron Woodham in Featured

The first and most important point to understand is whenever you sell, or give away any item online, you MUST get your customer’s name (first name will be fine) together with their email address.

So before you allow a new customer to download, for instance, a free e-book, they have to supply you with their name and email. It’s not an option to let them have the e-book first and ask them for their name and email later. This simply won’t do. It’s a bit like tipping money down the drain, and then trying to retrieve it later only to find it’s gone beyond the u-bend!

So what’s the best way to capture these names? When you create your website, one of the best ways to begin is by using what’s called an “opt-in” form for your customer to complete. All you need at this stage is their first name and their email address. Once they have submitted this information they will be taken to another page where they can click on a button that says something like: “Click here for your free e-book”, or if you are selling a product the button would say “Buy Now”, etc. Then your autoresponder will swing into action and bingo, the new customer is added to your list.

Your own customer list is a very valuable commodity. Yes, you can always buy a customer list, but none of these names would be “hot prospects” – until they have actually ordered a product from you. So your own opt-in list will always be worth much, much more – after all it’s full of hot prospects who know your site.

Once you have a growing List, you will need to keep in regular touch with them. A weekly or fortnightly newsletter should do the trick nicely. However, never bombard your customers with products to buy each time you post a newsletter – they will very soon get fed up, and leave! It’s very important to develop a good and friendly relationship. A good rule of thumb would be offering a new product once every two or three months. In the meantime your newsletters could offer FREE goodies, such as the occasional free e-book, or other useful information.

A simple way to gain the trust of a customer is to provide them with an escape route. Show them you are not there to trap them. Keep a clean List and always elaborate your email and newsletters by providing detailed information on how to unsubscribe from the list. Guarantee them that they may unsubscribe whenever they want to. Many people are wary that they might be stuck for life and would have to abandon their email accounts when they get pestered with spam.

You must never lose the trust of your customers. If you sell your List to others and they get spammed, you’ll end up losing many of your customers. A good clean private list will earn you a good reputation and drive in more traffic.

On the subject of spamming – many email providers are becoming very vigilant, and if they suspect you are spamming, your List you may get stopped altogether. Having what’s called a “Double Opt-in” system prevents this problem at the start.

This simply means that after your customer has supplied their name and email address, they receive a message from your autoresponder telling them an email has been sent to them. They need to open this email and simply click on the link provided, which in effect is confirming their permission to join your List and receive emails and promotions from you. Most people operate the Double Opt-in system these days.

Ron Woodham retired at 65 and set up his own Internet Business. He spent 9 months teaching himself how to create and build websites from scratch, and now shares his knowledge through his Building Blocks for Beginners.

Visit his website http://www.newbieplace.co.uk for the full story.

By Terri Seymour in Featured

advertisingIf you have been in this business for any length of time, you have probably heard the saying, “The Money is in the List”. Well, in a big way that is true. Building a mailing list and sending out regular newsletters, updates, etc. is a very powerful way of increasing your customer base. There are numerous things you can do to build your mailing list and most of them are free!

By Westly Lager in Featured

If you have been online for long, you know that one of the keys to success is in your email list. You can have a beautiful web site, a great product or affiliate connections, and lots of traffic, and still not make much money online. And that is what you are here to do, right?

Experts tell us that is takes as many as 7-10 connections with a new potential client before the average one will purchase. What that means is that if you are just sending traffic to your web site without adding that traffic to your email list, you are probably losing most of the business you could be generating.

Think about it this way. If your web site converts at 1% and the average buyer purchases after the 7th contact, you are probably losing 3-4 sales for every one you get. That 1% conversion rate should probably be 3, 4, or even 5%.

How to do it? Use a squeeze page as an entry page into your site. What that means is that in order for your traffic to get into your site, they must give you their email and name. In exchange, you will send them a free ebook or free newsletter or free report, etc.

Sure, you will lose a few who will not offer their information, but you should capture info from most of the traffic you get. This way you can email them repeatedly until they purchase, rather than the one-shot opportunity you get with your current web page.

So how do you turn this list into a super highly responsive list?

You must send them very useful and free information the first few mailings, and then send useful information regularly forever after that. Do not send them a blatant sales message every contact you have with them. Give them many good reasons to continue to open your mail. If they do not open your mail, they will not purchase through your email campaign. I know that sounds rudimentary and common sense, but I think we have all probably made a few silly mistakes in our internet marketing. In our haste to get someone to buy something, we are constantly bombarding our email list with sales offers. Sure, you have to do it to get sales, but if you want to keep your list responsive, you must send them useful information; stuff they can apply immediately.

Get them used to clicking through links in your emails. Offer free tools, but they have to click through to get them. Why? It gets them comfortable with your emails and with clicking. Then when you have a free trial you want to expose them to, they will click through on that, and you will make money.

This is a no-brainer—but it doesn’t always happen—use the same sent-from address on all your email. Why? Because people open mail from YOU because they like and trust YOU. If they do not recognize your address they will not open your email.

Test everything you do.

Test three things specifically.

  1. What is the open rate of your email given a specific type of headline?
  2. What is the click-through rate of your email given a style of letter?
  3. What is the open rate of the following email?

That last one is pretty important. If your reader reads a lousy email from you, they may be less likely to open the next one from you. You must study your list and your list dynamics to create responsive list.

Westly Lager is a success mentor and coach helping teach people how to work online. With Westly’s experience and expertise you can’t go wrong. See how Westly can help you today by visiting Abundant Living System and his Blog Abundant Living System

By Mark Tyner in Featured

Everyone in the marketing field is faced with this daunting task of reaching everyone on the planet simultaneously, on a daily basis. Lets say we have a brand new product, extremely viral, unique, and most importantly never before seen. A whole new dilemma stares you in the face as you need massive amounts of people viewing your offer before “the cat is out of the bag,” in order for you to maximize your profit.

Realize that what we are asking for is the exact same thing every single internet marketer, every single guru, every single business, is trying to achieve? That is to reach mass amounts of people, all at the same time.

  • The short answer is to be able to email everybody. How about everyone on a list who’s seeking make money opportunities, diet and health products, or a specialty service. If you can swing interest with some who’s got a list, fine, otherwise there’s the usual like blogging or article posting.
  • Write such an interesting article that everyone wants to publish it, that’s quite fast if you can do it.
  • Publish a press release that is so interesting everyone wants to publish it.
  • Do a deal with someone with a long list.
  • Use advertising offline like craigslist, or online like USfreeads.
  • Get your site really search engine optimized, then publish an article to as many article sites as possible. When Google reads them, and they will often, Google will also index your site through the link on the article, and then seo takes over.

All of the above take time, but we are all trying to get our message out to everyone that we can. Using these tactics are beneficial and just a great common practice.

The so called “Guru’s” get it out quickly because they have a boat load of affiliates who do it for them and they have a huge list of people to send it to. It’s much easier to have a “New Launch” when you have built a reputation and have a large following.

A solution for the common marketer

For the common marketer, a really great way is to rent a list of names, or buy a list of names that has been collected on opt-in subscribes actively searching for your product or offer. That involves using a list someone else owns and marketing to them. There’s usually a fee and the bigger the list the bigger the fee. Let’s focus on this technique.

I’ve seen many quality lists on specific niches well into the 100,000′s and very reasonably priced. Many will even offer the free emailing software compatible with their list formats. Finding the lists are relatively easy. Search engine dietary affiliate program seekers or MLM opportunity seekers, and you will find huge lists. Just make sure your mailings are CAN – SPAM compliant when marketing this way and the possibilities are endless. A helpful tip is to add the name, email address, IP address, and the date they filled out their opt-in subscription to the bottom of your mailings also. If you get a good quality list, you can expect it to contain all of that information. A quality emailing software will also let you utilize that information seamlessly.

My suggestion is to go after the huge lists. If you have a good product and can offer something of worth to them, they will respond appropriately.

Looking for Legitimate Ways to Prosper On-Line? Visit Mark Tyner’s website at YourHomeBiz-Direct Or look in on his latest Business Opp | Retail-Auction.com

By Yunis Khan in Featured

marketing.jpgAn opt-in mailing list is usually THE essential component when it comes to recording and converting prospects who have expressed an interest in your products. Without an opt-in list any internet business will struggle to fully convert all the prospects that may buy its products.

Therefore the first part in creating a successful internet business is to create your opt-in list – we will not be dealing with that subject in this article. This subject is dealt with in my article “How To Build Your Business with An Opt-In List That Works” – if you would like me to send you this article then please email me.

This article deals with how you can use your opt-in list to make money and up sell higher ticket items to your prospects and customers.

An opt-in list is crucial to 99% of internet businesses, even for small or new sites the opt-in list can make a highly significant difference to the sites income. Use the opt-in properly and it will pay you handsomely.

The opt-in list allows you to establish and maintain communication with your prospects or customers. One point to make here is that a prospect is someone who has enquired about your products without actually purchasing them. Once the prospect has purchased a product from you then they become a customer.

You can use your opt-in list to send information about your products, special offers, newsletters, whatever you think your prospects or customers want and need. Remember your objective here is to get emotional buy in for your products or services. By providing them information, for example via newsletters, you are building up your companies trust and the more your prospect trusts you the more likely they are to purchase from you.

The whole point of an opt-in list is that your prospect has given you permission to send them information on your company and products. This effectively means you have been invited by the prospect to tell them about your products as they have already expressed an interest in what you have to offer. Therefore you cannot be accused of spam mail.

Newsletters are a great way to keep contact with your list and provide useful and informative information to your prospects. They also encourage your list to visit your site regularly and check for new content. As we all know content is king, if your prospects like your content then you are already more then half way to converting them to customers. Newsletters are also a great way to build your list.

The most effective and easiest way to contact your list via email is through the use of an autoresponder. There are many on the market today, most internet businesses use Aweber as do I and I recommend it.

You can set up your autoresponder to send messages to your prospects that have enquired about your products, its very simple to do. Your objective here is to appeal to your prospects emotions as we all know that when making a decision to purchase it is usually driven by emotion first and then justified by logic later.

I would recommend if you are new to internet businesses and to email follow-up messages then you get an experienced sales copy professional to help you compose these messages. It is well known that a prospect needs to be contacted at least 7 times before they will buy – so follow-up is key and the easiest way is through using your autoresponder.

Typically, most internet businesses try and get their prospects to buy something that is relatively cheap, lets say under $40. For most prospects this should not be a problem. Once the prospect has bought from you they become your customer and are now very valuable to you.

They have proved they are willing to get their credit card out and purchase from you. This differentiates them from prospects in a real way – You can now try and up sell your customers higher ticket items. This is where most internet companies make most of their money so you can see how important it is to know who your customers are and what they are interested in purchasing.

Once your list has grown you can make extra money not only by selling your own products and services but by using the following methods, obviously the larger your list the more money you can make:

a) Create and maintain affiliations with other companies that are involved in the same industry or sector as yourself. These other companies provide links on their products and services that you can add onto your site or newsletter. Every click made on the affiliates link will mean money for you.

b) Again by establishing affiliate deals you can ask for a percentage of sales made by your list purchasing products from your affiliates. Once a member on your list clicks through to the affiliates website and purchases goods, this is recorded and you get a percentage of the value of the purchase.

c) Sell advertising space. Many companies will be prepared to pay for banners and other similar adverts on your newsletters or even your website. The amount you can charge will vary on the size of the advert and how many unique users visit your website or how big your opt-in list is. I would strongly advise against selling or renting out your list – it will damage your reputation with your customers and lead to a long term loss in sales and will result in a shorter list.

d) You can sell information products in the form of e-books or even articles that you have written. There is great demand for information products on the internet, many people are willing to pay to gain knowledge. With the trust you created with your list, they will be much more likely to buy from you than someone they have not dealt with.

e) Use your list to its full potential – get your list to recommend you to their friends, family and business associates. You could use recommend-a-friend and offer some sort of free gift for doing so. An increase in your opt-in list will pay handsome dividends now and in the future.

Remember your list is the life blood of your business – look after it, take care of it, nurture it, make it grow and it will reward you handsomely.

Yunis Khan – I have been involved in Internet Businesses for the past 5 years and have gained some valuable experience, sometimes bitter, sometimes with fantastic results. I hope my experiences can help others become successful Internet Business owners.

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