Archive | June, 2018

There is so much disinformation on this that I just have to weigh in. No doubt you’ve been told or read that you should create a fancy autoresponder sequence where each email builds upon the previous email. And that if you make it fancy enough, and complicated enough, you can get prospects to take any action you like, blah blah blah…

But guess what? You don’t know how people are going to respond to it. You can make a prediction, but your guess might be 180 degrees off. So now you’ve come up with an elaborate system that accomplishes nothing.

More importantly, building a sequential series like sections of a story might have worked 10 years ago, but these days I guarantee that even your best customers will not read and digest every one of your emails. Some of your emails won’t even get through, and many will be lost in a sea of OTHER emails from other marketers.

No matter who you are or how famous you might be, not every message of yours will get read. Remember that. Thus each email needs to stand on its own and not rely on the reader having read and remembered something in a previous email.

So what should you place in your autoresponder sequences? Here are some ideas that flat out work at getting a response…

1. Send people to your blog. If you’ve got a blog with great posts full of good information, write up an email for each blog post and place it in your autoresponder. This only works for evergreen information and blog posts that don’t display a date.

2. You can even tie each blog post to a product you’re promoting. For example, “Here’s a great product that teaches you exactly how to get traffic. And before you get that traffic pouring into your website, you’ll want to make sure your page is optimized for the highest conversion possible. Here’s a post on how to do that.”

3. Don’t send your readers to your blog every day – break those messages up with other messages.

4. Emails that convert well. You send a broadcast email to your list and the response is phenomenal, or just plain good. So what do you do? Most marketers forget about it. But the smart money says to copy and paste that email into your autoresponder series. And yes, it’s okay to send out repeat information. Some of your readers will never see it the first time, and others who did see it will appreciate the reminder.

5. Send them a question. Yes, in the autoresponder series, send them an email that asks an either/or type of question. For example, “Which do you value more – exciting new diet news or easier fat-burning exercise techniques? Reply back with one or the other in the subject line.”

6. Then follow up with both. “Are you one of those who wants the latest new diet news? Well check this out!” “Are you one of those who said you want exercise techniques that burn fat? Look at this!” You’re hitting both (in two separate emails) regardless of which they answered.

7. Personal stories. You’ve got a ton of stories to share with others, you just don’t realize it. And so long as you can relate those stories to the interests of your readers, by all means share those. Anytime you can show that you are a real person with a real life and real challenges, you’re that much closer to forging a bond with your customers. After all, just like you, they want to do business with people they KNOW, like and trust.

As you can see, building an autoresponder series isn’t a cookie-cutter science. Best developed, it’s an authentic and organically developed series of follow up messages that help you create deeper connections with your subscribers so that you can build meaningful business relationships through building trust and connecting the value that your products offer with the needs and aspirations that your subscribers actually have.

Are you up to the task of building a great autoresponder series? I hope so because once developed and refined, your autoresponder follow up emails can work on autopilot for years to come helping to tirelessly deliver more sales and profits for your online business.

Okay, so I spoke in an earlier article on the importance of having a list. Not that it’s good to have, but that you MUST have a list if you want to achieve long term success online.

I’ve noticed the thing that really stymies a lot of would be marketers is how to set up this whole funnel thing that gets you the list. Because it has to be really elaborate and it takes a lot of time and work to get it all set up, right?

Wrong. Too many people are over complicating it. Here’s what you’re going to do, and hang with me so you don’t get lost…

First, you’re going to create a squeeze page.

Second, you’re going to grab your autoresponder code and add it to your squeeze page.

That’s it.

Seriously. Building your list really is this easy.

“But I don’t know what to put on the squeeze page!”

That’s easy – a great headline and 3 to five short, snappy bullet points.

“But I don’t have a free gift to give them for subscribing.”

Seriously? There are PLR products all over the Internet, any one of which you can adapt into your own product in about 30 minutes.

Or you can create your own report – simply find the burning questions people ask the most in your niche and answer them.

OR, forget giving away a freebie. Instead send them to your sales page.

“I don’t have a sales page!”

Then send them to the sales page of an affiliate product you’re promoting.

Seriously, so many marketers make this so darn difficult when it should be the easiest thing in the world.

Your highest priority right now is getting your squeeze page up and running. NOW. Later you can create your own super-duper extra special freebie to give away if you like, but in the mean time you can be collecting names.

Think about this – you decide to create the ultimate free gift. It takes you a month to create that gift. Sure, you thought it would take 3 days, but darned if the project didn’t stretch out for the entire month.

In the mean time, had you set up your squeeze page right away, you might have captured 10, 20 or more names a day while you were creating that ultimate freebie. But you didn’t create the squeeze page.

Result? You lost 300 to 600 or more subscribers that should have been yours.

See what I mean? Just put up the squeeze page, and then no matter what you’re doing online, be sure you’re sending people to that page. Send out tweets, advertise it on your Twitter profile, place it in your signature file on forums and in emails, advertise it (paid and unpaid) on Facebook, etc.

And once you get started building your list, you’re going to find that it’s easy. It’s not the big deal you thought it was. And even better, it’s addictive because as you see more and more subscribers coming in, you’ll be looking for more ways to drive targeted traffic to your squeeze page just so you can watch those numbers increase daily.

The important thing – the really important thing, is to target your list. That is, if your niche is on hot rod cars, be sure that your squeeze page is geared towards people who love hot rods.

For example, if you’re sending them to a sales page after the squeeze page, then the sales page should be promoting an excellent product specifically on hot rods. You want the people who opt into your list to be heavily into your niche, whatever that might be.

And everyone always thinks they’ve got to give away the farm to get someone on their mailing list, but think about this – if you’re sending them to a sales page after they opt in, some of those people will buy. Not a huge percentage, but if it’s a good offer for a good product, you’ll get sales. And the money you’re making from those sales can actually PAY to send traffic to your squeeze page.

Now you can advertise on Facebook in solo ads or where ever you want, and the more you advertise, the more sales you make, the more you can advertise. It’s all self funded so you’ve got your list building system on autopilot, and it took you 30 minutes to set up, plus the time it takes you to set up your advertising.

What about shortcuts? You know, like co-reg lists, safe lists, harvesting, renting lists – aren’t those easier ways to build your list? And the answer is no, absolutely not, because they don’t work. Not only are they unresponsive, but in many cases you’re spamming and you just don’t want to do that.

That’s why you want to build your own list of people who get to know you and who open your emails just because they see your name and they want to know what you have to say today. Build this and you’ll have a real asset. In fact, in online marketing I don’t know if I can think of a better asset than a responsive list, because you can go to that list anytime you want and send them an offer or even ask for their help on something and they will respond.

And if you’re just starting and you don’t know where to go to get traffic to send to your squeeze page, start with the forums. Google your keyword along with the word ‘forum,’ and find all the forums in your niche that allow you to have a signature line. Don’t blast out your squeeze page info; that’s not what you want to do. Instead, enter conversations and help people and become the go-to person in that niche. If you’re on these forums every day for a week, you can become an instant authority.

Just be real, help people, don’t hype anything, and let them click on your signature line in their own time and they will. Because you’re helping, because they see you as someone who really knows something about what they want to know, they’re going to want to know more about you and they’re going to want to get your updates.

These will be some of the most responsive leads you get – they’re absolutely golden – so treat them well and they will stick with you for years to come. And then once you’re good at forum posting, add something else to your traffic driving arsenal to get even more traffic to your squeeze page, like social media or advertising.

Find what works for you, get good at it, and then add something else. Do you see how easy this is? We try to make everything so hard and it’s really not. Just get started, get going and you’ll find out for yourself just how easy it is to build a list.

I mentioned in a previous article that you don’t want to become one of those many one hit wonders that make a big splash on the Internet and then vanish – but how do you make sure that you’re not? Because it’s really easy to say you won’t be, but the fact is that no one PLANS to be a one hit wonder; in fact it happens when you DON’T plan.

I’m going to offer some tips here for ensuring that your success is not the flash in the pan variety, but rather the type of success that continues to pay off day in and day out for years to come.

Really what we are talking about is becoming what you might call a “repeat success.” Because isn’t that the opposite of being a one hit wonder? There is nothing at all wrong with that initial success – it’s repeating that success over and over that gets you the outcome you’re seeking. Sort of like being a one hit wonder a hundred or even several hundred times. And when you view it like this, you see that it becomes easier.

The first thing I’m going to recommend will sound too easy, perhaps, but it’s extremely important that you try it out for the next 21 days. I say 21 days, because psychologists say it takes that long to make a new habit. Plus, it gives you the proper chance to evaluate the results and see that what I’m telling you is profound, to say the least.

Okay, are you ready? The first thing you need to do to ensure you have ongoing success is to pick a number from 2 to 5, and then do that many things in your business everyday.

Let’s say you are a super busy person with a full time job and a young family, so you don’t have much time to devote to your online business. Your number is going to be 2, because you’re only going to have time to do 2 things a day. If you’re working online full time, your number is 5. And if you’re in between, you can determine the right number for you.

Now then, every evening you’re going to make a list of the most important things you need to accomplish the following day in your business. If your number is 2, then write down the 2 things you want to do. If your number is 5, then you’ll list the 5 things.

Obviously, you’re not going to choose 5 really big things like “build a new website,” “create a new product,” etc. Instead, you’ll break down your tasks so that they’re manageable and doable in the time allotted. And then you’re going to do those things, no matter what. As in, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.

Doing the things on your list take priority over your favorite TV shows, eating out, etc. These things are as important as brushing your teeth and sleeping, and once you realize that then you’re not arguing with yourself on whether or not to do them, you’re simply DOING them.

I told you this would seem too simple – does it? Because this one technique will do more for you than almost anything else. Certainly it will allow you to accomplish more than any self-help seminar you could attend, or any time management tool you could use. The list technique is not new, it’s old and it’s proven and you know what else? It flat out WORKS. So if you’re not already doing it, then I encourage you with all my heart to start using this method now, today, right this very moment.

A word of caution – I see students of Internet Marketing get very excited and say something like, “I am going to do TEN things every day!” But this is a trap. What happens is you get burned out and in less than 21 days you’re not doing ANYTHING in your business because it just became too overwhelming, too time consuming and too much like WORK. And isn’t that what so many of us are trying to escape, the drudgery of WORK?

So don’t fall into that trap. If you have lots of hours in your day then choose the number 5, do those 5 things in the morning and early afternoon, and then TAKE THE REST OF THE DAY OFF. That’s right – do not allow yourself to get burned out because you will find that your biggest asset in your business is actually your enthusiasm for the business.

Also, do take a day off. Not 2 days, at least not in the beginning, because if you take 2 days off those 2 days often become 3, and then 4, and then you’re not doing anything. But you can take one day off and go do something totally unrelated to your online business, and come back refreshed and re-energized the next day.

My second tip for ensuring you have long term success is so simple, and yet few people understand the power of it. Ready? It’s to FINISH WHAT YOU START. If you start creating a product, finish it and then promote it. It’s not finished until you get it out there and promote it. If you’re writing a blog, set a schedule and keep to it. True, your blog will never be “finished,” but if you stop writing then it’s as good as an unfinished project.

Look, I probably sound like your parents on this one. “Son, you’ve got to learn to finish what you start.” Why do you suppose your parents said that? Frankly, they probably said it because their parents said it, but there is a terrific amount of wisdom behind that thought.

First of all, if you don’t finish what you start then you have wasted your time and energy on that project. Second, you receive nothing in return for your effort – you can’t make sales and earn money on a product you didn’t finish.

Third, unfinished work breaks you down psychologically. Having unfinished tasks in your life is like having pesky little green goblins sitting on your shoulders tapping you on the side of your head and telling you that you’re a failure. Why? Because an unfinished project is a failure. It’s a constant reminder of something you intended to do but didn’t follow through on.

One note: If you’re in the middle of a project and you realize that it’s the WRONG thing for you to be doing (for whatever reason) then by all means bail out. There is no sense wasting more time on something once you’ve realized your project has little hope of success.

Careful planning and research should minimize the instances of this happening, but there are times when things aren’t in our control. For example, you’re writing a series of promotional emails for an affiliate product that suddenly gets pulled from the market. Best case scenario – re-adapt the emails to another product and move on.

Which brings me to my next tip for ensuring you are not a one hit wonder – success loves SPEED. If you are quick to move from idea to implementation, you’ll seldom have a project that goes unfinished or doesn’t pan out.

For example, if you’re writing code for a plug-in on a piece of software today and you get it finished next week, you can start selling it. If it takes you 6 months to write that code, and the software is obsolete in 5 months, you’ve wasted your time.

Not to mention the fact that speed also reduces competition, at least initially. Using the plug-in example, if you’re fast you can get that plug-in on the market 2 weeks ahead of any competitor, rather than weeks behind the competition. Again, success loves speed so when you get a great idea, don’t sit on it, ACT on it. NOW.

Next is your mailing list. Yes, you need to be building a list. I don’t care what kind of marketing you’re doing or want to do, what your product or service is, etc. It doesn’t matter, because everyone who enjoys long term success online is growing a list.

In fact they have TWO lists – a list of buyers and a list of interested prospects. And whatever else you are doing, you need to be building that list and sending them offers. This is KEY to long term online success. I know you’ve heard this before, but if you’re not aggressively building your list then you’re just not “getting” it and it’s high time you start.

I don’t mean to sound like a drill sergeant on this, but it’s simply not negotiable. Unless you want to be some flash in the pan marketer who creates a product, sells a few hundred copies and disappears off the Internet, you MUST build a list and never stop building that list.

The reason you can never stop is because some people on your list will lose interest in your niche, or they change email addresses and don’t tell you, or any of a number of reasons they are no longer a viable prospect, and so you always need to be adding new prospects in order to continue to grow your business.

Now some folks will say that you don’t need a list because of social media, to which I’ll vehemently disagree. Social media is an awesome tool to help you build your list, and I highly recommend you spend time on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube if it’s helping you build your list. But you still need a LIST of people who know you and like you so that you can send them emails and yes, SELL them stuff.

You’ll find that the majority of your income comes from emailing your list and either letting them know about your own products or suggesting an affiliate product on which you earn a commission.

The best thing you can do when it comes to list building? Build quickly, aggressively and without hesitation. What I’m saying is, find all the best ways that work for you to build your email list and then be relentless in using those methods to build your list even bigger and stronger.

Look at it this way – if you add 10 subscribers a day to your list, in a year you will have 3,650 subscribers. But if you really focus your time and resources on list building and instead of adding 10 subscribers a day you add 100 subscribers a day, in a year you will have over 30 THOUSAND subscribers.

This is a profound difference in just a year. Multiply it out over 3, 5 or 10 years, and you can see how worthwhile it is to be aggressive in your list building.

Of course quality matters as well. A list of buyers is worth far, far more than a list of prospects.

I’ll tell you my secret for quickly building a list of buyers: Create a product that sells for $5 to $10, and then give away 100% of the commission to your affiliates, paid immediately via PayPal. You’ll find software that automates this if you look for it. By paying your affiliates 100% commission that goes straight to them, they have a huge incentive to promote your product. And YOU get to keep the prospects and market to them time and time again.

The marketers who DON’T build a list? Those would be the one-hit wonder people. They do something, make some money, but don’t stay in touch with their customers and prospects. And the funny thing is, they left the lion’s share of the money on the table because it’s in the FOLLOW UP that you make the REAL money.

Think about this – you sell a $17 product, get a list of buyers and prospects, and then do nothing. Or you never bothered to gather the list in the first place. So whatever you made on your $17 product is ALL you are going to earn.

But if you captured the email addresses, you can continue to market to these folks for days, weeks, months and even years to come, earning thousands of dollars more in affiliate commissions and by selling your own products.

And the last bit of advice on how NOT to be a one hit wonder? Focus. That is, choose a niche and focus on that niche at least until it’s earning you a steady stream of income. Once you hit that level, if you think you want to try a second niche, go for it. But using a scatter gun approach from the beginning to enter 2, 5 or 10 niches all at once is only going to yield you minimal results at best because your energies are so dispersed.

In other words, you can get a tiny bit of success in several niches simultaneously, or a whole lot of success in one niche – your choice. Personally I prefer to devote all of my time and energy to just one niche, and I’ve found it pays off quite well.

And by niche, I do mean NICHE. Weight loss is not a niche. Weight loss for women over 50 in the Dallas area is a niche. Or weight loss for work at home moms. Or weight loss for diabetics. The more narrow your focus, the easier it can be to reach your target audience and to get them to purchase because they feel you are speaking directly to them.

So don’t choose the “make money” niche because you’ll discover it’s too vast and too broad. Instead, choose the; “part time work for high schoolers” niche or the “supplement your social security with a profitable hobby” niche. See the difference?

I know I’ve given you a lot of tips here. You might want to go back and review (then implement aggressively), because it’s equivalent to rocket fuel for your business growth.