SFI AFFILIATE TEAM-BUILDING ON STEROIDS!
13th May 2012- I've promised to give away 15 affiliates to 3 members of my team in June.
- I've given away 4 affiliates to 4 member of my team so far in May.
- I've gave away 60 affiliates to 12 members of my team in April.
- I gave away 101 affiliates in December 2011. (A Record!)
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Autoresponders
Product Review: List Wire Autoresponder Part 1
Back in 2007, when I was a newbie affiliate marketer, I understood that I needed to “build a list“, which meant that I needed an email autoresponder. So I subscribed to GetResponse because that was what my sponsor subscribed to and it gave me access to his preloaded email series…
Trouble was that for months on end my so-called “list” grew at a painfully slow rate and remained almost completely unresponsive. I sold hardly anything at all and yet, month after month, like a ZOMBIE, I paid my dues to GetResponse.
I’m not knocking GetResponse. It’s a fine service, and so, from what I hear, is Aweber. I expect TrafficWave is pretty good too. 
However, the real problem is that if you are a newbie on a shoestring budget, spending $15-$20 per month with nothing to show for it is no laughing matter in this economy…
Waking Up From My Zombie-Like Internet Marketing Sleep…
Eventually, I woke up from my ZOMBIE-LIKE INTERNET MARKETING SLEEP, cut my losses and closed my GetResponse account. I found a good alternative in RapidResponseBot, which, for a reasonable one-time payment, gave me a perfectly satisfactory, if rather basic, autoresponder service. Perfectly good enough to work with while building a business.
The Listwire Homepage. Check out the video if you are not sure about finding a reliable, good quality, 100% free autoresponder service...
Then, a few months back, I came across ListWire, a new, 100% free, professional autoresponder service set up by one of the biggest names in Internet marketing, Gary Ambrose. Gary has specialised in list building projects and has been at the forefront of the Internet marketing revolution since 1998. No surprise that one of his partners in several online business projects is Mike Filsaime.
I watched the video on the ListWire website and signed up immediately. I haven’t looked back since. It really is what it says it is, a free autoresponder that works as well as a subscription-based autoresponder; and no, you are NOT bombarded with advertising – in fact, apart from member’s testimonials, there is no advertising on the website at all.
So How Does ListWire Make Any Mula?
So where is the payback? How does Gary Ambrose make his money with ListWire?
Actually, the deal – or one of the deals that I am aware of – is this. When someone opts in to your list they are redirected to a Listwire page that tells them to confirm the link in their email and then to click a link on the webpage they are viewing. That link will then take them to your thank-you page. However, when new subscribers click the opt in confirmation link in the confirmation email, they are redirected to an OTO page for one of Mike Filsaime‘s programs.
I have no problem with that.
What Do You Want From Your Autoresponder Service?
However, to be frank about it, you must decide what you want:
1. Do you want to pay $15-$20 a month for an autoresponder service?
Or…
2. Do you want a 100% free autoresponder service that presents your subscribers with an ad at the beginning of their relationship with you?
For me, and I bet for most newbie internet marketers, the second choice is better.
For newbies, the fewer up-front expenses the better. Personally, I would rather receive an excellent service completely free, and “give something back” to the program owner in the form of an One Time Offer to my list. So what if 2% or 3% sign up for Listwire’s OTO promotion, they will still be on my list as well.
Giving Value To Your Affiliates
Sure, I’m probably missing out on those TrafficWave or Aweber affiliate commissions. But you know what? I feel better about offering my newbie affiliates a vital Internet marketing service that will save them cash and probably keep them in the game longer – possibly even long enough to learn how to make money on the Internet, and to do it, which would be great benefit for me as well.
In short, ListWire is an excellent 100% free autoresponder service that is helping to reshape the role of the autoresponder in email marketing.
I’ll talk more about the features and benefits, pros and cons, of ListWire in my next post.
David Hurley
3 Pitfalls To Avoid When Using An Email AutoResponder
Email Autoresponder marketing should be an integral part of any Internet marketer’s business strategy. However, many people struggle to get results with their autoresponders.
Here are some of the pitfalls that could create problems for a responsive email autoresponder marketing campaign:
1. Having outdated content on your email autoresponder.
If you intend to load your autoresponder with six months or more of content to send out to your list it is essential that the content is the kind that will not date. If you include content that is time-sensitive you will need to review your messages at regular intervals to make sure that they are still relevant and the links are still active.
If you send stale content to your subscribers, especially in the first couple of weeks, not only will your readers lose faith in what you have to say but they will rapidly start unsubscribing and your list will dwindle to nothing.
2. Bad Coding
A popular “attention-strategy” is to send out email with the recipient’s name in the subject field and in the salutation at the beginning of the message. This adds a personal touch to the message and is done by adding a snippet of code to the email where you want the reader’s name to appear.
Even though the majority of readers are aware that you are not personally addressing every single email, the idea that the mail is addressed directly to you just makes you feel good somehow. However, before sending off an email, make sure you check the code to make sure that it renders correctly.
With most email autoresponders you can do that either by previewing the message before you send it, or by sending a test email to your own inbox to see what it looks like when opened.
3. Failing to deliver quality information
What could be worse than subscribing to a list and then receiving nothing but an avalanche of sales pitches? When people subscribe to your email autoresponder list, it is because they expect to get valuable information about the subject concerned.
What they do not want is to receive sales pitches every day.
There is nothing wrong with having a sales pitch mixed in with the information, but limit it to every third or fourth email. The quickest way to get people to hit the unsubscribe button is to bombard them with sales pitches.
Respect your readers by providing them with the useful information they want. If you give them nothing but sales pitches do not expect any sales.
Keep your information up-to-date, make sure it serves a useful purpose, avoid coding errors and your auto responder marketing campaign will become a profitable part of your legitimate online businesses.
If you are looking for a free, professional email autoresponder, try List Wire – I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
For more information and advice on building successful legitimate online businesses Michelle Jayes invites you to visit her online income opportunities website http://www.online-income-business.com
Legitimate Online Businesses Will Benefit From Auto Responder Marketing
To make money from legitimate online businesses, two things that will help you are:
- an emailing list
- an auto responder service.
Every step of the sales process can be improved and time saved with auto responders and they can also help in testing email marketing strategies.
Here are four autoresponder marketing tips that will help your business no matter what type of online marketing you do.
1. The Subject Line.
You must realize that everyone on your subscriber list is also on many other lists and it is also pretty safe to say that not everyone on your list will open every email they get. What this means is that you will be competing for attention from your subscribers against every other internet marketer out there, before the email even gets opened!
Doing this makes the subject line of every email that you send out, the most important part of the email. It does not matter how good the content of your emails are if no one reads them, so in order to increase your open rate or the number of readers who will open and read all your mail, you must create subject lines that will excite their curiosity. You can do this by either making the subject line a question, or alternatively short and seemingly incomplete.
2. Remind Your Readers to Take Action
Be sure that you provide valuable content, but this alone will not actually get you the sale, if you want to profit from your efforts you need to ask, so don’t forget to tell your readers what you expect them to do. Whether you want them to visit a new blog post or opt in to another list, don’t just assume that they will take any action on their own. Although some people will, there are many more that will not unless you lead them to the next step.
3. Make Your Emails Easy to Read
It is critical when creating an email that you format it correctly. Remember that not all emails display in the same way. There could be a difference in characters or the limits per line could vary and some may not support HTML. This is why you must format every email so that the majority of email displays look good and are easy to read.
One method to do this is to keep each line to a maximum of 60 characters and to also keep a comfortable amount of white space, and the best way to do this is by adding headings and sub headings to make for easier reading, or so that people can scan the emails as many people do when reading things online.
4. Learn from Your Competition
Something that has been in practice for hundreds of years is to copy from your competitors. It is not uncommon to find internet marketers signing up to some lists that belong to their competitors. This then gives them the opportunity to see what their competitors are offering and how they are promoting it, and also the type of content they are providing.
Do this and you will then have the ability to create an experience that is equal to – or better than – what your competitors are doing. Putting in some effort and practice will be well worth it.
Use these 4 auto responder email marketing tips in your campaigns and you will start to see an almost instantaneous increase in your online business profits.
For more help with your legitimate online businesses Michelle Jayes invites you to visit her online income opportunities website and get some great FREE internet marketing e-books
4 Tried And Tested Auto-Responder Marketing Strategies
Here are 4 tips to help you develop a more effective auto-responder marketing strategy:
1. E-courses. One way to get people to join your list would be to offer an e-course instead of the same old free e-book or report that everybody else is offering.
Divide the course into several parts and load them into your auto-responder. By the time the course comes to an end you should have managed to build some trust and credibility with your readers, which will enable you to follow up with them and gently promote your services to them while continuing to supply them with useful newsletter content (see tip #2).
2. Newsletters. Sending out weekly or monthly newsletters is the most common of all auto-responder marketing strategies.
The key to success with this method is to ensure that the content you are offering your subscribers is always up to date.
Newsletters can be used to help you keep your readers up to date, but they can also give you an opportunity to add more content to each message without having to overwhelm your readers. Provided you are only sending them emails once a week, filling it with good content will also allow you to include one or two links to your own products or services.
3. Lead your list to your blog. Include a short overview paragraph of a webpage or blog post that is available on your website. This overview should be enough to arouse your readers’ interest so that they will want to click the link to your website to find out more.
This is a great way to send targeted traffic to your website and also means that your website and auto-responder list are working together to raise your profile with your target market.
Also, with more traffic to your website your stats will be better and your online business will appear more popular than it would if you did not use this extra resource.
4. Broadcasting. A broadcast is an email that you write and send to your list straight away. By emailing your whole subscriber list in real- time you will ensure that your content is always relevant and up do date. This is really the best way to communicate with your list, but this method needs more time and effort than sending out pre-loaded content.
These four auto-responder marketing strategies are tried and tested ways to raise your profile with your list of subscribers. They can be used singly or in combination and it is worth experimenting with each of them to see which ones are most suited to your business model.
For more help with your legitimate online businesses Michelle Jayes invites you to visit her online income opportunities website and get some great FREE internet marketing e-books
Why It Isn’t True To Say “The Money Is In The List”
I guess that most Internet marketers have heard the marketing proverb, “the money is in the list.” The idea is that if you are to make money online it is no good simply putting up a site and adding a bunch of affiliate links and banner ads to it then sitting back and waiting for the money to come rolling in.
Sorry folks, but it isn’t going to happen.
No, if you are going to make money online your first aim is not to sell to your visitors straight off the front page of your website but to CAPTURE your visitor’s name and email address. Your visitor will then be automatically placed on your auto-responder’s mailing list and will start receiving your newsletter mailings.
As your list grows, so will sales from the links you provide in your mailings. To add to your income, you will be advised to send out an e-mail broadcast from time to time with a special offer.
This is all well and good, up to a point. But a one off e-mail broadcast is not much different from a one off visit by a surfer to your website. Indeed, it might be less effective since the surfer quite likely initiated his own visit to your site, whereas your broadcast arrives in his inbox for him to delete or ignore without taking any further action at all if he wishes.
A one-off broadcast or a series of preloaded mailings that skip from subject to subject are not the best ways to sell online no matter how big your list is.
What is needed is a concerted campaign in which an initial mailing is followed-up with two or three more messages, each one different in style or perspective, but each helping to reinforce to basic “buy now” message of the first.
It is said that 60% of sales are made not in the initial approach, but in the follow-up. So it is not quite true to say that “the money is in the list.” Really, the money is in the FOLLOW-UP to the list.
Now you might reasonably object that without a list there could be no follow-up…
…but with no follow-up there will be no money! 
Or at least, not as much money sloshing around your bank account as there would be if you follow up your initial approach with a series of highly targeted follow-up letters.
David Hurley
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