Entrepreneurs-Journey.com Down-To-Earth Advice For Bloggers and Internet Marketers

Affiliate marketing is, and will likely always remain, my favorite method for making money online. At the risk of repeating myself, here’s why every blogger should get into the affiliate marketing game -

1. You make a margin per product sale that is often as good or better than the person or company that produces the product
2. You don’t have to do any product fulfillment, handle cancellations or any customer service whatsoever
3. You have a huge range of products to choose from in most mainstream product categories
4. You can enter new niches any time you like with zero switching cost, simply by finding a new product to promote as an affiliate (this is for those of you who like variety)
5. If you have a product of your own, one of the best ways to get affiliates to promote your product is to make sales of their product as an affiliate first (this is a big one!)

I could go on, but let’s state the obvious and most important aspect: Affiliate marketing is great because you can make very good money for very little effort.

Don’t get me wrong, it requires effort to get to a situation where you can make money as an affiliate, but once you are there the actual process for making money is very, very simple. It’s as easy as writing a blog post or sending an email.

It’s Like Printing Money

I remember about four years ago reading all those hyped-up sales pages from Internet marketers, and I come across the phrase “it’s like printing money”.

I’ve never been a hater of sales copy, although obvious hype agitates me just like anyone else. I certainly believed that some people were enjoying a situation where they could just send emails and make big money, but I was personally very far away from that. Jealousy mixed with depression about my own results, were the dominant emotions I felt at the time when I read what other people were achieving apparently so easily.

My first attempt at “printing money” as an affiliate was with my blog when it was about six months old. I put in a couple of hours to write a blog post about Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide To Google AdWords and managed to print about $20 in commissions – one sale.

I was disappointed given it had taken me six months of consistent work on my blog to make that $20, however I was also encouraged. I could see given enough time and energy, that $20 could be $200 and then $2,000 and even $20,000. Today I have the audacity to believe it could be $200,000 one day too.

Fast forward to the year 2009 and the first six month’s of affiliate promotions have gone like this…

Read the rest of this entry >>

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.

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

A common question asked when you first set out to write an email newsletter is whether it should be a plain text email or HTML (web page style). This is an important consideration since your choice impacts on how many people read your newsletter and how they respond to it. Let’s look at the obvious pros and cons of each format.

HTML Emails

THE GOOD

• Interactive – active elements can be inserted into emails limited only by what email clients can handle. May include movies, games, surveys or any active content.
• Metrics – Code can be placed into emails to provide detailed statistics on whether your email newsletters are read, for how long and which links are clicked and followed.
• Formatting can be controlled to the finest details including fonts, spacing, and design.

THE BAD

• Creating HTML emails take a lot of time and technical proficiency.
• Not everyone has an HTML capable email client in which case you will be excluding some people.
• Your basic message may be lost by the excessive content and “eye candy”.
• The range of options available in HTML are extensive and can lead to what I call “TMOS” – Too Many Options Syndrome, which is the antithesis of the concept “KISS” – Keep It Simple Stupid. TMOS can stop you from functioning efficiently because you are bogged down with how many things you could do, you end up doing nothing.

Plain Text Emails

THE GOOD

• Easier to create – just type words.
• Less chance of formatting problems making the email display incorrectly.
• Less chance of a SPAM filter blocking the mail.
• Message will be easily digested by the reader provided you write it well.
• No distractions from graphics or over stimulation from too much content competing for attention.
• You sell with words, the most powerful sales tool available on the web if used correctly.

THE BAD

• Harder to capture statistics.
• Hyperlinks may not be active (most text based email clients convert HTTP links to clickable but some still don’t).
• Limited to text to convey your message.
• No multimedia can be included.

Why Do You Have a Newsletter?

Let’s cut to the chase here. Why do you have a newsletter? If you are running an Internet business your newsletter functions as a customer retention tool, sending out periodic reminders to pull your prospects/customers back to your site. Newsletters themselves also function as a direct sales tool. It doesn’t matter if you are selling affiliate products, your own products, a service or information, your newsletter is meant to do one thing – illicit a response from its audience.

In order for your newsletter readers to feel compelled enough to take action your newsletter must clearly state it’s message AND create enough of a pull, usually via emotional tugging, to get the reader to do something. The same rules that apply to websites and copywriting apply to newsletters except you have even less time to convince your reader to do something.

Newsletters fall into the domain of email, the most popular web activity. Email is mainstream, it has penetration and people of all ages and backgrounds know how to use it. Consequently the learning curve is a little higher and your readership knows how to at least complete the basic functions with email. This means that they are quite capable of giving each email about 1 seconds worth of attention before clicking that delete button. That’s not a lot of time to convince them that your email is worth reading.

Should I use Plain Text or HTML Newsletters?

In my opinion, plain text should be your choice for email newsletter format. Why? Because of the numbers. Email newsletters are a form of direct response marketing and in direct response marketing the numbers matter.

From the point of view of a small business owner with limited time and resources you want to maximise the results you get from your newsletters. You want a lot of responses to whatever your newsletter is trying to do. You should be able to easily test different copy and see which works best so you can maximise the numbers. It’s all about the numbers…

Your newsletter must hit the reader quickly and compel them to read on. Any delays or presentation errors are going kill your chance of capturing the attention of the reader. While plain text emails are not immune to display errors (more on this later) they are a lot more likely to be digested by the reader even if things don’t format exactly how you want them to.

A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often…better numbers…see a pattern here?

Words Sell

Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it’s words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it within colours and images or overstimulating your readers by providing too much information when a few paragraphs can create your desired results more effectively.

Why Not Use Both Plain Text and HTML?

Good idea! If you have the resources and skills to produce a quality HTML and plain text newsletter then by all means offer both to your audience and let them nominate which they prefer, or better still have the email automatically display the appropriate format by detecting what type of email client they have. If you offer both be sure to test to make sure it’s worthwhile. Are more people responding to plain text emails? Well in that case send everyone plain text.

In my case I’m a small business owner and I’m going to be writing the newsletters myself. I do not have time nor the skills to create a new HTML webpage for every newsletter I produce. I could perhaps have a nice standard template designed which I use for newsletters but as I wrote above, I believe that is a waste of time. Words sell, so I’ll focus on creating emotionally compelling words for my newsletters rather than waste time trying to get a box to align right correctly.

Tips for Better Plain Text Newsletters

TELL A FRIEND

Remember how I talked about the numbers? Your efforts should be focused on ensuring the maximum number of people are exposed to your email so your emotionally compelling and convincing newsletter can work it’s magic. This doesn’t have to be limited to just your newsletter subscribers — your subscribers can be turned into evangelists for your newsletter. Make it easy for your subscribers to forward your newsletter on to friends and associates – suggest it to them at the end of the newsletter. Of course for this work you better be creating a damn interesting newsletter.

WORD WRAPPING

Plain text can format incorrectly and one of the most common problems is line breaks. Either lines breaking too early causing your sentences to look
disjointed and
clumsy, or no line breaks at all, causing one of those nasty horizontal scrollbars to appear and your reader to read off the page to finish a sentence. The screen resolution of your subscribers computers can also impact how your text wraps causing these problems.

You can’t control the monitor resolution of your readers or what email client they use, all you can do is try and account for as many variables as possible. To compensate for this problem you have to set a characters-per-line limitation. I’ve researched into newsletter formatting and different people give different suggestions, from 68 characters per line to 63. I’ve decided to recommend to you the round number of 60 characters per line. This will give you nice compact paragraphs made up of nice compact sentences that are likely to avoid most word wrapping (or lack thereof) problems your readers might experience. On extremely high resolutions there will be a lot of white space and your email might look like one big long tower of text but that’s still a lot better than broken sentences or horizontal scrollbars and won’t be too common a problem.

How To Set Characters Per Line Limitations

You didn’t think I would tell you what to do without giving you practical advice on how to do it would I?! Of course not.

I have a script on my site that you can use to format text that will handle email newsletter formatting to any character width you specify. Better still it can even undo the current character spacing on any text you have, so it’s definitely a tool worth book-marking.

Newsletters Are An Important Tool For Your Online Business

Many of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs are wealthy because they have massive (10,000+) lists of highly targeted subscribers that they have been building for years. One well written affiliate product email to a good list can create thousands of dollars of sales and you don’t even supply the product.

Better still once you have a solid list you can contact similar focused online marketers and carefully select the right cross promotional activities that can double your exposure with one email to their list. Of course you have to have your own list to make available for cross promotions before you can expect to work with other people – the smart/persistent/rich help each other to get richer.

Even if you are using your newsletter as a step in the conversion process to generate sales of your own products or services it’s a wise to stay up to date on good newsletter management techniques. By focusing on the numbers you can maximise direct responses that will lead to more sales as visitors become prospects and prospects become clients.

Yaro Starak