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Recently Aweber announced a huge increase to their prices.
Hit play to discover why this a great opportunity for email marketers everywhere..
So what did you think? Let me know in the comments below…
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In case you missed it, Aweber recently announced that they are increasing the prices for all new customers. They’re also dramatically increasing the functionality too with the introduction of some advanced email marketing analytics.
As I currently understand the situation, all current customers will have the option to stay on their existing price plan or to upgrade to the new structure.
What’s my take on this?
Stay tuned because tomorrow I’ll be uploading a video explaining what I’ll be doing and why I’ll be doing it.
I have 11,000 subscribers in my account, and my subscription fee will increase from $40 to $149 if I upgrade to the new features.
Visit tomorrow and I’ll explain why it took me less than 10 minutes to decide what to do, and why most of the people discussing this on the marketing forums have the issue all inside out…
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Hit play to listen to a free video discussing 3 important list building rules you really need to learn today.
And don’t forget to pencil tomorrow Friday 18th April 11am EST into your diary as I have something very special indeed coming your way!
(more to follow)
Did you enjoy the video? Let me know in the comments below…
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If you have been around internet marketing for any time at all, you have heard it said that “the money is in the list” and the best marketing tool available for your online success is a responsive opt-in list.
Okay, let me just say here something you’ve heard me say before.
In order to succeed, you must get your reader’s trust and then work very hard to keep it. Losing the trust of your subscribers will certainly doom your business.
Do whatever it takes to keep the trust of your readers.
It’s true that an opt-in list is the most effective asset to your online business.
However, most anyone can have an online business and build a list. The part you want though is a responsive list - wouldn’t you rather have a profitable business?
A responsive subscriber list of people who believe in you will keep profits coming in - and the ultimate goal is to succeed!
Giving people value for their money is my personal goal. I’ll not promote anything or release any product that does not improve the business and even the lives of my subscribers.
The most important part of building an online business is to take action. I’m always moving and searching for ways to add value to my business. It takes a lot of time, energy and not a little bit of money to get the results I have.
I wasn’t just sitting here one day and success arrived. I worked and I continue to work to keep my business growing.
So what is an opt-in list anyway?
An opt-in list is basically a list of names and e-mail addresses that have chosen to receive information from you.
I send my list of subscribers updates about my newsletter, blog and special offers I think may be useful to their own businesses. I can’t stress enough how important it is to always offer something of value when you communicate with your subscribers.
Don’t send promotions to your list that smack of junk in any way.
This is a good way to lose the trust of your subscribers and get some opt-OUT e-mails in your inbox.
If you have been with me awhile, you know I always strive to offer only those things I believe are of the highest quality. I will not sacrifice my business for the sake of a quick profit. It isn’t worth it.
Here are some quick pointers to help build your own responsive list of subscribers:
1. Have a free offer on your site. Give away something of value. This helps build a relationship with your visitors. Visitors can turn into subscribers.
2. When you send an e-mail to your opt-in list, always include a link back to your site or to the free offer. People tend to pass these things along and you can get more visitors by making sure they can find you.
3. Share information, updates and articles with your readers. Again, include your links in the updates.
4. Join relevant forums and start building friendships with the members. Make sure your signature contains links to your site and the free offer. Stay within that forum’s rules and whatever you do, don’t SPAM a forum with offers or affiliate links!
5. The easiest and most important item is to make sure there is an opt-in box or subscribe box on your site. I would advise putting the opt-in box “above the fold” so to speak so it is easily spotted by visitors.
The main thing NOT to do when it comes to your subscribers is send massive amounts of e-mail and bombard them with offers. And if you do? Welll you’ll find yourself again with unsubscribes in your inbox.
Building a responsive list doesn’t mean you’re done.
You then have to maintain a relationship with your subscribers. If you follow these few easy tips, you’ll be able to build that list and things will only get better for your business.
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There’s a lot of lazy people out there who are only to happy to give you bad marketing advice without a second thought. Here’s one of the worst pieces of advice that seems to get an almost daily airing…
“The Money is in the List”.
How many times have you heard that piece of crazy talk spouted on an online forum? Too many times I’ll bet. Let me tell you right now that the money is NOT in the list. The money is in the relationship with the list.
Sure, having a big list helps but it counts for nothing if you have zero connection with those who receive your emails. So why do people tell you that you need a big list to profit online? I have no idea but I suspect it’s a mixture of laziness and self interest.
This isn’t scientific by any stretch of the imagination but consider this. When I had a list of 603 I was able to finish 3rd in a huge JV contest. The email that led me to 3rd place was my first ever promotional email.
Some others who finished outside the top 10 claim to have lists of 50,000 or more. Yet I was able to outperform them with a tiny list of just 603 people.
Want to know why? Because I worked hard to build a relationship with my subscribers, and because I battled to protect their interests.
The money is not in the list. It’s in the RELATIONSHIP you have with your individual subscribers. Heck, my list is currently only 4,000 strong yet last month I made a profit in excess of $20,000.
Want to know how to build a rock solid relationship with your subscribers that will boost your open rates and increase your profits? Then check out the link below now…
This audio home study course is a full on guide to developing profitable relationships with the smallest of lists. Check it out now. You’ll be glad that you did.
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If you’re serious about making money online then you really need to build leverage. If you want to maximise your profits then you need to be able to work today, and get paid tomorrow.
Want to know the best way to do this? Simply build a list and then nurture a relationship with your subscribers!
List building really is the best way to add a pile of leverage into your business, enabling you to keep on benefiting today from the work you did yesterday.
Knowing how to get started is the hard part though, and I know that when I was a complete beginner I found the whole process extremely daunting.
It doesn’t have to be like this though, and if you break the whole process down you’ll find that it’s easy than you ever expected. Below is the 5 step list building process that I followed to boost my list in the teaching niche…
Step #1 - Prepare a free offer.
You want to create something of value that people in your niche will be eager to receive. This might be a free report, or a video that you’ve prepared. Or it could even be a short audio interview with someone in your niche.
The key is to produce some juicy content that people will really want to get their hands on.
Step #2 - Create a squeeze page.
You want to create a short lead generation page that compels the visitor to subscribe to your list. When they do subscribe, they then receive the free offer you created.
You can find out more about squeeze pages here.
Your page must be compelling enough to make your prospects want to optin. Put yourself in their shoes. If you were visting the page for the first time would you give up your email address in exchange for the free offer?
Step #3 - Create a powerful resource box.
A resource box is a body of text that will go at the bottom of any articles that you publish. You want to treat this as a headline and make sure it’s full of benefit and curiosity and that it compels the reader to click your click.
You resource box will link back to the squeeze page you just created, and will sell the benefit that the reader gets to download your exciting free content.
Make the reader feel a sense of loss if they don’t do the action you’re recommending.
Look below for an example resource box…
“FREE REPORT: Lee McIntyre reveals 10 secret ways to build a list of 5,000 or more in just 29 days or less…without spending a cent!”. Visit www.LeeMcIntyreNewsletter.com to claim your FREE report while it’s still available”
Step #4 - Keyword research
You now want to do some basic keyword research to find some ‘longtail keywords’. You want to find good quality keywords that have lots of searches, and litle competition.
I’m usually looking for all such keywords to have less than 20,000 competiting pages when you search Google using speech marks.
I also want the keywords to be good quality too. The best keywords are specific and tell me what the user is looking for. So “I want to make money on eBay” is a lot better than “ebay make money fried fish”!
I know exactly what the user is looking for with the first keyword, and I also know that I can profit by giving it to them.
Step #5 - Write some articles
Once you’ve found some good keywords you’re going to want to write some articles around them. Keep the artcles simple and easy to read, and make sure that each one is based around one particular keyword phrase that you identified before.
If you struggle writing articles try using the format “7 steps to…” or “3 ways to…”. If you break the content of the article down in this way then you’ll find the writing process is much faster.
Step #6 - Distribute your article
Now that your article has been written it’s time to get it out there so that people can click your link and subcribe to your list. I usually submit to ezinearticles.com, but I’m also now experimenting testing submitting to some distribution services too.
And remember, the more articles your write and submit the more subscribers you’ll eventually get.
Step 7 - Continuous Improvement
Now you want to be doing all that you can to improve the process above. Do you want more subscribers? Then boost the conversion rate of your squeeze page or rewrite the resource box.
Make sure that you’re testing every different aspect of the process above, and with time you’ll be able to get more subscribers for less effort as your process improves.
And that’s it!
People should now find your articles in the search engines, or in the article directories, click the link in your resource box and then hopefully subscribe to your list.
If you’ve not yet started building a list then put this low cost and easy to follow solution into practice today and you’ll have your first subscriber a lot quicker than you think…
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Put simply, a squeeze page is a basic web page which has one very specific goal in mind. The goal isn’t to make a sale, or to review a product. The whole purpose of the squeeze page is to get as many people as possible to sign up for your email list.
While you can collect optins from lots of different types of sites, if you’re in the information selling business then you really need to have a squeeze page as part of your marketing arsenal.
Why? Because you need to have one page available where you can send traffic and be sure that you’ll get a large number of visitors opting into your email list, and subsequently buying your products.
Think about it this way….
If you have a blog with an optin box (like the one to the right of this page), then you might get an optin rate of around 5%, and if you get to double figures then you’re doing a GREAT job.
Look how many different links there are on this page. Pay attention to how many different distractions there are here.
People who land on this blog have loads of different options available to them, and even though they might be interested in joining my newsletter, they might also be interested in checking out one of the many alternative links instead.
The result? The different options here mean that it’s always going to be difficult to get super high newsletter signup conversions from this type of page.
So is this a bad thing? Absolutely not!
This blog is a great traffic generator, and the information I freely provide here is a key driver for the sales that I enjoy. If you’re in the information selling business then you really should have a blog as there aren’t many better ways to get a pile of free traffic.
Yes a blog will often have a low subscriber conversion rate, but the benefits of having one make it an absolute essential for all infroprenuers.
So if we have a blog then why the heck do we need a squeeze page as well? Well, let me give you an example from my business.
At the moment I’m running some limited Adword campaigns on some pretty specific keywords. The margin between profit and loss is wafer thin, and in order to run a successful campaign I need to make sure I’m collecting as many new subscribers as I possibly can.
Think about it this way….
Let’s say I buy 100 clicks and send them to my blog. If I have a conversion rate of 5% then I’ll collect 5 new subscribers.
Now let’s imagine I send the next 100 clicks to my squeeze page which converts at 40%. Well now I’ve just collected 40 new subscribers instead, and it hasn’t cost me a cent extra.
Why? Because a good squeeze page has minimal distractions and everything is geared towards collecting the email address of the visitor.
Of the two options above which do you think will lead to the highest profits for my business? The squeeze page option of course, and if I was sending traffic to my blog instead it would be near impossible to turn a profit.
I keep saying this but the money is in the relationship with your list, and that means that you need to maximise the numbers of prospects who subscribe to your newsletter.
If you don’t currently have a squeeze page then you’re missing out on a vital part of your online business. You need to have a page available where you can send traffic and be sure to turn a high percentage of visitors into subscribers.
Stop what you’re doing right now, and go and build one right now. You’ll be glad that you did.
And if you want to see a working example of a squeeze page from my business then check out the link below.
http://www.LeeMcIntyreNewsletter.com
And don’t be afraid to signup while you’re there too! 
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