Hi Fellow Profit Masters… Randy here…
What have you done for yourself lately? Have you found the latest and greatest Affiliate program? Have you developed a new and have to have product to sell? Have you expanded your list(s)? Do you even have a email list? What have you done for yourself lately?
We know that making a living on the web can be a series of pitfalls and successes. How many of us have opted in for that great program for $97 dollars only to find it a bust and a waste of money? The only way to make it on the internet is to forget all those offers that are “too good to be true”, because they are. Now, I’m not discounting the value of affiliate marketing. You can make a lot of money marketing someone else’s product. That’s what keeps Clickbank in business. But before you can market effectively, you have to have a list of customers to whom you can advertise your “products”.
How do you build a list? God knows that every internet hack and his brother has their “List Building Secrets” that I’m sure they’ll sell to you for whatever they can squeeze out of you. Don’t go that route. The best way to build a list is through hard work and research. Network with any other marketers you know. Pick their brains.
I’m not trying to sell you on any particular methodology or “product” to grow your email lists. I’m just suggesting that you think constructively. Before you can create a list you have to have the proper mechanisms in place to gather your prospective customers.
First, get a good auto responder. I can think of a few really good ones that will cost you in the neighborhood of $20 dollars a month. But the best auto responder is the one that you’ve tried and you feel you can work with. Most all reputable Auto Responder Services will allow a free trial period. Take advantage of the offer. If you don’t like or can’t get the hang of the service then cancel the subscription before the trial period is up. I use AWeber. I’ve been really successful with them. Here are some posts from their excellent blog. Again I encourage you to do your research.
Secondly, get yourself a mechanism to collect your prospects. Think of prospect gathering as a funnel. This is an old analogy. Technically it’s works like this. You gather as many leads as possible. You work those leads until only qualified prospect are developed. Then you cull out those prospects until you have only committed customers left. To do this you need to start filling the funnel so the process can filter down and create customers.
So how do you collect the leads you need to fill the funnel? There are a number of ways. Generally, you need to find a way to capture the attention of as many prospects as you can. You can:
1. Blog your head off and use services like Blogspot and others to get your blog around. You want to create readership.
2. Use Social Networking to spread the word. Find or develop a product that you can give away for free. Put that up on your Social Network (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, etc.) There are a number of free apps you can use to Tweet out your offer (if you’re using Twitter) or get the word out on Facebook.
3. You can try the manual traffic exchanges. What’s a manual traffic exchange? It’s a website that allows you to post your ads for free as long as you take the time to view ads by other people. I’ve done it and have gotten quite a bit of traffic this way. You can try SWAT Traffic or Traffic Swarm
But you need a web presence. By that I mean a place to create your websites and blogs. Sure you can use Blogger and you can get Wordpress hosting. Both options plus others are readily available. But why? There are some great deals on hosting on the internet. My favorite is 1&1 Hosting.
They’ve always been reliable and extremely fair. I’ve used some others and haven’t been given the help and web tools that they offer. They’re extremely cost efficient, too. You don’t have to lay a lot to get a good product or service. Such is 1&1 Hosting.
Okay, so we’ve covered some of the basics… I don’t want to go into too much detail. Think about what I’ve said and do your homework. That’s what it takes to get the job done.
