May 21, 2013

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How Often To Mail Your List

I have been playing with autoresponders and broadcast emails to my lists for years and the same question always seems to come up.

How often to email your list?

Well the simple stupid answer is to email them only as much as you can without them getting pissed off and unsubscribing but really there is a lot more to it than that.

What you need to look at is how much you can give your list, how often, and how often can you pitch your your autoresponder list without them all getting offended and ignoring you in mass.

There are a few critical facts that you have to look at and for this example we will pretend that you are not building any leads on a daily basis at all and that you list is all opted in people interested in your message today.

How valuable is a subscriber?

email_iconFirst of all lets look at the value of each subscriber. Lets say that you have 1000 people opted in for a free ebook after coming to your site so they have not demonstrated any interest to buy, but they have shown you that they are interested in your message. This is very valuable if you can keep sending them content but at the same time free content is not going to make you any money so you will need to monetize them somehow.

If you can sell 5% of your list over the lifetime a $30 in commission product then you will make $1.50 per subscriber.

If you can send 10% to a page and you are making a 3 cents per pageview then each mailing is going to make you will make $1.50 per mailing.

These are not very exciting numbers but I think the magic comes in the mailing frequency. I make sure that I am sending a mix of links to my content, content directly from emails, and pitches to either my review of a product or a link directly to a product.

The best way to me is to really vary the mailings. We all get on lists where you get a pitch everyday and you know full well that the sender is just trying to sell us on todays hot product in fact I was on a list for a couple of weeks of someone that was mailing a pitch twice a day. Not Good

I have also gotten emails from people once every couple of weeks that was a pitch so I would have to look twice to see if it was a spammer getting though my gmail. Also not good.

How Often Do I Mail?

Finally there are guys like Travis Sago or the Lazy Marketer that will ramp up a pitch program with 3 or 4 emails of content leading up to three pitch emails and then you don’t hear from them for a while. The fact that they are offering value is great and keeps me on their list.

So circling back to the frequency question that I use is to do the following each week. And remember my lists are just the same, freebie seekers that opted in for a free ebook.

Here is what I do. I mail three times a week, one time mailing a tip that would be about 300 words or so, sometimes less, one time sending a link to a clickbank product, and the third time is a link to content on my site

I am a bit disappointed with this frequency and I believe I need at least one more and probably two more messages a week but as you notice I am only pitching one time And they will get opportunities to click on links on my site when I send them there.

When In Doubt, Mail More Content Often

Some people are really nervous about mailing 3-5 times a week thinking that they will be burning through the list but in this style you have to remember that you are giving a lot of free info and this is why the people signed up in the first place.

Now if you we’re to pitch everyday then there would be reason to worry and be considered greedy, but do you see how this is different? These guys will respect you more as you are giving and giving all the time.

On the other end of the scale. If you only send out an email once every week or two you may be thinking you are doing a favor by not cluttering the inbox, but are you really? You are not giving your prospects a chance to get owl know you, you aren’t giving them a much info, and with the huge amount of email we all get these days you will get forgotten in the stream as they have not been having a chance to build any rapport with them.

mail your list

What Duck Dynasty Taught me about Marketing

I know I can relate anything to marketing and our favorite show right now is Duck Dynasty so lets see how well I can do with the show teaching us about marketing.

What Duck Dynasty Can Teach Me About Marketing

Willie is all about organization – Willie is very serious about the Duck Commander business and in this we can see the guy we have to be in front of the computer or at the whiteboard. Willie is all business almost all the time and looks with a CEO edge at every decision in the family business.

Jase Sticks to his life rules – Jase is Willie’s brother and works at Duck Commander even though his brother runs the business. Jase is always keeping his brother in check and whenever Willie gets too serious or comes up with a crazy idea it is Jase that sets him straight. Really Jase is running his life in the way that he wants and will not let the man slow him down or get him to yield to their ways. Jase resembles the entrepreneur that has the idea and in all seriousness runs with it.

Si is crazy – The funniest guy on Duck Dynasty is Uncle Si. He is the character, the funnyman, the guy that has his own way of doing things. Si has a history and a story and is captivating. After you watch Duck dynasty the lines you remember are the ones that came out of Si’s mouth. Si represents the crazy ideas of the entrepreneur and the active social media guy that loves to talk and have a great conversation.

So Where does Duck Dynasty Leave us as Marketers?

The really funny thing about Duck Dynasty is the relationship between all the people. The show is all about the people. There are storylines, there is conflict, there are guns, rednecks, ducks, and most of all great fellowship. But what we always remember is the great people and conversations, everything else is fun and funny.

What do you think? Who is your favorite Duck Dynasty character? Do you even watch the show? We all love it and all the characters and I believe that the show really proves that people are interested in people and stories more than anything.

Sham Wow

Have you seen the Shamwow guy? His name is Vince and he is the actual owner of the product not just the TV face for it. I found a Youtube video of the commercial in case you have no idea of what Shamwow is.

OK, so you have probably seen the commercial but to know a bit about Vince I also found an interview that he did with CNBC a while back.

I really hated Sham Wow guy the first couple times that I saw the commercial, he seems to be a huckster and really aggresive in selling his product. Now that I have watched the commercial lots of times and had my daughter like it a lot I now have a different view of the whole phenomenon.

People hate to be sold and always have their guard up to a sales pitch, at least I tend to be that way. I think that Vince brings this to another level. We all know what a commercial is supposed to do, sell us it’s product, and instead of working on a buyers emotions Vince is really coming right out and selling hard, and aggressivly, selling benefits and features at the same time and this has apparently been very popular.

Another effective tool that Vince uses is the lower quality video and talking to the camera man, fast, and again showing the features like he is selling steak knives in the 80s.

Take a look at the video again and see what you think as a salesperson and marketer and not a buyer. It is really great

Hostgator Shared Hosting

If you’re looking for a HostGator reseller hosting review, then you’re obviously looking to get into the very potentially lucrative business of website hosting.

Or of course, maybe you’re just looking to add a service to an already successful web design, graphics, or content business.

Either way, you’ve chosen to look at one of the top reseller hosting choices available on the internet with HostGator.

One of the things that many of HostGator’s customers love about them is how easy they make it for the reseller. Basically when you become a web host reseller, you’re essentially selling web hosting under your own name.

That’s great, but the problem is that there’s a ton of technical stuff when it comes to hosting, and most of that is better left to the professionals… and from what I’ve seen and consistently hear from customers is that HostGator is not only extremely professional and knowledgeable… but they make it almost brain dead simple for YOU as a reseller.

Why a HostGator Reseller Program?

First Class Support…

When you become HostGator reseller, you’re getting a profound advantage because you’re actually giving your customers a service that’s award winning, where the provider of that service – ultimately HostGator – excels in this area.

Whether you’re an old pro, or just starting out in the hosting game, you’re likely going to need help at some point.

With HostGator you get access to their highly trained and competent staff 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You can reach them a number of ways, either by phone, through email, or instant chat. This is huge because when you’ve got a problem that you can’t solve, and you’re in panic mode needing answers quick…then you want to be able to talk to someone as soon as possible.

HostGator is literally never more than a click away for that. What’s great is that those same customer support people are there for your customers as well. This leaves you without the huge headache of customer service in your own business. Nice deal right?

All of the Business Tools You’ll Need…

Again, this is a business. With any business you must have tools to run it. You need to get paid, you need a website to take payments and create new customer accounts, and unfortunately sometimes you need to suspend or terminate a customer account.

You also need infrastructure to keep your customers in service including the already mentioned 24/7 help desk etc.

You get all of that with HostGator… and then some actually. In essence, your job becomes to simply sell the service, and HostGator takes care of the rest.

Speaking of Selling the Service…

It becomes very clear that selling web hosting is not hard with HostGator when you realize what sort of service you’re giving your customers.

First off you’re able to present your customers with one of the top and most referred hosting companies in the world since 2002. You’re giving them choices that include 3 simple and easy monthly plans, with great pricing.

You’re giving them access to the easiest-to-use web hosting control panels (cPanel) in the business. Once signed up and inside cPanel they’ll be able to build their site, control their site, set up email accounts, etc.

They’ll also easily…with a click of the button… set up scripts and software to create blogs on all the major platforms (including WordPress and Drupal), set up discussion forums, or even set up a Wiki page using Fantastico.

That’s not to mention access to nearly 5000 web templates, free site building software, unlimited domain names (on two of the three plans), and unlimited bandwidth…and tons more. You’re handing the keys to everything they need, and again it all becomes essentially hands free for you…while you do what you do best…which is to get them to sign up.

Oh and perhaps the most important part…you offer your customers 99% uptime. What’s this mean? This means that there’s a very miniscule chance that your customers will ever suffer any downtime with their website, meaning that they’ll always have their sites up and running. This makes them very happy customers that stay with you for a long time.

How Much Does HostGator Reseller Hosting Cost You?

You get five separate plans to choose from, of which all are virtually identical except for bandwidth space.

The prices on these plans range from $29.95 on up to $79.95 per month, depending on the size of disk space and bandwidth that you need.

If you’re just starting out you’ll likely only need the smallest package and you can always upgrade later. If you’ve got business already flowing in, then you’ll be in the clear with the larger packages…and of course still easily turn a nice profit.

Most times in life, there’s always some catch or at least something wrong with a product or service. Thus far, I haven’t found anything wrong with HostGator. Their support is amazing, they’re sites are virtually never down, and their control panel is so simple to use it’s almost laughable.

If you’re looking for a reseller hosting package, hopefully this HostGator reseller hosting review has made you see that you really cannot go wrong with HostGator. To check them out and everything they have to offer click here now.

Advanced Twitter Tips

We all use Twitter in our marketing and everyone, well all twitterers anyway, know how to tweet, follow, unfollow and retweet. This article is not for the people trying to “figure out” Twitter but instead here are some tips for creating a stronger presence online to build you and your brand.

Advanced Twitter Tips

First things first. If you have 10 niches do not use 1 Twitter account. Any old email address can have a Twitter account so me sure to build a new whole persona for each niche. This means having a niche related bio as well as a picture so that you so not look like a bot but instead like a real person.

First thing after this is that you should go to Fiverr and get yourself a bunch of followers (not more than 1,000 though). This is not the same as customers but it helps to build social proof. Do not for one minute thing that 1,000  Fiverr followers are ever real people because most are not. These first followers are likely to be spammy so the groups that you create below should keep the noise out of your stream.

Who to Follow on Twitter

Within your niche there will be certain people that are very important and should be followed so that you can get a feel for what is news and what is important right now in your niche. You can do this easily by searching directly in Twitter as below

Do a search in the top box and select “People” from the left side to see who Twitter thinks are the top people in your niche. Just follow all the ones that seem important.

You have other places to look for important Twitter users as well. I start with doing a Google search for top twitter users <niche name> this will usually be a great way to find hidden influencers. Also there are sites like WeFollow and Twellow among others.

Tracking Who You Follow on Twitter

Now you should have about 100-200 followers whose opinions you care about. The best way to track these users is through Twitter Lists which is setup right within Twitter itself. You can find it under the little head at the top of the Twitter page where you find the rest of the profile and other settings.

Once you have created your new list add members to it. This way you can have separate lists for customers, prospects, influencers and any other grouping you would want to follow and to respond to. These lists are real people so you should be able to keep up and comment or respond to them as opposed to your main stream which may be messy with bots and spammers.

Finally you want to start following people that could end up being customers. This is fairly simple although automation could help. The most simple way is to go into Twitter once or twice a day and do a search for your keyphrases.

So for example in the dating niche you can do searches for “tired of being single” or “relationship time” or whatever your keyphrases are and when you see these tweets just send them a tip, it is important not to sell hard because you will get banned from Twitter really quickly but something like

@single_lady I know what you mean the bar scene gets tiring after a while.

Something like this is good as it will get your name out there to your prospects but not make you look like a sheister or a stalker. Doing this and having an active Twitter stream of your own will get you some followers that may do business with you in the future and should not take you more than a few minutes a day.

There are also other ways that you can gain Twitter followers outside of your own searches on Twitter. Make sure that you get your name out by posting your twitter handle wherever you can

  • Forum signatures
  • Blog posts
  • Articles
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Directories – add yourself to  sites like WeFollow and Twellow

What to post to Twitter

This is going to be the most important part of your Twitter experience. I like to think that I am tweeting to two different groups at the same time. You are trying to get noticed by your influencers, to become a thought leader in your niche and you you are tweeting to your potential customers as well. Not all tweets of course are going to both these groups of people

Here are some random tweeting tips

Tweeting Tips

Tweeting Tips

 140 characters is a lot. Only use 120 so it is shareable – This is a fairly common piece of advice. You want to make sure that people have the ability to retweet your tweets. In reality you will find that most often your tweets will not be retweeted but you are tweeting a few times a day and your followers are going to be getting a good idea about you from all the things you tweet.

Don’t just post links – Often people want to post links to all their articles as well as great other posts that they find. This is very easy to do but if you think about it you will not look like a person but will look more like a bot. You want to send out links for sure but also you want to post news and views with no links. Post actionable tips every day as well. it is important that your stream is something that your readers are interested in so that when you post links they are more likely to click over to your site.

Don’t post quotes looks like a bot – Every big automated twitter account posts quotes. Well maybe not all of them but most of them anyway. Most people really don’t like seeing quotes all the time. It gets old real quick reading quotes that you just go “Uh huh, seen that before”. so instead of muddying up your stream with these just post some personal stuff or things you think people may find interesting. People love to learn about other people not just about what you sell.

RT popular twitters in your niche with comments – This is a great way to get noticed. Don’t retweet everything from the thought leaders in your niche but retweet some, comment with an @ to them (never DM) and this way your comment will show up to them as well as your retweets showing up to them. If your comments and replies are well though out then you will be included very quickly. The noise on Twitter forces the good stuff to really get noticed.

Engage across platforms, share Facebook finds and Google+ as well – You should be bouncing between the different social networks. You should have a dedicated Facebook and Google+ account for your niche sites as well and this give you a chance to share pics, comments, and news across platforms. Although you may have followers on Twitter that also follow you on Facebook, and on Google+ more often than not individuals will likely only follow you on one platform so don’t worry about posting Facebook stuff to Twitter.

Engage your followers by asking a couple questions a day – This is something really important to do. You need to be asking questions on your Twitter stream. Questions are the only way that people are going to have a reason to engage. Ask a question in the morning and a question in the evening and make sure that they are usually not business related. Something like “which is better Apple pie or Pecan pie?” Is great. This is totally social (thus the social network aspect) and it is really going to divide people.

Engage by answering or helping – Whenever you can make sure you are commenting back to your prospects. If they say it is too hot, mention that it is nice where you live or worse maybe. If people have questions try to be the answer guy. I find that most of the time in all of my twitter streams no one is commenting and is just posting so any time that you are engaging it is a real difference to what everyone else is doing on Twitter

Is Twitter Art or Science?

This is a question that I have had in my own head throughout the writing of this article. I think you have to be very flexible on Twitter. This is supposed to be a fun platform and the rules I have above are designed to help you engage and communicate but hopefully make sure you are not coming across as a promoter, spammer, or stalker. As you go through the first couple of months using this method on Twitter I expect that you will see results but remember that compounding is really at work here. As you engage and help others it will become recognized and you will build a following and a tribe. It is up to you to find the people but as you earn their trust you will be able to transfer the conversation to your site a lot easier to sell them there.

 

 

 

 

Should You Be Using Paid WordPress Themes

Paid WordPress themes are becoming more and more popular, despite the fact that there are still a huge number of free themes out there for you to try. If you’re wondering why anyone would pay when there’s so much available for free, consider these pros and cons of paying for themes.

Advantages of Using a Paid Premium WordPress theme

Remove Credit Links – Some – though not all – free themes will have footer links back to credit their original creator. This seems fair enough. After all, the designer has gone to a lot of effort to provide something completely free. But, as a user of that theme, you may feel it unprofessional to link back to certain sites. Even worse, a minority of free themes link back to random niche sites that you have no control over. Accidentally link to a site in a “bad neighborhood” and you could find yourself punished by Google.

With paid themes, you usually have the rights to remove footer credit links and avoid these issues altogether.

Continued Support – When you choose to use paid WordPress themes you’ll usually find that you’re paying for upgrades in the future. WordPress is updated so frequently that certain features on themes may stop working unless they, too, are updated. Of course, you should check to make sure how many updates you’re entitled to, and how reliable any theme creator may be before buying.

Creators of free themes still often update their work but, without the pressing issue of paid users waiting on them, it often takes a lot longer. And, in some cases, the author just loses interest or doesn’t have time to work on the theme any more.

Extra Features & Ease Of Use – A growing trend in the world of paid themes is to include an easy-to-use options area that lets you customize a number of elements of the theme. While a free theme will usually come with a couple of color options or layouts, paid themes have a huge range of features to choose from. Some of the top paid offerings let you create ad blocks on different pages, change the navigation menus, add extra sidebars, have complete control over widths, fonts, colors and more!

Boost Resale Value Of Your Site – There’s no denying the fact that, when it comes to selling your website, paid WordPress themes are perceived to be more valuable than free ones. Simply noting that you have a paid theme, and how much it would cost to buy, will help boost the final sale value should you decide to sell your website in future.

Disadvantages of Using Paid WordPress Themes

Cost – Paid themes are going to cost you, there’s no getting around it! They can cost anywhere from $30 up to $200 for some themes with a developers license. Only you can decide whether this is worth it for your business, based on the benefits of owning the theme and its features.

Looking Like Everyone Else – Just because you pay money for a theme doesn’t mean it’s going to be unique to you. In fact, some creators of paid themes market their creations so well that you may start to notice many other bloggers using the same designs as you! This is less of a problem if you use a theme with more customizable options, as many paid themes now offer.

More Features = More To Learn – It’s true that more features can mean there’s more to learn when it comes to paid WordPress themes. Although designers try to make them as newbie-friendly as possible, this isn’t always possible when you consider the huge capabilities of some of these themes. However, there will usually be extensive video tutorials and forum support to get you through just about any issue you may face.

As you can see, there really is no clear cut answer when it comes to the question of whether you should buy paid WordPress themes or not. They can be expensive, but they can also be seen as an investment that’ll pay for itself down the line. It all depends on the specific needs of your website, and your own creative vision for how you’d like it to function.

Making Money with Twitter

twitter-logoTwitter is mainstream, since it is mainstream of course there are many marketers looking at Twitter as a spot on the internet with thousands of people to market to and to profit from. This is something that can be done with Twitter but also something that is not as easy as you may think at first blush.

Some marketers are looking at their Twitter followers as some great mailing list that they can market to a few times a day. I would love ot see numbers but I am sure that Twitter followers are nothing like a mailing list and making $100 per follower a year is just a stupid idea that is not doing anyone any good. Read on and you will see why Twitter works but is completely different than any internet marketing medium before.

Monetizing the Internet

The internet has been a great place to make money for many years. Email delivery is essentially free. marketing messages can be created and tested easily, and the people that are on the Internet tend to be affluent and able to make purchases safely and easily. Really almost anyone can put together one of perhaps dozens of strategies to make money online within a weekend.

As the internet has evolved marketers have found ways to capture visitors and then extract money from the visitors by keeping on message Twitter is not quite the same for a few reasons. [Read more...]

Half a coder is not enough

I have a bit of respect for the code that I can write and understand in HTML and PHP although I am not and kind of coder really.

I bought a WordPress template that has a great “single” page that involves WordPress Custom Fields and Tabber to make a beautiful review page. I use the WordPress Post Template plugin on most of my blogs so that I can add reviews easily as a new page without having to recode every post that is a review. The plugin is pretty slick and a huge timesaver in this way.

The trouble with this review page in the theme that I bought is that it is tightly linked with the WordPress theme and I am having trouble coding this page in HTML instead of the PHP that a WordPress template is coded with. A job that looked like 1 hour is now looking like five and one of my real problems is that I think that I know the tech well enough that I will waste a lot of time to try to make this work.

I shouldn’t

So now I am taking this time to make this post so that I can decide what to do. I should go to elance and get someone to code is but I think that what I am going to do instead is email the guy that created the theme and see what he would charge to make this page work, a third option is to just leave what I have now and not make these changes but there is no real way that I could let myself continue using sustandard review pages now that I have found something that would work so much better.

Total Failure of 2008

My tagline for this blog states I was expecting to make $100,000 in 2008. I have totally failed.

I suspect that this year I am going to finish off with around $30,000. I am devestated and totally disappointed. Well maybe disappointed but not devestated. My goal was a crazy goal that I made in December of last year and last year I made probably about $7,000 so my gains this year have been great.

As you probably have seen in my last post I have some points that I want to focus on this year. I think as long as I have a plan and stick with it 2009 is going to be the year that I hit 6 figures which is exciting to say the least.

Last year at this time I made a kickass goal and it was at a time that I was still excited about an online business but I knew that I was spending 2 or 3 hours to make a dollar, at least that is what it felt like. This year the money has been flowing a bit easier as I have been leveraging the work that I did in the previous couple of years and that is always your best strategy.

So my tagline changes but $100,000 will be the goal for 2009.

Sorry to any of you that are disappointed in the failure of this years quest, good luck to all next year for the dreams that did not quite come this year

What to focus on in 2009

I have a big office in the basement with a couple of computers and another connection for a laptop. I also have a big whiteboard and a giant roll of white paper. Why do I mention this? Because I am here right now in the basement trying to figure out where to really focus my business over the next year.

I tend to be kind of crappy at barinstorming in my own head. I can come up with ideas and content in my head but as far as strategy goes I really get bogged down in what I should focus on and doing those business building kinds of things.

So my whiteboard right now has a bunch of process type stuff for articles creation and deployment. Everything from article content creation and keyword foxus to bio box creation.

I also have a piece of 2 foot by 2 foot paper with sites and pages to focus on, Sales funnell focus, and traffic strategies. This piece of paper lets me see what I should always be focused on.

Now I have a new piece of paper where I want to do two thing, I want to see that processes that I do not have in place yet (another post altogether) and the things that I want to focus on over the next year including the amount of time I want to focus on each. Here are the things that I should focus on for next year, a bit of a straw dog really as I am just getting started. I also start each with the percent of time I want to focus on the subject. This is real work not just reading posts and playing around online. [Read more...]

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