Product Launch and Business Growth Blog » money is in the list

No list, no partners, no budget – no launch

Rick Braddy — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:01:49 +0000

Over the past few months, I have spoken with dozens of small business owners and entrepreneurs who are in the process of launching new products into new markets they have no prior presence in. And I notice a pattern emerging in every case. The conversation begins about how great their product is and how excited they are about taking it to market.

Of course, being the launch guy, I start asking my usual qualifying questions, which include:

1. What size list do you have for this market?

2. How many launch partners do you have lined up?

3. What is your advertising / PR budget for the launch?

The answer is usually the same – “none” or “I don’t know yet.” Unfortunately, that’s the wrong answer…

Without some or all of those three prerequisites, there is no launch. And if you’re entering an existing, real market with competitors, chances are excellent that those you would like to partner with who have lists of prospects and customers already have established relationships with entrenched competitors.

There are ways to address these issues, of course.

First, if you have a limited ad budget, that may be recoverable, but you must have an effective market “canvassing” route; i.e., you have to come up with a cost-effective way to bootstrap your way in front of your target market. So how can you do that?

Here are some quick ideas and suggestions for you:

1. JV Broker – find and hire a good JV broker with existing relationships in your target market (someone who has relationships with affiliates/partners with list assets in your target market). Pay your JV broker well for referring you to a few solid launch partners.

2. Bloggers – find a half-dozen or more quality bloggers who communicate with your target audience, and get them to interview you and/or review your product. Many times, these “unpaid” reviews will get you some great exposure.

3. Affiliates - get involved with affiliates who have existing lists (and products) in your target market, and pay them a healthy percentage of the sales revenue. You may want to seriously consider joining a CPA network that’s appropriate for your product type, where you’ll have access to a large stable of affiliates.

4. Bundle/OEM – consider bundling your “technology” or product along with someone else’s product as a value-add, so you can “ride” in to an existing market as a part of an existing solution that’s already flowing into your target market through an established channel.

5. Viral Campaigns – while typically a bit of a longshot, if you can find the right viral marketing strategy, you can sometimes get some broad exposure using social media, YouTube and other viral reach components.

These are just a few of the ways to work your way past the “no list, no partners, no budget” obstacles when initially entering a new market. It takes a lot of time, patience and work to find and establish the relationships necessary to bootstrap your way into a market without a launch budget, but it can be done. Of course, it assumes you have a truly high-value, differentiated product that (other) people are truly excited about and want to help you take to market.

Of course, the least riskiest, highest yield strategy is going to market to an existing base and audience who already know you, trust you (or your partners) and are willing to take a sincere look at what you’re launching. Today, people are busier than ever, constantly bombarded by spam and ads, so being introduced by a trusted party is always the best way to go if you can manage it.

Whatever combination of go-to-market components you choose, it’s important to ensure these are lined up and committed to supporting your launch well ahead of launch day, so you’ll have what it takes to reach critical mass for your launch.

Your most important needs for 2011 – addressed

Rick Braddy — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 16:55:45 +0000

Late last year, we surveyed our audience and list to uncover the most pressing and highest priority areas that needed attention in 2011. The Survey Results are shown in the following chart:

The most important areas that you were dissatisfied most with your ability to address properly were identified as:

Launching products
List building and list nurturing
Online sales conversions
Landing page conversions

Today, the solution to items #2 through #4 is now available. It’s called Sales C.S.I. (we already provide solutions for launching products).

We created a focused, video-based program that shows you what you need to do on your websites to build your lists bigger and faster, increase sales and improve landing page conversions. And we decided to make it affordable, so that anyone with a small business or website could afford it (it’s just $77 during this limited introductory period).

It’s called Sales C.S.I. because the focus is on showing you how to apply “Internet Marketing Forensics” to your business. Forensics enable you to go deeper and truly see what’s happening on your website – what buyers are doing that you can amplify and optimize – and what non-buyers are doing (so you can find ways to fix your site and processes to turn more non-buyers into buyers).

In most cases, the information you need to solve your “conversion mysteries” are available to you right on your website – once you put the proper instrumentation in place and learn how to interpret the reports properly.

Then we go a step further. We teach you how to do A/B split-testing and multivariate testing properly, so you can then tune and optimize your lead-generation, list-building and sales conversion processes.

The reality is, if watch the brief videos and follow the simple, step-by-step instructions provided, you will get results. If you do not use the proper instrumentation and tune your site, nothing will change (your conversions will stay the same or continue to drop over time with increased competition). Those are the realities of owning and operating an online business of any kind.

So, for the first time, I have shared all the best practices and most of what I know about tuning and optimizing sales and lead-generation processes (including landing pages and sales pages).

Be sure to check Sales C.S.I. out and let me know what you think.

Some list building and sales conversion help for you

Rick Braddy — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:18:39 +0000

Yesterday, I posted a link to a video about an important announcement that you should find interesting if you are responsible for online sales, lead-generation or list building.

If you didn’t have time to view it yet, you can catch it here.

If you watched the video, at the end it mentioned today’s video would open things up and give you “… a look inside.”

So, if you want to learn about the latest in analysis and “forensics” technique to build your list bigger and faster, and convert more sales with your existing traffic, then check out this video that shows you how.

Rick

List Building Secrets E-book

Rick Braddy — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:13:04 +0000

As an Internet marketer, one of the most common phrases you will hear is “list building”.

You might wonder why this idea of building a list is so important in your ability to make money as an online marketer. Many wonder why they cannot just build websites, write some copy and collect their profits. Why is it so vital that you consider building a list?

First, let’s talk about what building a list means. Basically, this is where you have visitors to your site fill out a form with their name and email address.

Using this information, you stay in touch with your list (whether they have bought from you yet or not) via email. You will send good, quality information as well as the occasional sales letter to this list.

With any niche that you choose, you will need to make the decision as to whether building a list is even a viable option. However, if you think about it, there is usually some room for up-selling in just about any niche.

For example, if you have a website related to infertility and how to overcome it, you might wonder what else you could offer that group of people. If they use your program and are successful at getting pregnant, you could offer them all kinds of baby related items during their pregnancy. It is important to think outside of the box!

Discover how to reach the huge potential in your market

As marketers build their lists, they often see the huge potential they have in that niche. Taking the example above, perhaps you decide to write your own ebook that will complement the one you have been selling.

For example, if you have been selling an ebook titled “How to Overcome Infertility Naturally”, you might decide to write one called “Yoga Moves for Infertility”.

This way, you can still sell the original book, but now you can also offer your list this accompanying book.

To see the potential, let’s assume your list has only 500 people right now. Your ebook is priced at $19.95, and you send an email out to your list (which takes all of about 2 minutes).

If 150 people on your list purchase your ebook, you just made a quick $2992.50 for one email! That is the power of list building.

Of course, if you had to hire out the writing of the book, your profits would be a bit reduced. However, what if your email pulled a better return? You could make even more than that.

Now if you’re a larger business or enterprise, then you’re probably focused more on B2B style sales, which involve a combination of lead-generation online, plus follow-up and sales by phone or even in person (I know, it’s hard to believe, but some selling still takes place offline!)

Whatever size business you have, you simply must always be building, growing and nurturing your lists, because it’s the lifeblood of both new business and farming your existing installed base of customers.

So here’s my gift to you – a free 64 page e-book “List Building Secrets”

I decided to make these techniques for growing and monetizing your list available to our VIP members – for free!

This 64-page e-book is full of both basic and advanced tips and best practices for growing your existing list as well as starting a new list from scratch in a new or existing market.

It covers opt-in offer strategies, landing pages and auto-responder content tips that will help you build a stronger relationship with your audience.

I’ve written this guide to deliver a step-by-step blueprint to building a massively profitable mailing list in the shortest amount of time possible.

I take you straight into the heart of the time-tested, proven strategies that will build your list and make you money.

No time wasted, no watered down material that leaves you confused and frustrated. These shocking, unconventional strategies have been rigorously tested, PERSONALLY used and PROVEN to work – so you can just incorporate them and go.

Here is just some of what’s revealed in List Building Secrets:

	How to create massive mailing lists without spending a penny on subscriber acquisition. These stealth list building strategies will pull in more subscribers than many “paid to” use strategies and will save you thousands in the process!

	How to fine tune your list building campaigns so that you are attracting ACTIVE buyers! It’s important to avoid inflating your subscriber base with dead weight and this single strategy will guarantee that doesn’t happen.

	The fastest methods of building a mailing list in any niche market, even if you’re totally new to email marketing. These are newbie-friendly strategies and can be executed with ease!

	How to find the hungriest buyers and build high profit mailing lists, without even having a product of your own! You can jump right into these and start building your list and subscriber base right away!

	The super-charged list building strategy that can add THOUSANDS of new subscribers to your list in a matter of hours! Don’t waste time with slow-yielding list building tactics again. Set up a campaign this way and you will continue to suck in new subscribers every single day, for months or years to come!

	The virtually guaranteed formula for creating an irresistible squeeze page that sucks in subscribers like steel to a magnet! People will not be able to resist subscribing to your mailing list if you follow this simple squeeze page checklist!

	Turbo charged action plan for building a rock solid relationship with your list that compels people to respond to most every offer you send out! This goes far beyond offering decent content…

So, the question is – are you a VIP member yet?

Become a VIP member of my blog. It’s easy – you just register for free. That’s it.

Click here to access the List Building Secrets e-book.

Happy list building!!

Rick

Fast Way to Make Money with WordPress

Rick Braddy — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:37:54 +0000

Hi,

First, there are a lot of people unemployed today, in desperate need of ways to make money from home. And most people are very good at something – usually one or two things (at least), that they’re passionate about. Blogging is a great way to get started making some money online, by serving up your knowledge and expertise and sharing that passion with others.

Second, there are even more of us with existing businesses who realize that the bigger our email lists and online audiences become, the more money we make. One common figure that’s thrown around a lot for small businesses and online entrepreneurs is that each subscriber on your email list is worth $1 per month (per subscriber). For large corporations, it’s undoubtedly orders of magnitude more.

Whatever the exact value per subscriber, it’s clearly important to build your email list and attract a quality audience by providing quality content.

But how do you go about building a list these days? Unless you’ve been hiding somewhere underneath a rock or lost in the woods for several years, you probably realize how WordPress is taking over the world as one of the leading blogging platforms.

And today, WordPress is also being used extremely effectively to build all kinds of websites, including Launch Micro Sites, portals and small business websites of every kind. Why? Because it’s free, it’s easy and there’s all kinds of “plug-in” extensions available. There are millions of WordPress blog and websites in use today.

Of course, this blog you’re now reading has been WordPress-based from the beginning in 2008. Since then, WordPress has grown into a rich content publishing and content management system (CMS). WordPress has also evolved into a great platform for building a subscriber base, building your email list bigger and faster and making money. In fact, there are many professional bloggers who make their living from publishing great content on their blogs.

So, how does one go about making money quickly and building a bigger email list using WordPress? It’s taken me several years to figure all this out. Today, I decided to share it with you here. I organized this into three main steps.

Start with a high-quality, premium WordPress theme
Get the right WordPress plug-ins that help you with list building
Decide what products and services to promote, then advertise them on your blog

Let’s take each one of these steps and go a bit deeper, shall we?

1. Start with a high-quality, premium WordPress theme

You need a flexible, quality WordPress theme to get started. There are many different free themes available, and some of them may be perfect for you; however, if you’re developing a site or blog for building your list and making money, you’ll want more flexibility to customize your site. That’s where “premium themes” come in…

I have used a lot of different themes over the years, for my own sites and blogs and with clients, including Thesis and Socrates, which are both excellent themes. However, in my opinion, the new kid on the block has them all beat hands down, in terms of flexibility, quality and value.

It’s called the Headway Theme.

In fact, I believe in this theme so strongly that I’m using it on client projects almost exclusively. At the time of this writing, this project is still underway, but get this. It only took me a couple of days to create this entire site from scratch over a weekend, including the graphics design and most of the content work. If you’ve ever developed your own websites, you realize how impressive (and cost-effective) this approach to website development is.

So, I highly-recommend starting with a premium theme.

2. Get the right WordPress plug-ins that help you with list building

One of the biggest benefits of WordPress as a platform is its extreme flexibility and adaptability to changing needs. A lot of its adaptability comes from the modular “plug-in” architecture, which enables a WordPress administrator to quickly and easily add new capabilities by simply installing and activating a WordPress plug-in.

To build your list effectively, you need the right plug-ins. Today, I use several dozen plug-ins to operate this blog; however, there are a couple of them which are crucial to building our email list and my blog’s subscriber base.

The main list-building plug-in is:

Subscribers Magnet – this is a premium plug-in that inserts opt-in forms on your blog, and integrates sign-ups with your favorite auto-responder software (e.g., AWeber, GetResponse, 1ShoppingCart, etc.).

Subscribers Magnet makes it easy to automatically insert opt-in forms in various strategic places within your blog, including:

Before or after certain posts or all posts
In the blog sidebar (the area to the right of this article, for example) as a WordPress “widget”
As a “checkbox” option to automatically subscribe a user who posts a Comment (very cool!)
As an overlay window at the bottom of the page (when user first arrives at the site)
Anywhere within a post or page

In addition to Subscriber‘s Magnet, I also used regular Text widgets to insert HTML code directly into sidebar widgets (like the Launch Report you see at upper right currently).

A couple of other important plug-ins I use are:

Register Plus – this plug-in provides the ultimate in flexibility for registering your new users, allowing you to capture just about any kind of information you want, and use your own logo (instead of WordPress’ logo)
Subscribe2 - this plug-in emails your blog subscribers whenever you publish a new post. This is a great way to build your list locally within the blog itself (without using an auto-responder); incidentally, there are also now numerous auto-responder plug-ins that turn your WordPress site into an auto-responder! (I haven’t tried them yet)

So, as you can see, it’s fairly straightforward to build your email list and blog audience using the right plug-in tools.

Of course, you need traffic and visitors to your blog. Hey – write some useful content!! (that’s what attracts people to your blog, along with some well-chosen SEO-friendly keywords in your blog title and blog permalink URLs).

When I get more time, I’ll try to post some more detailed reviews of these plug-ins.

3. Decide what products and services to promote, then advertise them on your blog

Last, but certainly not least, is you need a way to “monetize” your WordPress site’s traffic and your email lists. Obviously, you need to give away lots of useful information, by posting it on your blog and emailing your list regularly, but what else can you do?

Advertise!

That’s right. Find some high-quality products that meet your audience’s needs (your own and other people’s products you can promote as an affiliate) – and then advertise them in a calm, clear, professional manner. Notice I use those qualifiers – calm, clear and professional – because if you go overboard with your advertising, you will turn people off and drive them away from your site!! (not a good thing )

So, how can we advertise things calmly, clearly and professionally on our WordPress site? It starts by thinking about advertising this way… if you were visiting your own site, how would you want to be advertised to? What would you consider to be useful, acceptable practices for finding and buying high-quality products? In other words, use the Golden Rule – treat others as you would like to be treated – it (almost) always works!

You might have guessed by now how we can make these advertisements visible on our WordPress site…

By picking the right plug-ins, of course!

Here’s the plug-ins I use and recommend for advertising on your blog:

Ninja Affiliate - this is one of the coolest plug-ins I’ve seen and used in a long time… it allows you to define what the author dubs “ninja links” – which are basically alias URLs on your site – that when clicked on, redirect to the user to a specific offer page. What’s most cool, though, is that you can define a list of keywords that will be automatically converted into hyper-links to your advertised offers. And if these are affiliate links, they can be “cloaked” easily. (you may notice certain keywords in this and other posts are now links – that’s the ninja at work)
DataFeedr Random Ads – this plug-in enables you to define groups of related ads that rotate on a random basis, so that multiple ads can be shown in a single sidebar location. So for example, the banner and text ads you see on this blog are served by this plug-in. You simply define an ad group, then define each ad (by giving it a name and inserting the HTML code you want served), then you place an ad widget in your sidebar – then your ads automatically rotate and show up.

There are many other plug-ins and mechanisms available for advertising on your WordPress site or blog, but these are a couple of my favorites.

Summarizing

So, if you want to build an email list bigger and faster, and generate a revenue stream from blogging and/or a WordPress-based website, now you know how to get started. Just install WordPress, install a quality theme, then start posting some great content.

Along the way, add the aforementioned plug-ins into the mix and start promoting some quality products that help your audience get their jobs done better, faster and easier. You’ll find plenty of great products to promote on ClickBank, Share-a-Sale, CommissionJunction and dozens of other CPA networks out there just teaming with products to promote. Of course, you might have your own products and services to sell, too, which is great.

As long as you’re serving up real value, you can’t really go wrong.

I hope this helps you build your lists and grow your online business profits.

Happy list building and monetizing!

P.S. Need help getting started or developing a WordPress-based website for your business? Contact me and let’s discuss how I can help.

It’s good to be King

Rick Braddy — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:43:19 +0000

It’s been said that on the Internet “Content is king.” Well, if content is king, then relationships go cha-ching!

Of course, cha-ching is the sound of the cash register ringing—the sound of making money.

Another popular online marketing adage is “The money is in the list”—meaning if you have a list of prospects and customers, the money is in farming the list.

In reality, the “Money is in the relationships,” including relationships that are embodied within mailing lists.

No relationship = no money.

Great relationships = great money.

These “Circles of Trust”, as illustrated at the top of this post, are where the real money is made. Get inside one of these major circles, and you’re in the money. And the more of these circles you become a part of, the easier it becomes.

Tapping into these circles of trust is probably the biggest untapped potential for social networks to create tangible value for online businesses.

One of the fastest and most reliable ways to make money online is to build relationships and then turn them into money. Sounds simple enough…

RELATIONSHIPS = MONEY

For example, let’s say you have a friend or business associate that has a newsletter and blog in your target market. Let’s assume this person has built a following of 30,000 newsletter subscribers and 20,000 regular blog readers per month.

These aren’t uncommon numbers on the Internet; in fact, these are relatively small compared to many people I know personally.

So, you convince this person that it would be in her subscribers’ best interest to know about your new product. As an added incentive, you agree to pay her a 20% commission on every sale you make from her subscriber base and blog. Never mind exactly how we will track those commissions (it is easy) for now.

I am going to use this concept of a “Trust-O-Meter” (below) to depict how much trust a prospect has developed in us. The following Trust-O-Meter shows how much our associate’s audience trusts her:

Like a thermometer, the Trust-O-Meter represents the level of trust and relationship strength, in a simplistic way, so we can conceptualize it better. As we see above, our friend’s audience not only trusts her, they like her. We might even consider extending the scale further to the right by adding “Respected” (not shown here).

Why Affiliates and Bloggers Are Trusted

Continuing the affiliate example above, since most of her audience has been with her for some time, they have not only developed a high degree of trust in her, but they also like her. Going beyond trusted to liked is a sure way to make more sales—a lot more sales.

So, we were introduced by our friend and associate to her audience. What is our Trust-O-Meter reading with them at the start?

Because we were introduced by a person the audience (those on the affiliate‘s list) both trusts and likes, we get the benefit of the doubt and begin in a semi-trusted state with her audience.

We will have to earn the rest of their trust…

Together, you and your friend come up with a strategy for communicating and involving the subscribers:

An initial email and blog entry that introduces you to her community
A free teleconference where she interviews you about a hot topic of interest
A recording of the free teleconference posted on the blog site and a brief email note sent to the subscriber list
A free giveaway item you provide that is relevant to her audience
A “special offer,” a time-limited discount on buying your product!

Assuming your product can interest the majority of the 50,000 audience your associate has just introduced you, guess what just happened from the above steps?

First, a foundation of trust and respect existed between your associate and her subscribers and readers. Second, she introduced you to them. You are no longer considered a stranger, so you instantly became semi-trusted.

Next, your free teleconference gave those who attended an opportunity to learn firsthand what kind of person you are and to ask you questions and see how you responded. In effect, you became an authority who is operating at nearly the same level as your associate, and perhaps even at a higher level in your particular area of expertise.

Incidentally, everyone who actually registered for and attended that teleconference just became qualified leads for your product, since they invested some time with you.

Next, everyone else who listens to the recorded teleconference audio also trusts you more (assuming you didn’t blow it during the interview by trying to sell something!) Notice how you have moved up in the Trust-O-Meter!

Next, you gave away some of real value to her audience. This shows what a stand-up kind of person you are, someone who cares and is trying to help.

Finally, she pitches the special offer for your product to the subscribers and audience. In this pitch, your friend is effectively endorsing you and your product, which confers an even greater amount of her trust equity onto you.

I call this “transitive trust,” since her audience now implicitly trusts you primarily because you have been endorsed and approved. Why do you think companies pay so much to get celebrities to endorse their products? Because they are both trusted and liked by so many.

Now, let’s run some numbers to put this example of ours into the proper perspective.

Out of 50,000 subscribers, only 50% are even mildly interested in what you have to say or offer them, leaving 25,000 potential prospects.

By the time she makes these 25,000 the offer, around 40% have enough interest and familiarity to open the email and learn more (This is your email “open rate.”) That is 10,000!

Out of those 10,000, about 25% click through to get more details on this special offer— that is 2,500 qualified prospects that now show up at your website (instead of her blog).

Let’s assume your offer is truly special and motivating to the buyers who have an immediate need and budget, and now trust you enough to buy from you. Let’s assume that 20% end up buying your product over the next 30 days as a result of this campaign.

So you make 500 sales! About 1% of her total subscriber base ended up buying your product. Not bad for a brief campaign with this associate of yours. Let’s say your product sells for $100. You just generated $50,000 in sales.

Let’s say your product sells for $995. You just generated $497,500 in sales! Now you are talking!

What just happened here? You went from zero to half a million in sales and 500 new customers in a matter of a few weeks. That is what happened. What other business do you know of where those kinds of results are possible? It happens somewhere on the Web every single day.

The truth is, this happens in online businesses all the time. In fact, I’ve seen product launches orchestrated with multiple partners who have large subscriber bases sell many thousands of units in less than 24 hours—generating millions of dollars in just hours.

All of this is only possible when you have the right relationships in place.

Remember what I said: Relationships go cha-ching! It’s so true.

And, it’s good to be King!

Product Launch and Business Growth Blog » money is in the list

No list, no partners, no budget – no launch

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