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Over the weekend I worked hard on video presentations for the release of Blog Mastermind. Obviously the core topic of the videos is how to make money via blogging, however I’m introducing a new form of blogging for profit, something that can lead to income quicker, it’s more stable and in the long haul is a much better model for bloggers to follow.

I’ve got a name for this type of blogging that I will reveal when the video comes out but what I can tell you now, it is based on email marketing. I’m not the only person doing this form of blogging of course, but I’m one of very few compared to the total number of professional bloggers out there.

How The Humble Email List Changed My Business

Back in 2005 I started blogging. A few months later I began studying the work of some prominent Internet marketers and a trend arose - everyone talked about how you had to have an email list.

Strangely enough, I didn’t listen. Well, at least I didn’t take action, which is just as bad. I could see how having an email list was valuable, but my focus at the time was my editing business and I just didn’t see how email marketing was going to help it. My blog at the time was still more hobby site than a money maker.

Fast forward to the end of 2006 and I decided to finally launch an email list. However I still didn’t get it completely right because instead of leveraging my blog for continuous email opt-ins, I created an off-site landing page and wrote a few blog articles pointing towards it. At least it was a start.

When it came time to do a blog redesign I was well and truly convinced that I had to include an opt-in for my list on my blog. I asked my designer to put the opt-in in the right column at the top in the above the fold area. You can see it in action in most of the 2006 archives of my blog at the Way Back Machine.

Instantly my opt-ins grew and I quickly found myself generating an extra 20-50 new leads per day, which continued to increase as my blog traffic increased.

Since then, nearly every success I have enjoyed online has come thanks to making these decisions. I finally understood what Internet marketers were talking about when they said you have to have a list - and yes, that applies in EVERY niche online, not just the make money topics (email marketing is so good in non-business markets because not so many people use it well there).

How Email Will Make A Difference To Your Blogging

Read the rest of this entry >>

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I recently decided to sign back up to Jeff Walker’s email list (the guy behind Product Launch Formula). He was originally a “victim” when I culled nearly all the subscriptions I had to Internet marketer’s email lists a few months back, but since I am about to finally do my own product launch I figured it was about time to learn from the best.

Jeff’s methods are behind the launches of pretty much every big launch that has occurred in the last year or so, including StomperNet, Pipeline Profits, Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing launch early last year, everything Rich Schefren has done with Strategic Profits (Jeff consults personally with Rich and was at the seminar I attended) and pretty much any large scale Internet marketing launch you may have been exposed to.

Bear in mind though, that’s just where it’s been applied to in the Internet marketing world, which is perhaps the worst place to apply it, since it’s the market that has seen the most launches. Recent success stories are coming out of non-Internet marketing industries and that’s where I believe it is ripe for leveraging, I just wish I knew something outside of Internet marketing - hmm, maybe an editing and proofreading product launch - maybe not!

If you intend on launching something online, Jeff’s Product Launch Formula is the standard, but you get some good info just from the free list too, which you can subscribe to here -

Product Launch Formula

I’ve just bought the full product, so I should have a review in a few month’s time once I get through it. It’s been a big month for investing in Internet marketing education and travel so far, I think I have now drained my Paypal balance well and truly.

Three Basic Rules To Avoid Email Newsletter Mistakes

The email list is the key component behind most product launches and it acts as the main communication medium between the expert or company, and the prospects. This is an area you want to minimize mistakes.

Jeff offered the following three rules, which while they may seem very basic, are so critical -

1. First, be sure to always send a test email to yourself before all broadcasts.
2. Second, be sure to go through and test all links in that test email.
3. Third, if you make any changes after your test, then repeat the test with your new email.

Can you say you do all three steps above with each and every email you broadcast to your list? How about each and every blog post you write?

I know I don’t, but I should. If you want to demonstrate you’re on top of things and avoid having to adjust for errors after the fact when you have already published or sent your copy, then you need to set up rules like this and follow them each and every time, or have someone else do it for you (my plan eventually - I just want to write and have someone else test for errors).

Simple advice, but simple is always best. Thanks Jeff.

Yaro

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I just checked out the news from AWeber, the company that handles my email lists and newsletters, about the new features they are launching soon. The list includes:

AWeber Upgrades

• Completely new design: Theme colors that don’t get in the way of getting work done.
• Button colors: Green is good, red makes you pause before doing something potentially bad.
• Menu navigation: Get to any page in your account with a single click.
• Reports & Statistics: Hover over any graph to see specific subscriber numbers and rotate pie charts to get a better view.
• Drag and drop to reorder follow up messages.
• One click to turn click tracking on/off without reloading the entire page.
• Currently active list and change list option is more visible.
• Search leads displays faster and paging thru hundreds of subscribers is faster.
• Web form creation wizard steps you thru creating a new form for your website.
• Bookmark any page and when you login later you’ll go directly to that page.

You can read more here: AWeber: Easier & Faster Sneak Preview.

Sounds like there might be some nice Ajax injected into their control panel, which is great news. In particular the ability to reorder emails quickly is something I appreciate. While the current AWeber system is nice and easy to use, it’s a bit clunky and there are lots of inefficiencies. To be honest though I’ve never come across an email autoresponder system that is truly efficient, which is funny given the core function - sending emails - is so simple, yet the amount of options involved in running an autoresponder service makes things quite complicated.

I’m going to rely on AWeber more and more in the near future as I build email lists for different things, so it’s very important that Tom and his team are focused on updates, it shows me that they are not sitting back and resting on their previous successes.

Beginner Newsletter Advice

My mother is about to launch her first email newsletter to augment her counselling business in Brisbane. She is not very technical so I’m not sure she will ever be able to add newsletters to AWeber herself, so will probably pay someone to do it for her (or bug me about it!).

I gave her some advice that I will pass on to you too now if you are a beginner email list builder.

Before even starting, sit down and consider the who, what and why. You want to know exactly who you are attempting to attract with your newsletter and what they get out of it from you. You also need to know why you even need the newsletter in the first place - have a clear idea of what the newsletter does for you in your overall business strategy.

In my mother’s case, she wants to build a profile in the relationships counselling area and create some form of community with her newsletter and eventually a blog too. She has much grander plans, but I told her to focus on the baby steps today and see how the market responds to what you offer first. Right now she is focusing on writing the first newsletters in her email sequence, which is definitely a good place to start while you work to find someone to handle the technical implementation for you.

If you are just getting started in online business and are about to build your first email newsletter then AWeber is something you should review when doing your research (try GetResponse too). Check out my review of AWeber to help with your decision.

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A double opt-in email list is like any email based newsletter or e-course where people can sign-up through the Internet either on a webpage or sending an email to mailing list management software. What makes an email list “double opt-in” is that any person who subscribes must confirm their request twice.

The first time is when the user submits their email address to the web based form. For example, anyone who submits their name and email to my Blog Traffic Tips Newsletter at BlogTrafficKing.com must enter their first name and email address and then hit the button to submit their request to join the newsletter.

After the initial request is received by the email list software a special confirmation email is sent to the address the person input into the form. This is the second opt-in. The email contains a link which the recipient must click to confirm their subscription request. Once they have done this they have “double opted-in”.

You can see an example of the confirmation email also on my BlogTrafficKing.com page here - http://www.blogtrafficking.com/thank-you.html. This is the page I present to people after they fill out the subscription form to make sure they understand how to double opt-in and to ensure the confirmation email doesn’t surprise them and they delete it thinking it is SPAM.

Why Is Double Opt-In Important?

There are several reasons why double opt-in is necessary, but a few key reasons I believe make it mandatory. The double opt-in confirms that the person who entered their email address actually wants to subscribe to the list. If this extra confirmation is not present (single opt-in) then any person could enter any email address to sign-up any other person.

Imagine if you upset someone and they decided to get revenge on you by entering your email address into hundreds of pornographic email newsletters. You would be forced to abandon that email account (unless you really really like porn) if these lists were single opt-in.

From the email list owner’s perspective it’s important that only people who genuinely want to be on your list are signed up. If you use a single-opt on method and, like the example I gave above, someone entered hundreds of email addresses of people who did not want to subscribe to your list, you would end up with a very poor quality list. Those “spam” subscribers wouldn’t respond to what you were offering since they are not your target market.

Do You Want An Effective Email List?

The whole point of an opt-in email list is to attract people who subscribe demonstrating that they are prospects for what you offer - their request for information signifies this. Using a double opt-in list is extremely important for keeping the quality of your email list high.

Consider you are selling advertising space in your email newsletter. You could boast that your email list has 20,000 members but they are all single opt-in and very likely many of the addresses on the list are not valid or go to people who never requested to be on your list. Your advertiser purchases some space in your newsletter but gets poor results so doesn’t buy again.

Now imagine a list contains 2,000, double opt-in hungry prospects that match a key target market. That same advertiser buys space in the newsletter and because of the more precise targeting and confirmed email addresses on the list, generates a better response. The result - a happier advertiser who becomes a repeat buyer of adspace in your newsletter.

Just being able to say “XYZ number of DOUBLE OPT-IN subscribers” is a much better selling point for any person attempting to monetize their list via advertisement placements.

Reduce SPAM Complaints

All email list owners get unsubscribers and spam complaints - it’s the nature of email marketing. People hate spam and anything that smells even a tiny bit like it or if a person can’t remember signing up to your list, may result in a spam complaint (AOL email subscribers are the worst for this in my experience). Even if you have a nice big fat area at the start of your newsletter that describes how to unsubscribe for an email list you will still get people who hit that complaint link.

By using double opt-in you can reduce spam complaints down to single digit percentages or lower. A single opt-in email newsletter lends itself to abuse, resulting in more spam complaints and potential banning of your domain name by the major ISPs. This is something you must avoid at all costs because once you are on an email blacklist it is hard to get yourself off.

One final point on spam - while double opt-in is not law yet I foresee in the very near future it will be. Using a single opt-in email list will be illegal and anyone found doing so may face legal prosecution. If none of the above arguments are enough to sway you, the threat of legal action should do it.

How To Set-Up Double Opt-In

I use AWeber.com (aff) to handle all my email lists (you can read my review of AWeber) and it has a switch you can flick on any email list to make it double opt-in. Be warned though, once you flick that switch there is no going back to single opt-in for that list, you will have to create a new one if you want single opt-in (you get unlimited autoresponder lists with AWeber though so it’s not that big a deal). The AWeber software handles the double opt-in process automatically and has plenty of customization options so you can determine what message is sent back to the user in the confirmation email.

GetReponse (aff) also has a double opt-in facility and I’m fairly confident that most robust third part email list manager/autoresponder services should have the double opt-in feature. If they don’t then they are not keeping up to date so I would recommend moving to a company that does.

If you use your own software, either custom built or purchased online, then you may or may not have a double opt-in feature. That’s a question for your technical person.

Get Serious About Email List Building

Last week I was checking my subscriber stats in my AWeber account and noticed that one of my email lists had over 80 subscribers in a 24 hour period where the average was usually 10-20. I was hoping it was because of a traffic spike from some exposure on a website or blog, but unfortunately it was not. A spam bot of some kind had submitted over 60 email addresses, all very similar, and clearly not from real humans. Thankfully none of these email addresses will be confirmed because of the double opt-in protection my list has, ensuring the integrity of my list is not adversely affected.

If you are serious about building a quality email list, and you should be if you are in Internet business, then double opt-in is a must. Even if it means you lose a few genuine subscribers because they don’t follow the double opt-in process, it is worth it to protect you from all the negative things that can occur reducing the quality of your list.

Yaro Starak
Email List Builder

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You know I’m a huge fan of email autoresponders. For proof just check in my article archives for articles like - Using Autoresponder Emails to Grab New Clients and Keep Them Coming Back for More and AWeber Email Autoresponder Review.

For many organizations autoresponders are used as a tool to maintain and build relationships with prospects and clients. I use autoresponders as my main client database resource and to send broadcasts and automatic marketing emails out periodically. Just recently I’ve started to make use of automatic emails as a passive income tool and it is fast becoming one of my favorite ways to monetize an email list.

Combining Affiliate Programs With Autoresponders

Essentially what I am talking about is promoting an affiliate product or service within an email autoresponder sequence. You write your email series, make sure you provide a ton of value to your subscribers, and filter in a soft sell of affiliate products. You might actually be using the autoresponder for a more specific reason, perhaps marketing your own product or service, and every email you send out clearly has this focus, but the occasional soft sell link or once-off affiliate promotion can work wonders as a passive income stream.

Here’s an example…

Let’s say you offer search engine optimizations services to your local small business community. You create an autoresponder series of 10 short lessons on SEO, including case study examples from your past clients (credibility building etc). Each lesson focuses on providing education to your reader as the primary message and you end every lesson with a short sales pitch for your own SEO services. When appropriate you mention you make use of a great SEO software tool, Brad Callen’s SEO Elite Software (aff) and recommend it to your subscribers. You might also explain how you use it when performing SEO for previous clients. As a result you make a few sales of the software and earn a commission.

Over time more and more people subscribe to your autoresponder series and every now and then you make another sale of SEO Elite. Later you add additional lessons to the sequence and include more product recommendations increasing your affiliate earnings. Over time this builds up into a substantial income stream, and best of all once you have written your autoresponder sequence, it’s pure passive income. If you have natural search engine traffic coming in (you should if you work in SEO!) or another cost effective means to generate new subscribers, your affiliate income will continue to flow indefinitely.

You can work this formula over time to build up an excellent source of passive income. It’s also a fantastic way to further monetize a list that you primarily use to build your client-base. The extra affiliate income may not be massive to start with but it certainly doesn’t hurt and you will learn some interesting things about your subscribers. For example, perhaps your list isn’t converting well at selling your $297 consulting service but you do sell a few $37 ebooks via affiliate promotions. Maybe you can change the focus of this particular autoresponder sequence to only sell affiliate products and find other ways to market your consulting service. Perhaps this teaches that you need to refine your sales funnel for your own services by selling a $37 ebook of your own first and then later you upsell your $297 consulting service.

Repeat Exposures

If you are in business or you have been reading my blog for a while you know that it takes multiple exposures to a product before a person buys. It’s been tested to take between three and seven exposures before you close a deal, depending on what you sell, whether it’s offline or online marketing and all kinds of other variables. The important point is that it takes multiple exposures, once usually isn’t enough, and the same goes for affiliate selling. If you are planning on becoming a super affiliate you need to build marketing tools that expose your subscribers and readers to your promotions over and over again, and email autoresponders are perfect for just that purpose.

Here’s another example…

You can tell I’m pretty happy with AWeber (aff), the company I use to handle my email autoresponders (a full review is here). You can also tell I know something about using autoresponders - I certainly have ideas, this article is one - so I could put together a sequence of lessons on how to make use of autoresponders.

I would set them up to go out in an autoresponder sequence and of course in each lesson I would recommend AWeber and perhaps some of the other email autoresponders like GetResponse (aff) as an affiliate. Provided I made sure my lessons offered really good ideas and advice, people would spread the word and no doubt I could continue to bring in more subscribers. Best of all AWeber offers affiliates ongoing referral commissions for the lifetime of the customer you refer, so if the people I sign-up to AWeber remain with the AWeber service I continue to earn a commission month after month. Do the math - if I get recurring commissions and continue to sign-up new customers via my email course about autoresponders - the income will compound - and it’s all automatic, once again provided I have a means to sign-up new people to my email autoresponder series.

This idea is so good I’m actually considering it. If I wasn’t focusing my energies on blogging I’d be writing that course right now. Whether it would be more profitable than my other ideas I don’t know, but it’s worth testing since it’s so easy to set up with the power of autoresponders and the income opportunity of affiliate programs.

Give It A Go

If you already have an email list going via an autoresponder it doesn’t hurt to test out a few affiliate promotions. If affiliate marketing is your game, or you intend it to be, you must use autoresponders for maximum return on minimal effort. Remember autoresponders aren’t just lead generation tools for businesses - you can use them specifically to sell other people’s products as an affiliate. Imagine setting up ten high-quality online courses which are all delivered automatically through autoresponders and all sell affiliate products. Once you have set things up you can sit back and watch the affiliate income come in provided you have a mechanism to bring in quality subscribers. It’s almost easy…

Yaro Starak
Autoresponder Affiliate Marketer

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