Although some times this will mean that building an affiliate business with a blog is going to take more work, the potential returns are greater. In some circumstances it’s more profitable than other business models. As always though it’s still to your benefit, as an affiliate marketer, to learn how to build a list.

Many people online are skeptical. Because there are so money making blogs already online, some people are worried about saturation. But in terms of potential customers, even more people are worried about scams and being taken. The truth is blogging can give you more credibility. The more credibility you have, and the harder you work to build a relationship with your readers, the more you will increase your earnings.

Building a list to make money with a blog means you are able to communicate with visitors who haven’t been back in a while. With traditional affiliate businesses, even though when you direct link to the merchant’s site a few will buy, the fact is most won’t buy, and you’ve lost that traffic. Plus, when you refer the visitor to the merchant directly, the merchant will get the visitor on their own list, and you lost your potential customers.

Blogging means you can pre sell well in advance of making a pitch. In many cases, with an effective promotion, a simple link at the end of a well targeted post is all you’ll need. Added to this you can communicate with a far wider audience through feeds and social media using much softer methods.

Selling multiple products will obviously increase your sales, so you need to be sure that you only offer the very best products to your readers. Your credibility rides on it and it’s my view that you should have at least sampled the product yourself. You could then use this to write reviews on the best of the best products online. We all know how much people love top 10 lists.

The biggest advantage of getting your readers onto your list is that these people are basically saying I want to know what you have to say. So you should see a far higher rate of clicks on your email stats and higher conversions. These potential customers are extremely targeted and wanting what you have to offer. The only important difference between targeted and non targeted traffic is your conversion rates. A targeted audience is much more likely to convert than a non targeted audience because you have usually pre sold them on your blog.

There are many theories about how to build a list. When it comes to blogging, the golden rule is simply to produce good content. You’ll engage your readers, they’ll get to know you well and be ready to listen to your advice. You’ll get far more signups to your list and the bottom line is your bottom line. You’re subscribers will be more interested in what you have to offer. Marketing your offers to people who are already interested in what you have to offer, and people who know, like , and trust you then you’re more likely to make a sale.

I’ve read many books and articles on list building. I’ve even spent several thousand dollars trying out several different courses and the best one I’ve used to date that works for bloggers, traditional affiliates or any business trying to make money online is The List Building Club. The material is well made and easy to implement for anyone at any level. The site is a little disorganized but who honestly cares much about that. Tellman Knudsen and his staff do an excellent job. Tellman himself is a pretty way there kind of guy but he’s a wizard when it comes to list building.

If you need to learn how to build a list effectively then these guys can teach you everything you’ll ever need to know. The List Building Club

Don’t believe me?

Take a look at all the things you’ve been doing so far and ask yourself if, based on your current results, you honestly expect to see any immediate results. What about even just marginal returns in the next 12 months. The answer is more than likely a resounding no.

Did you buy into a program that promised to teach you how to make a fortune in 30 days or less? You’re not alone. And that’s exactly what the gurus want you to do because that’s how they’re making all that money that their sales letter sold you on.

The truth of the matter is that unless you started affiliate marketing at the beginning, I’m talking around 10 to 15 years ago when the industry was new, then less than 1% of you will ever have a chance of making it because the information your buying into is ancient, out of date, and plain useless.

Everything related to technology moves and evolves at a rapid rate and affiliate or internet marketing is no different. What worked 5 years ago is going to be next to useless today. Buyers have become more educated and today they opt in far less. That means lists are harder to build and, lets face it, without a good list, who are you going to market to?

You’ve probably heard of people like Frank Kern, Perry Belcher, Jeremy Shoemaker right? These people all have 1 simple thing in common and that common thread is why they are super affiliates today.

What is that common thread? They all started with affiliate marketing at the very beginning, years ago, before anti spam legislation, before buyers became educated to online marketing techniques, and before there was so much competition.

But there is a way out, though it takes time, effort and perserverence. Most importantly though it takes courage. Courage to do the things that no one else is doing. Courage to stand out from the crowd and try new things. Dare to be different.

Take twitter for example. How many times a day are you spammed on twitter by ‘the next big thing’ or ‘its so easy to make money with this system’? I know I am and as soon as I see them I very quickly unfollow. Why? Because these are the jerks who can’t think outside the box, they follow like sheep and do whatever anyone else is doing.

But there is a way out and social networking is your savour. The only problem now is how to use effectively. Do you use your facebook and twitter accounts to try and pitch your latest affiliate link or program to? And considering that’s what 99% of affiliate marketers are doing how long do you think you will last?

Social media is not the place for pitching your affiliate links or for pitching your latest ebook. That’s what your blog is for. If you are going to use your social media outlets effectively then you need to stop pitching. What you need to do is start building relationships, building an audience, building a following.

Stay focused on the fact that it’s “social” media. Think about this for a moment. If you went to a party and as soon as you walked in the door you started to try to sell your products to everyone you spoke to. How well do you think you’d do? You’d be comitting social suicide right? The same goes for online social media.

The bottom line is that if you don’t start to think about how you use your social media and continue to be the ‘a-hole’ of the party you’ll never make a single penny with affiliate marketing. If people buy from people they know, like, and trust then the guy who is constantly pitching product at the party is neither liked nor trusted and no one will ever take the time to get to know them.

In today’s online world if you want to be successful then get your head out of your ass, quit spamming social media and get back to basics. Learn how to build relationships, let people get to know you, be likeable and be helpful. Only then will they want to listen to your pitch and be pursuaded to spend money with you.

Do you want to be the guy at the party who everyone talks about a week later because of how cool you were, or because you were the asshole who tried to pitch some crappy product to everyone you saw?

So we are up to step 5 and today I want to talk about exactly how to monetize a blog.

Let’s put aside some myths about how to monetize any web property. If your intention is to earn your living from your online marketing efforts then you need to get really clear about this. Placing ads all over your blog is NOT the answer. Sure you will earn some money, maybe even a fair amount. I know a number of people who are making a decent income from advertising. But sponsored advertising is not the path to your fortune. It is only one very small component of what it really takes to monetize your blog.

So what is the truth about how to make money from blogging?

List Building!

The only way you are ever going to see the massive incomes that the top earners show you on their sales letters is by building lists. How do you think that folks like Shawn Casey, John Chow and others make the dollars that they do? They have huge lists. That list is the core of their money machine. It doesn’t just keep the wheels turning it’s a big ass super charged engine.

Building a big list should be your focus. If you don’t understand why this is so important then its about time you found out.

Through your list you build a relationship with your readers. Building relationships is the key to effective marketing. People will buy from people that they know, like and trust so building your list gives you the opportunity to let your subscribers get to know you and like you. Over time you will build a relationship of trust and when people trust you they will take your advice. When you send out a recommendation for a new product you’re promoting, it may even be your own product, your subscribers are more likely to buy because they trust your judgment.

But a big list is not the answer. What is the point of a list of 50,000 email addresses if no one purchases from you? If you want to have good conversion rates then you must be able to build relationships. I am subscribed to a number of lists and while for the most part they are good at the art of relationship building some are simply laughable. In all honesty I stay subscribed to the bad lists as a reminder of what not to do.

Sending out 3 or 4 emails a week to your list pitching this and that is not the way to build a relationship. You need to add value. You need to become an authority in your niche. The emails you send out should be 95% value and information and %5 pitch. Why? Ask yourself how you feel when some sales person pitches you? Are you likely to buy anything? No I didn’t think so. But building relationships is a big topic and is outside the scope of this guide but stay tuned because I will cover that in a post sometime down the track. In fact I may only send that out to my list subscribers so make sure you have signed up. If not go now and enter your name and email into the signup form.

So how do I build a list?

To build a list you will need just 3 things.

1. An auto responder
2. An opt-in form
3. Incentive to subscribe

Auto responder

There are many companies who provide this service and I could name a few and pitch you here but that’s not what this is about. Right now its more important to me that you understand how to make the best choice for an auto responder.

Choosing an auto responder comes down to 1 thing. Deliverability! There are auto responder services for free, and there are some people who might choose to try and run their own. Get serious! If you expect to run a successful profitable blog then you have to take it seriously and the deliverability of you emails to your list is your main income stream. If 50% of your emails are not being delivered then its just a waste of time. Do your research and find the service that suits you best but make certain that deliverability is high.

Opt-in Form

That’s the little form you can see in the column on the right. The opt-in form simply collects the name and email address of your subscribers to add to your list. There’s no rocket science to this. Make you opt-in form prominent on your blog so that people can find it easily. In my view it should be one of the first things people see when your page loads on their screen. The more people who see your opt-in the more who subscribe. Of course this all depends on the perceived value of your blog, the information that your provide, and the relationship that you have built with your readers. That leads us into the final and most important aspect to list building.

Incentive to Subscribe

You have to give your readers an incentive or they will simply not subscribe to your list. More often than not readers will subscribe for one of two reasons (or both). Either you have great content that has a high perceived value. The reader is encouraged by this and is prompted to subscribe. Or you have an offer which in itself also has a high perceived value which leads that person to subscribe. Getting the right mix of good, original content and a compelling offer should be your goal.

It is very easy to offer something to your readers that can provide value. In its simplest form, offer something for free. Who doesn’t like free stuff right? You might have access to some PLR articles or e-courses, you may have a product of your own, you could do what I am doing and write a report. Offer it for free as an incentive to subscribe to your list. There are 100 ways to provide value to your readers and to provide incentives to subscribe and having a compelling offer, especially a free offer, combined with good original content is a proven and sustainable method to building your list.

If you don’t know where or how to begin, or your having trouble building your list then there is only one answer. You need to learn from people who know this stuff inside and out. People who make a living, and a damn good one, simply from building and marketing to their lists.

I have been a member of the List Building Club for a while now and I can tell you from my own experience that this by far the best marketing education you are going to find. Telman Knudson is a master list builder and along with Brian Edmonson and Pat Marciello, all running million dollar online businesses respsectively, have worked together tirelessly to ensure the success of every student who subscribes to the club. There is no risk because it only costs $1 to join but the education you will receive is potentially worth millions.

If your not a member already, click on the banner, sign up for $1 and start learning to grow your list like a wildfire. – yes this is a blatant pitch but I have used this program and there are so many nuggets available here you will thank me for it later.

]]> http://incomesinternational.com/10-steps-to-starting-your-blog-from-scratch-part-4/feed/ 0 http://incomesinternational.com/join-the-club-for-1-win-a-ferrari/ http://incomesinternational.com/join-the-club-for-1-win-a-ferrari/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 03:17:25 +0000 Andrew http://incomesinternational.com/?p=37

It’s ready.

I just got off the phone with Tellman’s crew, and they informed me that the doors are officially open, so you can join the ListBuilding Club…

This is looking like it’s going to be a great launch-  but it’s breaking all the”Launch Rules”…

there’s no “time squeeze”
there’s no “scarcity”
there’s no gimmicks at all…

here’s what you can expect:

On the next page, you’re going to get a one month trial of the ListBuilding Club for just a dollar. If you read the page, you’ll understand exactly why so many people just like you are excited about that prospect alone…

After all, the ListBuilding Club can get you set up with a kick-butt website and making real dough online in 24 hours or less…

http://www.listbuildingclub.com

but here’s where they break even MORE rules…

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they aren’t even keeping the dollar…
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each person who buys a trial of the ListBuilding Club for a buck, gets their dollar multiplied by three, and sent off to a truly remarkable charity…

When you try the ListBuilding Club today, you’re really donating a dollar of yours, plus a dollar of Shawn’s, plus a dollar of Tellman’s to ArmyofWomen.org…

It’s an organization that’s trying to eradicate Breast Cancer  for good – so you can feel good about where the money’s going, AND you’ll get a whole month in the world famous ListBuilding Club….

If you’ve got any doubts that the ListBuilding Club is AWESOME, just check out their page of 500 rave reviews from current and former students.

http://www.listbuildingclub.com

I’m using the trial myself, just to bone up on my ListBuilding and give my business a little kick in the pants

***************************************
Oh My Gosh I Forgot About The Ferrari!
***************************************

Yeah…

So this is where it just gets totally awesome…

You can learn more on the next page, but basically, Shawn and Tellman are holding a little contest whoever wins becomes the Spokesperson for the ListBuilding Club and speeds off in their awesome Ferrari 360 spider…

http://www.listbuildingclub.com

it’s a really sweet ride

head over to the page now to find out how you can get behind the wheel…

(FYI: you don’t just get to drive it, they’re actually giving it away to the winner…)

If you want my honest opinion of what you should do, then here it is:

GO to the next page.

http://www.listbuildingclub.com

Pay the Dollar.

Join The Club…

http://www.listbuildingclub.com

Help Eradicate Breast Cancer.

Learn and practice ListBuilding.

Try and win that Ferrari.

(and if you win it, remember who hooked you up

http://www.listbuildingclub.com