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An opt-in list allows for a company to market their wares and site via an e-mail - saving you quite a pretty penny. With an opt-in list, a site and a subscriber consents to sending and receiving a newsletter from your company. Through this, you can keep your subscribers abreast of what is currently available in your site as well as whatever is coming out.

And because there is mutual consent between the two parties, any mail sent to the list is not considered as spam mail. There is a great number of successfully read promotional materials such as catalogs, newsletters and such that are sent because the subscribers themselves have signed up for them, meaning, they do want to be sent those items.

Building a list is crucial, only a small percentage actually subscribes for an opt-in list. Many people find promotional mails annoying but of you provide a good newsletter or promotional material,  you will see your list build up and grow. You can also achieve this by having good content on your site. If people like what they see and read on your site, then they surely would want more. Newsletters would be a way to attract them back to your site. A little teaser or appetizer if you will.

But other than marketing your wares and your services, an opt-in list can also be used to earn extra profit. Not all lists can be used though. It would be good to first build a successful list with a huge number of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the more money you can get. Here are seven ways to make money using nothing more than your list.

1) Place advertisements. There are many corporations who will be willing to pay to put their banners and ads on a list with many subscribers. Selling or renting out lists is not a good idea so rather than doing that, many companies would just rather place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your newsletter could be placed with many ads and each one spells money.

2) Have affiliations with other companies that have at least a semblance or relation to what your site is about. Here other companies will provide links and brief descriptions of what they offer, products and services. With every click made on the link that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to their site, the company will pay you. This P4P or pay for performance.

3) Make deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of sales done through your list. With every sale done by customers that have come from your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company will pay you a small percentage of your sales. The more people who buys from them, the more earnings you get.

Stay tuned tomorrow as I reveal the other 4 ways you can make money from your list.

Until next time!

Granison Shines, Direct-response Copywriter & Marketing Strategist

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Let’s Go Into the LAB!

Google provides a tool as part of their "Google Labs" tools set called Google Trends.

Google Trends allows you to compare search terms relative popularity over time.  What that means is that you can compare your different major search phrases to determine which is most popular.

Just go to: http://www.google.com/trends; and put different search terms in the search box - separated by commas.  For example, if I want to find the most searched on sports team I can type: cowboys,giants,bears,colts,cardinals.  Into the search box, and out pops a great graph.

How will this help me?

Use this tool to determine the popularity of the search phrases in your market.  Armed with this data you can ensure that your content focuses on the popular terms as well as your niche terms.

Don’t forget to test plural versus singular testing!

Now get into the lab and test, test, test.

Also, don’t forget our 1-Day "Apprentice Level" Boot Camp this Friday - come with your laptop and walk away with a robust, professional website!

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The demand for online marketing tips and strategies have drastically grown and a new form of business has been born, Internet marketing strategies. While there are companies that are all too eager to help your site and business build a clientele for a fee, there also many ways that can spread the word about your sites subsistence in a more cost free way. One of this is Opt-in email marketing, also known as permission marketing.

Opt-in marketing requires the permission of a willing customer to subscribe to your marketing materials, materials that take form in newsletters, catalogs and promotional mailings via e-mail. The more opt-in marketing mail is sent, the more chances there is to bag sales and more sales. To do this, you must build a list of all those who wants to subscribe to your opt-in marketing list.

From your list, you will get your targeted customer, this is a good list since they already have shown interest in what you have to show and sell since they have willingly signed in for your list. These are the people who have liked what they have seen in your site and have decided they want to see more and maybe even purchase what ever product or service your company and site has to offer.

Many people would think that building their lists would take hard work and a lot of time to build and collect names and addresses. This is not so, it takes a bit of patience and some strategies but in doing this list, you open your site and your business to a whole new world of target market. Take the effort to take your business to a new level, if traffic increase and good profits are what you want, an opt-in list will do wonders for your business venture.

There are many sources and articles in the Internet available for everyone to read and follow in building a list. Sometimes they may be confusing because there are so many and there different ways. Different groups of people would have different approaches in building an opt-in list, but no matter how diverse many methods are, there are always some crucial things to do to build your list. Here are four of them.

1) Put up a good web form in your site that immediately follows the end of your content. While some may say this is too soon to subscribe for a website visitors application, try to remember that your homepage should provide a quick good impression. If somehow a website visitor finds something that he or she doesn’t like and turns them off, they may just forget about signing up.

A good web form for subscribing to an opt-in list is not hard to do. Just write a simple short statement about how they would like to see more and get updated about the site. Then there should be an area where they could put in their names and e-mail address. This web form will automatically save and send you the data’s inputted. As more people sign in, your list will be growing.

2) As mentioned in the first tip, make your homepage very, very impressive. You need to have well written articles and descriptions of your site. Depending on what your site is all about, you need to capture your website visitor’s fancy. Make your site useful and very easy to use. Do not expect everyone to be tech savvy. Invest in having good programming in your site, make your graphics beautiful but don’t over do it.

Don’t waste your time making the homepage too overly large megabyte wise. Not all people have dedicated T1 connections, the faster your site gets loaded, the better. Go for a look that borders between simplicity and sophisticated knowledge.

3) Provide good service and products. A return customer is more likely to bring in more business. Even then and now, a satisfied customer will recommend a business always. Word of mouth and recommendations alone can rake in more business than an expensive ad. As your clientele roster grows so shall your list. With more members on the list, the more people will get to know about what you have new to offer.

4) Keep a clean and private list. Never lose the trust your customers have entrusted you. If you provide e-mails to others and they get spammed, many will probably unsubscribe to you. Remember, a good reputation will drive in more traffic and subscribers as well as strengthen the loyalty of your customers.

I hope this helps.  Until next time!

Granison Shines, Direct-response Copywriter & Marketing Strategist.

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Now, I’ll provide you with 5 ideas to reflect on when you decide to start your own newsletter for your site.  You ready?

1) Make sure that the content of your newsletter pertains to and closely associated with your business or the theme of your site. Do not dwell too far on what could be regarded as your field of expertise. You have started a site and your theme for your site will always be something you are knowledgeable about. For example; if you have a site that sells auto car parts, your newsletter must contain articles or content like photos that pertain to cars, auto parts and such. You may also include content about your company and your staff.

Remember that visitors of a certain site are there because they are interested in what the site has to offer. If they sign up for an opt-in list or for a newsletter this means that they want to be updated for that certain theme or subject. Be sure that when you publish your newsletter you are providing for the need of the subscriber as well as their interests.

2) Ensure that you have well written, information riddled and content rich articles. You articles will be the body of your newsletter and that they should be able to excite your readers as well as provide information. Articles should be well written and checked for errors such as spelling and grammatical errors for it to look professional and believable. The trust of your client to you and newsletter is at stake here.

3) Fact-check your articles. Especially, if someone else writes them.  Make sure that you provide true facts and figures so that your reputation as an expert and knowledgeable in that field is not questioned. If you lose the trust of your subscribers these may persuade them to unsubscribe to your newsletter. You will lose many potential sales this way.

4) Provide fresh and new articles that can provide new information to your subscribers. If you publish stale and old news in your newsletter, there is a tendency that people or your subscribers already have read and known about them. This will lose their interest in your newsletter and they wont get to read what is most important, your ads. They may not open or read any of your succeeding newsletters losing your intention in writing and publishing newsletters, to get them to visit your site and make a purchase.

5) Never use copyrighted materials such as photos and articles. This is outright plagiarism, you may get into a lot of trouble for this. You can lose your business and get sued over copyright infringement. If you do not have the time to write your own articles, there are many willing and able professional article writers that can do it for you for a reasonable fee. All your investment in writing and publishing articles will be well worth it when you see your list build up and your traffic increasing. 

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With a newsletter, you can inform the public about your company and products as well as services. You can keep them posted and updated about what’s going-on with your company as well as many of your promotions and offerings. With these, you keep on reminding your subscribers that you are still here and is willing to offer them good deals and services.

Newsletters also allow you to impress your subscribers. It can show your expertise (sounds familiar) and knowledge about the topic at hand and the many benefits you can offer them. When you impress people, they will become potential customers and another great thing is that they can recommend you to their friends, colleagues and family. All of them could very well be customers in the future.

If you do not have a newsletter or publishing one for your site, then you may have to consider about researching and be well informed on how to publish one. It is not as easy as it seems but if and when you get the right idea and process, it will be smooth sailing from there on. Try to take the time to learn what you need to learn and get that newsletter ready and good to attract subscribers to your newsletter as well as traffic to your site.

Let’s stop here for now…  Next time, I’ll provide you with 5 ideas to reflect on when you decide to start your own newsletter for your site.

Granison Shines - Direct-Response Copywriter & Marketing Strategist

www.GranisonShines.com

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To add to what we discussed in part 1, click here to read it, let’s continue our discussion on paid traffic.  The search engine is the easiest and fastest medium in finding what a person needs in the Internet.

Search engines have been very popular because they provide a vital service to many people. They’re free and easy to use. With this popularity, they get many visitors and clicks that they’re the most common sites that people go to. It is easy to understand why so many companies would pay to advertise with these search engines.

Search engines provide information to the millions of users that they have each day. They provide links to many sites that a user may be looking for. If your sites link pop up in the high ranks of the search results page, you get a great chance that they will go to your site. While search engine optimization is a cheaper and low cost way to get your site a high rank, paying for advertisements is a good way to ensure that you’ll be in the top ranks.

When you pay for your advertisements, it is like paying for your traffic. This may sound like not such a good idea, but the payoffs would tell a different story. When you pay for your traffic, you’re guaranteed a consistent traffic flow to your site. You’ll never go with an empty sales day.  All things being equal - your offer is right, your price is right, you have a good compelling sales letter, etc., etc.   All of the stuff I’ve been telling you about for years.

Paying for your Traffic

Usually, you’ll be charged with the number of hits a link gets when your ads is clicked, this is called pay per click or PPC. For some search engines, you’ll be charged with the number of times your ad shows up when a certain keyword or keyword phrase is searched. It’s imperative that you have good keyword content in your ad. There are many tools that aid you in using the right keyword for the right moment.

All the money you spend in paying for your traffic will not be for naught. You’ll get an impressive boost in traffic which will also result to a great boost in your sales figures. Paying for your traffic could be a really good idea and you could get all the benefits it has to offer.

Until next time,

Granison Shines - Direct-Response Copywriter & Marketing Strategist

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When developing your web empire you need to distinguish between all the different types of users that will traffic your website.  Because each user will be looking for a different set of information on your website.

Look at the who, what, and why of your website user base:

• Who - who are the different user groups that will come to your site?  Vendors? Customers? Competitors? Different types of customers?
• What - what kind of information is each group looking for?
• Why - why is the specific user group looking for the information?

Now, go back to my article about success and ensure that you have a defined measure of success for each user group.

For more information on website marketing tune in Tuesday nights to the Silver Tongue Marketing Talk Show.

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Is this through luck? That is even more remote. It takes good business sense and a lot of help and team effort. Most importantly, it is the eagerness to succeed and the determination to learn and the willingness to invest in a lot of hard work and some money.

The Very Basic

Like Neo, qualified traffic is “The One”. Without qualified traffic, all your effort would just go to waste. Every business needs customers, without them you wouldn’t have anyone to sell your products to. In the Internet world, traffic is the walk-in customer. The more qualified traffic you have, the more people you’d be able to sell your products to.

But like any business that’s in every corner building or in the mall, not everyone that goes in will buy; but the greater of number that do come in to browse your merchandise, the greater number of people that will buy your products. It is a simple, well-known fact.

But, how do you get qualified traffic, traffic large enough that could make a small percentage of eventual buyers enough to make a good profit. Many big companies generate traffic of tens of thousands a day and a measly ten to fifteen percent actually buy, but that small percentage is enough to provide them with good business.

Many of these success stories get their traffic from paying others. Yes that’s right; you have to spend money to make money. Advertising is the key. The more people that know your site exists; the more people would, of course, go to your site, that’s common sense.

While there are many ways that can get you advertising for free, they do not generate the same high volume as those methods that are getting paid. These paid advertisements include advertising schemes from Google and Yahoo.

Stay tuned for part 2 as we discuss the Value of Search Engines & Paying for You Traffic

Until next time,

Granison Shines - Direct-Response Copywriter & Marketing Strategist

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