Email List Building Strategies
You need a list. That's a given. It's the number one key to opening the success floodgates. After it's built, it's yours to use any time you want. Just push a button and print money - literally.
Now you now why. Here's how:
There are 3 factors in list building you need to consider:
- Your Opt-in Page
- The Incentive
- Your Confirmation Page
The Squeeze Page - The landing page is the page that has your opt-in form on it. This page is the one that asks them for their email. That's why it needs to look like a professionally designed page. And it needs to be simple to see how to opt in. And your call to action must be clear!
Failure to include a great "call to action" will result in failure. This is a definitive message that tells your visitor what to do. And if you don't include it, they won't opt in. Oddly, if you don't make it clear, people will be confused and end up doing nothing.
One way to really spice up your squeeze page is to make it a video squeeze page. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. It also allows you to tell them what to do several times. And you can have the video just tell them to fill in your form after it's done playing.
Now, don't worry if you have no idea how to make videos. You can hire freelancers to do this for you for a few hundred dollars. Or you can get email list tools that give you squeeze page templates.
Your Bribe - Next, you've got to figure out what your bribe is. People need a good reason to part with their email address. Most people are very protective of their email address. So make your "bribe" a good one!
You have to provide value in your bribe for it to be good. Then it becomes something people want to get from you. And can benefit from. A few ideas:
- An eBook
- Some useful software
- A video
- An email series
You've got to create some great content. It's got to be something helpful for your new subscribers. And nothing sells like "free". If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.
Once again, don't worry if you don't know how to create the freebie. You can just pay someone else to make it for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. For example, you could have them write a 5-part email course. Each email will cost between $20 and $25. So, you'll get the whole series written for under $150.
There are also list building products that include the follow up email series. Two things to keep in mind when writing (or buying) and email training series. First, it must provide value to your subscribers. And it's nice if it earns you some money, too. 
The easiest way to do this is to market affiliate products in the emails. This allows you to get started with no products of your own. And make money right away from your list.
The Thank You Page - Finally, you need to consider your opt-in confirmation page. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. A great thing to do here is provide some immediate value. That way, they feel glad that they gave you their email address. It also sets the foundation for your relationship with them. Then they're more receptive when you email them.
Again, a simple solution to this is to get an email marketing package that includes everything. Or you can do it yourself. And write it all yourself. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.
Summing it up
It makes no difference whether you build your opt-in, bribe and thank you page. Or if you hire people to do this for you. Or if you get a ready-done package. The key is to start building your list. Once you've got it built. You're free to make money at the push of a button.
Affiliate Business Tips
Pre Selling for profit
The number one strategy to increase your affiliate sales is preselling.
Before we begin, we need to first define what pre selling is. Pre Selling is both an art and a science. It's a process of taking your reader and getting them ready to buy. Then when they're ready, refer them to the product website so they can buy it. And if it's done properly, the process is completely sub-conscious.
Basically, you give them some content. And then refer them to the product website. In a second we'll talk about how to do actually it. First, it's important to understand why we do it. Just a few of the reasons you want to pres ell.
- It helps your reader trust you - And gaining the trust of your readers helps them want to click your links. And the more traffic you can send to the sale page, the more commissions you'll earn.
- It takes your reader out of defense mode - When you're preselling vs. pitching, you're reader doesn't feel the need to be guarded. This means they are more open to what you're saying. And your intention is conveyed more easily.
- It creates buying readiness - Now they're open to hearing what you're telling them. Being open means, they are open to everything you give them. Like the info on product sales page you've linked to. Being open to a sales message is what it means being in a buying mood.
- Your commissions go up - Now your reader arrives at the sales page in a buying mood. With the guard down and trusting your recommendation. The only possible result is more sales!
- It boosts customer loyalty - Your referral now feels like they decided to buy. Instead of feeling pressured or "sold". So they are happier with their purchase.
- It boosts your profits - Satisfied customers are less like to refund. And that translates to more commission staying in your affiliate business.
Obviously, it's important to presell. You make more money. And produce happier customers. It's a win-win-win!
Now, here's how preselling works:
You've learned the importance of preselling. And hopefully you're convinced you need to start doing it. You're ready to learn how to do it properly. Remember, there are two components - art and science.
The art of preselling
Effective preselling requires gaining your readers trust in order for them to let down their guard. Honestly, the only way to do this is to provide real value in you content. But you can't give them so much that they think they have everything they could need, and that's what makes it an art. That is, they have to be wanting more when you refer them to the product sales page for the product you’re trying to sell. Plus they're not guarded, so they're more open and likely to purchase the product.
Scientific preselling
There's also a specific formula you need to follow.
One of these key elements is the presentation of the information. You have to have your end in mind. Your goal is to sell the product you're promoting. How can providing information accomplish this goal? The first method is to provide enough info to get them started, but not enough to finish. Or you can give them so much information that it feels overwhelming to do what you're talking about. Either way, the product sales page solves the problem.
But you can't link to your affiliate link. Instead, you use a direct link to the product website. This increases your clicks. But, without your affiliate link, how do you get credit? There's a trick to make this work... You use an image tag to cookie your reader before they leave your site.
The next trick is to hyperlink specific words and phrases inside the content of the article you’re providing. Hyperlinked words are clicked more than anything else. Plus, if you link on relevant words, it only makes sense to click on there.
What you have now is a super powerful system for affiliate marketing success.
Unfortunately...
Doing all of this right is really hard! Let's talk about everything required to put this plan into action: Great content. The entire process depends on your being able to provide useful information to your readers. To do that you have to have enough information to be valuable and be able to present it in a useful way. Preselling skills. Yes, you must providing useful content. And you have to make the content accessible in order to provide value. While at the same time making them want more. The other approach is to reveal a self-evident problem through the information.
Product selection. After that you have to figure out which products you want to promote. Even if you get the article written. Your efforts are completely wasted if you don't pick a winning product.
Techy stuff. One of the keys to this system is using "covert cookies" for the tracking. This is actually pretty simple – just embed a 1 pixel X 1 pixel image and set your affiliate link as the “source” of the image. (But if you mess it up, your referrals won't be tracked.)
In closing:
Now you’re armed with the information needed to effectively presell. And doing this increases your affiliate commissions by over 500%! The important thing is to use these techniques for everything you promote as an affiliate. Take action now. Make the extra effort required to propel your affiliate business to the next level.
Traffic Generation Tips
If you've got traffic coming to your site, you're 99% there. Obviously, this assumes you actually have a reason for wanting this traffic. Once the visitors arrive you can have them join your mailing list, purchase a product or subscribe to your RSS feed. The important thing is getting the traffic and sustaining it.
Let's talk about how to generate traffic...
These are the best and fastest ways to get free visitors coming to your site:
- Web 2.0
- Article Marketing
- Video
OK, so how do they work?
Web 2.0
By web 2.0 we mean any site where the users actually create the content. What this means for you is that you can join into the community and add your own content. And because of the highly interactive and popular nature of these sites, Google and other search engines "index" their content regularly. Which means the content on them gets "indexed" faster and with more weight. By placing links to your websites in this content you've created, you get traffic from the site and search engine ranking for the keywords you choose. The direct traffic from the Web 2.0 sites themselves is only part of the benefit. There are many more web 2.0 traffic tactics we don't have time to get into here, but this will get you started.
Article Marketing
The natural next topic is article marketing. This is because article websites are really web 2.0 site. Article directories are sites where users (including you) can upload articles they have written. And just like other web 2.0 sites, you get all the SEO benefits from having your content on them. But you also get the extra benefit of other users taking your article and putting it on their site. And in return for getting to use your content, these other users include links back to your website that gives you further search engine ranking and more free traffic. Here are a couple article marketing traffic tips:
- Figure out what keywords you want to go after
- Tailor the content of your article for the keywords
- Be sure to link to your site on the keywords you've chosen. Do this inside the article itself and in your author's bio.
Video Sites
And finally, we need to talk about getting traffic from videos. Just like article directories, video sharing sites also rely on user-generated content. And just as article directories give you great SEO benefits and allow others to redistribute your content on their sites. video sharing sites give you all these same benefits. And if all that wasn't enough, you also stand a much stronger chance of getting a high search engine ranking for the keywords you want with video than you do with text-based content.
OK, so how do you do effective video marketing?
- Get a YouTube account
- When people view your videos, you want them to visit your site, so turn all the other modules in your profile off
- Add tags to your profile
- Include a link to your main site in your profile
- Add at least one video to your profile
- In the title, the description and the tags for each video, include your main keywords
In closing...
If you want to get traffic to your site, then follow the advice in this article.