Archive for 'email marketing'

List Building Blocks #4 — Using PPC to Get More Subscribers

Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 5:40 am  
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If you’ve read this entire article series, then you already know about some of the other effective ways to get new subscribers, such as by writing viral reports or doing joint ventures. But these take time – at least a few weeks to get off the ground. If you’re anxious to build your list faster, then pay per click (PPC) marketing is your solution.

If you do a search online, you’ll run into numerous PPC search engines. However, the top service is Google AdWords. You may also consider using Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN adCenter.

Here’s how to use PPC marketing to build your list…

Step #1: Create a Landing Page

Your landing page is your sales page for your newsletter. This is where you tell visitors why they should join your newsletter list. Since it’s a sales letter, it should include the regular parts of a sales letter such as:

  • Headline

    • Example: “Free Reports Shows You How to Improve Your Golf Swing in Three Easy Steps!”

  • Bulleted list of benefit statements

    • Example: “Use this surprisingly simple tweak to add 25 yards to your drive – it’s easy!”

  • Proof, such as screenshots, pictures, videos and/or testimonials

  • A call to action

    • Example: “Enter your first name and email address in the form below now and click to submit to discover how to improve your game!”

Typically, you encourage subscriptions by offering a bonus, such as a free:

    • Niche ebook or report
    • Video
    • Audio product
    • Access to a teleseminar or webinar
    • Tools, software or other valuable resources

Step #2: Choose Your Campaign Keywords

Next, you need to choose your keywords and how much you’ll “bid” on these keywords.

Tip: Generally, the higher you bid (and the better your ad performs), the higher your ad appears in the search engine results. When someone clicks on your ad, you pay an amount that’s equal to or less than your bid amount.

The key in choosing keywords is to choose specific, targeted keywords that give you an idea of what the searcher wants.

Example: The keyword “golf” is too general. Instead, you might choose more specific search phrases like “step by step golf swing,” “proper way to swing a golf club” and “improve golf swing”

Step #3: Craft a PPC Ad

Next, you need to craft your PPC ad, which consists of a short headline and two short lines of copy. The goal of your ad is to get people to click on the ad, so you should put forth a benefit and, where applicable, arouse curiosity.

Here’s an example:

Golf Swing Secrets
Free report shows you how
to swing like the pros!
www.domainname.com

Tip: Create at least three or four different ads that you can rotate and test.

Once you’ve finished this first three steps, then you can create an account at the PPC service of your choice and start your first campaign. Finally…

Step #4: Check Your Results

To get the best results, you need to track and test your campaigns. That means you track your keywords, track your different PPC ads as well as tracking variations of your landing page. In other words, you want to find out how to boost your visitor to subscriber conversion rate so that you can build your list more quickly.

Tip: If you’re using AdWords, look for a link in your account to Google’s free tracking and testing tools.

Summary

Your next step is to act. Indeed, I suggest you get started right now. You could have your campaign up and pulling in new subscribers to your list by later today!

Next up: Building an Affiliate Army.

Just in case you stumbled on this post (and you haven’t signed up for the full, free course), sign up below. All I need to get you started is your first name and email address.

 

List Building Blocks #3 — How to Use Viral Reports to Get More Opt-Ins

Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 5:27 am  
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If you’re a content marketer, then you already know how to write reports, ebooks, articles and blog posts. But do you know how to turn ordinary content into viral content?

That’s what you’re about to discover…

Generally, a viral report is one that sweeps across your niche because readers share it with one another.

In order to be “share worthy,” your report needs to have most of the following characteristics:

Unique content

Your report may include:

  • Unusual or even controversial ideas or information. If your report includes something that no one else is talking about, people will share it.
  • Entertaining/engaging content. If your writing style is as exciting as burnt toast, then get a ghostwriter to write it for you. Even if you share unusual content, it won’t be share-worthy if it’s boring to read.

Tip: You can liven up your writing by including humor (where applicable), stories, analogies, metaphors and colorful language.

For example, instead of saying, “he left the party quickly,” you might say, “he left quicker than a cat exiting a hot oven.”

See the difference? The second line is simply more colorful and fun to read because it creates a strong visual impression.

  • Extraordinarily useful content. Tip: Give away what others are charging big bucks for. Go to Clickbank.com to find out the top sellers in your niche.
  • Funny content. This doesn’t work in every niche, but it’s effective if you can pull it off. Think of your email – I bet most of your email forwards are jokes. Or check out this site – www.marketingcomics.com.

In other words, ordinary content doesn’t cut it.

Tip: If you want an idea of what kind of content to create, just look at the types of content that arrives in your email every day, forwarded from friends. Think about the content you share with others.

For example, if someone is giving away a report that most others charge for, you’re going to tell your friends.

Or if someone has a report that’s highly controversial – such as one that seems truthful but goes against what the niche experts are saying – you can bet people are going to pass it around.

Or if someone creates a report that crosses over from controversial to even a tiny bit offensive, people on BOTH sides of the issue will share it. Just look to politics as an example of taking a hot button issue and creating content that offends certain parties.

Easy to access

If you want a report to go viral, don’t put a lot of hoops and obstacles between you and your audience. Ideally, it should be freely available (no subscription required), with the goal of the report being to get people on your list.

Alternatively, you can offer your report to anyone who gives you a valid email address. This works best if you’re paying affiliates per lead (or if you’re paying commissions on a backend offer).

Which brings us to our next point…

There’s an incentive to share it.

Content that has the above characteristics (e.g., it’s funny or controversial) naturally get passed around the niche. However, you can give people an incentive to share it by allowing readers to change the links in the report to their affiliate links before sharing it.

Tip: Use ViralPDF.com to create rebrandable reports. That way anyone who shares your report has an opportunity to make money on the backend via affiliate commissions.

Summary: What’s Next?

You just discovered what kind of content you need to create in order to turn regular content into viral content. But now that you have your viral report, what do you do with it? Answer: distribute it as widely as possible. This includes:

  • Blogging about it
  • Giving it to your affiliates and JV partners to share
  • Telling your list about it
  • Creating and posting a YouTube video about it
  • Telling your social media networks about it
  • Including it in your forum signature files

The more people who see your report initially, the more likely it is your report will “go viral” in a big way!

Next in the series: Pay Per Click

Just in case you stumbled on this post (and you haven’t signed up for the full, free course), sign up below. All I need to get you started is your first name and email address.

 

List Building Blocks #1 — How to Add New Subscribers with SEO Articles

Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 4:23 am  
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Your articles serve many purposes, such as establishing you as an expert, pre-selling products and even helping to build relationships with your prospects. But you can also use them to drive traffic to your site when you take the time to optimize them for the search engines.

Here’s the 3S Strategy for creating and distributing optimized articles:

  • Search
  • Sprinkle
  • Share

Read on for the details…


Step #1: Search

Your first step is to search for the keywords your market is already using to find information in your niche. You do this by using a keyword tool (such as Google’s free keyword tool, WordTracker.com or even Market Samurai).

All you have to do is enter in a broad niche-relevant search term like "homeschooling," "organic gardening" or "golf." The tool will then offer you suggestions for related search terms which you can use to expand your list of keywords. In most cases, you’ll generate a list of hundreds if not thousands of possible keywords.

What you’re searching for are longtail keywords – these are phrases that are typically four or more words long. The key is that they have very little competition in the search engines, which means you can rank well for them.

Tip: Many keyword tools check the competition for you. For example, WordTracker offers a KEI (keyword effectiveness index) value, which looks at the number of searches against how many other websites are indexed for that keyword. The higher the KEI value, the better chance you have of ranking well. Look for words that have a KEI value of at least 100 – but the higher the better.


Step #2: Sprinkle

Once you’ve compiled a list of longtail keywords, your next step is to create content around these keywords. You can optimize each article for two keyword phrases if you like, but generally it’s easier to optimize for just one.

The key is to not stuff your article with your keywords, otherwise the search engines may rank it lower (rather than higher). As such, include your keyword in the title of your article as well as about two to three times for every 100 words of content.

Example: Let’s say your keyword is "hydroponic vegetable gardening indoors." Your article might look like this:

Title: "Tips and Tricks for Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors"
Intro: include keyword at least once.
Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors Tip #1: explain tip and include keyword once more.
Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors Tip #2: explain tip and include keyword once more.
Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors Tip #3: explain tip and include keyword once more.
Closing: Summarize the article and include keyword once more.

Step #3: Share

Once your article is complete, it’s time to share it by distributing it as widely as possible. Don’t worry about so-called "duplicate content." The search engines won’t punish you if they find your articles in more than one place. They only knock you down a bit if they find your content in more than one place within your own domain (i.e., not on other sites).

You do this by:

  • Posting the article on your blog
  • Offering it as a guest post on your JV partner’s blog (or newsletter)
  • Create a Squidoo.com or HubPages.com page around it
  • Post it on social networking sites like your MySpace.com blog or Facebook.com page
  • Submit it to article directories such as EzineArticles.com, IdeaMarketers.com, ArticleValley.com, GoArticles.com and Buzzle.com

That’s it. You too can get your articles to pull in search engine traffic for you when you use the Search, Sprinkle and Share system.

Your next step is easy — take action by searching for your keywords to find joint venture partners.

Just in case you stumbled on this post (and you haven’t signed up for the full, free course), sign up below. All I need to get you started is your first name and email address.

 

List Building 101 Tip #2

Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 2:28 pm  
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Tip #2 — Understand That People Are More Likely To Buy From Those They Trust

You’ve probably noticed that it can be difficult to get new customers to buy from you. {{{List_Building_101|premium}}}Some people simply will not buy from those they’ve never heard of and don’t have a relationship with.  You will usually have to "presell" to them before they will make a purchase. This is especially true since identity theft and fraud have become more prevalent.

The good news is that people will join your list because they view it as a lower risk than making a purchase. All they need to do is hand over their e-mail address and they are "in." This gives you the opportunity to gain their trust and build a relationship that can lead to repeat sales down the road.

Want to learn more about list building? Check out List and Traffic.

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