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Email List Building
101 AND 102
A No-Nonsense Report To Getting Started AND
Profiting From Advanced Email Marketing Strategies
By David Eisner
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Disclaimer
The information contained within is supplied for informational and entertainment
purposes only. It is not professional advice of any kind. There is absolutely no promise
of earnings. Any results obtained in the past do not constitute predictions for the future.
The reader is 100% responsible for his or her actions. By reading the contents herein,
the reader agrees that he or she holds the author free of any liability in any way.
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Introduction
So I decided to write this short report to help out some people who are new to the
internet marketing world. If you have a lot of experience or have been in this game for
some time, you may not find much new information here. I canʼt say for sure because I
donʼt know what youʼve been involved in. This report is going to be about “email list
building”; the basics + some more advanced strategies. Iʼll be going over the theory
behind it (why to do it), how to actually do it and make money, and some powerful tips to
help you get started quickly.
See, I remember a time when I was involved in internet marketing but really had no idea
about how to go about building my list effectively and how I would even profit from it.
Intuitively, I could understand the value in it, but I think it took me some time to really
understand the POWER in it, and how it is the main staple of any successful IMerʼs
business. And the truth is that I was involved in internet marketing for a quite some time
before I began to look at this subject. Iʼm not sure why... perhaps I was happy with the
way I was already making money or maybe I just thought this was something I couldnʼt
handle. But if youʼre like I was - somebody who ignored this area of internet marketing
until this point, I think you will get great value from the contents herein.
The reason I believe you will get great value is not necessarily the uniqueness or quality
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of the information that will be presented. Of course, to a certain extent, that is my goal
here. But my goal is even more so to explain to you how having a certain relationship
with an email list can be like owing a printing press. And I am not exaggerating when I
say this. Many IMers follow this course of action correctly and reap the enormous
benefits. I am far from the only one. In fact, nowadays, if you donʼt do this, you are
probably shooting yourself in the foot. At the very least, you are leaving a lot of money
on the table. The reason being is that out of the hundreds of IM activities you can do to
make you money, there might be only a few that wonʼt give you the opportunity to
compile a customer base and then market further to that customer base. So it follows,
that if youʼre doing anything online, you should probably be “anchoring” all of your
activities with building an email list.
The “Why”
It is common knowledge in business that it is 10 times more costly to obtain a new
customer than to sell to an existing customer. Well, in IM, it might actually be more
costly than that because sending an email costs you $0 (well, Iʼll correct myself - it might
cost you a monthly fee for an auto-responder account, but Iʼll get to that). Even if
obtaining a new customer makes you money, building that relationship will usually take
time and money, whereas sending an email to existing customer with whom you have
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an excellent relationship costs no money and hardly any time.
Of course, you canʼt get to step B without doing step A first. That is to say, you canʼt
expect excellent relationships with customers (B) before obtaining prospects or clients
(A). But what Iʼm saying is that if youʼre going to do A and you donʼt do B, youʼre either
always going to constantly be doing A and costing yourself a lot of time and money (and
probably sanity) and youʼre going to be leaving a ton of money on the table.
Email makes it easy and cost-effective to keep a customer for “life.” There is just no
reason to not take advantage of their repeat business. Think about it: Do you buy from
the same stores over and over again? Once you find a grocery or bookstore that you
like, do you find it necessary to go out and continually find new vendors to buy from? If
youʼre answering “yes,” youʼre in the extreme minority. Most people enjoy buying from
people that they know and trust already. And it wonʼt be any different with your email list.
They will see your name over and over again, and when you recommend your product
or somebody elseʼs to them, they will be more inclined to buy based on your
recommendation than if you were just some stranger off the “internet streets.”
The REAL “why”: When you have developed a strong relationship with even a small
number of customers and/or prospects (I will go over the pertinent difference soon), you
can literally send out one email and make and absurd amount of money within hours.
Word on the IM street is that each subscriber you have on your list is worth about $1 per
month in income. Of course, this number is going to be based on many factors like, your
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relationship with your list, how they got onto your list, how often you mail to them, the
types of offers you send them, etc. But the point it, your email list is an ASSET that you
can cash in on at almost any time. Imagine if your email list was worth just $.25 per
subscriber per month and you had 10,000 people on your list. That would be worth
$30,000 a year. That means that you could wake up tomorrow, send out an email and
expect to make $82 on average. OK, now imagine your list is worth $2 a subscriber
(because you treated them better, perhaps) and you have 100,000 people eagerly
awaiting your emails. Do you see how some IMers pay for their new cars with one
email?
“Traffic” is one the linchpins of any IM operation. If you canʼt get it, you wonʼt have a
business. If youʼve got it and itʼs not costing you more than youʼre bringing in, youʼve got
a winning formula. Itʼs actually pretty simple. And traffic from email lists is not only the
highest quality, but it is also (basically) free and “on-demand.” If you had an offer you
wanted to promote and you didnʼt want to spend a dime, all youʼd have to do is send an
email and you could have pure profit within hours - what power!
The fact is, any way you slice it, email list building is an activity you must engage in if
you are trying to achieve any kind of security within this business. It is pretty much the
best source of traffic (for the reasons I just listed) and also the only one that is ultimately
within your control. Search engines, content networks, youtube, Web 2.0, Facebook,
Twitter, CPV, etc. - they can all go away at a blink of an eye without you having a say
(you must have heard about 10,000 Google accounts being banned). With an email list,
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you have the control. Even if your auto-responder goes under, that isnʼt the end. The
names and emails will always be your asset (as long as the people on the list are giving
you permission to email them).
By now, I hope I have given you enough reasons to engage in this marketing activity.
Letʼs get down to “brass tacks.”
The “How”
To do this method, you really only need 3 things. And Iʼm not going to BS you, this may
be one of the simplest methods in IM. Of course, everything in life has intricacies. Even
Checkers and Pong have strategies for getting a leg up on your competition. But it
doesnʼt take long to learn the rules and start playing. And for the value that comes from
following this simple strategy, you just canʼt afford not to do it.
OK, so the 3 things that you need are:
1. An offer of value
2. An auto-responder and a squeeze page
3. Traffic to your offer
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Some of this is technical and some of it isnʼt. But the only people who are going to run
into problems here are people who are lazy or afraid of computers/the internet. And if
you fall into either of these categories, you shouldnʼt be trying to run an internet
business. And thatʼs what internet marketing is, a business. If you do it as a hobby, you
will most likely get burned or eaten alive. So if the word “hobby” sounds like you, I
recommend sticking to bocce ball. Just my 2 cents... Anyway, I digress.
An offer of value - “Free”, “Paid”, or both?
In business and in life in general, if you want to create “income”, you need to provide
“value” to the marketplace. This sounds obvious, but think about how many people are
not able to do this or donʼt understand that this is the foundation of business. Whether
you go to a 9-5 or you run your own IM business, you need to find a way to provide
value to people, else you will no longer be needed. For example, the way I am hoping to
provide value is by writing this report and introducing people to the technique of email
list building. So you have to ask yourself, first and foremost, what kind of value can I
bring to the marketplace? If you donʼt have an answer yet, donʼt worry, you will.
In the category of “offers,” there are two major types: paid and free. There are many
opinions about which is the best to offer and what you should focus on. Well, I say, offer
what you have! Donʼt worry if itʼs free or paid for getting subscribers, because both
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strategies work wonderfully if you do them correctly. And if youʼre just starting out, which
you probably are if youʼre reading this book, you probably do not have a product worth
any money right now. That doesnʼt mean you canʼt create one, Iʼm just trying to say that
both are of great value. And the way I see it, most of the great marketers are offering
BOTH to their prospects.
Here is the theory that many tout about only building a list of “buyers.”:
In the world of business there are two types of prospects, “buyers” and “freebie-
seekers.” And according to many marketing specialists, a buyer will always be a buyer
and a freebie-seeker will never be a buyer. The theory is that buyers literally have the
“ability” to take out their credit card and buy something. And if they do that once, they
will always do it. And a freebie-seeker will not do that. Iʼm not kidding you here that this
is the theory. So in the same vein, a “buyer” is considered far more valuable to have on
your prospect list than is freebie-seeker.
But here is why I think this theory is a little flawed. I donʼt think there are just two
categories. In fact (and I have no empirical data here, I am just going off a hunch), I
think the amount of people who are either “buyers” or “freebie-seekers”, as in, they
never cross over into the other category is extremely small - donʼt you agree? I look at
my own buying experience, for example. I pull out my credit card quite regularly, but that
doesnʼt mean Iʼll pass up a good free offer when I see one. In fact, I have learned some
of the best information Iʼve gotten from free products. And I know that sometimes if you
want something of value that is being offered for a price, you may have to pay -
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especially if you want it now. It might become free in the future - but time is money so I
might as well trade, right? My point is, that if 5% of the population is strictly buyers and
5% of the population is strictly freebie-seekers, then that leaves 90% of the population
that is both buyers and freebie-seekers. So I say, why not try to capture as large of a
market as possible?
Offering a free product (as long as it of value) is one of the greatest techniques for
selling many products in the future. Two of my favorite marketers, Frank Kern and Eben
Pagan do this with amazing grace and have made multi-million dollar businesses and
regularly create multi-million dollar product launches from following this concept. Right
now, as I write this manual, Frank Kern is launching his new product, “List Control.”
Undoubtedly, it will be an extremely expensive product (I donʼt know what itʼs going to
sell for, but my prediction is around $2000, just like Mass Control), and he will probably
“sell out” within the first week of the launch. And what has he done in the week before
the launch? Heʼs given away an exclusive sales strategy only previously released to
customers, complete with email “copy”, a free list-building website script, and a free
video explaining some advanced email marketing concepts. This is obviously to provide
great value to his prospects up front so they will buy his product. Eben Pagan is doing
the exact same thing with his new course, “Self Made Wealth.” I just watched the 4
videos he put out before the launch and it was great material. Iʼm getting a bit into
product launch theory here, but the concept is the same: Provide your prospect with
great value FIRST, and they will buy from you over and over again.
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I have converted plenty of freebie-seekers into buyers in my short IM career. Recently,
Iʼve begun to see great returns from offering free products. Not only I have I seen
immediate returns, but the best part is that these people will stay on my email list. Do
you see the power?! Not only do I use the freebie to pique their interest and sell them
on another product in the same niche, but I also now have them on my email list and I
can market to them as long as they stay on that list. I can follow up with them with offers
to buy my product, in case they passed on the first offer. I can also pitch them other
offers in the same niche later on. If they end up buying my product, they become a
much more valuable prospect for the future. So as you can see, there is a lot of power
in this marketing approach.
There is also a lot of power in offering a paid product. Even if you charge just $1 for
your product, youʼve qualified them as a buyer and this prospect is much more valuable
than a freebie-seeker. However, youʼre going to need to put much more time and effort
into releasing a paid product and there are many more factors to the equation. I will
explain later how you can make paid products and create income while you are building
your email list. There is great reward in this but it is much more of a challenge.
Ultimately, you will want to have both paid products and freebie products. That way,
when you give something away, you will have something paid (of your own) to promote.
Eventually youʼll want multiple paid and free products to continue to offer your prospects
even more value. And when they take advantage and profit from many items in your
catalogue, they will trust you even more if you present an offer for somebody elseʼs
product.
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And if you are not up to creating a paid product yet, that is fine. You can still offer a free
product, create a relationship through email, and eventually sell them your product once
you create it or sell them somebody elseʼs once they trust you. Building the list is what
is of the most importance.
Step 1: How to create an offer of value
OK, so first youʼve got to figure out what your value proposition to the market is. If
youʼre brand new to IM, perhaps you can think about your existing skills. Do you have
some kind of skill or expertise that you think might help internet marketers? For
example, are you a copywriter in the “offline” world? If so, maybe you can find some
way to teach people about copywriting in a free product and offer it? Thatʼs just one
example - you will need to get creative based on your talents and skills.
Also, you can offer what is called “private label rights.” But you want to make sure that
whatever you offer is of value. So if you buy a PLR ebook and stamp your name on it,
make sure you read it, edit it, and perhaps even test it to make sure it is of value. The
best scenario is for you to become successful in that ebookʼs method, put your own spin
on it (citing your experience, perhaps), and then put your name on it.
You can also get the Resale Rights or Master Resale Rights to something and give it
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away (as long as that is allowed under the RR or MRR terms). If you do this, you will get
people onto your list and theyʼll appreciate that but they wonʼt be learning or benefiting
from your work, which is quite a different scenario because even though they appreciate
the free stuff, they may not trust your expertise in the niche. Frank Kern says, “the
money is not in the list - itʼs in the relationship with that list.” And there are two ways to
appeal to your list so they will buy from you. They can look at you as a friend or an
authority. In this case (when youʼre offering RR or MRR material), your value proposition
to the market is that of a marketer, and not necessarily a teacher or product creator,
which puts you in a position of being their friend, but not an authority. Ideally, you want
to be their friend and an authority. That is what will give you the most pull when youʼre
trying to sell them something.
So far, Iʼve really only been focusing on building a list in the IM niche. But if you want to
break into another niche, that is totally possible and can be really profitable. In fact,
there is probably far less competition with other people who have an IM expertise. If you
are dog trainer, you can write an ebook about “10 common mistakes a new dog owner
makes when training their dog,” or something along those lines. This is usually a much
easier way for somebody who is new to IM to break into a niche - because they are an
expert in that field in the offline world. Get what Iʼm saying? Frank Kern has said that he
has made millions online with his “niche businesses.” I can assume that those
businesses are outside of the IM niche, where he does very well.
If you want to be an expert in IM and break into the IM niche, like I am doing right now,
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all you have to do is have success with a method. There are literally hundreds of ways
to market products on the net and if you do one successfully, you can teach it. Donʼt
worry if itʼs not original, almost nothing in this world is original information. In some way,
all information is rehashed and taught with a different spin. One of the best ways to be
successful is to get the best manuals on a topic, become successful with that method,
and then teach about it yourself once you feel confident. For example, my list isnʼt huge,
but Iʼm having great success with it and I feel confident I can at least teach other
newbies the basics and some advanced tricks Iʼve learned. So here I am writing a book
about it. Thereʼs no reason you canʼt do the same.
The medium to offer your product is not that important but here are some options:
• An ebook - “tried and true”
• An audio - of you talking or perhaps of you interviewing an authority
• A video - perhaps of you showing something on your own computer or of you talking
and explaining a concept on screen - both work well.
• A piece of software - if you are a programmer or if you gained RR or MRR of another
product
• An article series or piece of copywriting - this would be unusual but thereʼs nothing
thatʼs stopping you from getting creative!
Right now, I have several of the above offerings. Iʼve made a free ebook on blogging,
which sells my blogging/SEO paid product. I have an audio interview with an SEO guru
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that also sells my blogging/SEO paid product and affiliate products. I have a video that
sells both as well. I have articles that promote my free products and my paid products
and they all feed into each other, giving my prospects and customers an opportunity to
get more value from my offerings. When Iʼm done with this book, Iʼll also have another
ebook that will lead to my other offerings. This is called “cross-selling.” In internet
marketing, itʼs always important to use more than one marketing strategy (for
diversification and other reasons). So it is easy to talk to the same marketer about SEO
and list building. They may not be interested, but thatʼs OK. Iʼm probably coming out
with a “paid traffic” product soon and perhaps that will appeal to a part of my customer
base. This is again why I love the IM niche; there are hundreds of profitable micro-
niches to explore.
Step 2: Set up your auto-responder and squeeze page
Setting up an auto-responder is easy. There are plenty of companies that you can
explore out there, but I say just get AWeber. They have been around for a long time,
they are super-easy to use and their prices are competitive. Also, this is something that
many marketers overlook: A lot of times, other “IM gurus” will create a piece of software
or a program and in order to use your auto-responder, youʼll need AWeber. And if you
donʼt have AWeber, well, youʼre kind of out of luck. Iʼve seen this at least 5 times in the
last month! I am not exaggerating. The reason these gurus use AWeber for these
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programs (when even they themselves may be using Infusionsoft - which is $199/month
to start) is because they know it is the most popular auto-responder on the market and
more people will use their software if they set it up with AWeber. This is reason enough
to go with AWeber and not with similar programs like Get Response, IContact, Constant
Contact, Pro Follow, Infusionsoft, etc. Donʼt get me wrong, they offer good services, and
sometimes slightly better prices, but from an IMerʼs perspective, itʼs just not worth it.
When youʼve signed up for an account, the next step is to create a list. This is really
simple to do, just follow the instructions on the website. Then youʼll create a “web form”
that will correspond to that list so that whenever people opt-in to that web form, theyʼll
automatically be added to your list. For more specifics on this, just follow the AWeber
tutorials (believe me, itʼs easy).
So after youʼre done creating your offer and setting up your auto-responder, you will
need a “squeeze page” where people can opt-in with their email address. This is a bit of
an art and a science. Iʼm going to be providing some resources that you can learn a lot
from, especially with increasing your opt-in rates on these squeeze pages. For now, I
will give you a few basic pointers:
• Make sure all of your text and especially your opt-in form is “above the fold”.
Apparently, only 10-15% of people who come to a squeeze page actually “scroll”
down at all. So make sure everything on the page is viewable without scrolling.
• Use an attention-grabbing headline. Make sure you tell the prospect whatʼs in it for
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them!
• Include very specific, benefit-rich bullet points of what youʼre going to reveal. Make
sure youʼre targeting your main audience.
• Make a strong call to action to enter their email address. Use some arrows to point to
your opt-in box and make it obvious.
• Perhaps include a picture of what youʼre going to offer them (like a virtual cover if
youʼre giving them an ebook).
• I think it is also important to pre-sell them within your traffic method. If you already
have them wanting your book before they get to the squeeze page, then your opt-in
rate will be much higher.
• “De-personalize”: A lot of people ask for a name and an email address, so that when
they send an email they can address it to that person. Statistics show that
personalized emails donʼt actually do much more as far as open rates and
conversion rates are concerned. But it will raise your opt-in rate if you do not ask for
a name. So I personally only ask for an email address and never send out
personalized emails.
As far as templates for your squeeze pages, you can use services on the internet that
let you build a page very quickly if you do not know how to use an HTML editor. But I do
it myself with SeaMonkey as my WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and HTML
editor. It is free and easy to use. I got a template from this guy Ross Vegas, who has a
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list building video series. Itʼs simple and effective. You can get the same template from
my squeeze pages. Just visit one of the links I provide later with a SeaMonkey browser,
then hit Control+E (PC) or Command+E (Mac) and youʼll be able to edit the source
code.
Youʼll also want to consider using a template to direct your prospect to once theyʼve
completed the opt-in (“thank you page”). Believe it or not, some people do not know that
you need to check your inbox to confirm requests and what not. Here is the template
that you may consider using for that. Do the same thing I just told you to do above to
edit the template.
Then you may also want to use a template for a “confirmed subscriber page”, once they
confirm their subscription. A lot of people use this opportunity to present a “one-time-
offer” or tell them about their other products. Itʼs otherwise empty web space so it isnʼt a
bad idea.
An issue you are going to want to consider is whether to use “single opt-in” or “double
opt-in.” According to AWeber, SPAM complaints are lower and delivery rates are higher
when you use double opt-in. All double opt-in means is that they need to confirm their
request for information before getting what they asked for. The downside to this is that a
significant percentage of people, no matter how good your offer is or how clearly you
explain to them to check their SPAM folder, will not confirm. I really donʼt know where I
stand on this issue. Iʼm not sure I believe that the higher delivery rate of double opt-in
will make up for the lost opt-ins. And while I still get a complaint now and then, I donʼt
see how I could get too many if Iʼm following up with my people regularly and not
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“sleeping” on the list. The way Iʼve got it now is that people who buy from me, go directly
onto my list with single opt-in. I donʼt think theyʼll be as inclined to complain about
emails if they bought a product from me than if they just got a freebie from me. And if
you want the freebie stuff, youʼve got to opt-in.
If you make your freebie stuff single opt-in, the best thing to do is make your “opt-in
thank you page” the actual page where they receive their freebie. You can do this
directly in AWeber. This is the page where youʼll want to put either a download link to
your ebook or embed your video, etc. Oh yea, youʼll need hosting for this. I recommend
Bluehost - they are very cheap, have great customer service, and are very newbie
friendly. Also, Iʼve heard that AWeber will let you host a squeeze page on their site now.
I havenʼt tried it myself but that is a great option if you want to go the mega-cheap route
and not buy hosting. I donʼt believe they will let you host your download link, however.
If youʼre making your freebie double opt-in or even single opt-in, you can put your ebook
as an attachment to the first email you send. If you have a large file or multiple large
files like videos or audios, youʼll need to host them on a page on your server or
somebody elseʼs server like Filedropper. In your first email, simply put a link to your
freebie page. Donʼt worry about this link getting out - that is actually what you want. Yes,
you want people to get on your list to get your freebie, but if youʼve marketed yourself
and your products correctly in your offering, it will still benefit you even if people get it
without opting in to your list.
Once youʼve set up your squeeze page, designated a list in your auto-responder for this
page and decided on all the above factors, donʼt forget to set up a mailing sequence so
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you can build a relationship with the people you just put on your list. I would say not to
try to sell them anything too fast and create a “relationship-building phase.” This can last
from a week to a month max. Just keep providing them good content so they begin to
trust you. Down the line, you will probably benefit from this approach. After this, make
sure you “press send” A LOT. The people who make the most money with email
marketing are the ones that mail their list at least once a day, sometimes twice a day.
Yes, you will get a lot of unsubscribes from this approach, but ultimately you will make
more money. Think about it like this: If you make $20 from a mailing that you werenʼt
going to do because you didnʼt want to lose 3 subscribers, could you put that $20 to use
to get new subscribers. Iʼll give you some resources soon where you can get far more
than 3 subscribers for $20, who will stay on your list through daily mailings. Itʼs the
subscribers who like to receive mail from you on a daily basis that will be your most
valuable subscribers.
Tip: The best time to send an email is Tuesday to Thursday morning at 5:30 am. This
way it is one of the first emails people see when they wake up. You can schedule this
out quite easily in AWeber. The weekends are also great times to mail because a lot of
other marketers wonʼt do it - just mail out freebie and cheap offers.
Tip: One of the best things you can send to subscribers is free material from product
launches. The great part about this strategy is that the information will probably be really
good and fresh because itʼs going to be used to sell the product. Almost every
noteworthy marketer out there is using this strategy, so there is an abundance of stuff to
give away. And even better yet, you can give this stuff away and be an affiliate for the
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product. So if you promote the freebie, a lot of the time, youʼll end up with sales by
virtue of the product creator following up with your prospect for you after theyʼve opted
in for the freebie. So this way you come out smelling like roses and still potentially make
money without sending more than one email. You could potentially follow up with an
email for the actual product but then your subscriber will know that you were pitching
him instead of just directing him to awesome free content. I do this all the time now
because the content is usually high quality, therefore keeping me in good graces with
my prospect and because there is great profit potential.
Step 3: Getting Traffic To Your Offer
Traffic Theory
Traffic is KEY. You cannot build your list if you cannot get people to build your page.
This fact is what makes it possible for you to succeed, however. What I mean is... you
may actually be presenting the same material as somebody else has, but he may not be
driving traffic to his offer anymore while you are - thatʼs why youʼre able to succeed and
set yourself apart. So think of the subject of traffic as a friend and a challenge. This is
not a traffic course and I could talk for another 200 pages so Iʼm only going to keep this
section short and sweet. Iʼll give you some theory and then a couple of traffic methods
that have worked for me.
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The most important aspect that you need to know about traffic is the value of each one
of your subscribers. At first, this will be basically impossible to determine. So the best
methods to use are free ones. And after a little while of building your list, you will be able
to determine how valuable each subscriber is and be able to budget yourself correctly
when going after paid traffic. I already mentioned that each subscriber is estimated to
be worth $1 per month. But donʼt forget that you will have an “attrition” (unsubscribe)
rate that could be as high as 50% depending on the frequency and quality of your
mailings and how fast you are adding people to your list. Mine is about 12-14% total and
I mail everyday (I hope it is quality stuff - usually free stuff of value). You will also
hopefully sell some of your own products from follow-up emails that do not include the
$1 per month estimate. Itʼs important to take all of these factors into account. For
example, you could do the following hypothetical calculations:
Per 200 visitors to your squeeze page:
50% opt-in rate: 100 double opt-ins (will depend greatly based on traffic source)
85 confirm their subscription
15 people will unsubscribe within a month
3 people will buy your $17 product
Youʼll make a revenue of $70 month from the remaining 70 subscribers starting after
one month of being on your list.
3 X 17 = $51
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$51 + $70 = $121 in the first 2 months (and $70 each month thereafter)
So if you take the first 2 months to determine the value...
$121/200 = about $.60 per visitor
$121/85 = about $1.42 per subscriber
Of course, this will be hard to track exactly like this but you can estimate if you pay
close enough attention.
This scenario means you can pay at least 60 cents for paid traffic for each lead and you
will break even in 2 months and make an enormous profit in the long term. If you pay 30
cents for each lead, you will make a killing that will only depend on how many visitors
you can send. Furthermore, you can use this calculation to determine how much a free
traffic source is worth. For example, if it takes you an hour to write a 450 word article
and submit it to EzineArticles and you get only 10 subscribers from that effort, was it
worth it at $14.20 an hour? Thatʼs not terrible but perhaps you could find a way to get 50
subscribers from a one hour effort - that would put your hourly wage at $71 an hour,
which is not too shabby for somebody just starting out. Plus, if you could somehow get
your article to rank in Google without too much extra effort (perhaps by spending 15
minutes on keyword research and 45 minutes doing a couple high PR backlinks) and
you were able to get 2 subscribers a day for 6 months (letʼs say), you would make: (2 X
$1.42 X 6 X 30) / 2 hours work = $255 an hour. Obviously, all of these numbers can be
maximized and thatʼs how you can make a lot of money. OK, you get the point when it
comes to this theory.
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How To Get The Traffic
I touched a little bit on some methods. Article marketing is obviously one of them. Your
article can be seen on the article directories as well as show up in the search engines
and be published in ezines and on websites. This is free and sometimes very long
lasting traffic. But it can also be one of the slowest options. If you want to learn about
search engine optimization, you can take a look at some of my free and paid offerings
pertaining to SEO:
“The Octopus Blog Method” - I show you the power of using blogs to create authority
sites and get a massive amount of targeted niche traffic. This is a paid product that is
currently selling at a huge discount on the Warrior Forum. It also comes with Master
Resale Rights. Iʼm very proud of it and happy to report itʼs gotten rave reviews from
SEO experts and relative newbies alike.
“How To Make BIG Money With Blogs” - free ebook gives you a nice intro into SEO and
how to use blogs (Wordpress) to gain a big advantage over your competition.
“Backlinks Round Table” - I was lucky enough to score an interview with 2 of the leading
authorities on “off-page SEO”, Terry Kyle and Tom Goodwin. They gave me 3 hours of
their time and did not hold back a thing! Itʼs a truly amazing interview, which many are
saying is worth $100+. Iʼm currently offering it for $0.
“Decoding Google Rankings With Market Samurai” - I really love this keyword research
and SEO tool, Market Samurai. I found that Iʼve learned a ton about how sites rank
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simply by using MS on a regular basis. I did a video (about 1 hour, 20 min.) where I do
some keyword research and break down the intricacies of how sites rank in Google. Itʼs
really a lot of fun! Currently, this is a free offering.
If youʼre not interested in doing SEO and you want to take advantage of article
marketing, I recommend Mario Brownʼs Underground Article Marketing WSO. He shows
you how to rank your articles in the “most viewed” and the “most published” sections of
EzineArticles for a VERY low cost. Even though this doesnʼt bring in a ton of traffic,
using this method has always been worth it for me. I could do it on a much larger scale
and it would bring in a lot of opt-ins if done correctly.
Another interesting option in the vein of article marketing is a technique taught to me by
Warrior, Matthew Olson. Iʼm not going to give away his technique but itʼs like article
marketing without using article-marketing directories. However, this is another SEO
technique.
Staying with free traffic methods that work... I think forum traffic is AWESOME. If youʼre
in the IM niche, the Warrior Forum is a great place to list your free or paid offering. You
can put it in the “Make Money Online” section (free offering only) - I always get opt-ins
when I post here. You can also list in the “Warrior Special Offers” section if you have a
paid and/or free offering. It is $20 to list and “bump” in the WSO section, though. And if
youʼre a “War Room” member, you can list your ebook for free - but you canʼt get opt-ins
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from that anymore. So in the case of the War Room, it would be important for you to
embed your other offers and/or affiliate links in your book so that you get some kind of
long-term benefit from posting it there.
The other IM forum that apparently has a lot of freebie-seekers is Digital Point Forum. I
donʼt participate as much there as I do on the Warrior Forum, but it is as good a place
as any to post a free ebook.
If youʼre not marketing to the IM niche, you can search the internet for forums in your
niche and see if thereʼs a place to promote your offering. TIP: If there isnʼt a forum for
your niche, consider starting one... forums can be big money.
Web 2.0 traffic is free and is another option. This is generally low quality, un-targeted
traffic, despite what some “hype-artists” (what I like to call them) say. I donʼt care what
anybody says, there is NO WAY to build a highly targeted Twitter following. Donʼt get me
wrong, Twitter can bring massive, quick traffic (or at least it used to). But I never got
anything close to a decent conversion ratio on any products besides Twitter related
ones. Facebook “fan pages” are a better idea. You can pay to get MUCH larger
followings that are semi-targeted, based on your fan page title. But this is not great for
opt-in pages because how often can you send the same update without spamming?
Better have another way to monetize that (and there are dozens). I have to be honest
and say that Web 2.0 is not my preferred method of traffic, if you couldnʼt tell. I find that
it takes too much work for low-quality traffic.
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For paid traffic, I enjoy Google Adwords. I know that a lot of people are down on them
lately based on their “banning shenanigans”... but when it comes to fast, targeted traffic,
nobody beats Google. Itʼs not that cheap anymore, depending on what niche youʼre in,
but there are plenty of ways to make it work. But if you donʼt have your squeeze page
fully optimized and your monetization process fully down pat, Google can swallow your
wallet, so to speak. So make sure you study one of the courses I suggest at the end of
this report before you go out and spend too much money on PPC.
And if youʼre going to use PPC, especially the content network... Joel Peterson, PPC
mastermind says, use single opt-in, else you wonʼt come out on top. Iʼm inclined to
listen to Joel on this one because he has a multi-million dollar PPC business. If you can
learn how to do it, there is a lot of room to make money on the content network. That is
a whole other ebook though...
Frank Kern recommends “CPM Mail Drops” (list brokers). This is paying for people with
massive lists to mail for you. If youʼve got a big budget, you can get a ton of opt-ins
overnight with this method. Look into it and see if you can make it work for yourself.
Joint Venture (JV) traffic is another great way to get people to your offer. Unfortunately,
you usually need to have some kind of list in order to get somebody to mail your offer
for you. Usually how it works is that you will mail somebodyʼs offer in exchange for
mailing his or her offer. You can get creative though. Go to the Joint Ventures section of
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the Warrior Forum (if youʼre in the IM niche) and see if you can either pay somebody to
do it for you or see if somebody will do it for free. I am always looking for good, free
products to mail out to my list. So perhaps put a feeler post out there and see if
somebody will bite. And maybe you have an asset that you can exchange for a mailing.
For example, I have about 17,000 Twitter followers and I put a post offering Twitter
traffic in exchange for a mailing and I got a lot of responses. Of course, I donʼt think
much of my own Twitter following but I was up front with people about that. (As long as
you have integrity with what you do, you canʼt go wrong) If you have something to offer,
perhaps writing services or backlink services, etc., you can trade that for mailings to
your offer. A lot of this business is thinking outside of the box.
If you want to learn about every great traffic method under the sun, I would recommend
taking a look at George Brownʼs “Traffic Ultimatum.” This guy is 19 years old but heʼs
extremely talented. His “Google Sniper” course was #1 on Clickbank for 5 weeks. It
went on to do over a million dollars and many people on the Warrior Forum said it was
the best product they ever purchased. I canʼt say it was the best Iʼve ever gotten, but it
was certainly extremely high quality and innovative. In his pre-launch for Traffic
Ultimatum, George spoke in a video about a very powerful, unique traffic method using
Youtube. Nope, not by making videos - by buying youtube accounts from people with a
lot of views and then changing the links in the description to your site. He says he
focuses about 90% of his traffic efforts on this source and a friend of his got 150,000
opt-ins to his list from doing this. Needless to say, I started looking into this method
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immediately.
Email List Building Continuing Education
What Iʼve told you is more than enough to get started. But if you want a more in depth
education about topics such as product creation, optimizing your opt-in process, doing
excellent copywriting, and more, you will need to look at some different resources.
There is one more offering by yours truly that I have not mentioned and it has to do with
the subject of creating a “paid” product. If you want a super-simple way to make and
release a paid product, which will give you the benefit of creating a larger list of buyers
while making some quick cash and building a solid reputation, then you should definitely
consider creating a WSO (Warrior Special Offer). This is mostly for people in the IM
niche but in some cases could apply to people in another niche (article writers, for
example). Making a WSO is one of the fastest, simplest, and cheapest ways to bring
your product to market. Iʼve done it successfully on a number of occasions and I know
you can too, even if youʼre new to IM. The product is called “WSO Bible” and it is “the
most comprehensive manual on how to create a WSO, ever.” Really, it is. Itʼs over 90
pages long and it is packed with all the best tips and tricks to absolutely KILL IT with
WSOs. Iʼm proud to say that it has gotten excellent reviews (not even close to a
negative comment yet and 0 refund requests). So if youʼre at all interested in making a
paid product in the IM niche and you havenʼt explored WSOs, you need to get moving. I
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know this is crazy, but I started off the pricing at $5. As of this writing, the price is set to
increase in less than 10 copies to $7, which still a monster deal. Click here to check it
out before it increases in price again.
If you want to increase conversions on your squeeze page, increase open rates and
click rates in your emails, and know every awesome trick when it comes to maximizing
email marketing, I HIGHLY recommend either one of these two courses:
13 Sneaky Little Email Marketing Tricks by Ryan Deiss
Kick Ass List Building by Sean Donahoe
I respect both of these marketers greatly and theyʼve both put out excellent products
right here. Check out the sales pages and see which one appeals the most to you.
If you want to learn from the “big kahuna” of email marketing, check out Frank Kernʼs
new product, “List Control.” This is obviously going to be a huge step up from the other
courses in terms of price but itʼs probably well worth it in the long run. Listen, Iʼm not an
affiliate or a buyer of this course and I have no idea whatʼs in it. But Mass Control 1.0
and 2.0 are closed to the public (else Iʼd say get it) and many people on the Warrior
Forum have said that Mass Control is the best course in the history of IM. Iʼve seen a lot
of Frankʼs stuff and I have to say, itʼs flat out awesome. So if you want to become a
master at email marketing, you should probably take a look at his new offering. Iʼm also
thinking to myself as I write this that this course will probably be sold out by the time I
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even release this report. But maybe heʼll release a review of the course or something
like that - check out the website and see for yourself. You may also want to check out
Frankʼs blog, which I look at frequently.
Conclusion
So thatʼs about it. I hope you got great value from this book and you have some
information to go and run with. If you go with this marketing technique, I guarantee youʼll
be thanking yourself a couple of months down the line. Just imagine if you can put
3,000 people on your email list - could you use an extra $3000 a month? If youʼre
reading this book, I can almost guarantee thatʼs the case. What would that do for your
life? Would things change for you? Would you feel more secure with your finances if you
knew you could send out an email and pay for an unexpected expense? I know I would
and thatʼs why email list building my #1 focus when it comes to building long-term
internet marketing assets.
As usual, my last word is, if you want to do the thing, then do the thing. Brainstorm,
plan, commit, and follow through. Donʼt drop out because of adversity. Stay positive.
Whatʼs the saying? If you think you can or you think you canʼt, youʼre right either way.
To your success,
David Eisner