Author Archive | Jason

To make your email stand out and get it opened, make it clear that your email is useful to the reader, that it’s specific to what they want or need to know, and that it is also unique.

Here are a few additional tips to help ensure you get the most bang for your email buck…

Identify yourself. Don’t send an email from a generic name in the hope of confusing them into opening it – they’ll just resent you for it. Use your own personal name.

Always send your emails from the SAME name. You’re building brand loyalty, even when that brand is you. So if you keep changing your “from” line, even if it changes from “Bob Smith” to “Robert Smith” to “Bob,” you’re confusing your recipients.

Don’t pretend your email is what it’s not. More and more we see emails that say, “Your order is complete” or “Here is your download link” something similar, when it’s got nothing to do with anything the receiver ordered. This is spammy at best and downright deceptive at worst.

Create urgency SOMETIMES. Urgency works best in moderation. If every email you send screams, “Time is running out!” “The price is going up!” “There are only 3 copies left!” Then you’re going to become like the boy who cried wolf, and you know what happened to him – he cried wolf so many times that when a real wolf actually showed up, nobody came to his rescue because nobody believed him. So the wolf ate him up.

Be brief. Yes, there are times when you have to send a longer email, but also send short ones. Remember, more and more of your subscribers are reading your emails on mobile devices, and in a distracted state. Keep your email messages succinct and to the point.

Email marketing remains one of the greatest forms of direct response marketing in history, and you can significantly improve your results if you keep these simple tips in mind when you prepare to send out your next email broadcast to your subscribers.

You already have a sign-up form on your website – but are you doing everything possible to get as many subscribers as possible? Here are 7 tactics for growing your list faster with simple things that only take a few minutes…

Place your sign-up in as many places as possible – preferably on every page. You might also place it in the header or footer as well.

Get in their face. Your opt-in form should be prominent, in bold colors, with background color, maybe animation, etc. Make the sign-up totally visible and eye-catching.

Use pop-ups. Love ’em? Hate ’em? Either way, pop-ups just plain work. Test to see if it’s best to use a pop-up that appears after a few moments, or when the visitor is leaving the page. Do not have the pop-up appear immediately when they get to your page – you’ll just irritate your visitors and encourage them to click away. People need time to see if they like your website and if they want to subscribe.

Sell it, baby! Don’t just ask them to subscribe, BRIBE them to subscribe. Give them something they would otherwise be willing to PAY for and you’ll have a sure winner.

Get their friends, too. Run offers that encourage your visitors to forward your stuff to their friends or colleagues, and always include an easy way for them to sign-up.

Use social media. Perhaps this should have been #1 since social media can build a list faster than almost any other method. Place a sign up form on your Facebook page, run contests, offer bribes and do whatever is necessary to capture the positive attention of your prospects and get them to join your list.

Cross promote. Whether you’re cross promoting between your own product lines, or with another marketer, send emails to each list you can access offering people a great incentive for joining the other list.

Put a few of these tips into action and celebrate the growth of your email subscriber list!

There’s more to making money from your list than simply getting people ON your list. In fact, it’s once they’re on your list that the real work begins because you not only don’t want them to unsubscribe – you want them to actively look forward to hearing from you, to open and read your emails, and to act on your suggestions.

Your subscribers will stay on your list if you are giving them value in the ways that they need. Tricky, huh? Because how do you know what it is that they need?

The answer is to create a feedback loop so they can tell what they want to learn and what they want to buy from you. This way you can design your products and services in a way that is exactly what your readers want.

You can get this information by using a survey to ask them for their number 1 questions on the niches or topics your list covers. SurveyMonkey.com can do this for you free.

Or you can write a blog post that asks readers to give you information on what they currently need. Be sure to specifically ask them to comment, and reply back to their comments. Commenting back encourages even more readers to comment, because they realize you are really paying attention to what they say.

A third option is to ask them a question in an email. It might be after your main email message, or the entire email might be you asking them to answer your question. Ask them to “hit reply right now” to send you their answer.

Once you know what their biggest questions are, you can write content or offer products that provide them with exactly what they need.

You want to condition your list to work with you, to give you the information you need so that you can help them. Think of it as a team effort – you’re asking what they need, they’re telling you, you’re creating it, they’re giving you feedback, etc.

It’s not about selling and more selling. It’s about offering your subscribers what they need, whether it’s in the form of free or paid content. And as long as you’re doing that, they will not only remain on your list – they’ll also become fans who enjoy reading your emails and buying your products.

Bloggers, email marketers, copywriters and writers of all genres, how do you keep your readers coming back for more? By utilizing that literary gem, the cliffhanger. I’ll show you how to use cliffhangers and teasers to increase your sales, but first a little background…

We’ve all been caught up in a story only to realize it was continued in the next chapter, installment, episode or issue. And wouldn’t you know it, they ended the present installment right when something HUGE was about to happen! Coincidence? Not at all.

When Dallas ended their season with “Who shot JR?” it was all people talked about for the entire summer. Heck, that was over 3 decades ago, and people still refer to it today. But what if they had shown you who shot JR before they ended the season? It’s likely no one would even remember that JR got shot at all.

Just this morning I was reading a work of fiction in which one of the main characters realized he was about to be ambushed when POOF! It was the end of the chapter. And wouldn’t you know it – the next chapter addressed an entirely different plot line of the story, thus leaving me in suspense until I can return to my reading.

It is the suspense that keeps us watching the movie or tuning in each week to the television show or watching the News at 11 because of that teaser they threw at us earlier in the evening that said, “Is your holiday turkey safe to eat? Find out at 6:00,” or “Is the water you’re drinking causing you cancer? Find out tonight at 11:00.”

You can use this technique in your own marketing, as well. For example, when writing a series of emails, end each one with a major benefit of what they’ll discover in the next email. When writing a sales letter, promise to teach them something they really want to know, but first delve more deeply into why they need your product. And when writing blog posts, either throw out a teaser at the end that sends them to another blog post or sales letter, or use the JR method and leave them hanging until your next post.

Cliffhangers and teasers can be your best friend when it comes to getting your emails opened, your sales letter read and people hanging on your every word. And if you look closely, you’ll notice I even deployed this technique in the first paragraph of this article. It got you to keep reading, now didn’t it? 😉

There are only so many hours in your day, which is to say, you can only do so much.

In the beginning of your business, you’re probably doing everything yourself.

But as things start working and making money, you’ve got to scale it up if you want to keep growing the business.

If you don’t scale, then you can’t grow beyond the point of what you can do alone.

That’s why you want to begin outsourcing as much as you can. And the easiest way to do it is to record yourself performing each step of your business, so you can hand the recordings over to an outsourcer to do these things for you.

Either write it up, take screenshots or use video recording.

And no, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re simply going to hand it to an outsourcer and let them take over the task for you.

Remember, your goal is to work ON your business, not IN your business.

Otherwise you will have trouble hitting six figures and you will never come close to that magical seven figure income.

The ‘secret’ isn’t all that secret, and yet most marketers get this wrong.

You simply have to give a much higher value than the price that subscribers pay, and two things will happen:

They will join in droves, and they will STAY and continue to pay.

It doesn’t matter if you’re charging $10 a month or $1,000 a month. Just make sure that your members are getting far more than the price they are paying.

For example, let’s say you want to build a membership on how to start an online business.

If you give your subscribers an eight week guarantee (think ClickBank) and a promise that they can start earning by the fourth week, you’re in business.

If you further promise full email support, you’ll do even better. Yes, you’ll outsource the support, and it will be well worth the cost. Many members will join just to get that live support.

Subscribers get new content each week, they have 8 weeks to get a refund, they’ll be making money in just 4 weeks, AND they have live support – do you think that might be a winner?

Absolutely. And you can use a similar model no matter what niche you’re in.

Let’s say you teach golfing. You promise that in 4 weeks they will shave 4 strokes off of their game. They have an 8 week guarantee. And sure, maybe you even throw in live support of some kind, too. Again, you’ve got a winner.

Always give far more in value than you’re charging for your membership sites, and you can’t go wrong.

Okay, your competition has been around longer than you.

They know more than you about your customers, your products, your marketing…

…let’s face it – they’re racehorses, and you’re a mule.

But what does that mean?

New marketers feel like they are coming into a race when it’s three-quarters over.

Seasoned marketers know more, have more tools, more contacts, more customers, bigger lists, more outsourcers and so forth.

How is a mule to compete against a tried and true racehorse?

One step at a time, that’s how.

In 1976, the Great American Horse Race – 3,500 miles long through 13 American states – had 90 teams of purebred racehorses competing…

And 1 team of mules.

That’s right, mules – competing with thoroughbreds from across the world in the perhaps the longest, greatest horse race ever.

Entered in the race were Viking horses from Iceland; Arabian stallions, favored to win by almost everyone; tall Irish thoroughbreds; striking Appaloosas; and horses from France, Australia, Denmark and Japan.

And then there was Lord Fauntleroy, the mule. “Leroy,” for short, was the choice steed of Virl Norton, a steeplejack from San Jose, California. Lady Eloise was the backup mule. And no one – no one – took them seriously.

3,500 miles later, you already know who won: The most unlikely victor in any horse race, ever. As Leroy crossed the finish line into the stadium, he flopped his ears and gave a victorious “hee-haw.”

The mule had won with 315.47 total hours. Second place went to an Arabian, clocking 324.6 hours. That’s right – it wasn’t even close.

When you think you can’t compete – when you’re sure you don’t know enough, have enough experience, don’t have the contacts or whatever thought is going through your head, just think of Leroy.

No one expected him to win except his owner and rider, Norton.

Maybe no one expects you to win, either, except maybe your spouse or loved-one.

That’s okay, because if you simply stay in the race and be consistent, you can outshine them all… Or at least cross the finish line with a lovely payday for yourself.

So you’ve set up your blog and you’ve got several posts – and no readers. Now what? Here are 7 proven methods to drive traffic to your blog in no time…

Facebook Fan Pages. You can set up a Fan Page for your blog in about a minute – ten minutes if you’re hunting for a photo and just the right thing to say. It’s simple, easy and free, and here’s my favorite part: Once people become fans of your blog they’ll be able to see your blog updates when they’re on Facebook. Plus, when they like your blog, their friends see that and check out your blog, too. Some of them ‘like’ it, and their friends check out your blog, and so forth.

Twitter. Yes, just about everyone seems to be either on Twitter or joining, so go ahead and set up a Twitter account just for your blog. Again, it’ll take you a whopping 2 to 3 minutes. Make a few interesting Tweets, and then begin adding followers. Use one of the many Twitter add-ons to schedule your tweets to run around the clock, mixing them up and always making them interesting. Tweet each time you make a new blog post, and be sure to use your blog’s URL in your profile. Ask others to retweet you, continue to build your followers, and you’ll be driving traffic to your blog in no time.

Forum signatures. We’re going to assume you’re blogging about a topic you thoroughly enjoy, and thus you belong to at least one forum that focuses on that topic. Be sure to place your blog information in your signature line, using something catchy that teases them into checking out your blog.

Social Networking, RSS Feeds and Blog Directories. How are people bookmarking and /or finding blogs these days? Through blog directories, RRS feeds and social networking. That’s why you want your blog to have all those social networking buttons – they’re not just for decoration. And get your blog listed in all of the big blog directories as well. Here’s a list to start you out…

http://www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories/

Blog Commenting. Find the most widely read blogs in your niche and comment on their posts. Here’s how: Create an Icon that absolutely catches the eye. If you’re not sure what it should look like, spend some time looking at other Icons/Gravatars and see which ones positively pop out at you. Next, leave helpful, interesting comments on the blogs, always with your blog’s URL in the website field. Last, watch to see which of these blogs sends you the most traffic, and focus your commenting on those blogs. Better yet, hire someone to post the comments for you.

Guest Posting. Now that you’ve been leaving great comments on these blogs, let’s take it a step further. Contact the blog owners and ask if you can write a guest post for them. Since they’ve been (hopefully) seeing and reading your comments, there’s a good chance they will be open to letting you do the heavy lifting of writing a blog post for them. To increase the chance they’ll say yes, actually attach the blog post to your email. If they turn you down, it could be because they didn’t like your topic, so ask if there is something else they would prefer. Then resubmit your original blog post to another blog.

Ezine Articles Dot Com. Yes, this is still a good way to drive free traffic, for a couple of reasons. First, people searching for information on Google often land on a particular article at this website – so why shouldn’t it be your article? With your blog in the resource box, this can result in free traffic. And occasionally your article will end up on someone else’s website – again, a good source of free traffic, not to mention another backlink.

Half of Facebook’s more than 2.2 BILLION active users are on Facebook in any 24 hour period. In addition, the average U.S. Facebook user spends nearly 6 hours a month browsing this social network.

In other words, if your business isn’t on Facebook yet, maybe it should be. And one of the first questions I invariably receive from newcomers concerning Facebook is, “What should I post to get people interested in my business?” Here are some ideas:

Showcase your customers. If you’ve got photos, videos or emails from happy customers using your products, go ahead and show them. Just remember, you’re not bragging about your product, you’re showing what your customers are doing with your product. Keep the difference in mind when choosing and framing content and you can’t go wrong.

Instead of showing a testimonial from Jimmy telling how great your product is, show Jimmy using or enjoying your product, or show the direct results Jimmy achieved with your product. For example, if you teach your customers how to restore classic cars, show Jimmy with before and after shots of his car.

Use humor. Don’t make yourself or your business overly serious on Facebook. Instead, use light-hearted humor whenever possible. This isn’t necessarily telling jokes – most times it’s simply taking a poke at yourself or your day, showing something in a humorous light, being witty or simply sharing that silly thing that happened to you a few minutes ago.

Post funny videos, especially if they’re relevant to your business. And don’t just grab videos from YouTube – make your own quick videos when you feel inspired.

Give them content. Facebook isn’t necessarily the place to offer long winded diatribes about anything. But it is a great place to share cool content – especially the “How-to” variety and the entertainment variety. And it doesn’t all need to originate with you – use curated content to round out your own and keep people engaged.

Let them inside. That is, show off your staff (if you have one) or your family or the inner workings of your business. Engage them by pulling back the curtain and showing what they normally wouldn’t get to see. For example, if you’re a one person business working out of your home, show them your office, your view, and your little dog that keeps you company. If your business has oodles of employees, post pictures of your in-office celebrations such as birthdays, as well as the antics that go on and so forth. By giving them a peak behind the curtain, your friends and fans feel very much included and part of the group. You’re no longer just a business, you’re part of their circle.

Ask questions. Nothing engages other people like asking them their opinion on something, even if it’s as silly as, “What’s better: Baseball or Football, and why?” Posts with questions get the conversation rolling, especially when it’s an easy question to answer. And be sure to respond to the answers you receive.

Use these Facebook “attention getters” to quickly begin bringing more people your way.

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to make good money online is by doing webinars.

Here’s how it works in a nutshell: You choose a date and topic for your webinar, promote it, give great information on the webinar and then promote a product at the end. It’s like one big informational sales letter, in that you begin by giving away a great deal of awesome info, and you close by offering them even more information or a service or membership they can use to implement what they’ve just learned.

If you either have a skill that others want to learn, or you can interview an expert who has the skill (or information) people want to learn, then you can do a webinar.

Here are the steps to ensure your webinars generate income…

1. Make the webinar an experience. There is so much I can say about this, but it might all boil down to the following: Do NOT be boring. As you put your webinar together, think about your customers and what they want to learn and experience. Make it interesting, exciting and fun. Plan to show major enthusiasm for your topic, and to answer questions. Remember, they can leave the webinar any time they like, so make sure it’s worth staying for.

2. Provide great tools. If you’re partnering or using affiliates, provide great blog posts and emails so they can drive as much traffic as possible to your opt-in page. And provide a good variety – you don’t want every affiliate sending out the same email, since they begin to look like spam. Instead, consider helping each affiliate to write a unique email tailored exclusively for their list.

3. Spend time on your registration page. This is the page you and your partners or affiliates will be sending traffic to, and it’s do or die. Prospects decide whether or not to sign up for your webinar based upon what’s on the page, so spend a little time fine tuning it to produce the most sign-ups possible.

4. In creating the slides for your webinar, try to have a new slide every minute or two with one or more important points on it. This keeps the webinar moving and interesting.

5. You can do the webinar by yourself or with a partner. The nice thing about having a partner is you can have a give and take of information, adding in bits that the other might overlook. Of course whoever the expert is will do most of the talking, but the second person can ask questions and add a different dynamic to the call.

6. Promote the webinar. Begin promoting no more than a week in advance because frankly, people have short memories. And as the webinar gets closer, promote it more often with increased urgency.

7. Send reminders. The day before the webinar is the time to send the first reminder, preferably in the early evening. Send the second on the morning of the webinar, and the third reminder 30 minutes before it begins. “Did you forget?” Is a great subject line for the last minute email you send out. Also remind them that there are far more people signed up than there are open webinar slots (assuming this is true, which it usually is.) Suggest they get on the webinar early to ensure they get a “seat.”

8. Start the webinar on time. Don’t wait for stragglers, you’ll just irritate those who bothered to show up on time.

9. Give some of your best stuff. Seriously, you want to majorly over deliver, because the more you give, the more your listeners will want to know. If you hold everything back then not only do you run out of things to talk about – your listeners also wonder if you know anything at all.

10. Be a tease. Seriously, while you’re delivering great content you will also be inserting teasers here and there for the pitch that comes at the end. For example, you’re telling them how to do “a, b and c,” and of course they’ll need “d, e and f” which you don’t have time to cover here but you’ll give them a chance to learn all about it at the end of the presentation. For example: Your webinar is on traffic, so you teach several basic methods on the call and allude to the many advanced techniques they can also use – when they know how.

11. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about your audience. If your webinar system allows questions to be typed in (such as GoToWebinar) then the person who isn’t doing the talking can keep track of the questions and make sure they get answered. Great trick: Imagine you are a new listener hearing you for the first time. What do you want to know? What isn’t clear? What questions might you have? Always keep your listeners in mind, and even periodically check in with them to see if they’re following what you’re teaching.

12. Make your offer deliciously irresistible. The entire webinar should flow nicely into the offer you’re making, and the offer itself should be as irresistible as possible. Pile on the benefits, make it clear what this will allow them to accomplish, and back it with a super strong guarantee. Place the URL of the order page on the screen and tell them exactly what will happen when they order.

13. Give a bonus to the first “x” number who grab your offer. This is a great way to get them off the fence and moving fast. Depending on the price point and the number of listeners, limit your special bonus to the first 10 to 50 people who sign up.

14. Stay on to answer questions and give order updates. If one person has a question there’s a good chance others have the same question. Plus you can be there in case they have a problem ordering. And as the orders come in, update the listeners on how many of the bonuses are already gone. This provides proof that others are buying and they should as well. You might even close out the webinar by letting them know you’re confident the bonuses will sell out this evening.

15. Follow-up. Send an email thanking them for attending and reminding them of the URL to order if they haven’t already.

16. Post the replay online for a few days and inform all those who did not attend to listen to it before you take it down.

It’s fairly common to make several thousand dollars from one webinar, depending of course on your offer and your listeners.

What if you don’t have a product to promote? Then you’ve got a couple of options:

1. Choose an affiliate product and ask the product owner to do the webinar with you, splitting the profit between the two of you.

2. Make your product a series of teaching webinars. These are additional webinars that they pay to attend to learn the rest of what it is you’re teaching. Record them and get transcriptions, and now you’ve got a product you can sell on future webinars.

So, are webinars for you?… If so, these tips will help you get started on the right track!