38.  Create an autoresponder course on a hot topic.

No one can resist learning about a topic that they’re already interested in… so why not create an autoresponder course on the subject.

Creating an autoresponder course is really easy.  All you have to do is write a report and then break it down into pieces.  Set your autoresponder up to mail out each piece to subscribers one at a time.

39.  Get other subscribers to promote you with a free monthly contest or referral prizes.

This is kind of like creating a refer-a-friend contest.  Just set up a contest where the subscriber that refers the most new subscribers to join your list gets a monthly prize.   Here’s a really good script that you can use to create your own contest and a free video to show you how it works.

I like the script above because it prevents people from sending out spam in your name and sets up the system so that referrers are sending their friends email directly from them, not your autoresponder.  You still need to check with your autoresponder’s terms of service before you use this marketing tool however.

40.  Squeeze Pages.

You can generate a lot of new subscribers very quickly by using squeeze pages and a really great offer!

Essentially, a squeeze page is the landing page that you send visitors to prior to your sales page (or another page) where you request their subscription before they can proceed.  Once they put their subscription information into the form and submit it, they’re redirected to the sales page.  Some squeeze pages even go a step further and require new subscribers to confirm their subscriptions before they can get to the information that they want.

41.  Get someone to offer your newsletter subscription as a bonus to their own product.

People are always looking for additional bonuses to add to their product packages online… why not your newsletter?

All you have to do to make this one work is joint venture with someone who has a compatible product for sale, write your newsletter bonus pitch, and add your email subscription form script to their product download page and you’re all set.  It creates a win/win because your partner gets an additional bonus to help them sell their product and you get a new subscriber who is willing to spend money in your niche.

42.  Create a dynamic pitch page for your subscription.

This one is kind of a no-brainer.  You can’t just slap up a subscription form and expect people to fall all over themselves subscribing to your list.  You’ve got to present some kind of compelling offer to entice them to subscribe.

The way I usually do it is that I put my subscription form along with an image on every page of my website along with a link to another page where they can learn more about it.  When then click on the link, they get a sales letter type page that tells them what they can expect with the subscription and why they should subscribe to it.

43.  Get your newsletter listed on as many free sites and directories as possible.

There are all kinds of directories for newsletters and ezines available online, so it makes sense that you should get your newsletter or ezine listed on as many of them as possible.  You just never know how people are going to find you.

44.  Post thoughtful comments on related blogs with a single link to your pitch.

Most blogs have a script on them that prevents search engines from following the links within comments, but you’re comments will still be read by blog visitors who might be interested in what you have to offer with your subscription.  The key here is to make sure your blog comments are interesting and worthwhile.

45.  Make an offer for one of your other lists on you thank you page.

This is a tactic that I’ve used with one of my family related lists and it works quite well.  Here’s how it works…

When people subscribe to newsletter #1, they are sent to a thank you page where they are told to check their email for the confirmation notice.  In addition, they are given additional information about newsletter #2 where they can get related, but not competing, information.  In my experience, one out of every three subscribers to list #1 also subscribes to list #2.

46.  Giveaway Ventures.

A giveaway venture is when you joint venture with several other people in your niche or related niches to run the program.  Each person or business gives something away and all the donated products are put together into a single package to giveaway to subscribers.  Each partner then promotes the giveaway products to gain subscribers to their lists.

The beauty of this scenario is that you gain new subscribers directly to your own list because of the value of the giveaway, but that’s not all.  Depending on what you offer as your product to give away (a free report or ebook, for example), you’re also putting your product in front of all those other prospects who subscribed through one of your partners.  If you have links to your product, your website, or your newsletter, in the ebook you donated to the venture, you can gain new subscribers and visitors, as well as sell additional products.

47.  Buy subscribers.

There are several services available where you can buy lists of subscribers.  I’m not a big fan of this method, but some claim it works well for them.  If you choose to buy subscribers, be sure that that they are all double optin and that your source is reputable.

48.  Use Pop-ups.

As a surfer, I absolutely hate pop-up ads.  As an internet marketer, I use them on several of my websites because they work.  In fact, I’ve performed several tests on my websites to find out if I get more subscribers with or without them and it always turns out that I get more subscribers when I use a well thought-out pop-up advertisement for my newsletters… about 40% more on average.

You might hate them, but pop-ups work.

49.  Create bonus for someone else’s product.

This one can be a little bit tricky, but it’s well worth it if you can pull it off.  The idea is to create some kind of product that works well as a bonus for someone else’s product.  For example, if you found a software product that you really liked and you’d found a new way to use it, you could create an ebook that works with the software and explains this new method.

The software owner would love the ebook, especially as a bonus to their software, and you could gain more subscribers through subscription links in the ebook.  A win/win.

50.  Use Co-Registration.

This is exactly like number 45 above, only the newsletter that you’re offering on your thank you page is someone else’s.  Co-registration can also be when your subscribers sign up to several lists all at the same time.  If this is something you’re interested in doing to build your email list, then there are several services available to match you up with co-registration partners and run the program for you.

51.  Become an expert in your field.

Okay… Duh!  If you’re going to produce a newsletter, ezine, ecourse, etc. you should position yourself as an expert in your niche or you’re just plain wasting your time.

So how do you position yourself as an expert in your field?  Write a lot of articles and content, write professionally, and know what you’re talking about when you write.  If you look like a credible expert, you’ll have a lot more people wanting to sign up to receive your mailings.

52.  Direct mail offers.

Direct mail, specifically postcards, can be a really great way to get people to subscribe to get your newsletter, ezine, ebook, ecourse, or report, provided you create a really compelling offer on your postcards.  Sometimes a physical post card delivered directly to someone’s house can carry more credibility for your offer than other online advertising methods.

53.  Use hover ads.

I already mentioned pop-up advertising for subscriptions above, but hover ads are a completely different animal.  Generally, hover ads aren’t blocked by pop-up blockers and they are much more interactive than pop-ups.

If you’ve ever seen one of those websites with a peeling corner that suddenly unpeels to reveal a special offer, then you’ve seen what I’m talking about.  They’re unobtrusive, but they really get visitor’s attention.  There are lots of software programs on the market that will create hover ads for you, but the best one in my opinion is Instant Popover.

54.  Make your forum registration page work with your email capture system.

Many people operate their own forums as part of their websites, so it’s a great idea to make your forum registration and your email subscription programs work together.  All it really amounts to is a check box on the forum registration form that says something like “check here to subscribe to…”  You can even have the box already checked so that they actually have to uncheck it to keep from subscribing… Oooo!  Sneaky!

The service you use to run your email lists probably has a way to do this that you can do yourself.  If not, you can always hire a programmer to set it up for you at very little cost.

55.  Practice risk reversal on your email form.

According to Christopher Knight at http://www.emailuniverse.com, “Risk reversal is when you remove the risk from the buyer and put the burden of client satisfaction on your shoulders instead of your buyers. In the case of email newsletters, the risk of someone giving up their email address is that they will be sold, spammed or abused in some way.”

Give subscribers a “we don’t spam” kind of statement somewhere near your form.

56.  Offer newsletter testimonials.

Simply put a list of testimonials on your newsletter pitch page.  This demonstrates the value of the subscription to others who are considering subscribing.  I did this with one of my non-marketing newsletters and increased my newsletter subscription rate by over 200%!

57.  Create a separate website just for your email newsletter or ezine.

If you think of your newsletter or ezine as a product, and you should, then it makes sense to have a separate website just for that product.  It gives it more weight, makes it stand out from the competition, and positions your online publication as the journal of choice for your niche.

58.  Use viral marketing to your advantage.

Viral marketing is any campaign that uses word-of-mouth or tell-a-friend in order to get the message out.  In this case, you’re trying to get more people to subscribe through viral marketing, so you have to encourage your subscribers to pass your email messages on to their friends and family so that they will subscribe too.

It’s as simple as adding a reminder and link at the bottom of each email you send out and it works really well.

59.  Offer testimonials on related products and link to your pitch page.

Businesses are always looking for satisfied customers to extol the virtues of their product.  You can capitalize on that and promote your own email list at the same time by offering unsolicited testimonials on products related to your niche.

Simply buy the product, write a great testimonial (assuming the product is actually good), and include a link back to your subscription pitch page.

60.  Mention your newsletter or ezine in your teleseminars.

Many people run their own teleseminars or are guests on other people’s teleseminars.  This presents a perfect opportunity to plug your email list to that audience.  In fact, you can pitch your subscription opportunity at just about any speaking engagement.

If a subscription is free – and most are free – no one will really mind the blatant advertising.  They may even see it as a nice gesture that you’re offering them a free subscription.  Just refer them to your subscription pitch page… better yet, create a pitch page especially for them!

61.  Mention your free subscription on your business cards.

This is especially useful if you only have one newsletter or ezine that you write for.  Here’s an example of how to pull this off very effectively.

Let’s say that you’re a real estate agent and you have a free ezine about rehabbing local real estate.  It would be extremely effective to plug your ezine on your business cards because real estate agents hand out tons of business cards during the course of their day to all kinds of people.

62.  Test, test test.

As with everything in your business, it’s really important to test everything that you do to find out what works for you as you build your list.  Some list building activities will work better with some niches than with others.  If you don’t continually test all your marketing activities, you could be wasting a lot of time and money doing all the wrong things.   Test everything!

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 3

Related posts:

1. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 2
2. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers
3. How Does Attraction Marketing Really Work?

I often hear online business and marketing types talk about how important it is to have a good subscriber list.  In many cases, having a reasonable sized list of responsive subscribers can make the difference in whether your online business succeeds or dies a slow painful death.

You’re heard it before, “The money is in the list.”

What exactly is a list?

Simply put, a “list” is generally a database of subscribers that you contact regularly.  Your form of contact could be direct mail, email, phone, fax, or any other technology available.  For purposes of this discussion, we’re talking about how to successfully build an email list, but many of the strategies below could also apply to other kinds of list building.

Most online businesses create newsletters or ezines to send to their subscriber lists (a method I highly recommend), you can also create email lists in order to disseminate other types of information like website updates, ebooks, email courses, reports, blog posts, etc.  As long as subscribers know in advance what kind of information they’re signing up for, the sky’s the limit.

So, what are the benefits of building a good list for your business?

• Sending high quality information to your lists helps you build rapport with your subscribers and potential customers.  Relationship building is a huge plus in any business, but is especially profitable in an online business.  It also helps to establish you as an expert in your field.

• You can promote special offers and products to your list.

• An email list allows you to keep in touch with your subscribers and potential customers.  This gets them back to your website more often and will increase your sales.

• Promoting to email lists is much less expensive than other forms of direct marketing.

• You can easily gather additional information from your list that will help you plan future promotions and products.

• Regular mailings to an email list can make your website seem more human.

• There are lots of ways to monetize your email list, making it a huge money making opportunity… if you do it correctly.

Clearly there are lots of benefits… probably a lot more than what I’ve mentioned here.  I’m sure you’re all gungho to start your own mailing list now… or maybe you’ve already started a list and you’re looking for ways to get more subscribers.  That’s what very few people actually talk about… how to get a good subscriber list.  So that’s what we’re going to discuss here.  I’ve put together a list of 62 strategies that you can put into practice to build yourself a great list.

One word of caution before we get to the list… don’t try to implement every single strategy on the list at one time.  Just pick a single strategy, fully implement it, and then move onto another strategy.  In reality, there’s really no way to implement all the strategies listed – so develop a plan for implementing the strategies that seem best suited to your business.

One more quick note: The list below starts out with the most obvious and easiest to implement strategies and gets more creative as we go.  I came up with so many ideas that I decided to split them up, so Part 2 will come out later this week.

Now, let’s get on to the list…

1.  Put a subscribe form on every webpage of your site.

Most email experts agree that you should put your subscription form in the upper left or right hand corner of your website.

You never know which page of your website visitors will reach first, so putting a subscription form on all your relevant pages ensures that potential subscribers will see your message.

2.  Create some kind of graphic representation of your newsletter, course, etc.

You’ll will always see a higher response rate if you use a graphic rather than just words.  A cover is more dynamic, personable, and professional.

It’s easy to create your own graphic with any of the popular graphics programs or you can use a software program especially designed to make ebook covers, newsletter pictures, ezine images, software boxes, etc. covers like Killer Covers , Cover Software Pro, or the one I use:  Cover Action Pro.  You can also hire a cover designer.

3.  Tell people why they should join your list.

You’ve got to give potential subscribers a compelling reason to join your list.  Tell them what kind of information you’ll give them, what they can expect, and how they’ll benefit.  As will so many things in business, answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

4.  Create a separate pitch page.

It’s not enough to just slap up a subscribe form and a graphic to get people to subscribe to your list… You’ve got to sell them on the idea.  To do that, you need to write a well-crafted sales page that outlines all the benefits to joining your list.

The way I usually do this is to link directly from my subscribe box to a sales page with a link that says “click here to read more.”  I also link the graphic for the list to the pitch page.  Don’t forget to include your subscribe box prominently on the pitch page as well.  After all, you’ve talked them into subscribing.  You want to make sure they have a place to do it.

5.  Target your forms and pitch page to your audience.

It’s important to know who your target subscribers are before you go through all the trouble of creating an ezine, newsletter, or ecourse.  That’s obvious… but you also need to have thought through your potential subscribers’ possible reasons for subscribing, what they’re looking for, and how you’re going to give it to them.  That way you can tailor the graphics, pitch, title of the subscriptions, etc. to what will most likely appeal to your target subscribers.

A properly targeted list will be much more responsive and profitable.

6.  Allow email subscriptions.

Sometimes people make the mistake of only allowing new subscribers to subscribe through an online form.  They often do it that way to make sure that someone isn’t harvesting emails and fraudulently subscribing people.

In my opinion, you should also allow people to subscribe by sending an email directly to your list.  This is an easy option to set up in most email management programs.  As long as your list requires subscribers to confirm their subscription, you shouldn’t have any problems with spammers.  If spammers become an issue, you can always turn the option off.

If you aren’t comfortable with this idea, you could also allow people to send their subscription directly to you and you can manually add them to your database.  It might take a little more time, but if someone goes through the trouble of sending you an email, they’re probably going to read every email you send them.

7.  Offer incentives to subscribe.

There are lots of different incentives you can offer to entice people to subscribe to your list or ezine.  You can offer free ebooks, special reports, audios, videos, teleseminars, free coaching, or anything else you can think of.

There is a school of thought that offering freebies to get subscribers can actually lower the responsiveness of your list because many people will only subscribe to your list to get your freebies then unsubscribe.  On the other hand, if you offer high quality original material to your subscribers, you may retain more subscribers.  My advice is to offer freebies that give subscribers a taste of what to expect in your ezine.

8.  Show archives or samples of past ezine issues.

This is a really good way to let potential subscribers know what to expect when they subscribe to your newsletter or ezine.

If you don’t want to archive all your issues for non-subscribers, then you can always provide a few samples to whet their appetite for more.

9.  Be sure to post your email privacy policy.

Make it easy for people to subscribe to your list with confidence that you won’t spam them or sell their email address.

You may also want to try something like, “No obligation.  Nothing to buy.”  This is something that I’ve begun implementing on my own subscription forms and the results have been good so far.

10.  Use a strong call to action.

A call to action is exactly what it sounds like… it’s a command for your subscriber to subscribe.  Some common calls to action on a subscription for are:

• Subscribe Now!
• Send Me The Report!
• Click to Subscribe Now!
• Show Me How To…
• Join Now!

In other words, tell potential subscribers exactly what you want them to do.  Ask them to subscribe to your list.

11.  Advertise in newsletters/ezines.

Find other newsletters and ezines that are related to your target market, but don’t directly compete, and buy advertising.  If the newsletter or ezine that you’re interested in doesn’t currently offer advertising, contact them anyway and see if you can work something out.

A somewhat riskier tactic is to actually advertise in competing newsletters and ezines.  Some publishers won’t allow competing advertising, but most aren’t paying close enough attention to their lists to care.  The risk to advertising in a competing ezine is that you will be directly compared to your competition… if you think you can go head to head, go for it.

12.  Advertise on Google Adwords or other pay per clicks.

Pay per click advertising can be extremely effective and get you a lot of subscribers in a hurry… if you know what you’re doing.  It can also cost you a small fortune and result in very few subscribers if you don’t know how the game is played.

I highly suggest doing a little homework on the subject before you embark on this type of campaign.  You can choose to purchase a course on the subject like Google Money Pro, but you can get a good idea if pay-per-click advertising is for you from a free email course from Perry Marshall called, 5 Days to Success With Google Adwords.

13.  Put subscription information in your signature file.

I’m guilty, I admit it.  I rarely use a signature file on my outgoing emails.  Why?  I guess I’m just plain lazy.  It’s a really good idea to create a mini-ad about your newsletter or ezine and include it in your signature… I’ll have to put that on my list of things to do (boy that list sure is getting long!).

14.  Incorporate your subscription information into your print media.

So many businesses that operate out in the real world in addition to the online world totally miss the boat on this one.  If you have a business that uses print brochures, fliers, business cards, etc. you should include information about your newsletter, ezine, or update list, ecourse or any other type of list you have on your printed media.

If you have a retail location, for example, you could actually build a good email list out of your customers and visitors by offering to send them updates of upcoming sales, special product offers, or special shipments coming in.  You could even hold a contest and collect email addresses at your retail location so that you can notify the winner by email.  I could go on here, but you get the idea.

15.  List with ezine directories.

List your newsletter or ezine with directories specifically for that purpose.  You may not get a lot of subscribers this way, but every little bit counts.

16.  Advertise in print publications.

This is a great idea that is very rarely used, from what I’ve seen.  The idea is simple.  Find printed publications related to your website or business and pay for advertising in them.  In your ad, you’ll want use your pitch page URL so that potential subscribers go directly to the subscription page.

If you’re really smart, you’ll create a separate subscription page for each advertisement that you place so that you can track the results and see which ads are paying off and which ones you should drop.

17.  Do link exchanges.

If you do link exchanges on your website, that presents an excellent opportunity to advertise your newsletter, ezine, ecourse, or free report.  All you have to do is link directly to your pitch page rather than your website when you exchange links with other websites.

You could also take this one a step further by developing a link exchange program on your website that is strictly for ezines, for example.  In other words, you provide links to other “great ezines” while the ezines you link to do the same for your ezine.

18.  Ad Swaps.

A truly simple idea that creates a win/win for everyone involved.  All you have to do is find a newsletter or ezine that’s related to your target audience, but that isn’t direct competition and exchange ads.  You place their ad in your ezine and they place your ad in there’s.

One thing to keep in mind when you do this is that any publisher you approach should have about the same size email list as you.  If you have far fewer subscribers, they may require additional ads to make the swap fair and equitable.

19.  Write high quality articles.

If you already write articles as part of your overall marketing plan, simply add a plug for your ezine or newsletter.  You could also write articles specifically with the idea of promoting a special free report or something similar.  If you’ve written high quality articles, subscribers will flock to your ezine.  If you want more information about article marketing, visit The Amazing Article Formula.

20.  Send articles to other newsletter publishers.

You can get even more mileage, and subscribers, by sending your well-crafted article to other newsletter and ezine publishers for use in their publications.  A lot of online publications don’t offer advertising, but they love really good articles because it means less work for them!

21.  Get your articles published in print media.

Nothing gives you and your ezine or newsletter more credibility than being published in a printed – as in paper and ink – magazine or newsletter.  Guest articles in print media usually include some kind of information about the author, just like online publications do.  This provides you with a great opportunity for some free publicity about your special report, ezine, or free online course.

End of Part 1. Click here to go to part 2

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers

Related posts:

1. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 2
2. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 3
3. How Does Attraction Marketing Really Work?

The idea of attraction marketing seems to be really making a lot of noise lately.  I can’t tell you how many of my clients have been asking me about it in the last couple of months — what is it, does it work, can I do it too?

There’s really no secret.

I’ve been practicing attraction marketing for years in my own business.  If you’re successful, I bet you have too.

So here’s the big secret… Attraction marketing is any marketing strategy designed to “attract” people who are interested in your products, services, or business to you or your website like a magnet.

Frankly, I think attraction marketing and pre-selling are pretty much the same thing.

The idea is that you don’t want to SELL people your wares.  People hate to be “sold,” but they love to buy stuff when it hits their hot buttons and the buying experience is pleasurable.

In my mind, attraction marketing really comes in two parts… attracting interested people and enticing them to buy.  Let’s talk about each one separately.

1.  Attracting Interested People

The key to making a good living with your business, no matter what business you’re in, is to get your business in front of people who are interested in buying what you have to offer.  The more interested people who see what you’ve got, the more money you’re going to make — simple as that.

In the online world, there are lots and lots of easy ways to do that:

• Write great keyword rich content that attracts interested people through search engines.
• Write articles that will interest your target audience.
• Create videos that will attract interested people.
• Offer a free ebook, ecourse, or report to your target audience (lead capture).
• Advertise your free offer, rather than your products, services, or business.

You want to help interested people find you, but you don’t want to sell them.

You can practice attraction marketing in the offline world as well:

• Advertise a free offer on your website in newpapers, signs, flyers, billboards, etc.
• Create and advertise a recorded message about your business or products.
• Put a sign on your car.
• Use your own products publicly.

The essence of attraction marketing is that you want to give people who are interested in your products, services, or business a reason to be attracted to you and do it in a completely non-threatening way.

2.  Enticing People To Buy

First of all, you’ve got to get the dollar signs out of your eyes.  Too many people operate their business like a used car salesman.

Let me draw you a picture and you’ll see what I mean.

As you’re driving up on a car lot, you notice a group of salesmen sitting together near the entrance.  As your car turns in, all the salesmen turn towards you and you see the cold glint of dollar signs in their eyes.

You flinch just a little, but still find a parking spot and stop the car.

As you get out of the car, you notice that the salesmen are urgently talking amongst themselves until one of them puts on one of those fake smiles and starts walking towards you while the others quickly disperse.

“Hey what kind of car are we looking to buy today?”

YUK!  I hate that so much that I actually refuse to talk to sales people and make my husband deal with them.

No one likes to be treated that way in any situation.

But if you’re hard selling everyone who visits your website, then you’re acting like that money-hungry used car salesman and driving potential customers away.

You’ve heard it before, people buy from other people that they like and trust.

Your job is to give people the things that will attract them to your business, build a relationship with them, and then gently recommend your products, services, or business when they show an interest.

That’s the essence of attraction marketing.

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

How Does Attraction Marketing Really Work?

Related posts:

1. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers
2. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 3
3. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 2

Like most online businesses and websites, I bet you spend the majority of your time marketing for new visitors to your website.  One of the best ways to gain new targeted traffic for any website is to offer great freebies.

Most websites offer the typical ebook, report, or audio, but I think it’s high time to go beyond the typical and do something a little different.

Here are 3 seldom used, but highly effective ideas for freebies that you can use on your website to increase traffic.

1. Offer A Complete Plan

With a little research, you’ll find that many of your targeted visitors are actually looking for a specific plan to accomplish something within your industry or niche.  You can capitalize on that by offering a plan of your own.

All you have to do is find a targeted keyword for your industry that involves some kind of plan like a wood project plan, weight loss plan, craft plans, business plans, etc.  On one of my websites I even offer a plan for planning children’s birthday parties!

Once you find out what kind of plan that people want – create it and offer it on your website.

People love a good plan.

2.  Form Up On New Visitors

Speaking of things that people love – everybody loves free printable forms.

Take a look at your niche or industry, browse your keywords, and come up with a free form that your target audience is looking for.  I’ve seen forms for shopping, homeschool, legal forms, organizational forms, you name it.

Find out what your target audience is looking for, create a form for it, and offer it in a PDF.  Free printable forms always attract visitors.

3.  Cash In On Checklists

Checklists are probably the easiest of the seldom used freebies on this list to create.  All you have to do is to look at a process within your niche or industry and create a step-by-step checklist for that process.

For example, you could offer a checklist for how to create a website, baby-proofing your house, moving, planning a wedding, buying a house, etc. There are checklists for just about any niche you can think of, all you need is a little creativity and thinking outside of the box.

People love using checklists because it helps them keep organized and on track.  So all you need to do is create your checklist in a printable form, market it, and offer it to visitors as a PDF.

NOTE: Be sure to put your URL on every PDF and freebie that you offer.  It will keep your visitors coming back and may help you get new visitors when people use your freebies.

In the end, it pays big dividends to find new types of freebies to drive more targeted visitors to your website.  Be inventive and original with your visitor enticements to stand out from the crowd in your industry.

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

3 Fab Freebies For More Traffic

Related posts:

1. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers
2. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 3
3. Only 5 Things People Really Buy?

CPA stands for Cost Per Action or Cost Per Acquisition,  and it’s an advertising strategy that’s starting to gain some notice in the online world.  If you haven’t heard about CPA or don’t really know what it’s all about, you’re in good company.  I venture to guess that a lot of “gurus” don’t know too much about the subject.

So let’s see if we can shed a little light on the subject!

CPA in A Nutshell

CPA is an online advertising model where the advertiser only pays for a specified action linked to the advertisement.  For example, if you run a banner on a website and only pay the website owner whenever someone clicks on the banner and subscribes to your newsletter, that would be a CPA campaign.

I’m sure you can immediately see the benefit of running such a campaign – you only pay for actual subscribers, rather than paying for clicks or impressions.  This is by far the most lucrative form of advertising currently available to online businesses.

CPA is really an advertisers dream.

You can run a CPA campaign for nearly any outcome you choose, but most online businesses use it for purchases, free trials, subscribers, zero friction, etc.  If you’ve seen the advertisements where you’re required to put your name and email to get a coupon or be submitted for a chance to win something, then you’re already familiar with the concept behind this form of advertising.

How Can You Benefit From CPA?

Although CPA has been around for a long time, there have been some interesting developments in the industry recently.  The most beneficial development for most of us is that there are now a large variety of advertising networks available to advertise your offer.  Many of the full-service firms will even help you form your campaign, design your creatives, and even help you with your landing pages.

Not only are there a large number of advertising networks that offer CPA, but there is also a variety of methods of showing your advertisements now available through these networks.  You ad now has the opportunity to be shown in a full page pop under, pop over, email, contextual ad, banner, survey, form, etc.

There are tons of choices and lots of opportunity to profit, especially in zero friction campaigns.

CPA And Affiliates

And that brings me to the other evolution of  CPA.  As an affiliate, you have a lot of opportunities to offer CPA advertisements on your website – beyond the normal pay per commission affiliate program.

As an affiliate, you have the opportunity to earn a lot more affiliate commission through CPA because it’s generally easier to pre-sell your website visitors on those kinds of offers.  After all, it’s generally easier to get visitors to fill out a form or request more information about something than it is to get them to pull out their wallets.

Of course, there is also a downside.  It’s often more difficult to get approved to join CPA affiliate programs than it is to be approved for your normal, run of the mill affiliate program.  In fact, I recently came across a statistic that only about 10% of  applicants are approved for CPA programs.

If you can get approved, you can earn some serious affiliate revenue.

If you’d like to learn more about CPA, then I highly suggest you take the time to learn more about different strategies.  I personally like the zero friction method because it just makes sense!

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

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Have You Tried CPA Yet?

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Pre-selling is one of the best things you can learn how to do to sell more of your products and services… and who doesn’t want to do that?!?

It’s also a really excellent way to promote affiliate products to increase your income.

But most people really don’t understand what pre-selling is and how to do it.  That’s why I’ve created a simple, no-nonsense report to explain what pre-selling is and how you can use the art of pre-selling to make more money with your website.

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• Pre-Selling Fundamentals to get you off to a good start
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My straight-to-the-point report shows you how you can increase sales and make more money by learning how to pre-sell for profits!

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Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

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Tweet For Treat

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Learn how to increase your target market exponentially and increase sales and profits using the products that you already have! All it takes is a little creativity and thinking outside of the box to easily increase your target market, no matter what you sell.

1. Redesign A Product

The easiest way to increast your target market is to redesign a product or service that you already sell in order to promote it to a completely different market.

For example, let’s say you currently sell an ebook called “Lead Generation For Real Estate Agents.”  It would be really easy to tweak that ebook for other markets like day spas, beauticians, or oil changing businesses.  Once you create an ebook called “Lead Generation for Day Spas,” then you’ve increased your target market to include day spas.

You can easily repeat this strategy over and over again to increase your target market to be as large as you want.

2.  Create A Companion Product

Another pretty simple way to increase your target market is to simply create a companion product to one that you already sell.  For example, if you sell a really great software program for online marketers, you could create an ebook that outlines ingenious ways to use the program and get more out of it.

You’ll find that some of your target market will be interested in you for your software first, then buy the ebook, while others will be more interested in the ebook and then purchase the software so that they can use the creative strategies you’ve outlined.

In addition, you can also use this strategy to create companion products to other people’s products.  That would really increase your target market!

3.  Joint Venture With Others

This is a no-brainer idea to increase your target market.  All you have to do is find people to team up with in similar, but non-competing markets, and cross promote your products.

For Example, let’s say that you sell Wordpress themes/templates.  You could easily create a joint venture with a Wordpress plugin developer.  Your joint venture could simply be cross-promotion to each other’s list, or you could actually package both products together for sale to claim a much larger target audience that’s interested in both Wordpress themes and plugins.

It’s really easy to to increase your target market exponentially and increase sales and profits with a little creativity and thinking outside of the box.

If you’d like to learn more about how to increase your target market and become a maverick in your own niche either click on the links or subscribe to 10 Days To Smokin’ Traffic Now!

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

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3 Ways To Increase Your Target Market Exponentially

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It should be no surprise to you that the best way to learn about internet marketing is to watch and learn from what others do… this is where the swipe file comes in.  A swipe file is simply a file or collection of marketing messages, headlines, techniques, etc. Essentially, whenever you see an example of great marketing you add it to your marketing collection.

Before The Internet

Before the internet, a swipe file would contain a bunch of direct mail marketing pieces, newspaper ads, postcards, etc. all kept in a box or file folder.

Today you can still have a file folder full of those kinds of things, but you should also consider starting a digital collection where you can put great examples of email marketing, ezine ads, headlines, digital sales letters, etc.

You can even put an expert’s entire profit funnel in your swipe file if you watch them long enough.

Some of the best marketing messages that I’ve seen were only presented in an online format… especially sales letters!

I have my own digital swipe file where I save email messages, article resource boxes, sales letters, great headlines, and other promotional materials that I think are really good.

I keep my digital swipe files on thumb drives.

Remember, a great marketing piece doesn’t have to relate directly to your chosen market to be useful to you… so save any marketing piece that works, regardless of the product.

No Copying!

A Swipe File IS NOT For Copying.

Before you get the wrong idea here… keep in mind that a swipe file is not intended to be a file where you store materials that you are going to copy later.   That would be a HUGE no no.

You should think of a swipe file as a place to store materials that you can use later to generate your own marketing ideas and strategies.

Thumbing through a collection of marketing materials will likely bring on a flood of ideas for how you can position, write about, or promote your own product… and that’s why you should create your own collection! Remember, you’re just looking for inspiration.

Don’t just save the materials from the big companies either… some of them use terrible promotional materials!

In fact, you’ll find some of the best marketing and promotional materials are written by little known people who have really taken their time on each and every piece.

You’ll also find a lot of great marketing fodder by watching what the ‘gurus’ do.  Some of them are very, very good at what they do… that’s why we think of them as ‘gurus!’

By The Way…

If you’re really interested in simply copying other people’s campaigns and using them, you really should check out CopyNProfit.  I haven’t tried it myself yet (although I plan to review it in the near future), but it seems to be getting really good reviews.

If you’ve already tried it, I hope you’ll take the time to post your comments about the program so others can benefit.

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

Swipe Files Explained

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Article marketing is a terrific way to drive traffic to your website, but it’s a complete waste of time if you don’t bother to target your readers!

There are lots of online entrepreneurs feverishly writing tons of puny articles that no one really wants to read in the hopes of driving hordes of traffic to their websites.  But here’s the problem:  you don’t just want hordes of traffic, you want high quality targeted traffic to visit your website.

Think about it for a minute.

You’re article marketing campaign is designed to to promote something:

• Website
• Newsletter or Ezine
• Blog
• Product
• Service
• Seminar
• Affiliate product

It naturally follows that you’re writing articles to attract the best visitors to your website.  I’m talking about the kind of high quality visitors that are actually interested in what you have to offer.  These are “targeted readers,” and they are what makes or breaks an article marketing campaign.

You’re not writing for every Tom, Richard, and Harriet browsing around on the internet, and you certainly don’t want to try to be everything to everyone!

So, how do you target your readers?

Your first stop is to put yourself in your targeted readers shoes for a minute and answer some basic questions:

1. Who do you want to read your article?
2. What is their age, sex, occupation, etc.?
3. What are those people looking for when they go online?
4. What kind of information are they searching for?
5. Do they have any problems related to what you have to offer?

Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to write articles that go right to the heart of your targeted readers.  It will also get the most bang for your buck from each article that you write.

After you figure out who the targeted readers for your product are, then you have to do some keyword research.  You want to find keywords that your targeted readers would use to find information about your niche, product, problem, or subject area.

Once you’ve chosen a keyword to write your article around and you’re ready to sit down and actually write your article, pretend that you are talking directly to one of your targeted readers.  Make your article conversational and personable.  Your article marketing campaign should be designed to speak directly to your targeted readers in a way that will peak their interest.

You want them to find your articles, read them, and then click through to your website… simple as that.

Article marketing is a really great way to increase targeted traffic to your website, when done correctly. If you create an article marketing campaign specifically for targeted readers, then your article is sure to be read by the people who really count for your business.

If you’d like to learn more about article marketing and how to target readers, check out The Amazing Article Formula now .

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

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Article Marketing – How to Target Readers

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It’s been a big pet peeve of mine for awhile now.  The majority of self-declared internet marketers are messing up Twitter for the rest of us!

Twitter is an awesome tool for connecting with people personally and professionally.  You can talk to others in your niche or area of interest, share advice, provide resources, and network with people all over the world.

I love it and I’m becoming a total Twitter addict.

It’s so much easier to write a short 140 character post on Twitter than to write an entire blog post… especially when I only want to make a quick point and move on.

I have several different accounts that I use for my different niches.  After all, it wouldn’t make sense to use my Arvada Yates Twitter account to communicate with my friends in other niches unrelated to internet business and marketing.  And having all these different accounts is what made me realize how obvious it is that internet marketers don’t know how to Twitter right.

In my other accounts, I can:

• Communicate directly with like-minded people and tweet back and forth.
• Have online disagreements with others who have a different point of view.
• Post cute jokes or comments about current events.
• Add occasional links to interesting blog posts, news stories, or videos.

In my Twitter accounts directly related to internet marketing, I get a constant barrage of links to affiliate programs and promotions from other interent marketers.  There’s nothing that I can have a conversation about, make a comment on, or connect with.

It sucks!

And it totally takes the fun out of using Twitter… so I don’t spend much time on those accounts and opt to participate in the accounts that allow more interaction.

And that’s where internet marketers are totally missing the point of Twitter.

Twitter is about interacting with others and creating relationships.  It’s kind of like email… you have to build rapport with others and provide useful information before you start slamming offers to buy stuff down their throats.

So here’s my top three ways to improve your results with Twitter:

1.  Start a conversation.  It’s easy to do if you’ve got followers that are real people instead of automated accounts.  In addition, you can always join another conversation that’s taking place… just jump in and be a real person!

2.  Stop posting links every time you Twitter.  Links take time to follow and pull followers out of Twitter… plus too many links undermine any hope of having a relationship with your followers.  If you’re going to post links, post links to articles on your blog.  That’s what I usually do.  In fact, I never post links directly to products.

3.  Post tips and real information to your account.  People love short tips and they can also double as a conversation starter.

I’m sure there are a few self-declared internet marketers out there that are trying to Twitter the right way… but the majority of them seem to see Twitter as an opportunity to spam us all with sales materials.

It’s a shame… Twitter can be so much fun!

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

Internet Marketers Don’t Know How to Twitter Right

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