Bob's Home Business Blog

As we’ve all heard by now, I’m sure, “the money is in the list” and this Internet marketing adage is truer today than it has ever been. Once you’ve built a list numbering in the thousands your online home business will soar to new heights in terms of profit and notoriety.

Having this directory of names and email addresses will open doors and provide new opportunities for you and your Internet enterprise. Now you’ll be able to make your list work for you by leveraging your online venture into new money making situations by virtue of the number of hungry buyers you have access to on the web.

When you’ve compiled an email list comprised of a respectable number of customers and prospective clients you can approach other more experienced and better known Internet marketers with the idea of forming joint venture opportunities.

These business deals can take several forms for example; you could make an agreement with another online business whereby you can advertise your opportunity to their list in exchange for them being allowed to do the same. This is a tremendous chance for each party involved to increase their sales and profits as well as to add new members to their list.

Another JV approach you could take would be to create a product with the other business owner and promote your finished merchandise jointly to both groups thereby increasing your opportunity for sales by 100% if their list size is comparable to yours. As you can see in this case size does matter, in fact it’s crucial in proportion to the size of the return you’ll receive for your efforts.

You could also leverage your email list by charging other Internet entrepreneurs for the privilege of mailing their product offer to your subscribers. People just starting out online with their home based business don’t have a list of their own to promote their offers to so they often approach other owners with a monetary offer in exchange for being able to send a message to every one of their list members.

You can use your list as a sounding board by asking everyone what they would like to see offered by way of new products or what they would like to see added to your website that you currently aren’t providing. For example, a monthly contest or video games may be good additions to attract more visitors to your site as well as provide more entertainment for your current subscribers.

You can make an offer to your current members stating that if they recommend someone to your home page and they sign up, the referrer will receive a free gift which will add value to their own business. This is a great way to add new subscribers to your directory while at the same time have your current members participate in the process and be rewarded for their efforts.

So as you can see the money is in the list and the larger it is the more money your online home business will make.

Bob Withers

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When you’re building your online home based business email list you should always be looking for ways to add more subscribers and for ways to get your message to more recipients or prospects at every opportunity. One of the most effective techniques for achieving the latter is to make your email messages go viral.

In its purest sense viral email marketing means your list members send your correspondence to their list members who may in turn forward your message to their list and so on. This of course creates the viral effect which can increase the size of your list very quickly and as a result can increase the size of your Paypal account. The question now arises: “How can you get your membership to forward your email message to their subscribers?”

There are several very effective ways to accomplish this which we will examine in more detail:

1. Persuade your list members to add your original ezine articles to their own newsletters in exchange for adding one of their product promotions on your blog or business site. This not only provides them with fresh content for their Internet magazine but also gives them another outlet for advertising their merchandise which may lead to more sales. You benefit by possibly adding more new members to your list.

2. Ask them to add your articles or your content to an information product they’re creating which of course will increase your exposure and your subscribers. In return you could offer to give them a product testimonial or a personal reference they can add to their website.

3. Encourage them to tell people about your article library or your archive and to recommend it as an informational resource. In return you could add a link to their content from your archive which will direct some of your visitors to their information page.

4. Convince them to add their affiliate links and their website URL to your ecourse and to make it available from their autoresponder. The best way to convince them is by providing quality content to them on a regular basis and by continually nurturing your relationship with them. This will make the process much easier and your response will be most often a positive one.

5. Encourage your subscribers to use your content whenever and wherever possible by adding it to any content sites they may be creating. Viral email marketing is a very powerful Internet marketing technique that can take your online home business to a new level in terms of exposure as well as the number of new subscribers or potential customers you can add to your email list.

And this Internet marketing technique is very easy to employ. All you have to do is persuade, encourage, convince or simply ask your subscribers to forward your information to their list in order to set the process in motion so you can accomplish the success you’re looking for online.

Bob Withers

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If you’re just starting out online as an Internet marketer with your home based business you’ll soon discover, if you haven’t already found out, how valuable your email autoresponder will be to your Internet enterprise.

Without this invaluable tool you wouldn’t be able to build a list of prospective customers, you wouldn’t be able to follow up with your prospects to persuade them to become paying clients, you wouldn’t be able to follow up with your customers to make them other offers and you wouldn’t be able to deliver freebies to your list on a regular basis to keep them on your list.

Simply put an autoresponder is an email auto response system that follows up with people who’ve contacted you via email. These email machines have allowed present day Internet marketers to automate their home businesses to the point where at a certain stage of development their online ventures can literally run themselves 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You can use these email responders to help generate income for your business by implementing these four techniques:

1. First of all you can sell an e-course to your website visitors and deliver it to them on a daily or weekly basis for a set period of time and for a set price. This course can be created in advance, uploaded to your autoresponder and pre-set to deliver each individual module on pre-determined dates. You can also intersperse different product offer messages between course delivery dates in an attempt to up sell your customers.

2. Secondly, you can persuade people to subscribe to your list by offering to send them a free tip on a daily basis related to your niche market. For example, if your topic is home business opportunities online you can provide information each day to your prospects on a home business money maker of the day which could be one of your affiliate marketing products you may be promoting at the time.

3. You can entice more subscribers to join your list by offering to send a freebie of the week to your members. You can scour the Internet for free offers related to your home business and upload them to your email system to be delivered each week like clock work to your list. Once again you can add promotions to these email messages advertising your products which may increase your sales and profits by giving away free gifts to your subscribers.

4. Finally, you can create a membership email system whereby you charge a monthly fee for delivery of a lesson every 30 days related to some aspect of Internet marketing such as list building. You could request a $10.00 fee for each of these informative articles explaining all facets of building a targeted responsive email list in a step-by-step fashion.

So as you can see your email autoresponder can be the heart and soul of your online home based business and success would be very difficult to attain on the web without it.

Bob Withers

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When you have your online home business in place including the products you’re going to promote and you’ve developed your Internet marketing strategy your next step should be to create an email marketing campaign so you can make some real money on the web. As any Internet marketer worth his salt will tell you: “The money is in the list”. I’m sure if you’ve been online for any length of time you’ve already heard this phrase repeated more than once and that’s because it’s true.

One of your first priorities as an Internet marketer should be to develop a strategy for compiling a list of targeted prospects as well as a directory of paying customers. Email marketing is a science in and of itself and in order to be successful with attracting subscribers you need to have a plan in place that you can follow and implement on a regular basis. This will help ensure a steady stream of interested visitors to your website who will be eager to be added to your list.

Here are 4 techniques you can use to help take your online Internet enterprise to the next level in terms of increased sales and profits:

1. Always use the lure of a reward or a free gift to help entice your visitors to supply their contact information in return for this freebie. This present must be something that your guests will perceive as having value for them so they will be more than willing to relinquish their name and email address.

For example, if your niche is home business opportunities online you could offer a free subscription to your weekly or bi-weekly newsletter which delivers the latest popular offers on the web for starting a money making venture from home.

2. An absolute must is an attractive subject line in your email advertisements which catches the interest of your prospects immediately and persuades them to read more. Time is of the essence these days and people will only scan their email messages in their inbox trying to decide which ones are worthy of opening.

Therefore, a headline which is brief and to the point and which addresses a problem they may be having with a solution enclosed is the best way to get them interested. Now that you have their attention and they’ve opened your message your first sentence must continue to increase their curiosity by telling them how they will benefit by reading your email or newsletter completely.

Always address your readers by their first name which you should have captured with your squeeze page when they subscribed to your list. This makes the message more personal and helps to create a trusting relationship with your prospects which of course is a vital step in the sales process. Remember to keep your message brief and on topic because now that you have their attention you will want to keep it until they’ve read your entire letter.

3. Be sure to include a call to action in your email message. People need to be told what to do and how to do it. If it isn’t obvious to them what they should do next they aren’t going to spend a whole lot of time trying to find out. A Clickable hyperlink with bold text instructing them to: “Click here now for more information” seems to work well. The easier it is for them to proceed to the next step the more likely they will do what you want them to do. Never leave anything to chance.

4. Try to make your text exciting and fast paced while never boring for your readers. Make your sentences short and to the point while avoiding flowery descriptive language which only makes the message longer and not very interesting. Time is the key and if you your content doesn’t over deliver in terms of conveying your message in an exhilarating fashion with a definitive call to action you will most likely lose your prospects attention as well as the sale.

By employing these 4 tactics in all your email marketing strategies on a regular basis you should notice a significant increase in sales and profits for your online home based business.

Bob Withers

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The whole idea behind building a substantial targeted email list of prospects and current customers for your home based business is to make sales and profits. However, you aren’t going to accomplish this goal if your email list isn’t monetized properly.

There are many ways you can monetize your list such as promoting affiliate products, advertising private label rights merchandise, creating and selling your own product and by directing your visitors to your Google ad sense and Amazon monetized affiliate sites.

The important thing to remember throughout the whole process is to make sure you have a good mix of content related auto-responder email along with promotional messages loaded and ready to be sent to your members. Don’t commit the cardinal sin of pumping out email after email which does nothing more than advertise to your subscribers over and over again and which usually results in alienating your prospects to the point of losing members from your list.

Another critical point which must be monitored on a regular basis throughout the whole routine is your member’s response to your messages. How often are they being opened and are they responding to your offer and how often are they replying? It’s vital that you check these rates regularly to find out if your campaign is working as planned and to discover if you need to make some adjustments in order to improve your open and response rates.

Before sending out ads to your list you must make sure you’ve established a trusting relationship with your members by sending out quality content on a regular basis which is of value to your readers and with no strings attached in terms of attached promotions. Once you’ve established in your own mind that this rapport exists you can proceed with your email marketing campaign confident that you will receive the desired response.

In order to maintain a long lasting relationship with your prospects you should make it a point to add value to every message you send; even your promotional emails. This is another way to gain their respect and to show them you appreciate their interest in your products and your business.

You have to demonstrate to your subscribers that you didn’t just entice them to sign up to your list so you could sell them your products. Everyone likes to feel appreciated, even people who are, in a lot of ways, anonymous business prospects.

Treating your members with the respect they deserve as potential clients and current customers will make it easier for you to monetize your list and reap the rewards further down the road. Relationship building will also contribute to the longevity of your home business by creating a loyal following who will remain on your list for years to come.

An effective way to monetize your list with affiliate merchandise is by buying a domain name for each product you’re promoting and direct your list members through this link to the vendor’s web page. You also need to include, in your email, certain keywords which trigger a response from your target or niche and attract their attention. These keywords, of course, must be related to your market, your product and your audience.

Monetizing your email list is an ongoing process which begins as soon as your visitor subscribes and continues throughout the life of your business relationship, which if done correctly will be a long and lucrative one for you and your home business and your client.

Bob Withers

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Many Internet marketers believe the most difficult part of email list building is getting people to sign up in the first place. However, my belief is the biggest challenge facing new home business owners online is keeping people interested and maintaining them as members after they sign up.

People sometimes have short attention spans as well as short memories so you must keep your enterprise in the fore front of their thoughts or you will eventually lose them as subscribers and as customers.

Here are 5 techniques you can use to hold your list members attention and sustain their loyalty as subscribers to your business and to your email directory:

1. Keep your messages short and to the point. People are normally very busy and don’t have the time to read long winded, hype filled diatribes and they won’t. If they continue to receive such letters it won’t be long before you begin receiving unsubscribe notices from your members.

Make your paragraphs no longer than two or three sentences each which will make your message easy to scan quickly. A bullet type format is also very effective with each sentence highlighting the content of your memo. Also keep it simple and make it easy to understand which will also save people time.

2. You must provide valuable content for your readers in your email messages. If your list members are used to receiving value from you they won’t hesitate in opening your letter. However, if you’re continually trying to sell to them and aren’t paying attention to them as clients or as valued customers then you’re headed down the wrong path if you want to keep them as subscribers to your business.

3. Perhaps one of the most effective strategies for getting your email read is to provide downloadable content in your text. For example, send your text message email containing a link to a downloadable file such as a PDF which perhaps contains a newsletter or maybe you’re providing a course via a drip feed system which they will have to right click on and save target as in order to save it to their desktop. This delivery method demonstrates a business owner who’s making an effort to provide value to his members and who’s making an effort to keep them as subscribers.

4. A great way to stay on the cutting edge and to keep your readers interested and involved is to use audio and or video in your messages. The best way to accomplish this is to send your email with a note informing your readers there’s a message on your website for them and of course include the link. Embedded audio or video in the email will only annoy your recipients so, as with the downloadable message, it’s better to add a link to the audio or video presentation.

5. Without warning and on a regular basis give your subscribers a free gift. People love surprises as well as freebies so you’ll be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak, by using this tactic. This will demonstrate your appreciation of your list members and will help to maintain their loyalty to your home business and to you as the owner.

Building a responsive email list of hungry buyers is the most important thing you can do to ensure the long term success of your Internet marketing career and your home based business online. However, maintaining and nurturing this list is more important because unless you pay attention to your members it won’t matter how many of them there are because they will never buy from you again.

Bob Withers

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When you think about building an email list for your home based business online some of the most common strategies which come to mind are of course linking an autoresponder to your opt-in box or squeeze page and then driving traffic to your website using ezines, articles, e-books, blogs, free reports, other gifts and contests and so on. You must compensate people for providing their contact information and these are some of the strategies you can use.

However, aside from the most obvious techniques you can employ to create your list there are some tactics you can use every day, in situations you may not be aware of, to add more names to your directory. Here are 8 such strategies you can take advantage of on a daily basis:

1. First of all list building should be in the forefront of your thinking in every situation that may arise with your customers or your prospects. Each time you interact with someone about your home business always look at it as a chance to build your list. For example, if someone calls looking for information ask if they have an email address to which you can forward the documents they need.

2. Most people who are new to Internet marketing believe when they place an opt-in page on their home page their job is done. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth because you should place either a squeeze page or an exit pop over on every page of your website so you can collect the information you need every chance you can get.

3. When you go to trade shows and other business functions be sure to have plenty of your business cards on hand so you can exchange information with other people at these events. These cards usually contain physical addresses, phone numbers; URL’s and email addresses which you can add to your list.

4. Leave your website URL everywhere and anywhere you can. This is a great way to encourage people to visit your website and when they do make sure they have to opt-in to communicate with you via email.

5. You can use your current email list to help you attract new subscribers. Encourage your current customers to recommend your home business to their friends and family in exchange for discounts and free gifts for those they convince to sign up.

6. If you have an ezine that you send to your list members on a regular basis encourage them to send it on to their associates. If these people like it they will then have to come directly to your website in order to subscribe to receive it on a regular basis.

7. Advertise and hold special events on your home page which you think may be of interest not only to your current members but also to the traffic which may visit your site or may be just passing through. Ask people who do sign up for the special function to refer others who they believe may be interested and offer a prize for the person who refers the most subscribers for the event.

8. Request people who correspond with your business to do so via email. When you send out physical mail for any reason ask them to fill in an email form which of course includes their best email address.

These are 8 techniques you can add to your list building strategy and I’m sure with some thought you can come up with several others to help build your email list. This directory of customers and prospective clients will help ensure the success and longevity of your home business online for many years to come.

Bob Withers

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If you remember the famous line from the Kevin Costner movie “The Field of Dreams”: “If you build it they will come”, you can apply the same principle to your Internet marketing career and your email list with a slight twist by working under the assumption: “If you build it they will buy”. The “it” of course refers to your email list of prospective customers and current clients. Without a list of targeted prospects your success online, as a home business owner, will be short lived.

The old Internet marketing adage which states: “The money is in the list”, is just as true today as it was when it was first quoted back in the early days of making money on the Internet. Having a targeted list of people who are interested in what you’re selling can truly set you free from the everyday worries of having enough money at the end of the month to pay the bills as well as liberate you from that mind numbing job you have to face on a daily basis.

Here are 5 ways having your own file of hungry buyers will change your life as well as make your Internet marketing task much easier and much more financially rewarding:

1. On average Internet marketers report that for every member of their targeted email list they will receive $1.00 of income per month. So let’s do the math; if you have a directory of 10,000 people you should make $10,000.00 per month or $120,000.00 per year. For Internet marketers who have lists of 50,000 customers and prospective buyers or more they can generate a yearly income of well over $500,000.00 from their current list alone.

This of course doesn’t include any new product launches they may have during the year or any new members they have subscribing to their offers on a daily basis throughout the 12 months. By including these statistics you will see home business owners and professional Internet marketers generating yearly profits of well over one million dollars. Of course this doesn’t happen over night, but you can see how concentrating on adding people to your list on a daily basis will pay off for you in the long run.

2. If you concentrate on building a long term rapport with your subscribers you will have a list you can market to again and again and which will make money for you on a regular basis for many years to come. It’s similar to having an offline relationship; the more you cultivate it and care for it the more benefit you will reap from it over the long term.

3. Your email list is a tremendous source of return traffic to your home business website on a regular basis. People who sign up to your list do so because they’re interested in your content and for this reason they will usually come back to view any updates or to read any new information you may have added.

Also by sending your list a new message about an affiliate product or a new offer you may be promoting you’re naturally going to drive these people to your website to take a closer look at what you’re advertising.

4. With the growing popularity of social media and networking online with websites such as facebook and twitter dominating the Internet social scene, building a targeted and responsive email list is a form of social networking. To accomplish your goal and have people subscribe to your list you first have to establish a relationship with them in order to gain their trust and their business and social networking is a great way to accomplish this.

5. By having your own list you can approach other Internet marketers with a view toward creating a joint venture relationship with them. Other business owners are very open to joint product development schemes whereby both parties jointly share the costs and the profits of such an endeavor by advertising to each other’s list.

This arrangement can double or even triple your list size for this particular product launch depending on your partner’s list size. This creates a tremendous opportunity for increased sales and profits for your business.

So as you can see having your own targeted email list of hungry buyers can explode your home business sales and profits online as well as guarantee your Internet marketing success for many years to come.

Bob Withers

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Without having an effective follow up process in place what are the odds these people will remember you and your website and decide to come back? The chances of this happening are either very remote or non existent and this is why you must have a system in place which captures their contact information on their first visit and then follows up with them on a regular basis.

To accomplish its goal of converting these prospects into paying clients your follow up must remind people to revisit your website and it must tell them why they should do so. Your messages should describe in detail how they will benefit from buying your product. It should show them how their lives will either be improved or made easier in some respect after purchasing and it should also convey what you’re going to do for them after they become one of your customers.

Most of the time your visitors don’t buy on their first visit because they need or want more information and your follow up mechanism will solve this problem by giving them everything they need to make an informed buying decision. The first major component of your follow up process, and perhaps the most critical, is a reliable and efficient autoresponder.

The best route to take is to hire an autoresponder service to handle your email responses. Perhaps the most popular and the most reliable service available online is Aweber; however you should research the different services available on the web and choose for yourself.

After making your choice your next step is to load your follow up system with your email messages which should highlight the benefits of your product and which should explicitly ask your prospects for the sale. It should also tell your readers exactly what they must do to purchase your merchandise outlined in a step-by-step fashion. Most people want to know precisely what their next move is in order to purchase and past experience has demonstrated this is the best way to close the deal.

Your follow up message shouldn’t just be a sales pitch; you should include something of value such as an ezine subscription or a discount coupon to use for their first purchase. You can send a different message every day or you can stagger your follow ups to every second or every third day, but the important thing is not to let them forget you and your home business and you can  accomplish this by following up on a regular basis.

Your messages can continue for as many days as you want. Some Internet marketers send email follow ups for only a week after the initial visit while others do so for an entire year afterwards. It’s up to you, but you should have at least ten original messages ready to load into your autoresponder system and then schedule your delivery for whatever time intervals you feel will produce the best results.

The most important point to remember here is to establish some kind of email follow up system because you never can tell when a potential customer will be ready to become a paying client, and by reminding them on a regular basis that you want their business they will remember you and your home based business website when it comes time to buy.

Bob Withers

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Any Internet marketer worth his salt will tell you that following up with your customers and potential clients via email is an absolute necessity in order to succeed online. If you’re just starting out on the web as a home based business owner you should make it a priority to develop an effective list building strategy, and while creating this directory of names and email addresses be sure to follow up with them on a regular basis to promote your products and to increase your sales.

For the uninitiated follow up email marketing is the process of sending persuasive email messages to your list of subscribers to help convince them to become paying customers or, in the case of current clients, to purchase from your business again. This tactic can be used in many ways to help build your business and to help increase your profits and here are 5 very valuable tactics you can use via email follow-up to accomplish these goals:

1. After you close the sale and you have a new customer why not create a follow-up series of messages attempting to convince them to become affiliates for your products. Creating an affiliate program and having an army of sales people promoting your merchandise on the web will create a very lucrative income stream for your home business. Of course you must make it worth their while by offering an attractive remuneration package of 60% or more commission for each sale they make in order to get them to subscribe.

2. After they’ve signed on the dotted line you can email your clients and offer them access to an e-course you’ve created for a specific dollar amount each month. This is a tremendous way to create a recurring income on the web because if you subscribe 50 people to take your course and you charge each person $27.00 per month you would establish a habitual secondary income of $1350.00 each and every month for the duration of your classes.

3. Follow-up email is a great method to employ for up selling your clients via a backend product from your website. Your initial sale could be for one of your lower end goods or cheaper products just to close the deal so you can then promote one of your high end or pricier pieces of merchandise in order to up sell your new client. Making the first sale is only half the battle because more money is usually made from follow-up promotions after the initial deal.

4. Establishing a reputation online for providing excellent customer service can be worth its weight in future sales for your home based business and there’s no better way to accomplish this than through follow up email messages. After your customers have purchased their products you could initiate a series of autoresponder messages teaching your new clients how their new purchase operates.

You could do this by answering a frequently asked question every day in one of your email follow-ups and you could also include a toll free number for customer support if they have any other issues or problems with your merchandise.

5. You could create a series of messages asking for your customer’s opinion on the sales process they just went through at your website. You could then send another question the following day asking if they have any suggestions of how they would improve this aspect of your business or if there’s any other area of your enterprise including your home page they would change.

Collecting information from your customers as well as your potential clients can help you improve your customer service and help your clients feel a part of the process which can help you establish a closer relationship with them. Of course this will all go a long way toward helping close some of your future sales thereby adding more money to your coffers.

These 5 strategies for using follow up email messages to help increase your sales are only scratching the surface because if you think about it for a minute I’m very sure you will come up at least 5 or maybe even 10 more tactics for using follow up email marketing to help take your home based business to the next level online.

Bob Withers

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