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Always Write a Report About What You Learned
I'm back from my trip from Affiliate Incubator 2008 Dallas.
I learned a lot, and here's my tip for attending seminars: Take whatever notes you write down and turn it into a PDF report, that you NEVER show anyone else.
Not only does it train you to keep pumping out 5 to 10 page reports, the information becomes a part of you because you retyped it and revised it.
If I had a clone who wasn't able to attend the seminar, I could just hand this document over to him and he would have all the info without having to attend.
I'm a pretty rare note-taker. If you're a smart enough businessperson you know that 99% of what's being said doesn't apply to your business, but I still wrote about 10 pages of notes.
I took the best of Perry Belcher's AdWords tips, Ryan Deiss' continuity management, Mr. X's time management secrets, Frank Sousa's traffic tips, Russell Brunson's "moving the free line" and article marketing stuff, and Anik Singal's affiliate marketing techniques... plus some stuff I learned from chatting at meals and made it into an 8 page report.
To be honest, I walked out of all the other presentations to avoid information overload. There's only so much information you can absorb over a weekend, and with seminars I always avoid the newbie oriented stuff.
Now I've torn most of the pages out of my physical notebook and I have stuff to do for the next 30 days to keep me busy.
To be honest, looking back over my report, I'm going to ignore about half of the tips on there because I know I just won' t have time for them.
Knowing what NOT to change on is even more important than knowing what to change in your business.
Anyway, my friend Jason Fladlien wrote up a quick report of his own about the 8 mistakes he saw being made at these seminars.
Some of these are truly classic, like the SEO guy and the "60 Second Rule." If you can't make a decision about something, give yourself exactly 60 seconds to decide.... even if it's the wrong choice.
P.S. No, I didn't get to meet Russell, but I did meet Stu McLaren, Joel Christopher, Big Jason Henderson, Blake Milton, Bobby Walker, and more. It was great to see Eric Louviere again, and Marc Harty talking about mini-days.
P.P.S. I'm also on an article writing frenzy, setting aside one hour per day to write 7 articles... before I come off this seminar high.
Today's Question: What's your best post-seminar productivity tip? How do you get back on track, and maintain that seminar high?
I need my ten comments... if I don't get them, I'm never attending another seminar ever again.
Affiliate Incubator Part 2
The other day we went over some stuff you can do to promote products as an affiliate, but what can you do to get others to promote YOUR affiliate products?
As of this writing, I sell 48 different products from one Clickbank account. Affiliates only account for about $1,000 per month of my income, but hey that's a free $12,000 per year on top of everything else so it's definitely worthwhile.
I'm sure the seminar will have some kind of non-disclosure agreement, so I don't want anyone to think I'm passing on something from the seminar... which I haven't attended yet. Let's get my affiliate MANAGING tips out in the open right now.
Affiliate Management Tactic #1: Offer High Commission or Recurring Commission
I joined Amazon.com's affiliate program, the first BIG affiliate program on the net, in 2000. They offered 15% commission on DIRECT sales (if you linked right to that product) or 5% on SIDETRACKED sales (you link to that product and the person buys something else on Amazon.com).
Screw that. If you are running a pay per click ad campaign, the sales letter you're promoting converts at 1%, the product costs $30, and you get 50% commission, your maximum bid would have to be 15 cents just to break even. 10 cents per click if you even want 50% profit.
Likewise, if that same vendor offered 75% commission, you could bid up to 22 cents per click. If they offered a $297 upsell, and 10% of buyers took the upsell, that brings the "average" product price up to $56.70 and means you can bid up to 42 cents per click.
Introduce backends: upsells or one-time-offers, thank you page offers, recurring commissions, anything to give your affiliates more money... and they'll be able to afford sending the serious pay-per-click and targeted traffic your way, instead of the usual "setup a blog and post to forum" half-assed effort.
Give free access to the product after a certain number of sales. Incentives for the top affiliates... plasma TVs and MacBook Airs... but only if it's a big launch. Russell Brunson gave an H3 Hummer to his top affiliate once! Show affiliate leaderboards to get people clawing for the top spot.
Affiliate Management Tactic #2: Provide Banners and Solo Ads for Affiliates
When I give affiliates something to promote, I create a page for them where they can fill in their ID and it shows them their affiliate link and a solo ad branded with their ID. I do this using JV Plus.
A solo ad is simply a quick e-mail your affiliate can cut and paste to send to his list. It doesn't have to be long, just 250 words. Find the best bullet points or the biggest benefit/takeaway and write a SHORT article about it. Tell affiliates they can post it on their blog, submit it as an article, send it as an e-mail, do whatever they want with it.
468x60 sized banner ads are also popular but for me (not being a graphics-oriented guy), the solo ad is most important.
Affiliate Management Tactic #3: Remove Distracting Links
Remove opt-in forms, squeeze pages, offsite links from pages affiliates will send traffic to. I just had this argument with Ben Prater about an opt-in form he had on a sales letter I was promoting as an affiliate.
If I'm sending affiliate traffic to someone else's site... it's not leading to a sale... and it's building someone else's list without giving me credit, I'm GIVING away subscribers. Your list is your baby... your affiliates value their own lists as well.
What's your TOP TIP for getting affiliates to promote your products? Give me ten comments, below and I'll increase the affiliate payout on ALL my products across the board from 50 percent to 60 percent.
Affiliate Incubator Part 1
I'm attending the Affiliate Incubator seminar next week (Sept. 25th - 27th 2008) in Dallas, Texas. I'll probably learn lots of things about promoting stuff as an affiliate.
Affiliate marketing is pretty cool, you don't need to worry about product creation or customer support, you just send traffic to the vendor's page and then get your commission.
My own products sell the best to my list ($2000 to $4000 launches all the time) but I have been known to send $500 e-mails on a regular basis. Recently, I promoted the legendary Ben Prater's "iPhone Secrets Exposed" package.
That landed me 8 sales on a $397 product with 50% commission. You do the math... that's 1500 bucks from a couple of e-mails, probably 20 minutes of work writing the follow-ups. Those e-mails were so good that Ben incorporated them into his sales letter.
Let me empty out my brain with what I know about affiliate marketing already...
Affiliate Tactic #1: Have a List Already
It's simple, you can't expect any big profits unless you have a list of leads you've built yourself and more importantly, qualified buyers. Write up a quick 10 to 20 page report, record at least 20 minutes of videos and price it at $7 to get lots of buyers. Make sure to capture an e-mail address after the sale.
If you can get just 100 people to buy that $7 report, you can safely assume you'll score one affiliate sale... if you promote a complementary product to that list.
Affiliate Tactic #2: Think of Something They Didn't Think Of
I learned this one watching Todd Gross promote affiliate products. He promoted a product called "Floating Action Button" ... it's just what it sounds like, shows a hovering box that moves as you scroll. My Action PopUp script does the same thing.
Instead of giving people the usual sales pitch about popups, he showed how cool it was to place a YouTube video on the floating button, giving your sales pitch in the corner WHILE they read your sales page, and you urging them to click the order button.
All I see Big Jason Henderson do when he promotes affiliate products... records a video of himself (either screen capture or talking head) going over the benefits, then he watermarks his affiliate link to the bottom of the video and blasts that video out to YouTube, Revver, Vimeo, all the video sites.
When I promoted "iPhone Secrets Exposed" I just thought of what Ben left out of his sales letter...
E-Mail #1: You should be in a SPECIFIC profression... i.e. iPhone programmer instead of a regular programmer. No URL yet, just warming them up.
E-Mail #2: Code iPhone apps to get a recurring income on subscription fees... I just looked at Ben's bullet points and asked myself, "WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME when I create an iPhone application?"
E-Mail #3: Are iPhones an untapped resource? What would you do if you invented YouTube, MySpace, before anyone else. If you don't code an iPhone app is it like letting the next Facebook pass you by.
E-Mail #4: Statistics to blow them away. There are this many iPhone users, this much profit from the AppStore, this many applications (low competition).
That's it. I could have fired that off as one e-mail but I spaced it out into several.
This tip goes without saying: Don't promote the same launches as everyone else and don't use the samea cut-n-paste affiliate messages as everyone else.
Affiliate Tactic #3: Proper Redirects
Don't promote your naked affiliate link. Get a simple script to send traffic from a link like http://www.robertplank.com/recommends/some-affiliate-program so it's not totally obvious you're using an affiliate link.
Actually what I really prefer is, I register a .com domain and use that as a redirect. It's only 8 bucks, and I've got some really good ones. For example, Jason Fladlien's 7 Minute Article product is on a domain name called "InstantContentCreation.com" ... but I grabbed up 7MinuteArticles.com and redirected it to my affiliate URL.
I'm sure Affiliate Incubator will have a lot of newbie-oriented info like, promote recurring products... how to calculate the Clickbank refund rate or statistically decide if a product is worth promoting... how to make a squeeze page and a viral report. How to add your own crazy bonuses "Gary Ambrose" style.
But if I can find out just one thing I don't know, the trip will be worthwhile (just like everything).
What's your FAVORITE affiliate marketing tactic? I mean marketing AS an affiliate, not MANAGING affiliates... we'll get to that later.
I need ten comments on this post... add yours below... or I might stop creating products for good, and only promote affiliate offers.
Barack Obama Follows Robert Plank on Twitter!
You know you're popular when one of two Presidential candidates personally goes out of his way to add you as a friend on Twitter...
Okay, just kidding. Senator Obama is following 70,000 people on Twitter including me... his account automatically subscribes to YOUR updates when you subscribe to his.
Twitter is a social networking site where you can provide brief, up-to-the-minute updates about yourself -- you are limited to 140 characters so that people who subscribe to you can receive updates via text message.
It sounds like a big waste of time if you use it incorrectly (just like anything else)... and lots of people leave updates like:
(8:35 am) Went to the bathroom.
(9:36 am) Waiting in line at McDonald's...
(10:59 am) Leaving to do errands...
No one cares about that but people do care if you have a relevant discussion going, if you're launching a new product they would like, you have a new blog post, you're going to a seminar, or have a quick question... Twitter is a nice and easy way to build a (non-email) list.
Just about every day his Twitter update says: "In Albuquerque, New Mexico. Discussing the need for equal pay. Watch this discussion live at (url to watch the streaming video)" ... The city, state, and topic change.
That's perfect. You know what he's doing every day but there aren't a ton of annoying promotional messages, and there aren't any useless messages either.
My question to you:
Do you use Twitter?
Is it a waste of time?
Will spammers ruin Twitter?
What's your BEST Twitter marketing tip?
Please! Take 27 seconds to leave your comment below so I can get the ten comments I need to keep updating this blog...
Google Alerts
Do you happen to use Google Alerts to track what people are saying about you and your products?
I have been using it for several months. I wish I'd used it sooner. In the past I have used a combination of Awstats (to see what other sites link to me, including search engines) and WordPress Psychic Search to see what search phrases bring people to my sites -- and what they search for when they get there.
(I once joined a $60/month membership site just because their private message board was sending traffic to one of my products and I wanted to see what people were saying.)
It's saved me a ton of time. I don't need to hop on Google to check and see if any new affiliates have popped up or if anyone has reviewed my products, I just get an "as-it-happens" e-mail... usually within the first few hours.
Just today I got an e-mail alert when someone mentioned my new Action Optin script, and I was the first person to leave a comment on his blog post.
Now that the Warrior Forum is search engine friendly I know right away if someone mentions me.
(This is BIG as it keeps me out of forums... which are huge timewasters for me.)
What's even more powerful: entering the names of all your products as Google Alerts... and your competitors' products... and the names of your competitors!
I have also found discussions about my products and new affiliate sites when my name was not even mentioned.
I got that idea when some people were badmouthing an internet marketer on a message board, and they were very careful about misspelling his name and product names on purpose... just in case he had a Google alert set.
As luck would have it, one of the forum commenters spelled his product name correctly just ONCE, and the product creator found his way onto that board.
Google Alerts have been around for 4 years, but almost no one uses them... do you? Do you use it to spy on your competitors, track your products, stop plagiarism, jump on blog conversations, or something I haven't thought of?
Ten Testimonial Rule
If you've been following my blog at all then you've probably heard of the ten comment rule... any time I make a post, I ask for 10 comments from my readers... or I'll stop posting forever.
I just applied that to my marketing to gather testimonials for a product.
Nope, I didn't offer a bribe for testimonials, I didn't give away free copies in exchange for a testimonial. (Good way to make sure you never hear from those people again.)
I simply said: I need ten testimonials from SOMEONE... any of my current customers... for version 1.0, and I'll release version 2.0 to EVERYONE.
I Had My Ten Testimonials Within 48 Hours!
It's tougher to get ten people to do work, even if it's 30 seconds of work (writing a testimonial), than it is to get them to pay you money.
I brought in ten sales of Action PopUp no sweat, just by mentioning it in a blog post. I wanted reviews, not sales.
The only thing I needed to do was: end my blog post with a clear call-to-action (what action I wanted you to take), and my goal (what had to happen for the challenge to end).
It's Not Difficult, But So Many People Miss That Point
You have a blog with zero comments on every entry, end the blog post with a reason you want people to leave a comment. End with a question. Give people benefits about why they should leave a comment... what's in it for them?
Use your blog to build a list and send those people to new posts when you write them.
I'll see marketers add a FeedBurner chicklet to their blog, so they've built up their RSS subscribers... but they can't e-mail them... gross! The only contact they have with these people is when they add to the blog.
Now you can't tell your readers... check out this post one last time if you haven't left a comment yet.
You can't follow-up and market to RSS subscribers the way you would to an e-mail list.
To be honest, if I didn't get my 10 testimonials by today, I would have asked my list again... I would have hit the weekday crowd instead of the weekend crowd. I would have put up a talking head video begging someone... anyone... to leave me a review.
With every blog post you should be "selling" some action that benefits you at the end. Leave a comment under the blog entry, or visit the URL I'm talking about. One of those two.
If You Don't Think You Can Get Ten Testimonials...
Try a "five testimonial" rule. You only need five testimonials to release the next chapter, update the next version, launch the next product... whatever the goal is.
Have a clear call-to-action... don't say, "Testimonial please." Say, "What was the one thing you liked the most about it? On what URL did you set it up? What was the one stumbling block that ALMOST didn't get you to buy and how did you overcome it?"
Interview your customers one on one via e-mail and use their responses to piece together a testimonial. After I got my 10 testimonials I went back through all my e-mails, blog comments, and forum posts and pieced together an additional 7 testimonials for a total of 17 testimonials on that page.
Oh yeah, I released Action PopUp 2.0 to all version 1.0 buyers so you can add popups to WordPress blogs with just a few clicks... thanks for the testimonials I needed. Even Michel Fortin posted that blog entry to Twitter.
Was that ten testimonial rule a waste of time? No one needs a call-to-action at the end of every blog post, right? I bet your blog is chock full of zero-comment entries with no call-to-action in sight... am I totally right or am I just a jerk?
Please, answer me below because if I don't get ten comments under this entry... I'm moving this whole site into a paid blog. 😉
Action PopUp 2.0
This message is for my Action PopUp customers only... you need to read this if you want an updated copy.
As you know, exactly one year today -- on August 15, 2007 -- I released the first version of Action PopUp, the first popup ever designed for opt-in forms.
It's an unblockable on-exit lightbox popup that submits your e-mail subscription form in the background... so you can place them anywhere and not lose a sale.
Guess what... I'm releasing version 2.0 of the product. It still has all the cool pop-up features you've grown to love: you can customize colors, size... and show some crazy unique special effects...
Now it also works as a WordPress plugin! You upload a folder and activate a WordPress plugin, and you can create just about any kind of popup just by clicking around.
No editing code or config files... just clicking around on stuff.
If you know me then you know I give free updates for life on all my products.
So how do you get a copy?
Let's call this the ten testimonial rule (instead of the ten comment rule)...
I need 10 reviews for Action PopUp 1.0 for my customers, and then I'll release version 2.0 to everyone.
If you own Action PopUp 1.0, could you comment below and tell me:
- What site you use it on...
- Why it appeals to you (Easy install? Do you run PPC ads and want your click payments to go the extra mile? Cool noticable effects?)
- What feature you personally liked best about the product...
- Why others should want it...
Just answer each one of those questions in a sentence each (heck, only answer one or two questions, I don't care). Just give me a review I can use, good or bad.
Once I have my ten reviews I'll release Action PopUp 2.0 to everyone who bought the first version... use it super-easily as a WordPress plugin!
The new script works just as well for normal sites as well (like forums, sales letters, anything!)
Please post your review below...
Clickbank vs. PayDotCom
Just to give you an update on the Clickbank situation, I've decided to stay with them.
Apparently, they WILL approve list building related products on a case-by-case basis (as a commenter to the last post mentioned), which was good to hear considering The Rich Jerk, Butterfly Marketing Reports, ListMail Pro, etc. were all approved.
Heck, one of the resale rights buyers to WordPress on Crack already has my exact product and same exact sales letter already listed on Clickbank.
Here's how to get your list building related product approved on Clickbank:
1. Make sure the product ONLY mentions responsible, double opt-in, CAN-SPAM compliant list building tactics. I would definitely stay away from gray areas like buying and selling leads, tell-a-friend scripts, and co-registration.
2. Explain to Clickbank that the product does go into list building, but only for double opt-in CAN-SPAM compliant purposes. You can do this in the "extra notes" section.
That's all there is to it.
Now like I said... I'm staying with Clickbank. I will still use PayPal for my non-affiliate sales (95% of my income) because my refund rate with PayPal is about 1% and my refund rate with Clickbank is 7.5%.
Dean's comment in the previous post said it best...
After reading the many thoughful posts it does seem that straddling CB and PDC makes the most sense.
Use 'em both but steer the big money to PDC. Use CB to attract new affiliates.
Mike Filsaime made a GREAT point that his service gets 1,000 new signups per day and he is now BEATING Clickbank.com in his Alexa ranking.
Why Don't I Roll All My PayPal Buttons Over to PayDotCom?
Two reasons... one, PayDotCom adds an extra page people have to click through. They click your order button, then are sent to PayDotCom, then have to click on ANOTHER button to pay through PayPal. Clickbank also has a 2-step order page and that's always going to hurt conversion rates no matter what.
The next reason: Someone pointed out that when someone buys from you using PayDotCom, they get added to Mike Filsaime's list corrected: that information is stored on Mike's server somewhere.
A comment from the previous post:
My wariness about using PDC is that mike filasmie, who is technically the competition of many of us, would become our provider of services...
enabling him to:
know what product sell best
how many we sell
the NAMES and EMAILS of all customers...Robert, is that a reason that would keep you away? clickbank, or other paykment processors, are not a competitor to you in the way PDCs owners are...
(I'm not accusing mike filsaime of using others information, just noting that the fact he COULD makes me uncomfortable.)
Your List is Your Baby... I don't want to send all my buyers onto his mailing list so he can outsell me.
I will put some products on PayDotCom eventually, but I want to get everything on Clickbank first. At the moment, only 40 of my products are available on Clickbank.
The moral of the story: get yourself setup with the simplest checkout process possible (I like PayPal) then use "other" processors like Clickbank and PayDotCom to increase sales... use those services as funnels instead of your primary payment processors.
I'll say that again...
Use Clickbank and PayDotCom to Attract Affiliates.
Don't Depend on Them For Survival.
I have a script called Clickbank Switch that will show one button if Clickbank affiliates come your way, and another if non-affiliates stop by, but you don't even need a script for that.
You can setup separate pages like http://www.example.com/paydotcom and http://www.example.com/clickbank then put a PayDotCom button on your "paydotcom" page, and send the PayDotCom traffic that way.
When you join PayDotCom you can get your product listed on Filsaime's marketing product review site, make your link go viral using Butterfly Reports, and get listed on PayDotCom's marketplace.
I have been with Clickbank since 2000 and it makes more sense to stick with what works and makes money, than to tear everything down and STOP making money, just to spend more time building it back up.
Keep it simple!
For you skimmers out there, here is what Clickbank will and won't approve when it comes to those list building grey areas.
- What if I were to explain co-registation, would that get approved? No.
- Would a product that mentions buying double opt-in leads get approved? No.
- Would a product that talks about tell-a-friend get approved? No.
- Would a product that talks about selling e-mail leads get approved? No.
- Can I mention double opt-in? Yes!
- Can I mention single opt-in? Yes!
There you have it. The easy way to get a list building product approved on Clickbank: explain your product only deals with CAN-SPAM compliant e-mail marketing practices. Here's the verbage I used:
This product mentions RESPONSIBLE list building, email marketing through double-opt-in email lists and CAN-SPAM compliant methods.
Was I right in choosing to stay with PayPal and Clickbank? (And in the future, PayDotCom?) Please comment below and tell me if I'm a total idiot or a freaking genius.
Time to Give Up on Clickbank?
Resolved: I've decided to stay with Clickbank.
For years and years I have been saying Clickbank is an awesome payment processor. People always complain that they don't add features quickly enough (like two-tier payments, recurring payments), but I consider that a good thing... it's always the same.
To be honest I already have my buttons coded to default to PayPal, but show a Clickbank button if my visitor comes from affiliate traffic.
The "straw that broke the camel's back" today was... they told me they wouldn't approve my product, because it mentions list building!
I have heard of lots of stories before from other Internet marketers because their sales letter mentioned list building or social marketing. CB doesn't want you promoting stuff like this because they had problems with people promoting spam-related products.
They lumped it all together into one category, and double opt-in e-mail marketing done correctly definitely isn't spam. It's very difficult to write any infoproduct on internet marketing without talking about list buildling.
I can also understand if they were to ban infoproducts that mention list building and NOTHING else. I go into list building several times but that's definitely NOT the focus of most of my products.
Many people I know changed the phrase "list building" to "autoresponder building" or just removed the list building content from the sales letter.
I removed what they asked from the sales letter, but they tell me I have to remove it from the product as well.
What the F!!! Maybe it's time to move somewhere else.
- I don't have 100% of my products on Clickbank but for those that do, affiliates who refer people to my blog automatically get credited if I mention any of my products on the blog.
- I store affiliate cookies for 365 days instead of Clickbank's 60 days.
- I have upsells on almost all my offers, so an affiliate might promote a $40 product for 50% commission and end up getting 50% commission on a $247 sale instead.
- I make sure to HIDE the non-Clickbank upsells when an affiliate sends me traffic.
Basically here are the pros and cons of Clickbank for me...
PROS
|
CONS
|
More pros than cons, maybe I should start bailing out.
The ONLY payment processor I would move to, if I left Clickbank, is PayDotCom since it's at the point where many internet marketers have an account already. (None of this 2Checkout, AlertPay, iKobo garbage.)
Do you use Clickbank? Do you use PayDotCom? Would you make the switch from Clickbank even if it meant pissing off a few affiliates?
Please comment below...
Your List is Your Baby
I want to introduce you to my new kitty.
His name is Peaches (short for "Peaches and Cream") and he is a 3 month old tabby. I got him over the weekend and today (Monday) we are leaving him alone at home for the first time.
He is the most mellow (and clumsy) kitten I have ever met. But here's the thing... he's basically my baby and I wouldn't give him away to anyone.
Heck... look at him... a kitten that cute... if I didn't take care of him, someone else would!
In the same way, your mailing list is your baby. Giving those subscribers away would be a stupid, stupid thing.
Every once in a while someone asks why the heck don't I promote affiliate programs up the wazoo like so many other internet marketers with decent-sized mailing lists.
Why don't I participate in product giveaways... why don't I do lots of joint ventures...
When you promote someone else's product as an affiliate, you are building your list for them. Say you get a sale and get your $47 or $97 commission... your ride ends there.
Meanwhile that guy who runs the affiliate program captures the customer's e-mail address after a sale and gets to market to that person over and over and over.
So, when you have a list and you promote an affiliate program, you are copying some of your paying subscribers to someone else's list... that person can probably outsell the heck out of you too.
When you promote other peoples' stuff, you sacrifice future sales. What you want to do is setup an affiliate program and get others to promote it to THEIR lists.
Of course you can network with other people in your niche... but please, think twice about giving your list away.
Let me tell you something else about Peaches. He is spoiled, even after these first few days. He has a really bad cold... so I got him a humidifier.
He has fancy kitten food. Yesterday we fed him "California Roll" kitten food and tomorrow's flavor will be "Turducken" -- that's turkey inside a duck, inside a chicken.
I was reading some of the ingredients on his "Surf & Turf" kitten food... it contains lobster, and different kinds of apples!
Kitten food!
My question to you today is: do you spoil your list in the same way?
Obviously I have things to do so I'm going to draw the line somewhere. The same is true with my list. I don't treat my list like crap. I follow up with them. I unsubscribe troublemakers from my list.
When you have a mailing list, making money is the bottom line... but if you don't treat it like your baby, someone else could mine the gold out of that list before you can.
My list gets hungry and my best subscribers are more than happy to pay me for my information. There's nothing wrong with that.
Build your list using as many paid buyers as possible. Weed out the freebie seekers. Be very careful about where you send your subscribers and be wary of promoting the latest hyped-up product just because everyone else is doing it.
Honestly, if you train your list to only want free information, or low-cost information, you're going to fall flat when it comes time to pitch the big-ticket items.
Establish a sales funnel. Send automated follow-ups to your list to keep it from going stale. Promote one-time-offers to your other products.
Here is a way to improve your customer relations in one minute or less...
Just say "hi." If you haven't sent a mailing to your list in a while, take a second right now to say "hi" to them. It doesn't matter what you say. Tell them what sites you worked on today. Ask them a question.
You dont have to have some fancy, thought out message, you don't need to write a 70-part follow-up autoresponder series, just say "hi." Do it right now and come back to this blog post... it won't take very long.
My kitty is perfectly happy when I just say "hi" to him... I don't always need to bring a treat. I don't always need to get something out of it.
Comment below and share your favorite tactic to warm up your list... remember, I need 10 comments if you want me to continue posting blog entries.
