Internet Marketing Strategy

Is Email Marketing a Fad?

By Christian

In a recent post, I indicated how essential email marketing and list building are to your success online. I was challenged by a reader that email marketing and list building are only hot trends right now, because email clients simply haven’t become sophisticated enough to filter everything out. I found that interesting. Seriously?

It seems to me that if one person feels this way strongly enough to send me a message about it, surely others do as well. I do not feel email marketing is a fad. I want to examine this for a minute and see if I can shed some light. Maybe further clarify my point.

Many Small Business Owners Do Not Use Email Marketing

This is clearly a fact. I work primarily with small business owners whose main business is NOT online. You know, store owners, Realtors, attorneys, etc. Many of these professionals and business owners may have a website, but in many cases they do not proactively build an email list, and even when they have a list it is often outdated and underutilized.

One client I work with originally had over 10,000 email addresses…and hadn’t emailed ANY of them in two years! Oh my, what a waste!

Why?

So why is it that so many small business owners fail to recognize how powerful email marketing is? There are two main factors I’ve seen:

Not understanding the power
A belief that selling is rude

There are other peripheral reasons, but these seem to me to be the two biggest culprits. It surprises me how often business owners in sales-based businesses like retail, real estate, etc…are averse to involve themselves with sales!

It’s why I’ve written more than once on this blog how essential it is that we understand that we are all salespeople!

Let me cover both of these two concerns in just a bit more detail…

Not Understanding the Power

If you’ve not ever effectively worked an email list before, it’s easy to understand that you may not realize just how powerful it can be. Consider these benefits:

Personal, effective interaction with your customers
Communicate effectively with a large number of people, very inexpensively
Establish entirely new income streams
Test new product and service ideas
Get hugely valuable feedback from your customers

And this is just a FEW of the powers email marketing contains :). If you haven’t done it before or haven’t had much success with email marketing and building a list for your business, consult with someone who has. Hire someone like me or talk with a friend or colleague who is very competent with it.

Success in business does not come from skipping the fundamentals. Email marketing and list building are fundamental!

A Belief that Selling is Rude

Email marketing and list building are often associated with spammers. This is an understandable association, but it’s completely inaccurate at the end of the day. Of course you do not want to come off as a spammer with your customers. But this does not mean you don’t sell to them!

The best way to not come off as a sleazoid salesman to your customers is not to skip selling…it means you need to do it skillfully! The belief that selling is rude and distasteful is widespread, and I feel it’s one of the main factors that causes many business owners to miss out on a lot of great opportunity. As a result, they don’t sell at all.

What Happens When You Don’t Build a List?

So what’s the alternative? It’s important to look at your options. I mean, you’re either going to build a list and work it…or you’re not, correct? As a business owner, you need to make sales. That’s a given. But if you have the mentality that selling is rude or that email marketing is unnecessary, you’re going to have to use other means of building your business.

Traditional marketing and advertising still work to a certain degree, and you can also just sit back and assume that everyone will come seek you out because you’re so awesome 🙂

Candidly, if you don’t use email marketing, the results are simple…you just don’t get the benefits of it! In other words…

Less personal, less effective interaction with your customers
Communication with your customers is more expensive and less pervasive
You do not have as many income streams at your disposal
Product testing is more guesswork; market research is much more expensive and time consuming
Getting valuable feedback from your customers is more difficult and expensive

I try to be as careful as possible in saying you HAVE to do something in business. Do what works…if you’re meeting all your goals and do not need to grow, then there is simply no need to change what you’re doing.

But beware of assuming that your business and market share are static in nature. If you have competition…they will be happy to squeeze you out. Are THEY using email marketing? If they are, then they are getting all the leverage and power of this tactic, and you are not. Are you cool with that, and can you survive despite the fact that your competition is engaging all their customers on a much more personalized and helpful level than you are? It’s something to consider.

How Do You Use Email Marketing Tactfully and Effectively?

Of course BAD email marketing is not helpful…in fact it can be done so poorly that it does more damage to your brand than good. Perhaps this is what my reader was just referring to, and I’ve blown this whole thing out of proportion!

That said, I do see a number of business owners not doing this, so it’s a point worth making regardless.

So how can you create an email marketing campaign that’s well-received, highly valued, even anticipated and yearned for by your customers? The answer is quite simple. Give them what they want! Not to oversimplify, but this really is the key.

Sending your prospects email is not spam. Not if you follow these guidelines:

They’ve specifically requested it
You respect and cultivate the trust they’ve extended to you
You do not email them too often (few people want to hear from your business every day, no matter how great and targeted your information is)
You keep your messages targeted and not overly commercial
Your focus is on creating a valuable resource for your prospects. Selling is kept as a welcome byproduct of the information you provide
Use an email marketing platform like Aweber to handle your double opt ins, bounces, opt outs, etc. It’s not only much more efficient for you, but it keeps your list clean, efficient, and the deliverability is much higher.

If your outgoing messages follow this blueprint, it’s really pretty hard to screw things up. Look, if you’re providing a valuable product or service to people, and they’ve told you they want to hear about it…don’t let them down!

Is Email Marketing Just a Fad?

The assumption that all selling is spamming is still out there in a big way. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. Is email marketing a fad? Will it fall out of vogue at some point? I won’t argue that it will never be replaced, but SELLING will not ever be replaced.

Bottom line, if you want to succeed in business, you have to sell, and email marketing is a highly efficient, personal way to do it.

It’s true that spam filters will continue to get more sophisticated, but consumers are still going to consume. And in order to do so, they’re going to need information. Internet marketing is highly competitive. I consider this a really good thing. It means in order to stand out, you have to actually be good and provide a lot of value to people. Yes, SEO factors into it, but it’s mostly about…all always will be about…creating something valuable for people.

As long as you’re doing that, your email will always be welcome and appreciated by your customers.

What about you…do you feel email marketing is something that’s optional? Is it going to blow over? Have you found anything more effective in your own business?

How to Make Money Online Without Being a Schmuck or a Spammer

By Christian

One of my readers asked the other day how to “sell without selling”, which I think is a great way of describing the art of salesmanship. Obviously, you can’t sell without selling…if you don’t sell, then you don’t make sales! But the sentiment came through loud and clear. No one wants to come off as a schmuck. No one wants to be a sleazoid salesman, but the concern remains; we all have to make an actual living. So how do you get it done?

I’ve written before on Next Level Blogger that if you want to make money online, you need to learn how to sell. This is the art of asking for the order. You have to do it, but if you want to survive, you need to learn how to do it well. Do it poorly, and you’ll be a schmuck. Do it well, and well…the results are like magic.

Lessons from the Trenches

When I was doing sales training for door to door sales professionals, I would take trainees in a home with me to watch me do product demonstrations. Watching the real thing is the best way to learn. I would go into a home and put on a huge demo for the homeowners. I was Richard Simmons. I was Billy Mays. The homeowners and I connected; we were laughing together, shaking hands…we were best friends by the time I was done. And when we left the home with an order, I would ask the new salesperson what they thought, if they learned anything about how to sell. Seeing as how they just watched a sale made, it stands to reason that maybe they learned something, wouldn’t you say?

Often, the response from the person I was training would be something like “Well, I don’t feel like you really sold them anything. They just bought it. You showed it to them, and they bought it. I didn’t learn how to sell.” And therein lies the lesson. Good salesmanship is not forced or uncomfortable. It’s friendly, genuine and to be perfectly honest…a lot of damn fun.

Most people think selling is manipulative and underhanded. The fact is that the only time sales fits that description is when the salesperson is manipulative and underhanded. Unfortunately, it happens a lot, and the misconception of all salesman being sleazy is understandable, but it’s just not accurate.

Good selling is honest, transparent and helpful. No one has a problem solving one of their own problems for an affordable and reasonable price. What people don’t want is to be manipulated or duped. So if you don’t want to come off as sleazy…it’s easy; just don’t be a sleaze! And if you don’t want to come off as manipulative, don’t manipulate people.

Is it really as simple as that? Yes, actually.

So how do you make a sale without being manipulative?

Follow these steps:

Meet with qualified prospects
Discuss the prospect’s problems in detail
Have the prospect decide for themselves which of your solutions works best for them

Let me elaborate a bit…

Meet With Qualified Prospects

There is something about blogging that I find fundamentally beautiful. It is the fact that by it’s very design, it attracts qualified prospects. Think about how someone comes to visit your blog. Perhaps they found you in Google while searching for information they need. Maybe they follow a link that they believe will take them to information they want. Perhaps they received an email from a friend saying “hey check out this article”. In nearly all cases, a visitor is on the pages of your blog for one reason…because they’re actually interested in what you’re selling.

That does not mean that you don’t need to be good. You do. Your content needs to rock. And what you sell has to be top notch, because people can sniff out crap from a mile away these days. But if you’re the real deal, and you have something of actual value to offer your readers, blogging automatically attracts the right people to you. This takes care of step one automatically. By blogging, you’re already meeting with qualified prospects.

Discuss the Prospect’s Problems in Detail

If you’re trying to be helpful, what do you do? You meet people at their level. Discuss their problems. This is how people are going to find your blog to begin with. They have a problem. They are going to specifically look for someone talking about that problem in the hopes they can find a solution. This is simply how it works. So, talk about their problems.

This is where real expertise comes in. You have to actually know your business. If you’re just doing something to make some cash, it ALWAYS comes through in your content. However if you really know your subject, and if you really do have a valuable solution for people, you will have no problem writing at length about the problems that your product or service can solve.

Don’t talk about yourself or your product. Talk about your prospect and the problems they face.

Case in point: have you been reading this post this whole time thinking “man this guy is such a sleaze; he’s just trying to sell me on why I should hire him as a consultant, to help me take my business to the next level by improving my sales and marketing tactics online”?

If you’ve read this far, I’d wager that’s not what’s on your mind! You’re most likely reading the post because it connects with an issue you’re having. Why in the world would you be reading this post if you weren’t interested in learning how to make more money online or market your business more effectively on the internet? And as luck would have it…if you happen to want a more personalized and one-on-one solution for your business, I can help you with that. Big coincidence, huh? 😉

Have the Prospect Decide for Themselves Which of Your Solutions Works Best for Them

Online, asking for the order is simple. All you have to do is make your solutions easily available. By focusing on the prospect’s problems, you’ve drawn them in. You’ve attracted qualified and interested visitors. And now, consider why they’re there. To solve a problem, correct? And your entire page happens to be filled with links and additional resources that they can explore. All of which solve their problem, and all of which add to your bottom line.

Perhaps your article is all they needed for right now. Or perhaps they’re not quite ready to purchase anything just yet. That’s totally fine. That’s why you give them many opportunities to easily subscribe. And that’s why you offer enticements and invitations to revisit your blog regularly. And that’s why you keep your content coming regularly. And that’s why you keep the quality high. If you know your stuff, and if you continue to connect with them, at some point one of your solutions will connect with them as well.

Why I Use a Pop Up Opt In Box to Build My Email List

By Christian

I recently had a reader ask me about the pop up opt in box that I use on Next Level Blogger. He wanted to know how it was working for me and how I felt about using a pop up. He said he personally didn’t like pop ups and felt that it therefore might not be a good idea to use one on his site. I think this is a great concern, so I wanted to share my thoughts on this.

Why I Started Implementing a Pop Up to Build My Email List

I haven’t always used a pop up to build my email list. The reason was the same as what this reader suggested. I personally do not like them. Then a mentor of mine made a really interesting comment to me a few months back. He said he has NEVER clicked on a banner ad in his life. I realized that it is likely true for me too. I cannot remember a single time I’ve ever clicked on an Adsense link or banner ad. But this friend of mine makes bank on banner ads. Obviously, many people DO click on them. Just not me :).

After this conversation I realized that I’m really the last person I should use as a judge when it comes to what I should use on my site. After all, I’m not building it for me. I’m building it for my readers. I’m providing a service for others, not myself. And consequently, I should simply do what works for them!

Fact is, if a pop up opt in box generated a lot of complaints or failed to convert, I wouldn’t use it. So far, I have received ZERO complaints, and the pop up window on Next Level Blogger is the second-highest converting opt in box on the site. Clearly, it’s going to stay up for a while!

I use Aweber to generate the pop up, and I highly recommend using their service as well. It’s super-easy to design and install on your site, and it functions flawlessly for me. Anything that’s not techy and gets great results is always cool in my book 🙂

Lesson for the day: I encourage you to set aside any personal assumptions when it comes to building your online business. Don’t do what you like or think is cool. Do what works. A lot of times it’s the simplest stuff in the world that will make huge results for you.

Blogging vs Internet Marketing

By Christian

There are a lot of articles on blogging out there…and there are a lot of articles on internet marketing. They are mostly treated as two separate endeavors. Are blogging and internet marketing truly two different subjects? Not for my readers. At least I hope not.

Blogging is mostly the activity of posting content on a regular basis in a specific niche, etc. When “internet marketing” is mentioned, most people think of squeeze pages, affiliate landing pages, sales pages of other various kinds, etc. My hope for this post is simple: I’d like to blur the lines a little bit and hopefully get you to realize, if you don’t already…that if you’re blogging to make money online, you are an internet marketer. And it will benefit you greatly to think of yourself as such.

Business blogging and internet marketing are the same thing. It’s important to view every post on your blog as a landing page.

If You Want to Make Money Online With Your Blog…

Bottom line: if you want to make money online with your blog, you need to sell things. This means you are in sales. That’s internet marketing!

Many bloggers do not think of themselves as marketers or salespeople. And then they wonder why they’re not getting the results they want. There is a lot more involved than just writing blog posts.

You Can’t Make Much Money Blogging

The reason I decided to write this post is because there seems to be a line in many people’s minds that divides internet marketing and blogging, and there really needn’t be. Here’s something that may surprise you to hear: you can’t make much money blogging. Really. You can make a bit. If you happen to be building your blog in a high traffic niche, and are successful in building a high traffic site, you might be able to make some cash through advertising. But honestly, this does not apply to most blogs.

If I’m being honest with you, you are probably not going to be the next TechCrunch. I’m not one to be a dream crusher…if you have an idea and a plan, you should work it, and no doubt there will continue to be many huge success stories like this. My point is this: MOST blogs in the vast scheme of things just aren’t going to be high traffic blogs. And that’s OK. You can STILL make a killing!

One more point about this: there are many sites out there that make as much money as TechCrunch does, and you have likely never even heard of them. Popularity does not necessarily correlate to success, or to income. Sales skills, business skills and skillful execution however, usually do.

Low Traffic Blog Niches Rock!

So what about all those innumerable niches out there that just aren’t high traffic niches? Those are my focus and specialty! Look, there are a TON of ways to make great money online. High traffic is just one, and in my opinion it’s far from the best one.

Yes, there are a lot of gurus out there that will tell you magical ways to explode your traffic and build your email list to staggering numbers, but what many of them will fail to mention is that a lot of niches just don’t have the kind of mass appeal that’s necessary to build a high traffic site.

And it’s important to understand that this is NOT a problem…but it SHOULD affect your monetization plan!

For example, you’re not going to get 100k visitors a month to your Lentil Recipes blog, no matter how hard you try. At least probably not :). I’ll say it this way, if you’re the lentil recipe guru of the world, and your success depends on getting tons of traffic, you do not have a good plan, and you probably haven’t done your research.

However, there are a lot of ways to make that niche profitable. There are good ways to make any useful niche highly profitable, and I’m going to be going over specific ways to do this in upcoming posts on this blog.

The Often Overlooked, Money-Making Benefit of Low Traffic

To suffice for now…how do you make a low traffic niche profitable? You learn to sell! In other words…internet marketing. Personal interaction is king in the low traffic arena. See, you can do that when you have a low traffic niche. You can literally build a great, intimate relationship with your audience. It’s not that possible when you’re getting several thousand visitors a day…the level of personal attention goes down.

Both high traffic and low traffic niches have their advantages. So don’t think because you’re only getting a few thousand visitors a month right now that you’re at a disadvantage. The fact is that you’re in a great place! Use what you’ve got. The fact that you can interact with and engage your audience on a highly personal level means that you can create a lot more value for each individual who reads you blog, and when you create more value…you can make more money.

So I will be covering different ways to monetize like this in more detail in coming posts over the next several weeks. I hope you can bookmark this site or subscribe, so you can get this information when it comes out.

I think it’s absolutely essential to do a few things here:

Stop thinking high traffic and huge subscriber lists are the only way to make a good living with your blog.
Start thinking of yourself as an internet marketer, and open yourself up to the idea that you are a salesperson. Sales skills will be what enable you to make good money online in whatever niche you choose. Realize that if you apply high traffic methods of monetizing on a low traffic site, your results will always be disappointing. However, learn to apply the right techniques to your business, and your results will be impressive.
Study different methods of monetizing that I will be discussing here in the coming weeks, and write a plan for your blog that makes sure you can get the results you’re looking for…don’t just assume you’re going to follow the same model of another blogger you like. Do your own research, and write a plan that’s appropriate for your own niche. Follow your own path!

This is the crux of blogging vs internet marketing…if you’re blogging for business and to make money, you ARE an internet marketer. You are a salesperson. You do not have to embrace these things, and I will admit that most bloggers do not. I will also tell you that there is a REASON most blogs fail :). The difference between blogging and internet marketing? When it comes to making your business successful, there is NO difference!

Top 10 Myths and Mistakes About Blogging and Internet Marketing

By Christian

As more and more of my peers in small business come online and start trying their hand at blogging and internet marketing, there are a number of common myths and mistakes that need to be addressed.

If you’re considering starting a blog or using social media to promote your small business, I applaud you. My goal for this post is to simply dispel some of the biggest lies, misunderstanding and obstacles I’ve come across that you will likely run into.

Hopefully you can use these as a way of saving yourself some time and get straight to the business of making your blog or website reach your goals.

Internet marketing as an afterthought: It’s a great idea to put yourself in your customers’ shoes. For many business models (dare I say nearly ALL business models) a customer’s most common point of interaction with you is your website. Your internet presence should be given a proportional amount of your time and attention. Many businesses ironically spend very little time on internet marketing. They’ll have a site that gets thousands of visitors a month, but they do very little if anything to effectively engage them. Instead, they expect people to call them and wade through an automated phone system in order to get information. You may prefer to do business a certain way, but it’s likely that your customer would prefer your website to be a lot more usable. And it may interest you that if you help them out in this regard, they will likely reward you for it : ) Don’t let your internet marketing be something that you’re just trying to squeeze in. It needs to be as integrated into your business as your customers would like it to be.
Let me just slam this website together. Let’s get this sucker DONE! This is a powerful myth and mistake many people make! Your internet marketing is an ongoing process. Think of it more as a dialog than anything else. When you walk away, the conversation stops. Ideally you want to be as active and engaged in your internet marketing as possible. Trying to crank out a website and then thinking that it’s going to keep pulling results for you without any additional effort is the wrong way of looking at it.
Marketing online is not the same as traditional marketing: Traditional marketing is interruption-based, which means that advertisers have always concentrated on grabbing people’s attention however they can. Getting a response was key. In online marketing, people are already paying attention, so trying to cram a message in front of them is just rude. Cultivating a relationship with your visitors is hugely important. That’s why blogging is something I consider to be pretty much mandatory for most small business owners, because it enables you to communicate with a large number of people very effectively and in a personal manner. Applying traditional marketing methods to your internet marketing most often comes off badly for you. It’s important to embrace the fact that a social approach to your marketing, while it takes more time, really is going to be the best approach.
Failing to build an email list: You want people to come out to your site, correct? And after they visit, you want them to come back. The number one way to get people coming back over and over again is by getting them to subscribe. And the number one way people subscribe is still via email. RSS is very convenient, but most readers still use email. If you’re not building your email list from day one, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. For email listing building tools and campaign management, I personally use Aweber and recommend you get in on that action as well.
Failing to have a coach or someone on your team who specializes in new media: Let’s be real. You have a business to run. You’re not a SEO expert. You’re not a web designer. You’re not going to be. You don’t have time. Too many business owners try to do too much. Consult with someone from time to time. Get someone on your team, whether it’s an employee or a virtual assistant, a coach or whatever asset your most comfortable with, and use their expertise to make sure you’re being effective. Have them critique you and tell you where you can improve. Talk with someone whose job it is to stay on top of these things, and take their advice. You will be 100% more effective by not trying to do everything yourself.
Focusing on design and SEO over content and communication: Everyone, especially business owners, want their site to look great. Yet look at some of the most successful blogs on the internet today, and not all of them look all that great. Why are they popular? How can you possibly create a winning online marketing plan without a $20k custom built website? Because believe it or not, all consumers really want is quality content. And they want it to come from you, because they care to know if you’re actually as cool as you want people to think you are. A glitzy website doesn’t impress many people any more. But quality, genuine content always will get the job done. What’s nice is that you can produce quality content for free. It just takes a little time and introspection. It’s highly worth it. Design is important, but content and quality interaction with your customers is WAY more valuable. It’s what your customers care about, so it’s what you should focus on.
Spending too much time and money on marketing that doesn’t work: This one isn’t so much of an internet marketing thing as it is a business thing. So many of my friends in business are still locked into a mentality that they HAVE to pay for certain forms of marketing that they’ve always done in the past, even when they’re not pulling results anymore. On the flip side, I know some forward thinking business owners who have literally cut out their print advertising completely, and it has had NO negative effect on their business whatsoever. Obviously I’m not telling you specifically what to do with your specific business, but I urge you to look at the results your marketing is getting you. Are your customers flooding your websites, but meanwhile you’re still spending thousands a month on billboards and space ads? It happens a lot. If your advertising is not working, CUT IT! And put your money into your online business; it’s where your customers are most likely to find you anyway : )
Not having fun: Fun is likely the most important element of this business. With all the options and tools at our disposal (blogs, websites, SEO, Twitter, Facebook, blah, blah, blah), it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But there’s an underlying opportunity here that most people seem to miss. You can do anything you want! You can literally make a great living doing anything you want, and as long as you’re willing to work like crazy you can do very well. Don’t become overwhelmed by your options; revel in them! Don’t be all stiff and proper with everything you do; have fun! With the amount of work that needs to be done, fun is mandatory. It also enables you to tackle the next step…
Not diving in: There’s a lot of concern amongst business owners as to the value of Twitter, for example. I get a lot of comments regarding how it just doesn’t make sense. There is a reasonable concern over wasting time on something that is not going to produce results. Time is valuable, and that concern is prudent. However, things change quickly these days, and it’s important to act if you want to get results. Instead of using your lack of understanding as a gauge, I recommend using something else. Look at the value of the network. If there are millions of people all in one place, and the community is very active, there is a huge amount of value there, and it’s a good idea to tap into it. Dive in. Trust me, after you’ve spent some time conversing with people on Twitter (or any valuable community), it will make more sense. And so it goes with the internet in general, the biggest community of all. Being committed to getting results is key to actually getting results. Being tentative with your internet marketing endeavors will only ever produce tentative results. Don’t focus on what you don’t know. Yes, there are things to learn, but the most important thing is to dive in.
Wanting results fast and automatically: I can’t blame anyone for wanting to get turnkey results from their internet marketing work. But it’s essential to measure your results properly. Measuring results from a blog or a social media profile in the same way that you measure results from a space ad you run in a magazine is not going to make you a happy camper. It doesn’t work the same way, and it doesn’t produce the same kind of results. Measure results using web analytics. Measure results via how many subscribers you’re getting and how many of them are buying from you. The details of this are certainly a topic for another post, but to suffice for now, don’t set up a blog and expect the orders to start pouring in automatically. Trust me, there are many points of data that you can use to keep your analytical mind more than pleased with the results you’re getting. Results are trackable using new media. But setting up a website and then sitting back and waiting for the money to start rolling in is going to lead only to disappointment.

Using new media is a little interesting…you basically cannot ignore this shift in the way of doing business. You really can’t. You have to learn to use these tools, and learning to use them is basically going to force you to rethink a lot about your business, how you measure results, etc.