• how often you mail your list
• what format you use (html, text)
• whether your email is long or short
• how much content versus promotion you do

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We had a weekly ezine for years and still do send electronic newsletters to some of our lists…the question though is that in this day of low open rates and a subscriber base that has been inundated with newsletters over the years, does it still make sense to send a newsletter to your list?

Does it still make sense to send ANYTHING to your list given that social networking is taking over and email open rates have been reported as low as a few percentage points maning that a list of 1000 subscribers may only see 20-30 people actually reading the content sent to them (of course there are exceptions to this rule).

In fact, we still see open rates that range from 12-15% on the low end up to well over 40% on the higher end depending on the content we send.

But even more important, regardless of your open rate, these will be the most highly targeted prospects you can reach – they have already opted-in to receive your content, presumably know you and quite possibly could already trust you enough to buy what you put in front of them. 

CULTIVATING A BUYING RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR EMAIL LIST

What we have found works best in today's email marketing environment is to change up the content you send to your subscribers.  One week send them a Youtube video notification, another week send them a recently compiled "Frequently Asked Questions" of the month, another week send them a valuable report and so on… 

The key is to maintain contact with your list, here are some of the mailouts we use:

1. A weekly FAQ from various polls, surveys and reader email I get
2. A product review of the week related to the interests of my list
3. A bi-weekly newsletter, which today is really an article plus a summary of my top blog posts over that 2-week period
4. Periodic audio or email interviews, Youtube videos and/or special reports – giving value to my list
5. Single updates for certain blog posts

You want to keep contact with them, keep feeding them relevant and useful information and keep the lines of communication open so you can promote additional products and services to them over time.

So yes, newsletters are still a good strategy, but don't limit your content creation to one single format.  Think about sending your email subscribers to relevant blog postsm, social networking posts, product reviews, Youtube videos and so on…you will find they will open and respond to your email marketing to a much greater degree.

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By starting your own blog, configuring it properly, choosing the right keywords and using the system we explain within InfoMarketer'sZone, you can be generating thousands and thousands of unique visits within just a few weeks.

Traffic is nice, but it is what we DO with the traffic (or more specifically what we offer of value to those people who visit our blog) that is key.

Many new bloggers (and some pretty experienced ones too) start by smearing their blog full of ads in the hopes of turning eyeballs into dollars.

Not exactly the best way to monetize your blog traffic.

A better way is to begin capturing opt-in subscribers who give you their email address in exchange for something of value – a course, report, ebook, or some other specific information.

How do you add an opt-in box to your Wordpress blog?

Simple:

Step 1. Open yourself an account with a quality, reputable and professional autoresponder service - our choice after more than 6-years of great service is Aweber. This allows you to manage your list, handle signups, unsubscribes and control the messages and promotions that send to your subscriber list over the coming months

Step 2. Put together (or get through Private Label Rights or public domain material) a valuable, relevant giveaway for your visitors.  You will notice on this blog, in the upper right corner we give away a 7-part course developed for our visitors.  You could also package a 5-10 page report, directory listing, audio recording, screen capture video, ebook or dozens of other valuable giveaways for your subscribers.

Step 3. Next – you need to create a form for you blog that will allow your subscribers to sign-up to your list and get your giveaway.  You can either generate a form out of your autoresponder (Aweber does this in just a few minutes) and paste that code into a text widget within your Wordpress admin panel or you can use a Newsletter widget within Wordpress which then takes your autoresponder email address and creates the form for you.  You simply enter the title, text and email address and viola – you have an opt-in subscriber form.

Step 4. Where Do I place a subscriber opt-in form on my Wordpress blog?  Good question – we have tried our opt-in form on the top left, right below the banner, as part of the header and at various positions on the right columns.  After a good deal of testing, the current position at the top right of the blog is working best for us.  Notice, position is part of the battle, but having a solid offer with an attention grabbing title and perhaps some graphics can make a big difference to signup rates.

You may start out having an extremely low signup rate – something well less than 1%, don't be discouraged, on average blogs get more traffic than other pages on your site (lots more if you set it up and maintain it properly) but conversions may be lower than other pages where the traffic is pre-conditioned or better targeted.

All of that said, if you follow these steps, within a few weeks you should notice that subscriber opt-ins from your blog far exceed other pages on your site and your list building campaign will be given new life.

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Aweber HTML Email Templates

I've used aweber as my main autoresponder service for well over 5-years now and have constantly been amazed at how well they keep their service running, how great the support is and how many new features they constantly add for email marketing – all while keeping the price very low.

In a recent update they added some new html templates to choose from.

As many of you know, when you create an aweber autoresponder sequence or a broadcast such as an announcement or newsletter update, you can choose to send that message in html or text format.

My typical preference is for text, but I have experimented with html email templates from aweber and they do often convert better than a text only email.

There can be some challenges with delivery rates and some email servers your customers use may use the amount of html coding in an email to help assess it as legitimate or spam.

That said – I have found the impact on delivery to be quite minimal while open rates can be as high as double what they would be for a plain text email.

You can read more about the Aweber templates (now over 100) here:

New HTML Email Templates from Aweber

Jeff

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"Off-Ramp" Money Machines

It is sometimes confusing to understand how you convert a growing and loyal blog reader base into email list opt-ins where you can begin to push out information to them.

One of the best things about blogs are that, by nature, they put control of what content people want back in the hands of the reader because they "Pull" the content they want through RSS, links, etc…instead of content being "Pushed" at them through email marketing.

However,  at any given time there are a subset of your blog readers (anywhere from 10% all the way up above 50%) who do WANT great content and are more than willing to become an opt-in subscriber on one of your email lists to get that content. 

So, what is the best way to channel loyal blog readers into opt-in subscribers on the path to becoming paid customers?

OFF-RAMPS ON YOUR SUPERHIGHWAY

Try thinking of your blog as the super-highway where you draw thousands and thousands of interested readers each month and you have "off-ramps" where you branch out to collect opt-in subscribers.

Each one of these "off-ramps" is tied to an "automatic money machine" where you have tapped into a passionate desire to achieve outcomes to challenges or desires – the off-ramps take you on a busy street filled with content and multiple promotions that collect your subscribers money before they get back on the super-highway.

First – They Find You

Readers find your blogs by seeing a posting appear on the search engines when they search for information about your topic, or they see a link from another blog they read, or they find you through links from articles and other content around the net. 

If you blog regularly, you will notice your readers/visitors will grow large quickly – the challenge then becomes monetizing that content in a way that meets the desires and wants of your readers. 

Then – They Subscribe…

We do that through a concept of OFF-RAMPS – just as you would see on a super-highway.

For example, one general off-ramp would be a free-course, report or video you give away from the front of your blog – you have an opt-in form from a major autoresponder such as our favorite pick - Aweber, which takes your readers to the specialized content they are looking for. 

Another off-ramp – you could post to your blog part 1 of a video series where they click on your post to be taken to a page where they see part 1 but must opt-in to get part 2. 

You can offer a 1-time 10-page report on a tip, technique, strategy or case study you are offering and collect an opt-in on that.

Next…They Buy From You, Again and Again

Another idea for an off-ramp is to review a product (either your own or an affiliate product where you could earn a profit on sales).  For this type of off-ramp, you can either link directly to the affiliate product or – even better – start the review, then have them click to the "Full Review" which requires an opt-in.  Now you have a mailing list of high-demand subscribers who want to purchase products in different markets – these all become automatic money machines for you. 

HOW DO I COLLECT THE EMAILS AND MANAGE MY LIST?

I've been asked many times whether you should use a Wordpress plugin, script or form to collect and manage your subscribers who sign up on your blog to these "off-ramps" you create – my answer is…

 NO – you MUST use a strong auto-responder service.  The one we have used for years with a high degree of success and satisfaction is Aweber.  Do yourself a favor – get an account and begin building your off-ramps.

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Many of you are already aweber affiliates, for you they announced some updates to their affiliate program, some good, some not so good. 

The details of the affiliate program changes are here.

Here's a quick summary:

1. Higher commissions on first tier.  Moving from 20% to 30% on first-tier commissions is a nice bonus for affiliates – this is the best part of their planned enhancements as the added commission can really add up in the months and years that affiliate referrals stay active.  Another side announcement is that they are doing away with 2-tier commissions – not a big surprise.  These changes come into place April 8 of this year.

2. More payout options.  Previously, the only payout options for US or non-US customers was check which takes time to get, comes with the risk of being lost in the mail and costs money in service charges to cash.  Very soon (though they haven't given a date) Paypal will be an optional payment method.

3. Payout once per month with $30 threshold for US affiliates and $50 threshold for everyone else.  Don't like this one much, most affiliate programs have gone past once-per-month payouts to at least bi-weekly, but I'm sure most affiliates will be able to live with it.  Also don't really see the point of making the threshold for non-US affiliates at $50 for Paypal payments since the level of effort and costs are exactly the same?

4. First cookie for one-year which means that if you cookie a referral and someone else later refers them (within the next year), you will get credit for the sale.  This will be the most controversial decision – not because it's a bad one, just because the issue of tagging referrals with cookies whether it be the first or last cookie method is controversial.  For example, you could go to a great deal of cost and effort to drive traffic to your affiliate URL and not get the sales because they were previously tagged by another affiliate.  On the other hand, there is something overwhelmingly fair about giving the sale to the first one who referred the customer to the site.  Let the debate begin.

Overall, the affiliate overhaul looks good and should help all Aweber affiliates put more money in their pocket.

Jeff

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Does this sound familiar?  When I first started out I posted some articles and posted in forums pitching an affiliate product – and yes, I made a few sales, enough to know that this was a legitimate way to make money online, but certainly a long way away from making a living online.

Then, I put my first website up and wrote content like MAD, posted my first infoproduct and did pretty well – converted about 2% of my visitors into sales leading to a pretty nice cashflow each week – but I didn't realize what money I was leaving on the table until 6-months or so later when I first started building and marketing to my list.   

Even those of us who do clue in and see the throngs of top online marketers who earn a living from lists of 10,000 or 15,000 hot prospects in almost any niche imagineable often miss the boat by simply putting up an opt-in form and settling for a few dozen prospects who join each month when that number could be more in the high hundreds.

What's the difference between getting a few signups everday and those who get hundreds?

What list building strategies will turn a few opt-in's each day into 10's, then 100's? 

Here are 3 fundamental list building strategies that will make a massive difference to your subscriber list size and profit.

First, before you do anything – go over and watch this free video on how to surgically extract precise topics from your niche market that will hit a nerve, this was such an important lesson for me when I was starting out – it made an incredible difference in my response rates and profits…

Watch "Niche Finder – Magic Formula"  , then come back and apply these list building power strategies.

1. Do you really know who your subscribers are?  Let me ask you this, if you don't have a crystal clear picture of who is coming to your site, what they were thinking when they arrived and what they are looking for…how can we possibly expect to catch their attention and convince them to submit their contact information to someone they don't even know?

Try this, put yourself in the role of your "typical" prospect – arrive at your site imagining that you are looking for information about your topic – is there anything that really stands out and screams – let me have that right now!

If there's not, then the chances of you getting that visitor to sign-up to your list is slight to none. 

If you were reading closely, you'll notice that the emotion you need to invoke from your visitors to produce powerful list building results is 'let me have that right now!"  But…

How do you get that response unless you know these important things:

• Who is your prospect – age, gender, stage in life?
• What are their dreams, goals and irrational desires?
• What do they desparately want…but do not yet have?
• What is standing in their way?

Hold On!

This is where most of us begin to judge our prospects too harshly.  It's where we say that the woman who is 50lbs overweight and has tried every diet under the sun is NEVER going to lose that weight  – what can I offer to her that she hasn't already seen and why would she consider ANYTHING else?

But…has that woman lost her desire to be thinner?  Don't you believe that she still has a strong desire to lose weight, even if YOU feel that is impossible?

Here's a harsh reality – what you believe doesn't MATTER!

It's what your prospect believes and wants that is most important.

So, suspend your disbelief, go ahead and discover what they believe, what they want and what they feel stands in their way.

Now that you know what they want – it becomes a simple exercise of putting information in their way.  

That's right, it's no fun trying to convince people they need to buy something – it's much MORE fun putting information in their way and watching your list building strategy take flight.

2. Now You're Ready To Drive Traffic

Once you have a good incentive, you can generate traffic in many ways such as forums, free content ranked by SE's such as articles, videos and paid traffic through PPC and other forms of advertising. 

Putting traffic generation as your second concern behind giving your visitors a reason to opt-in will ensure your time and money spent driving traffic is a wise investment.

No sense chasing after the traffic though until you have a good understanding of what your market wants and a well-matched incentive to convert them once they arrive. 

3. Working Your List

You have major objectives when you begin to build a substantial list of at least a few hundred subscribers…

• Give ongoing value…this could mean more content, saving them time by giving them top resources, sharing your experiences, letting them know you understand and are helping them achieve their end goal
• Create a relationship – this is done through giving value, talking WITH your audience instead of talking TO them, building your brand and credibility through proving that your information works.  If you notice most companies and many entrepreneurs choose to speak above or AT their marketplace instead of speaking as one of them who has 'figured it all out'
• Have them tell others about you.  One of the key ways your list building can really take off – from dozens of signups each day to 5X that number is when others share word-of-mouth positive feedback about your value.  

Not one of these 3 steps for list building is complicated, anyone can accomplish the task of building a powerful, responsive, loyal list – but it does take paying attention and constant improvement on each of these 3 strategies to place your list building into overdrive.

What will you do to improve your list building results? 

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In a conversation with someone who wanted consulting earlier today we discussed taking an early step toward gaining a web presence in their market and begin to build a list, but that's where things went a little sour.

This person who claimed to be "serious" about their online business persistantly told me they wanted a free or extremely low cost autoresponder service to get their email marketing and list building campaign off the ground. 

I advised against taking the free or extremely cheap route out…it was based purely on my own experiences having had to change autoresponders after building a list of close to 20,000 red-hot subscribers in one niche market – painful to say the least.

In fact, it was SO painful, I had to abandon tranfsferring those loyal, terrific subscribers to a new system when my old autoresponder went out of business and instead convince them to re-sign up on a new list. 

Certainly, many did, but I still lost close to 40% of my list – a list I had poured 4-years into building publishing content week after week to earn their trust and have them maintain their subscription. 

So, when I advised our good friend to not skimp on his autoresponder service and instead stay professional, yet affordable, I was speaking based on 1st-hand experience. 

The service I recommended was this autoresponder service – I've used them for over 4-years now, operate dozens of lists with 10s of thousands of subscribers and haven't had ANY issues.  Even better, they are only $20/month when starting out – not exactly breaking the bank.

Let's face it, when you start your online business, you must know that you will need to invest a couple hundred dollars in the beginning to get things rolling – the attraction, of course, is that it's only a couple hundred and profits can come very quickly and rise VERY high.

So, let me add to my six mistakes of list building by suggesting that anyone not willing to spend $20/month for a professional list-building service like Aweber, is not serious about their business and is highly unlikely to have the right attitude to make their business work. 

Needless to say, that was the end of our call…I'm just hoping our good friend re-thinks his goals and strategy to think bigger about his business, then we can work together to get there.

Jeff

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Easier said than done right?

Not really, at a very basic level, with a few hours each week you can easily hit Phase 1 of list building where you collect 10-15 subscribers each day turning into a list of 1,000 subscribers in less than 6-months. 

With a little more knowledge and effort you can double that rate and really tap into a goldmine within your targeted niche market.  I know of several online marketers that have lists of less than 5,000 subscribers that make 100K + online – it's not entirely the size, but rather how targeted, responsive your prospects are along with how much they trust you. 

There are pot-holes along the path to building your list, some of the most common mistakes that are made include:

1. Not getting started!  Don't laugh, I would say that 90% of you fall into this category right now.  You haven't yet setup your autoresponder list management account, you have not taken the 5-minutes or so it takes to setup your initial campaign and create a professional looking form to put on your website.  This autoresponder makes this entire process of getting a subscriber opt-in form onto your website or blog dead-simple – no extra training required. 

2. Lack a Compelling Incentive.  Look, the reality today is that users are being asked for their contact information around every corner as more and more content is being placed behind membership-oriented sites…that means they need an incentive to sign up.  Your incentive has to be attention grabbing, compelling, relevant, and even a little mysterious (leaving your subscriber on the edge of their seat) for them to become a member on their list.  The better job you do of giving away a few prime pieces of content, the more successful your list building campaign will be.

3. Missing or Ineffective Sequence.  Ok, this may sound obvious, but I see it all over the place where someone does a good job of getting me on their list, but then I may get 1 or 2 emails max. where it becomes clear to me that person had NO idea of what to put into an email marketing follow up sequence.  Do yourself a favor, get hold of the Create A Minicourse guide which gives you the sequences and examples you need to create a compelling email follow-up sequence that actually pulls in customers. 

4. No Product To Sell:  Let's just get em on the list and then we'll figure out what to sell them right?  Getting them on the list is better than nothing, but ideally you have a purpose behind the course – a set of steps that lead to certain results for your customers opening the opportunity for you to promote related products to them along the way – your own or someone else's.  By testing product offerings along the way you accomplish a few things: 1) Get your prospects used to seeing a combination of information and offers 2) You get instant feedback on what your customers buy and what they don't and 3) You discover gaps in the existing products that offer you product development opporutnities

5. Not staying in touch.  Ignore your list and they will disappear.  It's not like they are waiting to hear from you day-in, day-out – although that will happen if you treat your list well.  If we miss a week's mailing I do get several emails from you guys asking what happened to me!  Nice to be loved!  You need to stay in contact (at least once each week).  I like to program a few months of 1-week autoresponse lessons with at least once-per week mailout with valuable information. 

6. Not Soliciting Feedback.  Perhaps the most valuable part of building and having a list is to constantly (once per month at least) ask them about their frustrations, dreams, goals, experiences so you get to know who they are, what they want and how you can help them achieve more in life.  This is the so-called "pot of gold" for any of you who wish to develop your own information products…you will uncover incredible opportunities from your very own list once you begin soliciting feedback. 

As you can see, these are not rocket science…you need to get started NOW, understand what your market want, give away some of your best content to drive your relationship deep, don't be afraid to recommend great products and services and collaborate with your best subscribers (your raving fans) to build valuable products and services. 

Following this advice will build you a long-term, high-growth, sustainable business for you that can propel you to the very top of your market and win you ongoing, leveraged, passive income. 

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So, it's not surprising that the recent change Aweber made in their pricing structure became a lightning rod for anxiety, frustration, confusion and plain craziness. 

So what has happened?

After spending 10+ months of significant development and hundreds of thousands on infrastructure costs Aweber has rolled out a new higher-end tracking capability with granular analytics on text and html emails that will no doubt put lots more profit in the pockets of big list owners. 

Here's where the controversy comes in…

They are also moving away from a long-held $19.95 flat rate pricing plan – that frankly everyone suspected would eventually increase as it iwas one of the most incredible examples of under-priced services given how well their business and service was run. 

So why the issue?

Two reasons – the size of the increase and how they have constructed their single-choice pricing for new customers. 

Let me start by saying that existing customers with Aweber will be given the choice to stay on their existing program – in fact the price will go down by some .50/month to do so…although there seems to be a new tier of 10,000 subscribers at which point even existing Aweber customers will see their existing pricing go up.

The second issue is real…and hopefully will be closely examined by the folks at Aweber.  The pricing looks like this:

- Up to 500 subscribers $19/month

- Up to 2500 subscribers $29/month

- Up to 5,000 subscribers $49/month

- Up to 10,000 subscribers $69/month

- Up to 25,000 subscribers $149/month

Each of these plans offer an annual plan with slight savings. 

Here are two suggestions I would have for the service.

1. Offer a basic service (as today) at a flat rate that does not include tiered levels until say 10,000+ for new users who will not necessarily use the new analytics features when they first start out.  They could still offer the tiers above for users who DO get tracking right from the start – but give newbies a choice.

2. Tinker with their tiered pricing somewhat.  Having coached many, many newbies online – until someone has a list of about 5,000, they are still heavily in learning mode – not bringing in a great deal of money and not ready to get involvefd in advanced email marketing.  There are exceptions sure, but for the majority – this would hold true.  In fact, many may never be ready, thus the pricing listed in #1.  To accomodate this reality, I would suggest the first-tier increase not take effect until at least 2500 subscribers – even if this means increasing the base from $19 to something like $24 for everyone. 

As an Aweber customer, I know I'll be looked after and trust the management team…my only concern now is making sure I can still recommend their service to new customers in all different situations.  By addressing #1 and #2 I would feel more comfortable with a blanket Aweber recommendation – with the current pricing model, I still see them as one of the leading (and perhaps still the best) email marketing and autoresponder services out there.  For most of my coaching clients, I'll still recommend them highly – the current pricing structure certainly warrants a little more thought and discussion for some of the marginal clients who will experience a longer learning curve. 

Jeff

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