TP Javeton WebNet

Category: Making Money

Profiting from the sale of personal or business items. Working for pay. Investment purchase at below market prices and reselling at or above market value. leveraging one’s time and resources through the efforts of others for residual income.

eMail Lists: Vital to Web Marketing Campaigns

An email marketing truth

If you plan on doing some Internet marketing to promote a business – products, services and/or brand – email marketing should be one strategy that merits serious consideration, if not the main strategy of your Web marketing campaign. Unfortunately many business owners shy away from email marketing based on a misguided assumption that all email marketing campaigns are purely spam. However, this assumption cannot be farther from the truth; and the failure of any business to employ this marketing strategy can result in substantial revenue loss for that business.

Appealing to potential customers via email is a marketing strategy that, when used properly and appropriately, can enhance the balance sheet of any business; while failure to embrace this powerful resource will deprive your business of needed exposure, strategic market share and valuable customer base which, in effect, is the same as ceding such powerful business-building components to competitors who are, in fact, using email marketing campaigns to reach customers around the world. So if you are a business owner who has not incorporate email marketing into your overall marketing strategy, but intends to do so at some future date, it may be a good idea that you start familiaring yourself with the process now.

That having been said, however, the first step in putting an email marketing campaign into effect, should be to create an email subscriber list; a process this article will discuss, to include a few popular options for getting started, and this and should help the reader to learn more about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to email marketing.

First and foremost

Once you have made the decision to start using email marketing to promote your business, you’ll likely be confronted with the dilemma of compiling an email subscriber list, which is essentially a list of email addresses to which you will email your advertising and promotional materials. One popular way to obtain a list of email addresses is to purchase it from any number of list distributors available on the Web. However, this method may not be very effective at all and we do not recommend it, because when purchasing an email list you really have no way of knowing whether or not those list members would have any interest at all in your products or services.

This is very important because while you want to reach a large audience through your email marketing efforts, you also want this audience to be well-matched with your overall target audience. Furthermore, when you purchase an email list you may be sending your email messages to users who might be interested, but even this unlikely possibility is largely coincidental and therefore may not be well received since the message was not solicited. Internet users are very quick to delete material they believe to be spam without even opening or reading the emails. In fact some Internet service providers (ISPs) include spam filters which may automatically delete your emails if your messages are deemed to be spam.

ISPs like Comcast, AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo, among many others, utilize filters that run complex algorithms on the subject heading and content of the message to determine whether or not it is spam; and they are quite adept at weeding out spam. Therefore you run the risk of having your email marketing effort turn out to be a complete waste if the majority of recipients never even read or receive the message.

The value of email marketing

A far better way to create an email subscriber list for your email marketing campaign is to ask current customers as well as interested website visitors and potential customers to register with your website in order to receive additional information and periodic updates about your products and services, as well as other information which might be of interest to them. This provides you with a database of email addresses from current customers as well as potential customers who have a genuine interest in your products and services; and who are interested in learning more about these products and services.

Once you have a list of interested customers or potential customers, you can send emails or create e-newsletter for distribution to the members of your email list. These documents should contain a wealth of valuable information, as well as a soft sell pitch for your products and services. This information may also be of value to readers and could help to persuade them to try your products and services. You might also want to include useful links to either your website, or other websites that may be of interest to your readers. Additionally, your content should also contain a portion which urges readers to take a specific action such as making a purchase or, at least, investigating a product further.

04/09/2016
About Blog Hosts and Blogging Essentials
The nature of a blog

Blog, which is an abbreviation for the term, weblog, is a piece of Internet technology which provides individuals with in a number of different forms; including text, video, audio (podcasts) and photos. The activity of blogging has grown tremendously over the past decade to include users (bloggers) from all over the world, many of whom utilize it to publish and update posts, crop up entries of personalized life snippets that are mundane or bizarre in nature. For most bloggers, however, a blog is personal, unedited and authentic in nature; a journal meant to be shared in an online community.

Blogsites are locations on the Web where bloggers can publish anything; from their thoughts, feelings and photos, to special events, experiences and comments on issues, in addition to many other types of content. A blogsite in its truest form is similar to an online diary to which entries are made in a variety of content types that might encompass videos, links, documents, newsletters and opinions on just about any topic the reader might have interest in.

Personal blogs are created and intended to welcome the insights, opinions and comments of all comers, and therefore should not be written in a way that could be thought of as intimidating, or in a way that readers might consider as too formal in context; because such a blog can turn off readers and cause them to turn away and never return. The basic blog should be conversational in tone and context, a format which would be more appropriate to reach desired audiences.

Blog functions and advantages

Blogging can reasonably be described as being all about individuals reaching out to other individuals, and as such, blogs have their own sets of advantages, some of which might include the following:
1. Freedom of expression – If you want people to hear you out and give their own opinions, blogging is one of the best ways to create a line of communication;
2. Networking at its best – Having a blog is a good platform for exchanging genuine ideas from your readers to you as marketer of certain products. Sound opinions and points of view are often better than simply showing the price quote;
3. Excellent advertising platform – Blogging as a way to advertise products, is a refreshing change from the traditional advertising outlets, and it is cost-effective;
4. Gauging public opinion on products and services – The key to this particular activity is nice, catchy titles with new ideas presented in your content. This will assure you of quick and repeated responses from your readers. Blogs are excellent locations for the exchange of ideas between sellers and consumers; and they’re good for measuring public opinion regarding products and services, and can even be effective in the political arena;
5. Useful tool for internal communication – Blogging can help your company build a knowledge-based community of employees, as it is also good for harnessing employee relations and identifying human resource issues in advance;
6. Other benefits like search engine optimization (SEO) will help your blog to be seen often by as many people as you wish. This is therefore very good exposure for your products and services.
Choosing a blog host

Many blog hosting services are available on the Internet, but perhaps the most important question in this regard pertains to choosing from the many Web hosting services to find one that will best suit your purposes when starting your business blog program. Business people are usually clueless to recent technological innovations which could help them maximize their marketing potentials. For blogging beginners, it is best to first study the services offered by blog hosts, because an ineffective business blogging program may damage marketing opportunities instead of enriching them.

A company might decide to do the following depending on its capacity and needs: 1) Host their own blog service, 2) Pay someone else to host the service, or 3) Setup a “blog aggregator page” and ask the employees to select their blog hosting services individually. There are paid and free services available for individuals. Business blogs are required to have ; if not, this will prevent them from maximizing their marketing, public relations and SEO potential.

Basic blogging essentials

COMMENTS. Welcoming comments provides the opportunity for dialogue; and for business blogs this is a good customer feedback mechanism. This helps based on loyalty and trust. So blogging is an innovative way to converse with your customers.

TRACKBACK. This helps to maximize company and product exposure in the sense that, your consumers can get back to you for more posts and updates without the difficulty of locating you all over again. If your blog is popular in a specific online community, chances are that links going back to your blog site are everywhere online, other blog sites or even websites.

CATEGORIES AND TAGS. These are helpful, both in classifying blog searches for ease of navigation, as well as on site searches. Categories act as libraries because they classify posts by subject matter which might include business, distance learning, eCommerce, online auctions and much more. Tags, help in classification, especially in the blog search engine Technorati. Possible customers and new clients locate blogs about certain topics of interest by just clicking the tags.

RSS FEED. Really Simple Syndication is the feed from your blog that is sent out over the internet, and collected through the various newsreaders and aggregators.

In order for your company to establish a business blogging program, considerable options should be made available by the hosting companies with the most compatible services. Free blog hosting services are popular but they are more appropriate for individual online journals. Paid blog hosting services offer unlimited packages which may be best for your company’s needs. You may want to take a look at some blogs that already use a particular host first, by simply reading and closely examining their layout and design. Another important thing to consider is whether or not the hos provides reliable technical support.

The blog: A reflection of the blogger

After choosing the blog host a team should be ready to plan the in which case the team should:
- create a style that meets the needs of your audience;
- establish an open, credible tone;
- schedule weekly updating of blog – ideally, a few times a week;
- include weblinks of other website and blogs;
- blog post should be in the “first person;”
- focus on the business blog objective;and,
- maintain an honest, engaging conversational quality.
Remember, the look, style and content found on your blog is always a reflection of you and your company. Apart from the chat rooms, instant messengers and electronic mails created for communication and dialogue beyond the traditional methods of communication, blogs have emerged as the most innovative and convenient methods used by regular folks to build opportunities for interaction. The need for personalized and human elements of building online communities have changed the technological landscape of Internet life.
04/02/2016
Email Marketing Combined with Other IM Strategies

Plurality of strategies

It has been a long held belief among marketing professionals that no single marketing strategy will be as effective as a combination of two or more such strategies; and this pertains to both online – Internet Marketing (IM) – and traditional offline marketing venues. This is hardly a recommendation for marketers to try and implement every known marketing strategy to promote his/her business. It is however, an opinion that various strategies can work in combination with each other; but only after proper market-based tests have been conducted, and resulting determination made, that it is worthwhile to market from a number of different perspectives to help the marketer achieve business-related goals.

In this article we will examine the importance of combining email marketing with other types of IM strategies to create an effective, multi-tiered marketing strategy, and also offer some ideas on managing more than one marketing strategy simultaneously. According to the old adage, “There’s more than one way to get the job done,” and this is certainly true in the case of marketing on the Web; because, while you may enjoy a great deal of success with email marketing, it certainly doesn’t mean that you should not try other types of online marketing such as website creation, message boards, banner ads, affiliate marketing campaigns and back-linking.

Of course it is possible that not all of these strategies will be effective for your particular business, but you are probably more likely to find at least one other option that will compliment your email marketing, which might also go a long way to help you achieve your business-related goals and ultimate success.

Online-offline approaches

That having been said, you can take a look at combining your email marketing campaigns with other, more traditional marketing strategies such as radio ads, television ads and ads in the print media. It is important to keep in mind that the absense of these advertising strategies in the online marketplace does not mean that they will not be effective in generating more business. In fact, advertising both online and offline can allow you to reach a larger target audience; since you will likely reach Internet users around the world, while also reaching potential customers who do not utilize the Internet for purchasing or researching products/services similar to the ones you offer.

Some popular marketing strategies that might prove effective when combined with email marketing include banner ads and message board participation. These are all online activities, and each one individually is fairly simple, but when combined with email marketing, these simple activities can create a powerful statement, in the sense that you may send out emails offering useful information about your products/services, while purchasing banner ad space on websites which may be of interest to your potential customers; and also participate in industry-related message boards where you can earn the respect of potential customers and pique their interests.

Test. Evaluate. Market.

But even if your potential customers are not currently in need of the products/services you offer, seeing your business name so often can have a powerful branding effect, since branding is also an important business process during which consumers see a company name so often that they are more likely to select a product from the particular company when they are in need of an item offered by that company. So the long-term benefits are just as important as any short-term gains you derive from your combination of marketing strategies.

If you are planning to combine multiple forms of advertising, you should be aware that this can make it difficult for you to evaluate the effectiveness of each strategy. This is especially true of the marketing strategies that are implemented concurrently. When you are only using one type of marketing strategy, you can generally attribute increases in sales or website traffic to changes in that strategy. However, when more than one type of marketing strategy is in effect, it can be quite difficult to determine which strategy is producing the desired effect.

This situation can be handled by not making changes to more than one marketing strategy at a time, an approach which will help you to pinpoint which changes produce an increase in sales or website traffic. It can also help you to determine when changes to your marketing strategy have a detrimental effect on your sales and website traffic. However, if you are having difficulty determining which marketing strategy is most effective, you can consider asking customers to answer survey questions and provide information such as how they learned about the products or services your business offers.

03/30/2016
Blogging: A Money-Making Web Marketing Tool

From mere comments to profits!

Blogging has come a long way since the late nineteen-nineties when it was seen as a way to merely comment on existing webpages, or an opportunity for visitors and readers to interact with each other and voice their opinions about various types of content. The amazing thing is, what started as a single-sentence commentary has evolved into pages of personal views on just about any topic imaginable; and as it stands today – March, 2016 – and continues into the future, blogging has increased its by attracting an increased share of online advertising.

So if you are already a blogger who have spent, and still spend, a fair amount of time blogging, you could simply by asking for it, as long as you had previously laid the groundwork for this eventuality. In other words, if you’ve already established a blog for which there is a regular readership (following), the expectation that a portion – if not the majority – of this following can be transformed into a customer base for any products/services you recommend is certainly reasonable. Therefore you would have an easier time turning a profit by hosting sponsored links or banners on your blog, thereby deriving an income from this activity practically overnight.

But even if you did not start your blog with the intentions of turning a profit, the ability to may be easier than you think. Keep in mind, however, that there is still a lot of time, work and effort involved in the monetization process; but the question any serious-minded blogger must address is, if s/he is already putting in the appropriate time, work and effort needed to monetize a blog just to maintain it, why not also opt for the monetary reward? And for anyone who is not currently blogging, but might want to embark on a career in blogging, this method of making money on the Web might be just the thing that could start your Web marketing career as will be discussed later.

Blogging: Simple, authentic, free!

The simplest and fastest way to express your point of view on the Web is through blogging, because there really no skills required other than the ability to legibly convey your thoughts in a way that others can understand; so in this regard, an average adult who can read, type and click a mouse can start a blog and be good at it. Blogging can be compared to having a virtual piece of paper on which you write your ideas, experiences and new products while hoping that the truth and quality of your articles shine through and entice readers to also try your product. And to think that all you need is a PC and an Internet connection to begin blogging and attracting advertisers.

In this day and age when advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims, and this is where the authenticity of a blog is not only an asset to its owner, but is seen as a valuable resource to those who read and follow it. And although blogs, in their truest form, allow real people to share their real-life experiences without the distraction of paid advertising, reading a blog about first-hand product use is like talking to an individual about his/her first-hand experience. And after all, don’t most people prefer to buy tried and tested products?

Blogging is free, and despite the fact that, today, it is considered a marketing tool from which , many blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr as well as several others, still see it as something to augment current marketing tools and offer it free of charge. This opportunity for a free web space and time is definitely a plus for new businesses that are just starting up, and needless to say, a blogger having the ability to monetize his/her blog pages without incurring an expense for the space and time in which the blog is accessible, can generate a generous income for his/her growing blogging business.

Blogging credibility builds your market

A prerequisite to establishing a following and is credibility. Your blog’s title, content and availability on the Web (reliability) must be credible; so that as you proceed through the writing of your experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers will come to realize that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs. Therefore, you become an expert in the particular topic of conversation and are seen as such, which results in more readers visiting your blogsite and more bloggers linking to it.

When companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they will soon contact you with offers for advertising on your blog page or make you an affiliate, in which case you’ll be compensated by the affiliate program for every referral to the merchant’s site that was generated from your blogsite. So credibility is that element of blogging which must be maintained at all costs in order to begin the very important task of ; because unless you are a known entity (pro athlete, Hollywood star, politician, etc.) chances are that nobody reads your blog, except maybe your mom and a few friends and family members.

However, the group of people you know is certainly not big enough from which to build a market, so you’ll need to start looking at a number of different methods that can be effective in your market-building objective and . because without a viable market for the products and service promoted on your blog, you could be destined to the same fate of those who have spent months or even years blogging just to realize that the money they make from advertising adds up to such a negligible sum that it is hardly worth mentioning.

Blog market-building tips

Concentrate on those elements (prequisites) mentioned earlier (title, content and reliability), and then make sure that the subject matter is appealing to your target audience, which in turn will enduce advertisers to reach out to you and help you to . With this in mind, we hope you find the tips and methods provided in following paragraphs helpful to your your blog marketing aspirations.

Start using your email to communicate, if you are not currently doing so; because today’s blogging is overcoming the popularity of emails to quickly and effectively reach and expand a market. And in this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading email is simply taking much longer than clicking into a blogsite. So allow them to explore your blog by using a short email message as a teaser to your blog site; and if your email is on an entirely different subject, simply use your email signature to provide them with a link to the site.

Invite readers to subscribe to your blog or to a newsletter. In order to do this you’ll need an opt-in form through which your your readers can provide their name and email address, two of the items needed for them to authorize you top send them information via email. Giving your readers an opportunity to subscribe to your blogsite, and providing them with exclusive information that is not given to anybody else, will entice them to subscribe by giving their name and email address. Just make sure to be responsible in your use of their information, as the last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

Surveys and blogging networks

Make a serious and ongoing effort to understand your readers. You can start by conducting a simple survey for them to complete, which will provide you with a better understanding of their profiles and advertising preferences. Ask your blog followers and readers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a product trial that you shared. Using this approach is like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview.

Consider joining a blogging network, which is a collection of blogsites that consist of content about a common industry, common interests, common readership base, common payment mode, and other similarly common characteristics. Most consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject. In this regard, than, and more influential, than a single one.

Ultimately, the only way to find out if you can succeed in blogging by taking advantage of the free software offered by the various platforms, build credibility, create a market and succeed in attracting advertisers to monetize your blog, is to start one; and if you are already blogging, you really have nothing to lose. So give your online presence a boost by effectively using this that could propel you to new heights in the blogosphere.

the invitation is yours to accept – the objectives are real – the journey is rewarding!

03/28/2016
Great Advertising or Spam? A Conundrum!

Avoid alienating customers

Many who are familiar with, or actively engage in, Web marketing will agree that there is a very fine line between legitimate ads and spam; but what makes this distinction so alarming is the fact that many business owners – online and offline – do not understand the difference between the two. In view of this lack of understanding, it is therefore important that marketers have the ability to identify spam and avoid it at all costs; because while a clever, well planned Web marketing campaign can help to attract new customers and keep existing customers loyal, spam is likely to alienate both new and existing customers, which can be extremely damaging to profit margins for the business owners.

That having been said, we will take a closer look at the grey area between ads and spam while touching on a number of Web marketing strategies, including email marketing campaigns and banner ads as well as message board posts, and describe how each can quickly cross the line from clever advertising to spam.

Email marketing campaigns

Email marketing campaigns are very useful tools in an industry like Web marketing, since these campaigns are comprised of the most important means of communication between the marketer and his/her client and/or customer base. Included in such campaigns might be periodic e-newsletters consisting of information requested by subscribers along with advertisements, brief educational email courses and/or offers of discounts on products and services. Loyal customers who opt into the marketer’s email list will likely not view these emails as spam and may purchase additional products and services from the marketer’s business which will justify this kind of marketing strategy.

Additionally, potential customers who have specifically requested additional information about the marketer’s products and services will also find this type of marketing to be useful. But email recipients who did not request information from the marketer are likely to view these emails as spam, which brings us to one of the key points in differentiating between advertising and spamming. It is the difference between those who “requested” information and receive the marketing emails; and those who “did not request” information, but still receive marketing emails.

Simply put, emails to those in the “request” category are considered legitimate advertising, while emails to those in the “did not request” category are considered spam. In view of this distinction, it can be said with some certainty that harvesting email addresses in a deceptive manner and using these addresses to send out mass emails will likely be considered spam in ninety out of ten times.

Banner advertising

Banner ads have for a long time been considered among the most popular strategies utilized by Web marketers, including email marketing professionals, because they are the types of ads that can be placed atop most websites and span the width of those sites. In fact, this placement is directly related to how they earned the name “banner ads,” but actually banner ads can refer to ads of a variety of sizes, shapes and colors that appear in an array of different locations on a website. Business owners have been known to purchase advertising space on various websites, but the banner ad may also be utilized as part of an exchange or an affiliate marketing campaign.

The most popular kind of banner ad exchanges is when business owner #1 places a banner ad from business owner #2 on his/her website in exchange for business owner #2 placing a banner ad from business owner #1 on his/her website. These agreements may be made individually between business owners with comparable businesses, or as part of exchanges facilitated by a third party or network. In the case of affiliate marketing, an affiliate places an advertisement for a particular business (often referred to as a merchant) in exchange for compensation when the banner ad produces a desired effect such as traffic to the merchant’s website or generating a sale.

Terms of advertising

The terms of banner exchange agreements, as well as affiliate agreements are determined beforehand and are generally based on a scale of pay per impression, pay per click or pay per sale or lead. Now that you understand what banner ads are, it is also important to understand how they can be overused and give the appearance that they are spam. If you are a Web marketer who advertises with banners, you might judiciously place your banner ad on a few websites which are likely to attract an audience similar to your target audience, and this will be seen as smart marketing; but placing your banner ad on any website which will display the ad regardless of the target audience can be construed as spam.

In advertising, whether it may be offline or online, must always be done with the audience in mind; and in the case of marketing on the Web, your audience is the many Internet users who will decide whether your ads are legitimate or spam; because if they sense that your banner ads are everywhere they turn, and are being placed indiscriminately on any and every website who will accept them, they will likely not take your business seriously and would probably not purchase products or services from you as a result of your banner placement activity.

About message boards

Message boards provide an excellent opportunity for business owners to obtain some free advertising where it will be noticed by members of the target audience; and if the products and services you offer appeal to a specific niche, it is worthwhile to join message boards and online forums related to your industry of choice, which will allow you locate a large population of Internet users who may have an interest in your products. As a result of your membership in such a program, you might consider including a link to your business in your signature area, or post the link when it is applicable to the conversation.

However, be mindful of the kind of promotional activities you engage in by carefully reviewing the message board guidelines so that you can be certain that your activities are not in violation of those guidelines, and that you are not engaging in any inappropriate behavior. Message board advertising is a smart marketing strategy, but you could run afoul of best practices by replying to every message with a link to your website, especially when it is not relevant to the conversation since this can be construed as spam by other members. And once they begin to view your posts as spam, they are not likely to visit your website via any links you post.

03/20/2016
Selection and Proper Use of Free Blogging Software

Free blogging software platforms

There is plenty of free blogging software available on the Web, including WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and Medium which are positioned atop a list of the fifteen best platforms. These blogging platforms and many others, have been propelled to their respective positions atop the popularity list because there are simple to use by design. But given such simplicity of use, some users – especially newcomers to the blogging community – who have not spent enough time learning the features and functionality of blogging software in general, can still feel overwhelmed when they attempt to use it.

That having been said, if you are among that group of individuals who feel comfortable expressing themselves in another medium, it may well prove to be worth your time and effort to software, even though the task will not be easy. The important thing to understand about learning to use free blogging software is, it must be approached in a step by step, methodical way, instead of trying to absorb all the features at one time. One way to simplify the learning process is to avoid loading up your blog with all the free accessories you can find, since doing so will be a time consuming distraction.

Blogging software features

Features like, a visitor counter, flashy background, exciting new font(s), and a cluster of other quirky animated gifts can certainly wait until you have a better grasp of basic features like standard fonts, paragraph formatting, number of columns, layout, admin panel features and comments mediation, among many others. In other words, the recommended way in which a from free blogging tools is to be discriminatory in his/her selection. The main thing that will help a user find success as s/he learns the new kind of blogging software is to take things slowly, as stated earlier.

Unfortunately, some folks get so excited about learning to blog that they rush into the thick of it and start exploring the most complicated features of a program right away, which invariably gets them into trouble and cause some of them to lose confidence which often results in them quitting before they can even get to stage two of the learning process. Taking your time to learn the basic functions of any blogging software before undertaking more advanced techniques, is likely to help you retain what you have learned, as well as to instill confidence and a positive sense about your ability to .

Approach blogging software with discretion

What might also be an excellent idea is to learn about different kinds of free blogging tools that are available so that you can make an informed decision about what to add to your blog; but keep in mind that simply because you can have something doesn’t mean that you need to get it. It may be more important to practice restraint by selecting only those options that you think will be useful – if not valuable – to you in .

A good example of such discretion is determining how many visitors read your blog, in the sense that if you can check your traffic stats without installing a visitor counter, which is likely to add unnecessary clutter, then by all means do so. Another example is the enormous distraction a flashy background will cause, and limited benefit it would provide, if installed on a text-based blog. And remember that even a blog tool that doesn’t cost you any money may not be an asset in the long run; so be realistic about assessing, and select the kinds of blog accessories that will help you crystallize your vision and .

03/18/2016
An Opt-in List as the Sole Money-Making Vehicle

A mutual consent list

An opt-in list, which is also referred to as a subscriber list, can be a crucial component in any site or Web-based company; and even in the case of a small venture such as a niche profit site, an opt-in list can make a world of difference while also putting some extra money in the owner’s pockets. In fact, opt-in lists are so important to the revenue-generating apparatus to an Internet-based business that e-commerce sites – big and small – seldom operate their businesses without one.

Opt-in lists allow companies to market their wares and websites via email communication and promotions, activities that are commonly referred to as email marketing, but there are guidelines and “Best Practices” that email marketers must adhere to. An opt-in list can be thought of as an agreement between a site owner (email marketer) and a subscriber, whereas the marketer consents to sending a newsletter from his/her company, and the subscriber consents to receiving such a newsletter.

Based on such consent the marketer can keep subscribers abreast of latest trends pertaining to the subscribers interests, as well as what is currently available on the marketer’s website, and whatever is coming next. And as a result of the mutual consent between the two parties, any email sent to subscribers is not considered spam mail. It is also based on this agreement between the two parties that a great number of promotional materials (such as catalogs, newsletters and such) sent to subscribers are read successfully. This is all made possible because the subscribers themselves have signed up for the material which obviously indicates that they do want to be sent those items.

List-building: A nuanced art

Building a list is crucial, but only a small percentage of Internet users actually subscribe to an opt-in list, since many people find promotional email annoying; but if you, as an email marketer, provide quality newsletters or promotional material, you will probably get very positive results in building up and growing your list. Another way you can achieve such results is by having good content on your website; because if site visitors like what they see and read on your website, then they surely would want more, and a newsletter would be a great way to entice them back to your site.

Other than a vehicle by which to market your products and services, an opt-in list can also be used to earn extra money, but not all lists can be used to accomplish this goal, however; because only those who have already built a successful list with a huge number of subscribers should attempt to maximize earnings directly. ultimately, the more subscribers you have, the more money you can make from your list through a variety of techniques, some of which are outlined in the following paragraphs.

Advertisements and affiliations

There are many corporations who will consider paying a fee to have their banners and ads promoted to a list with many subscribers; because since selling or renting out lists is generally not a good idea, many companies forego such a risk and, instead, place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your newsletter could be placed with many ads and each one could result in more money for your efforts.

Establishing affiliations with Web-based companies that have at least a semblance or similarity to what your site is about can also supportt your list management efforts, because these companies will provide links and brief descriptions of what they offer in the way of products and services. As a result, every click made on the “affiliate link” that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to their site, the company will pay you. This is known as P4P or pay for performance.

Making deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of the sales done through your list can be an effective way to generate additional income and give your subscribers a variety of items to choose from; and every sale generated by customers that have come from your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company will pay you a small percentage based on those sales. The more people who buy from them, the more money you make.

Consignments and ebooks

Consignments and ebooks have been very popular approaches to doing business on the Internet. Pertaining to consignments, you may get products from other sites on a consignment basis and sell them to your list via a newsletter you create just for that purpose or via your standard newsletter. By placing descriptions, articles and photos of the product(s) in your newsletter, there will be those who will buy from you, and when that happens you can order the specific product from that other site and sell it to the subscriber(s) who requested the item.

Selling or giving away e-books or a compilation of your articles to your list in the form of manuals and how-to articles is in great demand; and there are people who, for various reasons, will consider shelling out money to obtain knowledge about certain aspects, techniques and information about a variety of topics. With your existing subscribers trusting your expertise in a given area, an e-book could be offered and sold; or even used as an incentive.

Networking and credibility

Developing a network out of your list by getting people to invite their friends and relatives to your site and subscribe to your list is perhaps the simplest and most straightforward approach you can take to build and grow your list. It’s important to keep in mind that the larger your list is, the more people will be able to click on your product links and affiliate links which in turn will make your advertisement rates higher.

Subscribers are willing to pay for information if they know that it can be trusted and relied upon; but perhaps the more important aspect of their decision making is whether or not the entity providing the information is credible. Such credibility will go a long way to enhance your list-building prowess, and in helping you to simply use your list to get more and more people to subscribe, as well as browse your site. Lastly, you can earn a lot of money from your subscribers by making them your partners, and your list will be the bloodline of your growth and marketing success.

03/10/2016