Internet Marketing Simplified » Build Your List

Giving It All Away to Make Money

Jackie Lee — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:00:56 +0000

Most of us create sites with a pretty stable plan in mind for how we’re going to make money from that site. Generally that includes putting ads on the site, selling products from the site, putting up banners that people will click to buy something from the site… it usually means making money ON the site in some form or fashion. Often we get very STUCK in this is exactly how I’m going to monetize the site.

What happens when you realize the topic you’ve decided on for your site just doesn’t really respond to that type of monetization?

Maybe you chose a topic that is early in the buying cycle, and people aren’t looking to buy something, or they’re just looking for information.

What do you do?

Do you just quit the site and let it lay around doing nothing?

Well that’s one option for sure ~ but it’s not the most profitable option I’m certain.

Let’s look at an example from my website portfolio.

A couple years ago when I went through Amy’s Niche Blogger program I built a blog featuring Easy Chicken Recipes. It met all the guidelines she talked about. I built it as she suggested and it gets traffic. I haven’t really touched the site (until just recently) in a year or so ~ and it still gets a couple thousand page views a month. The keywords aren’t the problem ~ they are getting me traffic, problem is no one’s buying.

When I stop to think about it, it makes perfect sense. I go online all the time looking for recipes. I’m looking for recipes, not to buy something. Because I realized the error I made I just left this site laying around ~ I added a cool plugin that makes it look like the site is updating regularly ~ but it’s really just rotating older posts through to the front page ~ so I just left it.

I recently read a free report from a big guru launch about email marketing. As I read it some big time lights went off in my head. The first light was about my internet marketing blog ~ but then other lights began going off ~ I realized I could look at the recipes site in a totally different way and make it work.

Here’s the new plan.

1. Add clickable advertising (adsense/chitika) Which I hadn’t been using because the amount I make per click is so minimal it didn’t seem worth it ~ but it is getting good traffic and will be getting even more traffic now.

2. Create an out of this world freebie (It’s going to be a cookbook of my favorite chicken recipes ~ I’ll also be getting a quality ebook cover done for this)

3. Add the PopUp Domination plugin to start collecting names.

4. Create an autoresponder series that once finished will create a hands off passive income stream.

How’s that going to work?

These people are looking for information ~ we know that. I’m going to offer them a free cookbook of recipes they were searching for to get them on my list.

Once on my list I’m going to keep sending them even more fantastic chicken recipes. (Is this going to be hard ~ NO because I love cooking, and I love to cook chicken, and I make chicken a LOT, and have a lot of chicken recipes)

Here’s where the money comes in:

While they are looking for recipes ~ people looking for easy chicken recipes are probably also in need of other things that make life a little easier. I bet they are probably moms ~ busy moms!

In each email I will let them know about something that can make life a little easier ~ whether it’s a way to organize their recipes, a great cookbook or whatever. This is known as soft sell ~ just adding a little note at the top and/or bottom of the email.

Then every 2 or 3 emails I’ll send them an entire email focused on something. Something they can buy. It may be a cookbook (via Amazon or Clickbank), it may be a way to get their printed recipes organized, or a great workout program (you think busy moms are looking for a quick way to work out?), or a service that will create an entire week’s menu for them and send them the grocery list along with the recipes.

The key to this working though, is I’m not going to just shoot them recipes every week. I’m going to let them get to know me. I’ll tell some stories ~ add our family’s thoughts on the recipes. I’ll let them know I am like them ~ a busy mom who wants life to be easier. By allowing them to get to know, like and trust me it will be much easier for them to accept my recommendation when it comes to something to buy.

This plan will work in just about any relatively specific niche (I’m not talking about micro niches here though). It will work especially well if you find you’ve gotten yourself in a niche where people are looking for information instead of to buy. By getting people on your list you’re giving yourself the opportunity to be in front of them more than once. I’d say 99% of my traffic is new people on that site. Yeah, they come by looking for a recipe, and even if they might have needed something I was advertising on the site, they aren’t in the mindset to buy right now. I can keep talking over time until I hit the moment they ARE ready ~ then they buy.

What do you think? Are there niches you’ve chosen where this strategy might work for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section!

Radically Increase Your Opt In Rate With NO Extra Work

Jackie Lee — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:31:38 +0000

As you know I’ve been working on some goals related to building my list. I’ve added the lightbox from Get response ~ which is totally uncustomizable (and pretty ugly) ~ it’s also given some readers problems of popping up every time they stop by the site, which is not what I want.

I have been actively seeking a solution to this problem.

Here’s what I WANTED. I wanted a gorgeous lightbox, that I could customize, I could easily add my own content, maybe a checklist to. I wanted it to be super easy ~ like a plugin or something ~ upload and go, no messing in the code. I wanted it to work the way I wanted it to work ~ show up once, and not again.

Well, last week I found it. Not even launched yet, but I found it.

Friday I got my hands on it and over the weekend I loaded it on my blog.

I immediately saw my subscriber numbers DOUBLE!! Which is really amazing because my numbers had already jumped greatly just with the ugly get response lightbox. So needless to say I was pretty excited!

So what did I find?

PopUp Domination.

PopUp Domination is a plugin for wordpress. You simply upload it (just like any other plugin) and then go through the 5 simple steps to set it up.

Step 1. Look and Feel

Choose the color options you want to use to best match your site. You can pick from a lot of different colors for the box itself, but also the color of the button. You also choose the template you want to use in this step.

There are currently 4 template options. They are all awesome and one will probably just “speak” to you. You’ll know which one you like best. Choose the number and on to the next step.

Step 2. Email code

This step is where you insert your email code. All you have to do is go grab the html code from a box you’ve created for your site at your autoresponder. Then just paste the code in the box provided. Make sure you grab the html and not the script code.

Step 3. Template Fields

This is where you start filling in your content for the opt in box. You choose the headline, the words to use your name/email field, what you want to say on the submit button.

It’s super easy, and the developer has even outlined the typical length that each of these things should be.

(after each step you can hit the “preview” button and see what the changes you’ve made look like.)

Step 4: List points

This is where you add your bullet point content (if the template you’ve chosen has them). Pull your biggest reasons/benefits for people to opt in (think what’s in it for them) and just add them right there.

Step 5. Schedule

Here’s where you tell the lightbox how often to pop up. You schedule by the day. So if you want it to pop up every 7 days you just put 7 in the box. It’s completely up to you ~ and another thing you can test and see what works best for your site and your audience.

That’s it. Preview, and then turn it on. You’re all set.

Here’s a quick video of my PopUp Domination review. You can see just how easy it is as I create a popup box for my Squidoo blog.

This process literally took me 5 minutes to create the new lightbox for this site. Opt ins are on the rise already. If you aren’t using any kind of lightbox on your site then your opt in increase could be huge. Testimonials are coming in for over 304% increase in opt ins ~ that’s huge. That kind of increase in your list can mean infinitely more connections and lead to a huge increase in sales.

Who is Popup Domination for?

If you have a blog, and you are building a list ~ you need popup domination.

If you have niche sites ~ you should be building lists and popup domination would be perfect!

Who is it not for?

If you’re building micro niche sites I don’t think you will need popup domination.

If you’re building lenses you do not need popup domination.

With that said, it’s time to take your list to the next level. Grab your copy of PopUp Domination. Go ahead and head over now ~ there’s a great video on the sales page. Take a couple minutes and watch it and then get the plugin. It’s totally worth it, and will pay for itself.

If you purchase through my link (yes, that’s an affiliate link in there) I will be glad to help you if you run into any problems getting your light box up and running.

5 Easy Ways to Increase Your Opt In Rate (and get people on the bus)

Jackie Lee — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:49:27 +0000

So you’ve decided on a method to get people to your blog, you’re working that method and more people are showing up. Now you need to get them to get their ticket to jump on the bus tour. (AKA sign up for your opt in list) You do have an opt in list ready right?

Whether you’ve got your freebie ready or not, create your opt in box and get it live on your site. You can start off with just providing blog updates, it’s ok. The most important thing is that you have a way for them to “buy into the bus tour”, and your list is it.

Today I’m going to share with you some ways you can improve the rate at which people will join your list and therefore be on the bus! (This is also known as joining your list/opting in/ and the rate at which they do that is the opt in rate.)

Put your opt in box in more than one place.

Having your opt in box in your sidebar is important. However, that’s not the only place you want to have your opt in box. The more places you can put it the better ~ as long as it doesn’t become the only thing you see on your site of course.

I had no idea there were so many places to put your opt in box until I read John Chow’s free report last week. I must admit I have never read John Chow’s blog before, but Gideon Shalwick did such an excellent review of this free report I grabbed it. He talked about 5 or 6 different places to put your opt in box on your site. (BTW ~ this is an excellent report. I learned a lot. Especially the chapter on building your list. I did get a little overwhelmed by the final chapters but … it was good information, just a little more than I’m willing to do at this point ~ although I probably should. Anyway… you should grab it and take a look at his indepth analysis of getting people on your list ~ it’s really good.

Where Else Can I Put My Opt In Box?

Sidebar ~ of course. The prettier you can make it the better. Here’s a post on how to do that.

The lightbox. The lightbox is the opt in form that pops up once someone gets to the site and blacks out the site until they do something with it ~ either opt in or click the x to make it go away. You get the code for this opt in box from your autoresponder (Get Response is currently having a 33% off sale until the end of June ~ I’m just sayin’) and then add the code to the footer of your site before the tag. It’s controversial I know. I resisted it for a LONG time ~ years. I find them very annoying… but here’s the deal. They work.

Here’s an example. I added the lightbox to this site last Thursday. It’s only been a week. Last night I looked at the stats from June 10-15 (the week before I added the light box) and then from the 17th -22nd (the same time period after I added the light box) Here’s the results. It’s pretty amazing.

10-15: 9 opt ins (yeah, pretty miserable right ~ I have not been doing a great job of getting opt ins)

17-22: 48 opt ins (yeah, huge difference.)

The only difference was the lightbox. That is one simple change that makes a big difference. A lot of these opt ins are coming from older pages on my site that get traffic from the search engines. These are people who I would never have had any future contact with… but now, they get my email series as well as updates when I post to the blog. I get to pull them in, let them get to know me better, and hopefully they turn into raving fans of the blog and me!

Because the lightbox is so intrusive you want to make sure you set it to only show up once. It would be over the top annoying if it showed up every time someone landed on your site, but once isn’t too bad, and it really helps make your opt in box the main focus ~ at least for those few seconds.

Footer:

You may have seen some blogs lately with a little opt in box in the footer of their site. It looks really cool right? It’s another great way to bring your opt in box into focus. They do that will a plugin called Ultimate Footer Ad This little plugin acts like any other plugin, just upload and activate and you can create a unique opt in box in your footer. You can also use it to get more followers at twitter. This is less intrusive, but still pretty noticeable. It will help with “ad blindness” where people just don’t see the opt in box in the sidebar anymore, it will get your opt in box noticed.

Here’s an example:

After someone comments:

If you’ve got people leaving comments you’ve got yet another way to increase your opt ins. I haven’t yet implemented this one, but I can see where it would be really effective. There’s a plugin you can use called Optin Comments. This plugin works together with your autoresponder software. It will send out a quick email message to the person who just commented on your blog. You create this email, and can ask them to grab a copy of your free report ~ or whatever you are giving away to build your list. If they agree they will be added to your list from the email.

This is a great tactic. The person has just taken time, been engaged enough to take action on your site and leave a comment. Chances are they liked what you were talking about, and would enjoy your freebie. Especially if you’ve created a very related freebie.

This plugin will also give you the option to put a check box under your comment box. If the person checks the box they will automatically be added to your email list. It also has other features and is something worth looking at.

In your RSS feed:

There’s yet another plugin that will help you with this. It’s called Feed Footer. It will allow you to add advertisements to your RSS feed. So people reading your site from a feed reader will get the messages as well. You can use regular ads or you can encourage them to get your freebie and join your list. (When your feed numbers get high enough you could even sell this ad space!)

This plugin also allows you to add a copyright notice to your RSS feed ~ which is nice.

Facebook:

If you have a facebook page you can add an optin form to your fanpage by using the fbml option. This is somewhat complicated, but it can be done, and each time someone visits your fanpage it’s yet another opportunity to get them on your list where you can start building your relationship even more.

This is a lot… I know. You may not feel comfortable adding all of these options, and that’s ok. I am not either ~ at least not all at once. You know how “they” always talk about “testing” ~ this is one of those times you can easily do that. Add one thing ~ start with the lightbox, or one of the other options. Add that one thing and then wait a week or two. Make sure to check your stats and see what changes have happened in your subscriber rate. If there’s no change… give it another week and see. If there’s a big change hooray!

As time goes on keep adding these opt in elements, and keep checking on what effect the new element has on your site. These are simple changes you can make and as you’ve seen can create a huge influx of subscribers, and subscribers are what we’re after to create a profitable blog and bus tour.

It’s time to get started. What are you going to do first? I can’t wait to hear what it does for your site. Make sure you come back and let me know!

Tips for Uploading Your Newsletter

Jackie Lee — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:07:22 +0000

I hope you’ve got some good ideas for your free newsletter in the last post. Now we’re ready to upload it to your autoresponder so it can be sent out to your list.

This is really simple ~ it’s no different actually than the first message we put in our series with the link to our freebie.

When to send:

You’ll log into your autoresponder. You, by now, have decided on how often you want your newsletter to go out. Depending on your autoresponder you make this happen by sending it out so many days AFTER they first subscribed or it may ask you how many days since your LAST message. VERY DIFFERENT so make sure you check your autoresponder to see which one it uses.

In Get Response we’re going to “add a follow up” ~ remember the newsletter feature will send it out immediately ~ you want this to go in your series so it will go out at a certain time no matter when the person joins your list ~ whether it was yesterday or a year from now.

Make sure you’re working on the correct list ~ there’s a drop down menu in Getresponse you can choose from.

So if you’re doing a weekly newsletter you’d choose 7 in the box (in get response) because it goes out so many days after sign up. I want them to get this email a week after they subscribed to my list.

Subject line:

Subject line: This can go one of two ways and you’ll have to make the decision for yourself.

1. Brand your newsletter so when people see it they know it’s you and open it.

2. Create a catchy title that is based on the content of the newsletter that week.

If you’re going to brand your newsletter you would use the same title configuration each time.

ex: **Everyday Life Balance For Busy Women**

ex. Internet Marketing Tutorials: Squidoo (or whatever the weekly topic is)

You can mix up including the title of your newsletter and the topic as you can see in the second example.

The second way you can do this is to just come up with a catchy subject line you think will get people curious enough to open the email. It should be something relevant to the topic you wrote about for that newsletter edition.

You might also use the name of your newsletter and the edition number ~ so they will stay in order in people’s email box if they create a rule/folder for your newsletter.

Date:

If you want the date to show up current on your newsletter you can use the code: [[date_med]] (including the outside brackets and everything) That’s in Getresponse. That code will show the current date on your newsletter no matter when it is sent out.

Content:

Now if you’ve written your content somewhere else already go ahead and copy and paste it in. If you’ve done your writing in a word document, make sure you paste it into a text document and then copy from the text doc into your autoresponder. Word does some weird things ~ it adds extra code you can’t see and then it comes out as weird characters in your final product. This is true for everywhere ~ so if you’re using word to write always make sure to paste it into a text doc before you use it in your final setting.

You can also just write right in the autoresponder content creation area. That’s where I usually do it.

Tracking:

Depending on what format you use you can track different elements. At the very least try to track your link click throughs ~ that way you can see if people are clicking the links in your newsletter. When you check the click through tracking box it will make get response change your link so you won’t be able to see where it goes. They will change it to a tracking code.

If there’s a link you don’t want cloaked in your email leave off the http:// then it will just show up as www.whatever.com

I do this for my site address under my name for my emails, so people can see the url.

Send:

When you’ve chosen your tracking elements you’ll just click save. This will add your follow up to the series. You will be brought to a manage follow up screen. This will show you all the follow up messages you have done for this email list. Double check your send out numbers and make sure they’re going out when you want them to.

Edit:

If you need to change/add to a message you can do it from this screen as well. Just go to the message you want to edit and click the edit link next to it. It will open the edit screen and you can change whatever you need.

Spam:

If your autoresponder offers it, check the spam level. This will tell you how likely your email is to get through to people’s in boxes. When you do the spam test it will show you words that are likely to get your newsletter stuck in a spam filter. Change those words. Doing this for a while in the beginning will give you some great experience and learning on how to write in a way that gets your messages delivered. There are certain words like FREE that will set off the spam alert ~ so check that if you can, until you get used to writing in email.

You’ll find the spam check next to the action: options right under your text area in Get response. I’m sure it’s fairly similar in Aweber.

Test:

When you complete the newsletter edition it’s nice to run a test. That way you can see exactly what your newsletter is going to look like for your people ~ it’s when I check spelling and all that stuff is in the test ~ in my own email box. I find it easier to see mistakes that way for some reason.

Next Newsletter:

You can create another newsletter right now and post it for 7 days later or you can come in any time in the next 7 days and do it.

Just remember if you do it after 7 days your subscribers will not receive it because it will be out of line. So this is one thing you have to pay attention to. I like to do 2 newsletters up front so I have a little lee way to get in there and get it done. Doing two up front gives me 14 days to get in there and do the next one and still keep it in line.

Questions?

Feel free to ask if you’ve got them. Keep taking action and let us know when you’ve gotten your newsletter done!

Newsletter Ideas ~Where and How to Find Content

Jackie Lee — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:57:04 +0000

Once you’ve got your autoresponder up and running and have decided on the type of content you’ll provide you’ll have to start coming up with some content. Isn’t that how it always goes around here? content content content.

No worries ~ there’s plenty of places you can find content for your newsletter, and it doesn’t all have to be written by you!

Article Directories

There are so many article directories out there now. You may even find there’s an entire directory related to your niche. Articles posted to article directories are there to be used by others ~ go take a look at what you can find. If you don’t find anything you’d send to your subscribers you can at least get some good ideas. Make sure you keep the resource box intact if you use an article from a directory.

PLR

Another fantastic way to create content for your newsletter is with PLR. You can get a whole pack of articles for really cheap. Then use each article as your featured article in a newsletter. You can even break them down if it seems too long.

My best recommend for PLR is Easy PLR by Nicole Dean. She rocks it with 2 writers and editors ~ always quality stuff. If you don’t see your niche send her a request. She’s likely to have something written on the topic.

Other newsletters

Sign up for industry newsletters. For example, in the gardening niche there are some FANTASTIC newsletters that come out from the bigger nurseries. They give me so many ideas, tips, hints not only for my newsletter, but blog posts too. You could even write and ask if you could use their articles in your newsletter. Contact your affiliate manager to ask.

Old blog posts

If you’ve been blogging for a while you can always repurpose older blog posts and use them as featured articles in your newsletter.

Article swaps

Find someone else in your niche and ask them to do an article swap with you. This means they write an article (including a resource box) for your newsletter and you write one for them. You both get good content and more traffic. Win/win.

Other blogs

You are regularly reading other blogs in your niche. Use their blog posts to give you ideas for your newsletter. Did someone do a post you totally agreed with ~ write about it. Did they write a post you absolutely disagreed with? Write about that.

Magazine articles

Magazines are great ways to come up with ideas for newsletter articles. As you’re browsing though an article on your niche you may see something that makes you want to give your opinion or how you see it ~ great newsletter article (and/or blog post as well!)

Just remember to keep your topics evergreen so no matter when your reader gets the messages they will still make sense.

Easy ways to get organized

One of the toughest things to do is get organized enough that you can stay on top of all this stuff. Writing blog posts, promoting, newsletter creation. It can seem really overwhelming. One of the easiest ways I’ve found is to create an editorial calendar. I know we’ve talked about this before, but here’s a little bit different spin.

When you create your editorial calendar decide on a “topic of the week”. Then come up with 3 ideas for blog posts for that topic, and then you can find/write a related article for your newsletter.

This pulls things together beautifully because you can at the bottom of your newsletter move people to your blog with something like “more articles on ___fill in the blank”. If they have read your featured article it’s likely they will enjoy even more articles on the topic. You will get more traffic to your blog and you’ll find it is pretty easy to come up with content when you’re writing on different aspects of the same topic during the week. It really helps me get in a flow and stay there throughout the week.

It also helps me not have to waste so much time with wondering/contemplating/getting really aggravated over what to write about.

The easiest way to stay on top of all this is to get as organized as YOU possibly can. Your organizational style will not be mine and that’s ok. Getting organized will allow you to get into a rhythm and allow you to use the time you have available to its fullest potential.

Hope this helps you come up with some newsletter ideas, if you have questions or want to brainstorm feel free to ask in the comment section. I’m here for you if you’d like to do a blog brainstorm about your site or your newsletter.

Autoresponder Messages ~ What Do You Say?

Jackie Lee — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:18:41 +0000

Hopefully you’ve gotten your free report finished and uploaded, and you’ve gotten your first message put together so when people opt in they will get your report. Great work ~ no matter where you’re at in that sequence ~ if you’re taking action you’re doing great.

What do I say to subscribers once I have them?

That’s the next question ~ what do I send them after I have them?

Everyone will use their list differently ~ some people just send out notifications of new products or product recommendations ~ which makes them money (and I can tell you last week was driving me crazy with all the “Jackie’s tax refund” emails I was getting. There are plenty of options for your autoresponder messages though…

Some people choose to provide tips and tricks to their readers ~ which can be good.

Some people will add a 5 or 10 part course. Each email being one part of the course.

Some people use their list to notify subscribers of new posts ~ and once in a while throw in a product promotion or product notification.

Some people (and this is probably the BEST use of your list) create a newsletter. Let’s talk about newsletters because it can seem a little overwhelming, but it’s really not.

What is a newsletter?

A newsletter is just an email that gives people some useful/helpful/fun/valuable/feel good information. What exact kind of information will depend totally on your niche.

But here’s the cool thing (well one cool thing) about newsletters is you can add more than just content. You can add a featured product/service. You can add recent posts from your site.

A newsletter can be anything and everything YOU want it to be ~ anything that will help you CONNECT with your readers.

Above all else the first thing (and possibly the ONLY thing) you should be worried about with this list of subscribers is creating a relationship with them. (When they know, like and trust you ~ the money will be there ~ I guarantee it).

Newsletter format: This is one way you can format or get ideas to format your newsletter. You might want to use dashes or dots between sections to make them stand out.

Title of your newsletter ~ come up with something catchy that corresponds to your niche
your name
Date ~ you can do this in your autoresponder so it will always show the current date when it goes out.

In this issue ~ you can do a quick table of contents to let people know what to expect in this issue.

Sponsor Ad ~ this can be an ad for a related product ~ at some point you can even sell this advertising space if your newsletter gets big enough.Use a 4 or 5 line text ad here.

Brief greeting ~ a short personal message from you ~ make sure it is not related to seasonal things so it makes sense when someone gets it no matter what time of year

Featured article ~ this is the meat of your content. A nice article related to something in your niche. Realize you don’t have to write this ~ it can be plr . You can also repurpose ezine articles you’ve written, or any other content you’ve already used. It doesn’t have to be a book ~ but it should be interesting to your reader. Think about just talking to someone about your topic ~ the more friendly and personable you make it the more the person will be able to connect with you ~ and that’s always good.

Q and A section ~ I like to have a q and a section at the bottom ~ it gives me a chance to answer questions that come up ~ you can also let people know if they send you questions it might go out in your newsletter ~ which could bring in more questions. While a q and A section is nice, if you’re not getting questions you can make them up ~ or you could give a quick tip of the week ~ or whatever ~ it’s your newsletter you can make it anything you want it to be!!

Sign off ~ use your full name and then make sure you add your blog address beneath it so people have access to your site easily.

copyright ~ it’s a good idea to make a copyright statement at the end of your newsletter just so people know it’s yours ~ OR you could write a note at the end that people are free to share it ~ or tell them if they know someone who would love it to send them to your squeeze page to sign up. (of course don’t say squeeze page ~ just give them the url)

How often should I contact my subscribers?

It really depends on how you set up your list. If you do blog updates you will probably send out a note each time you post. (I don’t recommend this one ~ it’s not the best use of your list)

If you are sending a newsletter I’d recommend weekly ~ you can probably get away with every other week ~ but consistency is going to be KEY. You want to keep your name and your newsletter in front of them so they remember you. If you mail a newsletter this week, then not again for three weeks it’s likely they will not remember you when it comes. When people don’t remember you, they delete you.

So shoot for weekly.

Here’s another cool thing ~ you only have to your newsletters once a week. Once you upload them you can set them to go out every 7 days. Every new person will receive your newsletter every 7 days starting with your very first one!

All you have to do is one a week and keep uploading them. Stay ahead of the 7 days and you’re good to go. After a while you’ll have a full autoresponder for a year ~ or 6 months or however long you want to do. Everyone that comes into your list will get all of those newsletters and you will only have done the work once.

html or plain

One last piece before I go. The debate between html or plain text. Every autoresponder has the option for you to create these gorgeous html newsletters. I suggest you stick with plain text. While they are gorgeous ~ they are only nice to look at if someone actually sees them. I know in my inbox I don’t get the images automatically ~ I have to turn them on and then turn them on always for each newsletter/piece of mail that comes through. Most people will not have images turned on. Newsletters look UGLY when they are in html and the images don’t come through.

Stick with plain text ~you know everyone will be able to read it and it will look good no matter what their settings are.

Ok ~ that’s it for today. If you have questions about starting a newsletter ask away and we’ll get you started!!

Squeeze Page Software Makes Life Easy

Jackie Lee — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:48:00 +0000

Today we’re going to learn how to create a squeeze page. I just found this squeeze page software that is going to make life so easy for you and there’s a 15 day free trial.

Before we get to creating the squeeze page, let’s talk about what makes a squeeze page convert. When I say convert I mean makes people put their names/emails in and click submit.

The point of a squeeze page is simple. Give people two options. Fill in the opt in box or click the back button.

You don’t want additional stuff on your opt in page ~ you want good solid copy, and an opt in box. That’s it. So that actually makes them quite simple.

Pieces of a squeeze page.

1. Headline.

The headline is where you really grab the readers attention. It’s good to let them know how they will benefit in your headline.

Here’s some examples:

Give me 2 minutes and you’ll have a squeeze page created

Learn from a Giant squid how to make squidoo work for you

Finally, put together the pieces of the internet marketing puzzle and start making money

See how that works?

The headline is generally in red and in a larger font. Yes, it seems a little screamy ~ but it works, and it gets people’s attention.

2. Subheadline

The subhead is a little bit smaller and usually in black. It goes just below the headline and tells a bit more of the story.

Here’s some examples:

If you’ve always wanted to make money online, but just haven’t quite figured it out…

Learn step by step how to choose a topic, find great products to promote, set up a new squidoo lens and start making money!

Learn from a Giant squid a simple system to rake in the cash this year. It’s not what you think …

3. Bullet Points

Your copy for a squeeze page is going to be short and sweet. Bullet points work fantastic for this.

When creating your bullet points you want to focus on the BENEFITS the person will receive from opting in ~ not the features of your product. Above your bullet points you may put in a statement like “you will discover” and then your bullet points can be super short for example:

create a product

find profitable keywords

learn to care for your horse

choose the perfect ride on toy for your child’s needs

which stand mixer will work best for you

See… these are benefits ~ what the person gets out of it.

4. Opt in box

The opt in box is the last piece of the squeeze page puzzle. While the opt in box itself will be created in the template you’ll have to go in and add your specific code so it is hooked up to your autoresponder.

The opt in box usually has a short headline, quick instructions to fill in their information, the fields where they fill in their information and a privacy notice at the bottom.

When you use a squeeze page template or this handy dandy squeeze page software I’m going to show you it will all be there ~ you just have to tweak it to fit your needs.

Those are the main parts of a squeeze page. Here’s some examples so you can see them in action.

Internet Marketing Tutorials ~ I didn’t write this page ~ but I did write all the tutorials. Gives you a chance to see some different writing styles.

Squidoo Product Lens Blueprint This is my squeeze page for the blueprint you are all probably familiar with.

Remember, these are just outlines and they may or may not work in your niche. You might have to tweak things a bit to make it feel good for you. Here’s some more examples outside the IM niche.

Organize your life

How to choose a stand mixer

As you can see they look a little different, and that’s ok. It’s whatever works in your niche, and you may have to test a few things to see what works for you.

One other thing ~ it’s pretty hard to find opt in pages for non IM sites ~ so creating one for your site will definitely put you a step ahead most other people in your niche!

Squeeze Page Software

I just found this software this morning. It looks great. They are having a special where you can simply retweet their homepage and get a 15 day trial to the software. Very cool.

The software will walk you through (in literally 10 minutes) all the things we’ve talked about above. You can easily change colors, for everything, add headlines and subheadlines, bullet points and your opt in box just filling in the blanks. Too cool.

Go ahead and watch the video and see how easy it is.

Once you’ve finished and saved your squeeze page to your hard drive you then upload it where you want it using your FTP client. Once you’ve uploaded it you can go in to your cpanel and add the code for your autoresponder and save.

I usually set up a new directory for my squeeze page.

ex. www.internetmarketingformommies.com/blueprint ~ blueprint is a new directory. All I have to do to make my squeeze page to show up is name it index before I upload it. By naming it index it will be the page that opens when you open that folder.

That’s the basics of creating a squeeze page ~ and with squeeze page software it can be easy as pie. I highly recommend you try it out.

Remember, if you don’t want to hassle with all this I can do it for you. Whether it’s creating the whole squeeze page and uploading it or just uploading. Don’t let the technical pieces stand in your way of getting your squeeze page up and live!

How to Add an Opt In Box to Your Sidebar

Jackie Lee — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:10:09 +0000

We’ve now done the free report writing, uploaded the free report and set up an autoresponder and now we’re ready to capture addresses and begin to build your list. One of the best ways to do this is by adding an opt in box to your sidebar.

An opt in box is simply a space where people can add their name and email addresses to your list. When they fill in the box they will automatically be sent the confirmation email for your email series and then they will receive the first email (which has the link to your freebie in it). Having a place to do that on your blog is really important, because as people come by reading your content they will be more likely to opt in because they already feel like they know you. It’s a good idea to have a squeeze page for your freebie so you can send traffic directly there with no other distractions ~ and we’ll be talking about that on Friday.

Creating your opt in box. There are a couple ways you can go about this. Super simple and kinda plain and really simple and gorgeous. Here’s both options.

Super Simple Opt In Box

Go to your autoresponder and log. Find the place that creates the code for your opt in box. At GetResponse it will be under contacts –> web forms. Make sure the little box on the right hand side that says “your current campaign” is showing the list you want to create code for.

Click the create new web form button.

Name this opt in box ~ this is just for your reference. Just make it clear what it is so you can get it later if you need it.

For the sidebar you’ll want an inline form.

This is the really simple version remember. It’s not super pretty, but it will get you started. Choose your colors, fill in the title for your opt in box, and then choose the words you want on your “subscribe” button. When you’ve added those things make sure you click the “change” button right under it to make it show up.

Untick the counter ~ because you don’t really need it or want. Click next step.

Copy the fast and simple code they provide.

Go to your blog. In your dashboard go to appearance –> widgets and choose a text widget. Open it up and paste the code in.

Save.

You can then move the widgets around by dragging and dropping them. It’s a good idea to put your opt in box as close to the top of the page as you can get. Above ads. Building your list for long term income is more important than a one off sale from an ad click.

Go to your site and you should see your opt in box right there in the sidebar.

Really Simple Opt In Box Solution

If you want to get a little prettier than the plain old blue or grey and add a little text to your opt in box as well, this is probably a good option for you. Upload the MaxBlogPress Opt In Box Adder Plugin. This little plugin will help you create a gorgeous opt in box in four easy steps. There are step by step instructions, written, pictures and video to walk you through the process on that page. This is what I used when I first added the opt in box on this site! Works like a charm.

There you have it two very simple ways to get your opt in box in your sidebar and start building your list. If you have questions feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to help.

How to Set Up Autoresponder Campaign

Jackie Lee — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:04:38 +0000

You’ve hopefully written your free report and have uploaded the report to your hosting account (server). Now you’re ready to set up your autoresponder campaign to get this whole thing going.

Before you begin you’ll have to have an autoresponder.

There are some free autoresponders out there ~ I highly recommend you invest the money to get a quality paid autoresponder. The free services may be free now but it will cost you in the long run. At some point you’re going to come to a place in your business where you want to switch to a paid autoresponder ~ probably because the free one can’t do what you need or want it to do. You’re going to end up losing most of your list in the process and that’s going to cost you more money than you saved going with the free one to start.

18 bucks a month to get started.

Anyway…

Aweber is probably the better of the two autoresponders I recommend. However, I have Get Response so all of the lessons and tutorials will be done through get response because that’s what I have and use. If you want to be able to follow along with the tutorials I would suggest get response. If you think you can take what I share and use it in Aweber (which shouldn’t be that hard, they’re relatively similar) then go for Aweber.

So let’s get on with it.

How to set up an Autoresponder Campaign

You’ll first log into your Autoresponder account.

In GetResponse you’ll see some tabs across the page (this is your dashboard here). You’ll see one of them says campaigns. When you hover over the tab it will give you options related to your campaigns. Today we’re going to choose “create new campaign”

Here’s where we’re going to choose a name for this campaign. This name will show up on the confirm page, and in some other places, so make sure you choose a campaign name that relates to what you’ll be talking about and won’t look “weird” to your readers (because they will see it at some point)

Here’s what it will look like:

Click create new campaign. If you have chosen a pretty generic name like the one I just did you may get this page:

It’s no biggie ~ just rename your campaign and click create new campaign again. Ok, once you’ve done that you’ll get a nice green message that says you’ve created your campaign.

The first thing we want to do is go in and set up our settings.

When you get to the settings area you’ll want to go through screen by screen and fill in your information and the settings you want to use for this campaign. At the bottom of each page will be a “save settings” button. Make sure you save before going on to the next tab.

One the first page of settings make sure you have the email addresses filled in that you want to use. The reply address is the one email will go to if you one of your readers hits the reply button to say something to you. Most people don’t, but I encourage you to use a REAL address for this. It’s very important for your readers to be able to contact you and not get a message that this is a do not reply address.

Blog Announce:

This feature will let’s you add your RSS feed address and it will automatically send an email to your readers whenever you add a new post. Be aware though, if you do a lot of updating to published posts it will also send updates each time you do that as well. I like to just write a quick “newsletter” whenever I add a post so I can personalize it and talk to my readers. (it’s also a good place to add news, or an affiliate promotion that’s going on)

Postal address:

To be in compliance with the Can spam laws you must have a real address in all of your outgoing emails. So YES, you need to have this part.

Clicking to the next tab we have “language”

This is where you can choose the language your emails go out in, but you also need to add a bit of personalization to your confirm email and you can do it here.

You only need to fill in the text box. Just say hello, and thank you for subscribing. Let them know you’re glad to have them ~ be personable, but there’s not a lot of space, so be brief as well. Make sure you check it with the preview button. Make sure your text lines up with their text so it looks good. You will probably have to go back to your message and hard return some of the lines so they are even with what they have.

Plain vs. Html

Html messages can be gorgeous, but I can tell you from my computer that I don’t get the images and they look crazy unless I click the “view images” button, which I don’t do very often ~ unless it’s recipes and I want to see what they look like. For emails I would stick to plain text. It will be much neater, will come across to more people looking professional, neat and tidy.

Next tab: Message

I leave everything in the default except share the message and I untick that one. If you are in network marketing or have a group of people you can share your emails/settings by having that one ticked, but I don’t, so I turn it off.

I also don’t fill in the signature ~ only because I do something a little bit different every time. You can play around with it though, it may be a good fit for you.

Next tab: Contact

This is where things can get really fancy. I suggest you make sure the top 2 email addresses are an email address you check regularly, and then leave the rest in default.

You can change the page that shows up when people click the confirm button, you can change the pages that show up when people opt in ~ but it can be a little glitchy ~ so for your first campaign I suggest you leave the default ~ just know this is where that kind of action happens and you can play around with it once you feel more comfortable with all this stuff.

next tab: RSS/Web Archive

All of your messages are saved as archives. This is where you set things the way you want them for those archives. It’s up to you how you want them set up, so play around with it until you get what you want.

Our settings are set up, now it’s time to write our first message and add the link to our report.

Follow up vs Newsletters

A message is an email you create and it will be part of your series. It will go out every time someone opts in. You can set how many days after they opt in you want it to go out~ but it is permanent (you can delete it but permanent that it’s part of the series)

Newsletter ~ used to be known as the broadcast ~ is an email you write that goes out immediately or scheduled depending on how you want it ~ but it does NOT become part of the series. It’s a one time thing. (although they too are saved in your archives so you can go back and see them if you need to)

So go to messages and choose create follow up so you can create the first email in this series.

Make sure in the right hand corner you’re working on the right campaign.

Then choose plain text.

You’ll find a new page opens up and you’ll have to choose when you want this email to go out ~ in days after they requested your information.

You’ll want this one to be 0 so they will get it immediately after they click the confirm button in the confirmation email that is automatically sent when they subscribe.

Make sure the email address is correct (this should be your email address)

Write a subject line. Now don’t get all twisted up about this. Just write something like thanks for subscribing gift inside ~ or something like that.

That’s all this email is going to be ~ a thank you and a link to the gift, and a quick note about how often and when to exptect to hear from you again.

Once you’ve got the subject line down you’ll want to go ahead and write your email.

Say thanks for joining ~ let them know you appreciate them.

Then you’ll want to give them the link to the free report. This link was made when you uploaded your free report to your hosting account. Go ahead and put the link right there in the email.

Remind them to save it to their computer so they can refer to it as often as they want.

Let them know how often you plan to write to them ~ what topics you might be covering and anything else you want to say to your new subscriber here.

Remember ~ treat this person as you’ve made a new friend and you’ll be fine.

Finally ~ wrap it up by saying thanks again, and then sign off.

Click save message at the bottom and you’ve completed your first autoresponder email. WOO HOO!!

That’s all there is to it ~ if you want to set up another email list, for another site or another topic you just do the same thing again from the beginning. You can create as many lists as you want on both of these autoresponders. So it’s worth it, even if you’re doing niche sites to create a list and get your readers on it.

It’s always much easier to get a current customer or reader to buy something from you than it is to get a stranger to buy.

So that’s it for today. Next post we’re going to create an opt in box and get it up on your site! So get this first message set up so you’ll be all set when you get your opt in box up to start getting subscribers. (next week we’ll be creating more messages in this series so don’t worry about it right now ~ the first one is enough to get your started)

If you have any questions on this process feel free to ask. I don’t have access to Aweber or other autoresponders so I won’t be able to answer questions specific to those services ~ sorry. If you have a GetResponse specific question I should be able to help.

Upload Report So You Can Share It!

Jackie Lee — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:09:34 +0000

: Image by Funchye via Flickr

Hopefully you’ve made some progress with your free report. Heck, maybe you’ve even finished it! Now it’s time to figure out how to share it with your readers.

How to Upload Your Free Report

If you are using your free report to build your list you’ll be sharing it via your autoresponder. However, before you can do that you’ll need to have it hosted somewhere.

This means you’ll need to upload it to your hosting account. When you upload it to your server you will then get a url that points to your report. It’s the url you’ll share in your email to your readers. They will be able to go to that address and see the report ~ as well as download it to their machine.

It’s a pretty simple process. You’ll need to open your ftp client (fireftp or whatever you’re using). You’ll have to find the domain the report goes with. (if you have more than one domain on your hosting account.)

For example, the Blog 2 hours report I did I wanted associated with this site, so I had to go in and find the folder for THIS site (as apposed to all my other sites).

Once you find the appropriate domain folder open it up.

** Alternatively you can create a new folder/directory in your root domain where you keep free reports and other things like it. I have a “loves” folder. That way when I put things in that folder it will look like www.internetmarketingformommies.com/loves/freereport.pdf

It makes it easier to stay organized and find things when you get a lot of things going.

To create a new directory log in to your ftp client. Find the domain name folder you want it to be associated with. Right click and choose create directory. A box will show up for you to name it. You can then open that directory/folder and follow the rest of the directions below.

Find your report on the left hand side (your computer files) and click it to highlight it, and then click the arrow to move it over to the server side.

That’s it.

It will now have an address you can use in your email. It will be www.yourdomainname.com/yourreportname.pdf or if you put it in a folder it will be www.yourdomain.com/foldername/reportname.pdf

** Tip**
When you are naming your report don’t put any spaces in the name. It will make your url much easier to deal with. When you have spaces in your report name they will be filled in with symbols that will make the url very tough to remember.

Sharing your report with your readers:

Once you’ve uploaded your free report you can share it with your readers in a number of ways. You can also use it to drive traffic.

If you’re going to use it to build a list you’ll want to go into your autoresponder and create a campaign. You’ll put the url to the report in the first message of your new campaign. (we’re going to go over this piece in detail next week)

You can share it in a blog post as a freebie bonus for your readers.

You can upload it to sites like Scribd where people will find it and share it.

You can tweet the link and give it away on twitter.

You can link to it and give it away on facebook.

You could have a contest and give copies away for people tweeting about it. (www.twiveaway.com)

Free reports are an excellent way to create value and drive traffic, so consider creating free reports regularly. You don’t really want to do ALL of the above with the same report ~ you want to have a free report for each of these activities.

Get your free reports uploaded ~ next week we’re going to learn how to add an opt in box, set up your autoresponder and how to do a squeeze page. Busy week!!

Don’t forget to go back to the blog challenge post and leave a comment when you get your report done and uploaded!

If you have any questions about uploading your report feel free to ask in the comments section, and I’ll do what I can to help you.