A Self Improvement Blogger’s Secrets About List-Building

Let me begin by saying that I am no expert on list-building and neither am I someone who makes a fortune from internet marketing (not yet at least).

What I’ve Learned About List-Building and Traffic

In my 2 years since I started with internet marketing and blogging, I have read many resources about many types of marketing on the internet. The majority of ‘gurus’ definitely claim that the real money is in the list. It is always in the list.

Lists give power to build up a relationship with thousands of readers on a very personal level. Best of all, it is totally automated. All the work lies in initially creating a sequence of follow-up messages that will get delivered in regular intervals to anybody who signs up to your list.

A few quick and obvious benefits of building a list are:

  • Lists are permanent
    While Rss feeds are great, if the providers stop their service, then you lose all your readers. A list of email addresses can be exported and saved and its existence will never rely on a 3rd party that could cease to exist at any moment.
  • Lists are highly-targeted
    Usually people who sign up to your list and opt-in are people who are very interested in what you have to offer. This is what makes a list so profitable, because of the fact that your audience is highly targeted to your product / niche and you have a very good potential to sell to them
  • Lists are re-usable
     Imagine for a second that you are selling a product. You set up a site and when a reader lands on your site and your sales pitch is good enough, the visitor is convinced and makes a purchase from you and then leaves your site. The chances are big that this visitor made a once-off purchase and will not return to your site for repeat-business. With a list, you have the opportunity to build a relationship with your subscribers and sell to them over and over again (until they opt out of your list). So, instead of making a once-off sale, you have the opportunity to make multiple sales from a single visitor.

With most websites, large or small, there are always new visitors arriving on your site for the first time. If your site is not exactly what that visitor is looking for or your site is not convincing enough, he will leave. This is in my opinion a waste of a potential customer. You can optimise your traffic by offering an incentive that will make the visitor want to sign up to your list to receive future updates. While this visitor may have left your site on the first visit without buying anything from you, now you have him signed up to your list and you have the possibility of providing him with something that he needs and wants to buy from you.

What Kind Of Incentive?

If I have convinced you to create a list you might be wondering what kind of incentive you should give in order for people to opt in and sign up to your list. While it is not set in stone, you always need to provide some form of value that is going to make your visitor’s life better. Make your promise sound great or over the top exceptional, but be sure to deliver on your promise. This is a good way to win your new subscriber’s trust and respect which in turn opens them up to the idea of buying from you.

Here are a few possible incentives that you could offer in return for your visitor subscribing to your list. You will have to use some of your own common sense and creativity to decide which option would best suit your visitors and your target market.

  • eBook
    An ebook is an awesome incentive for people to sign up to your list. It is the incentive I am personally using for my own list on my blog. The reason why I like this method so much is because it is possible to create a totally fantastic resource (50, 100 or 500 pages) that will provide a lot of value to your visitor. The ebook is timeless and will stay around for a very long time, it can be downloaded and shared amongst many more people than you alone could reach with your own marketing efforts. Besides that fact, you can include affiliate links in your ebook that can result in some very nice commissions on top of the fact that you gain subscribers for your list.
  • Newsletter
     A newsletter is also a popular incentive for people to sign up to lists. This is the promise of a regular email (weekly or even monthly) with extra information that is not to be found on your site. It is not that hard to create 20-50 follow up messages in a newsletter format, but in that case it is always good to remember to make the messages timeless. (Not relating to current events)
  • X Day Course
     Offer a course that will last for x days, broken down into very oversee able portions of knowledge or information
  • Software Program or Tool
    Create or develop some sort of software or tool that is really useful. Then give it away to visitors in return for them signing up to your list. You can either create the tool yourself or you can just outsource it and get a qualified person to do it for you.
  • Exclusive Access for X Days
     People love being part of a special group or getting something for free that others do not have. If you have some sort of membership site or forum, why not allow your visitor access to the membership site for x days in return for them signing up to your list.

The Mindset Of Providing Value

I feel that it is important to mention the correct mindset of building a list.

You are not there to take from your visitor. You are not there to take his money or take his email address and just profiting from him. That is a win-lose scenario.

Always strive to create a win-win situation. You are there to provide value to your subscriber. To provide a good solution for a problem that your visitor has. To provide an opportunity for your visitor to gain and to profit.

You should strive to make your list a mutually beneficial relationship where you give your subscriber what he or she wants and in return he or she pays you for it. (Directly or via a commission).

This is the mindset and approach that will lead to many happy customers that will buy from you on a regular basis. It may not be important to you, but I always think it is good to have correct business ethics. When you create win-win situations you have no guilty conscience to worry about, because you are providing value to your subscribers and they are rewarding you with money.

What are you waiting for? Go ahead and start setting up your system to create a list right away. If you’re not doing this, you are missing out!

Diggy writes all about self improvement and personal growth. Spread the word and subscribe to his blog via RSS or Email

The Product Pre-sell Strategy: How to Introduce Affiliate Products to Your Readers

The way I see it, introducing affiliate information products to your readers, as a blogger or internet marketer, is an art. You don’t just stick a banner on your blog one day and hope to make lots of money out of it.

If you want to make substantial sales of an affiliate product, you need to elegantly introduce your readers to that product. Over the last year, I’ve been experimenting with various ways of introducing affiliate products and I got a pretty good understanding of how to do it successfully.

I believe there is in fact a process to adding an information product in your repertoire, and there are four essential ideas to be taken into account in executing this process.

1. Write a Post about the Product

Whatever you do, don’t just put a banner with a new product on your blog and leave it at that. Your recurring visitors will eventually notice it but not really know what to make of it. You may think this will get them motivated to click on the banner, but in my experience, it has a lot more chances of making them ignore it.

This is why a key step in promoting a product as an affiliate is to write and publish a post about it. It gives the product significance in the mind of your readers, and it gets it noticed a lot better.

On top of this, it also attracts the attention of your subscribers, and if you chose the information product right, these are the people most likely to buy. Usually, in the first couple of days after publishing that post, you’ll see a spike in the sales you’ll be making for the product.

2. Start with a Teaser Post

The step above is actually the second one in introducing an affiliate product. The first step is to write and publish a teaser post. This is something that gets your readers thinking about the specific topic the information product discusses and gets them in the right head space.

A couple of days before I introduced an ebook on seducing women on my blog, I published an article on how to impress a girl. Before I introduced an ebook on overcoming social anxiety, I published an article on how to be more outgoing. I essentially warmed up my readers and subscribers first.

Here’s a bonus tip: at the end of your teaser article, announce that you’ll be introducing a quality information product in a few days on the same topic, using short emotional words. It’s an excellent way to get potential buyers interested and excited.

3. Review the Product from a Personal Perspective

When you do write about an information product, this shouldn’t just announce that product and encourage people to buy it. It should also give them reasons, from your perspective, for buying it.

In other words, you want to review the product and express your opinions on it. Describe what you like the most about it and why you think it’s a good idea for your readers to purchase it.

If your readers trust your opinion, it will encourage them to purchase the product. On top of this, if you later advertise that product or talk about it somewhere else on your blog (like in another post) you also want to link to your review of the product. Make the review easy to access at the right time.

4. Be Specific In Your Review

I think the biggest mistake people make in general when they write reviews or recommendations is that they describe the product, service or person they’re recommending in vague and overly-positive words.

Unfortunately, this does little good because most persons don’t buy into general and pompous words of praise, so they won’t buy the product either. For this reason, it’s fundamental to write very specific things about the affiliate product.

Don’t just say “This ebook is great. You need to buy it immediately”. Say “This ebook provides a step by step and easy to apply process for achieving work-life balance”. That is much more specific, more credible and it makes more sense.

It doesn’t sound like you’re just trying to make as many sales as possible for a product; it sounds like you want people to understand its precise strengths from your perspective and only purchase it if those strengths strike a chord with them.

Keep in mind that when you’re introducing an affiliate product to your readers, the timing and delivery of the message makes all the difference in the world. Even if it’s not your own product, you want to introduce it in a stylish way that compels people to buy. Ultimately, I think this is what drives success as an affiliate.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eduard Ezeanu teaches others how to meet people, make friends and build solid relationships, both personal and professional. He also writes on his blog, People Skills Decoded.

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How to Promote Your Affiliate Program and Build Positive Relationships with Your Affiliates

There is a right and a wrong way to promote your affiliate program.

As an online seller using affiliate marketing, there are two elements that create the foundation of your business success: your products and your affiliates. Your products represent the value you add in people’s lives; your affiliates represent the channels you use to promote products.

One thing I came to realize is that in each niche, there are typically many affiliates but only a few good ones. And it is those few good ones that will make 80% or more of the sales, thus having the greatest contribution to your profit.

Obviously, you want to keep these key affiliates happy, and this is where building positive relationships with them comes into play. When it comes to dealing with your affiliates, I believe you need to think in terms of customer service and to serve them in an excellent way.

This is the right strategy to promote your affiliate program.

With this in mind, here are my top four tips for building positive relationships with your affiliates.

1. Give Affiliates Additional Info

I teach people social skills such as how to start a conversation or how to find good conversation topics. I’m also an affiliate for products in this niche. I particularly enjoy promoting one product on social skills because the guy who created it makes it real easy for me as an affiliate.

Without me even asking, he periodically gives me information I don’t have access to, such as the number of visitors he gets from my blog and the conversion rate. Not only that I appreciate the gesture, but it also allows me to tweak the promotion of his product, which ends up benefiting both me and him.

As a seller, it’s important to constantly ask yourself: “What would my affiliates benefit from knowing?” Figure out how you can help them by giving them pieces of valuable information related to the marketing and sales process. Then, offer them that information, in an unsolicited manner.

2. Help Affiliates with Their Business

The work of your affiliates probably doesn’t revolve around promoting your product. That’s just one piece of an entire online business they have and try to develop. Chances are that you can also help them in additional ways with this process, and if this is the case, you want to do so.

For example, if one of your affiliates struggles with customizing their blog theme and you know somebody that might be able to help them out, put them in touch with that person. If you can, even obtain a special discount price for them or something like that.

Affiliates love it when you go the extra mile and you help them not only to sell your product, but with their business as a whole. It shows that you care about them as long-term partners. So you always want to learn about the struggles of your affiliates in their business in general, and see how you can aid them.

3. Build a Personal Relationship

This is the most important part you should take into account when thinking about how you promote your affiliate program, short and long term.

One thing I love to do when I’m endorsing somebody’s products on my blog is to actually get to know them as a person and connect with them at a personal level. Usually, before I become an affiliate for a seller, I will have a phone or Skype conversation with them, to get to know them.

I find that many individuals are like me. They’re not comfortable promoting some product they’ve found on ClickBank, without knowing almost anything about the person who created it. They want to get to know that person, to have a conversation with them and get a feeling that they’re the real thing.

So as a seller, it’s important to make yourself available for interactions with your affiliates. Even more, I think you want to initiate interactions with the key affiliates who are making you a lot of money.

Email them and say: “I’ve noticed that you’re promoting my products and I’d like to get to know you and your business better. Can I give you a call next week?”

4. Say ‘Thank You’

Sometimes, small details can be significant in building positive relationships. One such detail is thanking people for working with you. It’s amazing how rare this simple gesture is, and how it delights people.

Every once in a while remember to thank your affiliates in an authentic way for doing business with you. Don’t wait for special occasions, just do it as a standalone thing. Write your affiliates a sincere thank you email right now. You’ll put a smile on their face.

I believe relationships are the new commodity in business. And it is the persons who are savvy at connecting with others, online or offline, that get ahead. Focus on building quality products and quality relationships. Your business will thrive more than you can imagine.

AUTHOR RESOURCE BOX

Eduard Ezeanu teaches people how to make small talk and confidently put their best foot forward in communication. He also writes on his blog, People Skills Decoded.

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Affiliate Products to Sell: How to Select the Right Affiliate Products to Promote

Interested in finding Affiliate Products to sell?

I remember that at one point, I thought all there is to being an affiliate marketer is to find some information products with a good affiliate commission and start promoting them on your blog or site.

As you can imagine, this didn’t make me a lot of money. In time, I dug into the psychology of affiliate marketing and making money online. I realized how to effectively select affiliate products to promote and I started playing a completely different game.

I believe that choosing the right affiliate products to sell (& endorse) is crucial for two reasons:

  1. Sales. The better you choose a product, the more it will sell and the more money you will make out of this.
  2. Credibility. By promoting the right products, you build credibility with your readers or subscribers instead of potentially destroying it, which makes it more probable to make a lot of sales for future products as well.

Today, when I choose information products to promote on my blog, there are three key things I look at in order to make the best choices.

1. Compatibility Comes First

My blog is about enhancing social skills and social confidence. I write articles on topics such as how to overcome shyness or how to destroy low self esteem. Thus, I attract a lot of readers with needs in these areas, seeking a solution to their problem.

So it makes sense for me to promote information products that address these exact needs. This is why, for example, I’m promoting a product on overcoming shyness, and the match between my niche and the product reflects in good conversions.

The challenge here is that often, we tend to promote a product simply because we like it, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the topic of our blog or site. You may have a blog on financial planning but you’re also interested in losing weight and found a great ebook on this topic, so you decide to recommend it to your readers.

The problem is that even though some of your readers may coincidentally also be interested in losing weight, most of them will only be confused by this product you’re promoting. They’re thinking: “I want to get my finances in order. What do I care about a weight loss ebook?”

2. Promote Products You’ve Tested

In my view, one of your greatest assets with your readers or subscribers is your credibility. If they trust you to provide quality content and valuable recommendations, they will be a lot more responsive to your offers.

One of the best ways to ruin this trust is to promote low-quality products (and there are plenty of those out there). Your audience will believe you’re just out to make a quick buck off their back and immediately stop paying attention to your suggestions.

In order to prevent this from happening, my top advice is to always test a product yourself before you endorse it. You can either buy it or request a free copy from the seller in order to decide if you want to become an affiliate for it. I’ve used both these methods successfully.

Only after you’ve read/ listened/ watched the information the product presents, put it into practice and got meaningful results, it is OK to recommend it to your readers. You can also share your own success with using the product and this will considerably compel your readers to buy it.

3. Test, Test, Test

Last but not least, keep in mind that although a product may seem good for your readers or subscribers, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to sell well. You can only predict the success of a product to some extent before promoting it.

So, if a product seems to have a lot of chances to sell well and you believe in it, do promote it on your blog or site. But if the conversion rate doesn’t turn out to be at all what you expected, my advice is to keep testing other products, while learning from your experience.

Eventually, as you test more products as an affiliate, you’ll find the ones that match well with your readers and you can focus on promoting those. This doesn’t mean you should forget the previous two ideas and start promoting any product at first, but do be aware that a trial and error process is part of the affiliate marketing journey.

It’s tempting to jump at the opportunity to support a product simply because you would be making a lot of money if it sells well. But that doesn’t mean it will sell well. This is why I believe it’s essential to keep a weather eye open and use your head in choosing affiliate products to sell.

AUTHOR RESOURCE BOX

Eduard Ezeanu teaches people how to make friends by confidently putting their best foot forward in communication. He also writes on his blog, People Skills Decoded.

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