How to Make Money with Email Marketing

Over the past few years, email marketing has gained enormous popularity. Email is a very important aspect in your Internet marketing plan. Along with hosting and having a domain name, getting yourself a good email marketing system is absolutely necessary.

Your total websites costs will still be less than $500 per year. So, if you only make $500 in the entire year, you’d be breaking even.

Do not be afraid of spending money on the necessities of your online business. Compared to starting a bakery, gas station, or fitness club – the startup costs for an online business are far less, and the success rate is much higher.

Now that we have that covered, lets move onto how to get the most out of your email marketing:

The first thing you need is a squeeze page. A squeeze page is simply a page where you talk about your bonus product and get people to give their emails in return for your bonus.

Your bonus product should be a short PDF guide pertaining to your niche. At the end of your guide, you might want to pitch your product or service.

Use the rules I laid out in my landing page article to set up your squeeze page. The best email marketing service is aweber. They have a really great tutorial which shows you the basics of email marketing.

So, lets move on to some tips:

Tip #1: Capture emails AFTER someone has purchased something from you

Out of all the methods of collecting emails, capturing email AFTER someone has purchased a product from me has been far more beneficial than giving away a free report, and then promoting to a giant list.

Tip #2: Common Ways to Capture emails

Now that I’ve told you the BEST way to capture emails, I’m going to tell you some other ways you can capture an email:

1 – Forums – Choose 2-3 forums, and start contributing. Don’t promote your squeeze page just yet (although you can put your blog link in your signature). Once you’ve gained a decent amount of credibility and established yourself as an expert in your niche, you can go ahead and write a nice, small post talking about your squeeze page (don’t hype it up too much. Forums don’t like it)

All you need to say is, “Hey guys, I just wrote this real cool report a few months ago about ….. Check it out here :…. Let me know what you think.” That’s it! Short and sweet.

2 – Social Media – Get some friends who have some good social media profiles and have them post links back to your squeeze page. If you already participate on social media websites, use that to your advantage.

3 – Friends – Everyone has friends. As mentioned above, you can get them to post a link to your page on their social media profiles. You can also get them to sign up for your list and email other people they know about your page.

Then it becomes viral. Next thing you know, you have a whole bunch of people who were friends of friends of friends signed up to your list.

4 – Email Bloggers – You can email bloggers, or even vendors in your niche to check out the free report. Urge them to pass it along to their readers or list. For example, if you’re in the fitness niche, other bloggers will be happy to send traffic to your email page.

It gives them something to write about. But, remember that if they do a favor for you, you must do a favor for them in the future.

Do not make a blogger opt-in to see your report. Just attach a copy of the report in their email. This way, they can read it right then and there.

5 – Cost per Click - One of the fastest ways to build up a list is to set a small adwords campaign (no more than $100), and send them straight to the squeeze page.

Perhaps put a countdown link and tell them they only have 3 days to sign up. It will make them eager to sign up. Lets say you were able to get around 300 signups with those $100.

Now, those 300 individuals need to make you at least $100 to recover your costs. If not, then the list isn’t worth it.

Try out the free methods before you get into adwords. Don’t promote stuff to them right away. Build up the list, then promote.

One Single SEO Trick to Propel Your Website Traffic

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is the art and science of how search engines find and rank your site. Strong SEO means lots of organic traffic to your website.

Organic traffic refers to traffic that is unpaid, and does not include Social Media or direct traffic. In other words, free traffic from search engines.

I LOVE search traffic. If you have Google Analytics installed on your website, you can clearly see 1) what keywords are bringing in the most traffic, 2) what keywords are bringing in individuals that stay for a long time, and 3) which keywords are bringing in traffic where the individuals stay for less than a minute, or bounce immediately.

Bounce means that they leave your site immediately, without even taking a second to look at your content. It sucks, and I haven’t figured out why people do that. Some times the keyword will match up with the content, and yet people will bounce immediately.

Ok, so what is this one SEO trick that you need to know? Well, it’s a research method that can help you discover some great, un-tapped keywords in your niche. You’re using a combination of Google Keyword tool, and the Google search bar.

Step #1: Google Research Tool

Go to the google research tool and type in a keyword that you’d wish to rank for. So, here I am about to type in a random keyword – “Kettlebell Workouts.”

The idea with your keyword should be to attract customers who may be interested your product or service.. Naturally, I’m not going to use Kettlebell Workouts to sell a bodyweight training product.

The idea here is that it’s not that difficult to find keywords for your product.

Organize your results in Google Keywords by Global Monthly Search Volume. Here’s what my results look like:

Most people would just go after the kettlebell workout keyword because it’s getting a lot of searches. However, remember that even if you rank high for a keyword getting 390 searches per month, you can still get 10-20 hits per day for that keyword.

It’ll get things flowing.

Now move onto the next step, and you’ll see why I don’t like targeting keywords with high search volumes:

Step #2: Google Search

Go to Google.com. Use the “allintitle:” tag to see how many individuals are targeting that keyword. So, for example, you would put in allintitle:”kettlebell workout.” Here are the results:

As you can see the first search result has “Kettlebell Workout” in the title. And if you were to type in Kettlebell Workout in the search bar without the allintitle: tag, I guarantee you’d see that post on the front page.

But look at your competition: 15,700 other articles targeting that same keyword. You’re going to have to do a lot of work in order to get first page rankings for this keyword. Now, lets take a look at another keyword: kettlebell workouts

Wow! Just by adding an “s” to the end of that keyword, you have dramatically less competition. But, I still feel that 8,330 is a lot of competition. Especially for a new website. Lets keep going down the list: Kettlebell Workout Routine

So, now we’re getting somewhere! This keyword has only 412 competitors. So here’s what you do: write 1, 1000-word article around this keyword, linking back to a landing page you’ll write about the product you’re promoting (click here to learn about how to write a landing page). Then write 5, 500-word articles linking both back to this article, and the landing page you wrote.

Then submit all 6 articles to ezinearticles.com, linking back to your landing page. Wait 3 days and see what happens. Guaranteed you’ll start seeing some traffic coming to your site.

Rinse, and repeat (well, don’t rinse. Just keep repeating this technique over and over again as desired).

How to write a Better Landing Page

Landing Pages are the life blood of your business. A landing page is what tells your potential customer what your product or service is all about. The more details you have on your landing page, the less doubt your customers will have regarding your produce or service.

There are a lot of free guides out there that teach you how to write a landing page. I’m going to teach you how to write a BETTER landing page.

Strategy #1: Use LOTS of Pictures and Video

Most landing pages that I have seen use No pictures at all. Pictures make a lot of difference. If people can visually see the results of your product or service, then they will be that much more inclined to purchase the product.

Where do you get the pictures from? Get them from the Google Images. Most people don’t care if you steal an image from them. I do it all the time. But if you want to give yourself a layer of legal protection, then there are a lot of free and paid stock photo sites out there.

Of course, personal photos – pictures you’ve taken and pictures from your clients work best. Before/after pictures work best if you’re in the fitness niche. In the Internet marketing niche, you want to show off the screenshots of your sales. Based on which niche you’re in, get pictures of animals, people at work, an astronaut on the moon, etc.

If possible, use videos. Go to YouTube.com and see what kind of videos people in the same niche as you are creating. For the fitness niche, a sample workout works best. For the internet marketing niche, perhaps you can give out marketing tips.

You know your niche better than I do, so as you write your landing page, think about which pictures you want to place on your page.

Strategy #2: List Features

Make sure the individual knows EXACTLY what they’re getting when they purchase your product or service. It would suck if their expectations of the product were much greater than what the product actually contains.

That is what results in a refund. Be brutally honest with whats in the product. Leave no doubt in the mind of your potential customer!

Think of your landing page as a trailer for the movie. You don’t need to reveal EVERYTHING about the product, but expose enough information that gets people to BUY.

So, rave about the product, but also tell them what to expect.

Strategy #3: Honesty

In the world of fast-talking marketers and Internet scams, people are searching for people to trust. Honesty will increase the trust a prospect has in you, and they will take your product or service seriously.

Strategy #4: Ask Yourself Questions

Sit there and jot down a list of questions a prospect might have about the product on hand. A good marketer has has answered all of his or her prospects on their landing page.

If your sales page is riddled with all this other stuff that distracts an individual from discovering the answer to their questions, then they’ll get discouraged and go somewhere else.
Realize that people do not read the entire sales page. They skim. So make sure your prospects can find the answers to their questions. The best technique is to write a FAQ at the end of your landing page.

Strategy #5: List the Price

If you do not list the price, the prospect will find out the price once they get to the order page. Be honest about the price, and support your price with information from your sales page.

Don’t just blatantly say, “This product is $137. Do you want to buy it?” No. The best time to reveal the price is right after you’ve told them the features. Tell them the VALUE of the product, and then the price.

For example, you can say something like, “This product is worth $450, but I’m only charging $125.” This shows prospects that they are getting more for their money.

Strategy #6: Bonuses

You should look into creating a bonus for your product or service. It can be anything from offering a free add-on to the product (something that enhances the results of your product), or offering movie tickets to a local theater.

It’ll make the product more enticing, leading to higher conversion rates.

Strategy #7: Headlines and Lead-Ins

Headlines are important, so come up with the best headline ever! Brian from copyblogger.com had a great post on this – http://www.copyblogger.com/10-sure-fire-headline-formulas-that-work/

It’s also important what you write under the headline. This is called a sub-header, and further expands on the idea you presented in you header.

Start off by stating what the product is, what it’s for, and who’s it’s written by. Then go straight into raising the number one question that a prospect may have on their mind, such as…”Is product X REALLY worth your money?” (This is a lead-in)