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29. December 2007:

Make Money Online - Building A List

At this point in the ongoing make money online series, it's time to talk about building a list of opt-in email leads. Before you switch off and think...."I've heard all that before", I'm going to try and give everyone, from pauper on up, some great tips, tools and ideas to get you started in the world of list building.

Depending on the kind of marketer you are, your options are manifold. I'm going to start, once again, with those who don't really want to make much of an investment in the process. There are numerous choices for you, so I've listed a few below, along with my thoughts on each.

The Freedom List - this system was developed by Tim Brockelhurst and can work really well for those looking to build a list in the simplest way possible. You won't need an autoresponder as you can mail your collected leads direct from a web interface at the membership website.

It's actually a bit unfair to call this a list builder because it's really a whole lot more than that. If you visit the site you'll see that it comprises a whole system to help you start building a profitable online business. It's free to join and it's worth it for the free bonuses and e-course alone. I recommend this wholeheartedly for those just starting out.

Like most things you will need to do some promotion if you want it to work for you, but, as I say, it need cost you nothing or very little to start benefiting from everything at your disposal as a member.

My List Builder is the brainchild of Chad Van Norman and comes with an excellent set of tools to help you get started. Again, it is free, and relies on your ability to effectively promote the service. It works in conjunction with many other free list building services to help you collect leads in a variety of programs. After signing up, you will receive a short email course to help you get the best out of MLB.

Ideally, you will need access to an autoresponder of your own - there are several free autoresponder services available but most serious online marketers prefer the services of someone like Aweber autoresponders for managing their email campaigns and newsletters. They offer a free trial for the curious. The other alternative, claimed to be equally good is an autoresponder account with Getresponse. I personally manage fine with the Supersponder service provided by my hosting company which provides unlimited pro autoresponders with all the bells and whistles I need. A little more involved than the first option but it's still a good lead generation system and well worth a look.

My Viral List is another favorite of mine and if you use the system correctly it is a both a powerful list and profit generating idea. You won't need an autoresponder as mailing is again done through a web interface all hosted by the program itself. You won't end up with an overflowing inbox. The program provides a good selection of easy to implement lead capture templates offering free bonuses to entice people to join your list. All you have to do is get the word out, and if you complete all the steps in the free signup process you'll have the potential to earn some good money too.

There are plenty of free listbuilding programs available online today, all work in various different ways and some are more effective than others. Listed below are some of the better known programs, each of which are designed in slightly different ways. All offer both free and paid options and you will probably find that some work better than others, some will build your list more quickly and some will take a little more time.

It is wise to use an email address specifically for your list programs as some, although not all, will send you a lot of mail.

ListJoe.com - this is one of the better programs in my opinion. It works on a credit system, which means you need to click on links inside the emails from other members to earn the right to send your own mails. The good thing is that you will get to send a lot of emails soon after joining and they stand a good chance of being read as others will want to earn their own mailing credits. It's a bit like a credit based safelist in that respect. There is also a good downline builder at the site to help grow other list building programs of which you are a member.

UPDATE: Conclusion. Basicallya credit based safelist. Set up a specific account for emails as you will get quite a few (around 20 a day). Provided you click the links in your mails you can soon build enough credits as a free member to mail out to 2500 members once a week. At least your advertised site will get seen. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether any of those members will be interested in what you are advertising. Still one of the best of its kind though.

Triple Your List - is another good program although the free membership has its limitations. It's cycling system generates leads quickly though so it's worth a look. Ideally you need an autoresponder to make the most of the leads you collect, but, if you don't have one yet, it's still a good place to start collecting some opt-in subscribers.

UPDATE: Conclusion. Producing leads as promised. Responsiveness still to be determined.

The List Machine - This one provides a web based mailer to send mail out to other list members. In a way this type of system might be easiest for a lot of people but there is always the doubt that any of your mails will actually get read. Many users of these types of program simply divert their list mail to a blackhole or just delete them without ever opening them. Not a bad program but others are better. They don't pay commissions to free members either.

UPDATE: Conclusion. Still a bit early to criticize this one for me, but so far very little success in persuading others to join and still doubtful of its potential.

Your Lucky List - The comments made above, apply to YLL too. It does generate leads, even if you never refer anyone yourself - but mailing from the site mailer is restricted for free members and you don't get to actually see your leads. Each time the matrix is rebuilt your available leads change - up or down in numbers - and many users probably never even see the emails being sent by others. Could be better, but then again, it's free. Results might disappoint, but only giving it a test drive will tell.

UPDATE: Conclusion. Just another safelist. Even though the matrix does allow you to mail a varying number of members eacch week, it's unlikely any of your mail will be seen, let alone opened. No incentives for members to read other member's offerings which basically leaves it dead in the water. A list builder for the program owners, but beyond that, unlikely to provide any results. Sorry YLL. 

ListLotto - This is entirely different and as the name suggests, offers members the chance to "win" a mailing to the entire membership database as well as the tools to gather prospects. It's different, but as to how effective it is, the jury is still out. Worth a free test drive.

UPDATE: Conclusion. Not really sure this is particularly worthwhile. The word Lotto should have been a clue. Chances of developing any meaningful contacts or customers a game of chance at best but at least they don't bombard you with tons of email. I'll give it more time before any praise or criticism.

List Dot Com - another offering that allows members to use a system mailer to contact their leads. Free and paid memberships available as with most of the other programs and of course, upgrading gives you far better features. I've not used this for long enough to truly judge its worth so you'll need to see for yourselves!

UPDATE : Conclusion. ListDotCom is another safe list and little more. Unlikely to produce results as members have no real incentive to read list mails from other members. Too easy to set up a specific email account and bulk delete - I have to say that would be the best idea as my inbox was bombarded with mail from the list, most of it rather amateur and annoying in nature. I have since deleted my account. The most useful list is being built by the program owner(s).  Sorry LDC, but unlikely to produce any worthwhile results for members.

List Bandit - List Bandit has been all over the web in recent times and offers both free and paid levels of membership. Mailing  is based on another random matrix which is rebuilt daily meaning that everyoine gets to send mail at least occasionally. Concerns over the likelihood of your mails being read exist here too, but it includes a downline builder for other programs, one of which is the incomparable Kiosk.ws, so I'm naturally a member.

UPDATE: Conclusion. List Bandit is little more than a safelist and consequently suffers from all the associated downfalls. There is little incentive to read member's emails and most savvy users probably divert all list mail to a dump address specifically created for the purpose and either auto trash them or mass delete them with the click of a mouse. Not likely to bring much in the way of results I'm afraid, aside from for the program owner(s) who are building a worthwhile list. Does however offer a reasonable downline builder by way of consolation, but not the best listbuilding solution - Sorry LB.

OK, those account for a pretty large chunk of work so I'll leave it there for the freebies. As I have said, some will be more effective than others, but if you're definitely not prepared to open your wallet I'd make a start with the top four listed above.

Now, just to end on my usual note - building a decent list that is yours to keep is better achieved with your own hosting account and autoresponder tools which will enable you to set up your own squeeze pages/lead capture templates and really have ownership of an opt-in list. If you're just lacking a professional autoresponder, give Aweber a try as it's widely regarded as the very best out there.

If you already have your own hosting but are still struggling with list building, you can now get a free copy of the ListSpawner script which you will find very useful. All you need to do to get a free copy is refer four subscribers and you will be able to download this viral tool.

These programs are all well and good, but there are of course better ways to build opt-in lists - building sites requiring member subscriptions is probably one of the most effective. More about that another time.

There's a lot more to listbuilding, but I hope these ideas will get you started. The series will continue and in 2008 I will be offering regular free marketing tools for download, so please remember to subscribe to my feed and you won't miss any of the many giveaways I have planned.



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caymanhost  Email Marketing & Listbuilding  6 Comments  No Trackbacks
28. December 2007:

E-Book Creation Software Deal

With Christmas behind us and 2008 just around the corner, many people will be looking for new ways to improve the success of their online ventures. Some may be starting out, others will be trying new ways to earn money online.

As a quick break from the make money online series I've been working on, I wanted to write a short piece on producing your own digital products. For a lot of people this is quite intimidating, but creating your first e-book or informational product need not be a torturous process at all.

Probably the hardest part is coming up with an idea.

The rest is just a matter of translating that idea into the final product. Fellow blogger and marketer Josh Spaulding has written some excellent guidance notes on producing and launching your first e-book or report, and I highly recommend reading those articles if you are new to digital product creation. Josh explains not only the nuts and bolts of writing an e-book, but, probably more importantly, how to go about marketing and selling your product once it is finished.

If the thought of producing a "ready to sell" digital product is still a bit overwhelming, there is an excellent piece of software called eWriterPro that makes the process even less painful. With this program, you can write your copy with the inbuilt word processor and convert it to PDF format with a few clicks of the mouse. Covers and graphics are taken care of too. For those just starting out, I highly recommend this tool for making the process as painless as possible, particularly as it costs less than ten dollars.

What makes it even more attractive to the fledgling e-book author is that it comes with full resale rights too.

The product really will show you just how simple it can be to produce your own e-books and whether you intend to give your creations away, or sell them for a profit, the step by step instructions lead you right through from start to finish. It really is as easy as ABC  - if you have a basic PayPal account, and somewhere to host your downloadable products, you can do this.

Create free products to give away as incentives or rewards, or sell your products and keep 100% of the profits - eWriterPro E-Book Creation Software will show you how to do it and comes highly recommended.

TCH

Business Hosting and Marketing Tools



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20. December 2007:

117 Top Free Digital Products - Limited Time Offer - Download Now

This is deserving of a quick post, because I'm offering you a chance to download 117 free digital products right now. This is a nice little Christmas present for anyone and everyone - bloggers, marketers, anyone who wants some quality digital products to help them with their online ventures.

It is a limited time offer - of the 117 products being given away there has to be something in there that you can use, so before you spend your hard earned money, check this out and get downloading before the offer closes.

I've reproduced the pitch below but if you can't be bothered to wait you can Download Your 117 Free Digital Products Here

NOTE - You will have to wade through various OTO's and subscribe yourself to double opt-in lists - use an email address that you're happy to subscribe with. 

------

Become A Digital Products Profit Machine!

Get Thousands Of Dollars In F.R.E.E. Digital Products! How much cash could you produce if you had thousands of dollars in quality resell rights products at your disposal?

With 117 Christmas Gifts you can grab loads of top quality info and software without spending a dime. And I'm not talking about junk downloads that you can find all over the Web - I'm talking about great products that are being sold for $47 and more every day...YOURS F.R.E.E.!

117 Christmas Gifts - Download Them Now

P.S. This special holiday event will not be open for long so act now. Stop whatever you are doing and check this out!

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10. December 2007:

Make Money Online Part 3

OK, having got the basics out of the way and set yourself up with a first class hosting package, just what the heck are you going to do now? Hopefully you've thought about that before registering a new domain name, and have chosen something memorable and relevant to your planned assault on the internet!

This dilemma is faced by many new webmasters if they don't have any real idea about exactly what they want to build. If you're main aim is to make money online, the choices open to you are now quite bewildering. However, before exploring these options any further, what about those who refuse to register a domain, are not prepared for even the smallest capital outlay and want to avoid building any kind of website?

I suppose it can be argued that all is not lost for this group. There are plenty of free programs out there that will help people to build some form of online presence. I'm thinking of free blogging platforms, social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace et al, and places like Squidoo. These are all valid avenues of enquiry for those who don't wish to spend anything, but you have to consider exactly what your plans are in terms of how you hope or intend to make money.

If you don't think you have anything of your own to sell, the obvious answer to many would seem to be affiliate marketing. It stands to reason that affiliate programs are the most attractive option for the financially challenged entrepreneur - nothing to buy, no money down, just set up an account and collect the monthly checks - that's how simple it is. You will hear this argument time and time again, and it's not entirely spurious, but success with affiliate programs is not the foregone conclusion so many people seem to think it is. In recent years it has definitely become more challenging to make money with affiliate programs for a variety of reasons.

The internet is a numbers game. The more eyes you can get on your services or products will increase your chances of making sales or commissions. Stating the obvious maybe, but I think many people are sorely deluded about the actual numbers involved. A hundred visitors to your landing page, affiliate site or blog for example is nothing - the people making big money with affiliate programs are often hosting tens of thousands of pages (oops, there's that hosting obstacle again) or spending money on advertising to drive thousands of visitors to those thousands of pages. The law of averages works in a scenario like this and you will generate sales. By the same reasoning, a blog in one hundred million is far far harder to monetize. Even if you are getting several thousand uniques a day, there is no guarantee that you will make much money - sure you might make a sale or referral here and there, but you probably won't be making anything substantial.

Getting paying customers to your affiliate programs is especially difficult if you are unable or unwilling to make any kind of investment in advertising or promotion. As we're sticking with the free theme, we'll leave paid advertising on the back burner for now. 

Most bloggers will tell you, if they are honest, that making money with a blog is actually not that easy. Having said that, a great deal depends on the theme of a blog - some niche blogs can be very profitable and ironically, making money with a "Make Money Online" blog is probably one of the most difficult challenges to set yourself. Lucia is probably as good an example as any and my guess is that her niche knitting blog is a better earner than her make money blog, but I could be wrong! There are countless blogs populating the MMO arena and you are often marketing ideas and services to other marketers who are often already pretty savvy. Your general audience are therefore less likely to be buyers, or are far more conscious of being "sold to".

If you wish to monetize a blog, you will probably spend countless hours experimenting with affiliate programs before you find things that work. If you don't, you should. Just try to tailor your affiliate programs to your readership - the more relevant they are, the more chance you stand of making progress. Advertising a high paying program won't do much good if it's irrelevant to your audience. What might also increase your chances of earning some commissions is using programs that pay you for leads - if something is free, people are usually more inclined to give it a try, so, if you can generate leads and get paid, even if it's only small commissions, they can soon add up. It's easier than selling a high ticket item to someone who is reading your blog to learn or gather information - they are not in the right frame of mind for an impulse purchase of a flat screen TV for example.

If your plan is to do no more than put up a few banners, you won't see very good results. If you can, it's a good idea to promote services and products of which you have personal experience. You can write a thorough review and maybe spice itup with screenshots or video demos. We all tend to be a little suspicious of blatant advertising or hard sells. Recommendations with substance tend to be far better received, particularly by people who regularlyread/contribute to your blog and feel that you are worthy of attention. Blogs, as you probably already know, enable us to build these kinds of relationships and relative trust. 

Many affiliate programs offer free software downloads, followed by a trial period of use and then a point where the user has to choose to buy, or give up the use of the program. These can often convert really well if your customer finds the tool invaluable and doesn't want to give it up. Try before you buy - it's a common practice because it works. The principle that you never miss what you've never had, is used regularly in marketing - once you allow someone to use a service, they often find themselves loathe to be without it and become a buyer.

All these things mean nothing without traffic of course. Marketing and promotion is a huge subject in its own right, so more of that later. The thing to remember is that many blog monetization strategies are hugely dependent on generating visitors and hopefully targeted visitors and regular readers. So, you can begin this process without investing money, but it is going to take work, determination and much experimentation before you see any returns. When it comes to blogs, this is true whether you host your own blog or use a free platform, but most would agree that it's preferable to have control over your own blogging work of art, particularly if you are in business and aim to keep blogging in the long term.

Blogging will eat up a lot of time. Writing, and maintaining a blog is no stroll in the park, particularly when the initial rush of excitement wanes, and rewards are slow to materialize.

For the free seekers, affiliate programs can be promoted in other ways - you don't have to blog, but I think most would agree that a blog is still a great tool to have in your marketing arsenal. Building relationships with fellow bloggers and regular readers is just a part of it - that's a long term goal, but it is definitely a great way to get yourself into the SERPs without spending a fortune on SEO. Despite the recent slaps, Google does like blogs and indexes blog content very quickly, enabling you to rank for chosen keyphrases with just a little thought and application. Just as an example the term "Kiosk.ws Hosting Review" sees me in first place in Google's organic results - that's worth a lot to me as an affiliate and cheerleader for the company!

 

Let's face it, most of my readers are already bloggers and know much of this already. If blogging isn't working very well for you, aside from the occasional sponsored post and some miserable PPC cents, what else can you be doing?

It surprises many people to know that they can often make money simply by utilizing something they could well already be doing. If you're writing, why not get paid for it? There is an insatiable demand for good quality writing on a huge variety of topics. Just  because there is a lot of competition doesn't mean you can't profit from writing. Try places like Associated Content who offer payment for your articles (provided you are a US resident). Seek out places online who offer payment for your contributions - one example would be a site like Constant-Content..............that pays for stories of all shapes and sizes. Searching for "we pay for stories" or "we pay for content" should give you a  whole host of services to consider.

If you fancy yourself as a wordsmith you could always try your hand at Ghost Writing and this article will give you a good overview of what is involved in becoming a Ghost Writer.

Having recently launched an article directory myself, it has become painfully obvious to me that there is not enough talent to satisfy the demand for quality writing on almost any subject. I find myself rejecting and deleting far more articles  than I accept because I want quality and don't have time to proofread and rewrite poorly constructed drivel and adverts. You can take advantage of this in a number of ways if you're prepared for a little work and research. Even writing articles and submitting them to free directories can be hugely beneficial to your marketing efforts, but that'a a subject for another day. 

Aside from the written word, there is always photography - provided you are half way competent and have a decent enough digital camera, sites like iStockPhoto will pay you for contributions to their online digital image library. Quality standards are high, but once you have an account with them, you will get paid royalties every time someone downloads one of your images. Residual income for anyone who can take a good picture that others want to use. Think about this if you regularly upload photographs to places like Flickr etc. - these could well be making you money.

The more things you do - the more money you stand to make. Experiment, diversify, discard what doesn't work and try new things. It's often disheartening when things don't go as you hope, but if you quit, you've no chance at all. Multiple sources of small amounts can add up surprisingly quickly, so even if the returns are not huge on your zero investment ventures, if you have enough of them you might still be making some reasonable additional income. Think about what other things you might have to sell, and research ways of capitalizing on them.

The list is pretty endless - I could mention online surveys, currency and stock trading, and countless other ventures which may or may not work for those seeking to make money without a website of their own, but I think  that's enough for one blog post. The series will continue, and there's lots more to come!



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caymanhost  Earning Money Online  12 Comments  1 Trackback
05. December 2007:

New Free Article Directory From The CaymanHost

 

One of the reasons for my quiet spell has been the ongoing work at my new free article directory.

It's barely out of the wrapper and there could still be one or two technical glitches to iron out but anyone interested in submitting new content can now do so.

You will see that the site is totally empty at present so if you are an article marketer already, please feel free to include the site in your submission database.

If you are not familiar with article directories or article marketing, perhaps it's time to investigate all the possibilities for your marketing efforts. I recommend ArticleMarketer.com for a quick start to getting your articles out to directories and this site will shortly be publishing content from that source as well as various other places.

If you encounter any problems with the site, do let me know  - here's the link

The CaymanHost Article Directory 

TCH

Web Hosting / Marketing / Leading Affiliate Program 



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03. December 2007:

Presentation Profits - Free Trial

I just wanted to post a quick link to an exciting new service that some people may find of interest.

After almost a full year of development, a new power point presentation tool has launched today at 9am Eastern time, 3rd 2007. There is no other tool like it on the internet!

Now ANYONE regardless of their technical abilities can get their PRESENTATIONS live to the world with ONE click of a mouse.

This is a turnkey tool that does it all
No more FTP (what is that anyway?)
No more domain names
No more headaches!
Get your presentations PROFITABLE in minutes!

Did I mention the referral program? It pays 60% commissions on 3 tiers!

40% level 1 UNLIMITED width
10% level 2 UNLIMITED width
10% level 3 UNLIMITED width

As you probably know, launch day is THE day to cash in on ground floor opportunities, so, I invite you to check out my link and
get in on the action!

There is a free 7 days trial too that lets you secure your spot in the downline. So, you have nothing to lose.

Here is the link to join my team:

Presentation Profits Free 7 Day Trial

(If you'd like to see the program in action you can watch a video at the above address)



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03. December 2007:

Making Money Online Part2 - The Basics

Welcome back. I hope that after reading part 1 of this series you weren't too depressed! Having spoken about how not to go about it, let's start looking at some of the options available for those who are serious about trying to generate some form of online income.

Today we are going to introduce the concept of "nothing is really free".  That's right - if you are serious about making money online, you are going to have to seriously consider how much of an investment you are willing to make to succeed.

People are very reluctant to accept this fact, and although we would all like to make piles of money without spending a cent, it is going to restrict your chances severely. People are making money online without any investment it's true, but it is without doubt a  huge handicap for most. This is not to say that you need to spend a lot of money  - the beauty of the internet is the fact that you can start with very little outlay in comparison with starting a business offline.

So, where is your money going to be best spent? Well, there is no shortage of people trying to sell you all kinds of information and ideas. that's for sure.

Let's start with the basics. I realize that this is preaching to the converted for many readers, but one of the first serious considerations is to set up your own domain and hosting arrangements. This is important for a number of reasons. You probably want to establish a brand and to have an easily remembered address or addresses on the web. You want full control of your sites and to own your own data. Until you have experienced your own hosted domains, it's hard to appreciate just how much you are missing out on. 

The fear for many people is that they just don't have the technical knowledge to cope with web hosting, but the fact is, if you can use a free blogging platform or word processing software for example, you will be able to manage your own websites, blogs and hosting control panel. The user friendliness of modern web hosting is what makes it so attrative to ever increasing numbers of users.

Regular readers will know that one of my own top businesses is connected with my hosting arrangements. The reason for this is that not only do the company provide first class service and support, they also offer a great suite of marketing add-ons and tools - AND an excellent opportunity to add a monthly recurring income stream for their customers. There isn't another hosting company that offer an affiliate program of this nature, that pays back 85% of its revenue to customers.

If you don't yet have a clear idea of the kind of sites you want to build in connection with a business, the program offers everyone the tools to start promoting the affiliate program immediately on joining. This means that while you start to develop your own sites, you have the chance to begin earning money immediately - of course, you need never even use the hosting services if you really don't want to (although that would seem rather wasteful) but the fact is, generating a residual income becomes a real possibility as soon as you sign up. You won't get rich overnight - this is a genuine program however, and you can soon begin to see results and another nice boost to your Paypal account every month.

The company will provide you with a variety of Lead Capture Templates  for example, which you can use in conjuntion with their unlimited professional autoresponders allowing you to send any messages you wish, promoting anything you want. Mesages can be sent in HTML and plain text and spread over absolutely any period of time.

Several Kiosk customers designed various ingenious ways to promote Kiosk's business and potential income generation with things like the Masterprofit System, which even negate the need for you to write your own autoresponder messages. 

The company provide things like unlimited URL rotators (great for traffic exchanges and the like) and live VOIP conferencing plus a whole host of other marketing tools, all of which can be seen and experienced at the Kiosk.ws Hosting Website 

For me, promoting things that work and seeing other people experiencing success online for the first time is a great lift, and with so many dubious "opportunities" online, it's a pleasure to promote something that not only gives a great service to webmasters new and old, but also an additional, genuine business model for developing residual income. Kiosk is one business service that I am 100% confident in promoting to others.

I wrote a comprehensive article about the Kiosk.ws Hosting and Business Plan here and regularly provide updates on the reliability of Kiosk.ws here for all to see.

So, once you have made a small investment in hosting, the doors open up to a huge range of possibilities, more of which I will discuss as this series progresses, so, if you're not subscribed already, please add me to your feed reader or sign up for regular email updates.

TCH



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