Financial Freedom Blog: Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course

Day 19: Build Traffic Through Relationship-Building – Part I

Big shots are only little shots who kept shooting -- Christopher Morely (1880-1957)

Time to activate the last of the Big 3 strategies for building traffic…
#1) Free Traffic (DAY 12 - 14)
#2) Paid Traffic (DAY 15 - 18)
#3) Traffic Through Relationship-Building

You are building a solid traffic base. Now keep those visitors coming back for more.

How?...

The same old answer… relevant, quality content. This time the content is in your e-zine and other special publications.

Goal-of-the-DAY... Identify a way to communicate with your visitors on a regular basis and build a relationship based on trust and credibility. Become a friend rather than a stranger.

While you are waiting for the traffic to your site to build, look ahead and prepare…

Even when you do have good first-time traffic, most people don’t come back over and over again to most sites. It’s nothing personal. It’s simply a big Web out there... and visitors figure that they might as well see something new! So, unless the very nature of your site naturally tends to generate frequent, repeat visits, realize that your customer is in “now or never” mode.

So the question is... how do you reach her again and again, after she leaves?

You need a Backup Response, an alternative reason to visit. A good Backup Response must...

• deliver a benefit to your visitor at a “no-brainer” price (free is best), and...

• provide you with an ongoing opportunity to remind your customer about you and your product/service or the merchant-partners that you represent.

Sooner or later, a healthy percentage of those who trigger your Backup Response will deliver your MWR -- a sale or a contract, depending on your situation.

Why?

Because you’re building a quality, long term, repeated exposure, one-to-one relationship with your visitor/customer.

9.1. Build Relationships With An E-Zine

The most common Backup Response on the Web is the e-zine (an e-mailed newsletter). Once you have some decent numbers, it takes only a day to get an e-zine up and running.

A good e-zine tells its readers to revisit you…
• to click on something missed during the first visit
• to respond to an announcement you make
• to see new content you’ve added

The e-zine builds a relationship of trust between you and your visitors. Put yourself in the visitor’s mind. A new e-mail arrives from you. Full of excellent content that meets her needs, the e-mail prompts her either…
• to click on the link back to your site to take you up on your great offer
• to click on a link to one of your affiliate partners
• to file in her memory that you are the person with the answers to her questions.

You will use the content in your e-zine to get your MWR. It’s fine to give lots of information. But use that information to PREsell. Give your visitor a reason to click on a link back to your site or directly to one of your affiliates.

The WIN-WIN provides information for your visitor and income for you.

9.1.1. Build a Sales Page For Your E-Zine

How good of you to provide a free e-zine! But will your visitors subscribe?...

It’s free but… you still need to sell the idea that another piece of e-mail is a good idea. After all, your visitor is going to give up her e-mail address and the time it takes to read what you send.

While she’s on your site, she needs to feel that continued contact with you will be worth her while. So you will…
• stress the benefits of your particular newsletter
• add a clear “call to action”
• finish with a subscription form

Make sure the benefits are clear. Add a testimonial. Link to back issues. (Some Web masters write an issue or two no one else receives so they will have back issues. Visitors can see what they will get.)

Stress that your e-zine is free.

Add a professional look with a great cover like those at

Killer Covers.com
http://www.killercovers.com/

Then tell her exactly what to do… Subscribe!

9.1.2. Develop A Format Template… And Stay With It!

Readers like familiarity and predictability… so develop a template, and stick with it. Make only minor, incremental changes every now and then, saving your last issue as the template for the next one. From top to bottom, here’s a quick list of things to address in your format...

1) Name your E-zine. You want your subscriber to smile in recollection when she sees it. Make the name short, memorable, descriptive, and relevant.

2) Subject, including Issue Number and Date

3) Small logo

4) First text block -- start off your e-zine with a catchy benefit-oriented slogan. For example, under your Cactus Gardening logo, you might type into your first text block...

“Prickly Issues, Creative Solutions”

5) After that, experiment with a combination of text blocks, line breaks and divider lines, so that you can deliver the following “starting information”...

i) Valuable PREselling Proposition -- stress the key points of your e-zine.

ii) A promo pass-along -- add something like this...

If you like this e-zine, please do a friend and me a big favor and “pay it forward.” If a friend DID forward this to you and if you like what you read, please subscribe by visiting...
(Then add a link to your page that promotes your opt-in newsletter.)

6) Issue number and Date (you did it in the subject, now repeat it in the body)

7) Table of Contents -- show your reader what you’re covering in this issue. Provide tantalizing “read me” headlines in your TOC.

8) From this point, experiment with…

• headline blocks to start each section
• dividers
• line breaks

9) Then the content!

10) You might want to add one more text block before the closing information (unsubscribe, etc. -- details a bit later) for your readers. This text block could include anything, for example...

Comments? Ideas? Feedback?
I’d love to hear from you.
Just reply to this e-zine and tell me what you think!

11) Closing information. You need to give readers a chance to unsubscribe, etc. Make sure to save all this as a template for future e-zines (more on this below), so you don’t have to do it all over again.

Tips:
SBI! makes building an e-zine a snap. From a building block approach to setting up a template, to creating a subscription form, to automating the mailing list, to tracking statistics like open rates, MailOut Manager does it all.
http://buildit.sitesell.com/resources2success.html

9.1.3. Set Up Your Subscription

You’ve already created a form for subscribers on your sales page. You may opt to include this form on other pages, or at the least include a link from other TIER 2 or TIER 3 pages to your sales page.

Some people create pop-unders to advertise their e-zines.

Do include an e-zine button on your navigation bar so visitors can find the sales page easily. And be sure to include many references to your e-zine so your visitor has many opportunities to sign up.

To prevent spamming and/or to prevent people from giving other people’s names and addresses without consent, use the “double opt-in” approach… your visitor must confirm her subscription.

Although adopting a double opt-in policy means you will grow your list slightly more slowly than a marketer using the single opt-in approach, there are several reasons why it is smart to adopt such a strategy...

1) A double opt-in policy builds a truly qualified, high value list. Do not be concerned about losing a few subscribers. The confirmation step ensures that your subscribers are interested in you and your product or service.

2) A double opt-in policy establishes your credibility with the subscriber, and emphasizes the value of your publication. It’s a great way to demonstrate that you are not simply paying lip service to a SPAM policy, but have taken concrete steps to prevent it.

3) As SPAM continues to increase in volume, so does the average surfer’s intolerance for it. A double opt-in policy lowers the risk of being reported to a spam policing server by an overzealous surfer.

The value of a qualified subscriber’s list? Priceless -- no credit card can buy that kind of confidence!

9.1.4. Advertise Your E-Zine

List your newsletter in major e-zine directories on the Web. You’ll find these work much the same way as the main directories (discussed in DAY 15-18). Drill down through the categories and sub-categories to find the best place and submit your newsletter to the most appropriate section of the directory.

Some submission tips to consider…

Try some tinkering first. Do a search for your most important keywords at each directory, and note from which categories the returned results are coming.

Check for keywords in the Title and the Description, as well. Remember, your subscriber is most likely to find you as a result of a keyword search. So do your best to ensure your site is listed for each particular keyword.

Keep in mind that your Description is the only impression a directory visitor will get of your e-zine, so make sure you sell it!

Bottom line on the e-zine directories?...

It depends. If your e-zine is about a popular topic that is likely to generate many keyword searches and you’ve listed your site properly (with a compelling Description), there’s no reason why these directories shouldn’t bring a constant trickle of subscribers to your newsletter.

Of course, if your newsletter is about a highly specific niche topic, your major concern will be listing in directories that receive enough traffic to generate keyword searches for that topic. It’s ideal if you can find a directory dedicated to a category that includes your theme.

All in all, if you can hit the major e-zine directories in an hour or so, it’s not a bad way to spend your time. Just be sure to do your homework. Learn how to submit properly, or you’ll be wasting your time.

Here are a couple of suggestions to get you started…

Ezine Articles
http://ezinearticles.com/

Email Universe
http://emailuniverse.com/

Or you can automate your promotion with…

Newsletter Promote
http://www.newsletterpromote.com/

There’s a pleasant bonus when you market your newsletter. Not only will you build your e-publication, you will build more traffic to your site (if you provide a link from your subscription page to your home page). On top of that, you will also generate some all-important link popularity which is always a good thing!

If you know that your potential ROI (Return On Investment) is high, it may be well worth your while to investigate...

1) Paid co-registration resources. You pay either a flat fee for every subscriber delivered (usually it’s pretty reasonable), or a base advertising rate (delivered by impressions). If possible, always stick to advertising that guarantees you results.

An example of a pay-per-subscriber service is...

LeadFactory
http://ProfitInfo.com/leadfactory/

2) Rent an opt-in list. Some reputable companies build and manage huge optin lists that are divided up according to interests, demographics, and so on. You can rent a list (or a portion of a list) in order to place an ad. The only caveat for advertising in this manner is that you must be very selective in choosing a company to do business with -- otherwise there’s a very real possibility that you will be guilty of spamming some or perhaps all of the recipients.

Some of the better services include...

PostMasterDirect
http://www.postmasterdirect.com/

Yesmail
http://www.yesmail.com/

List Partners
http://listpartners.com/

An e-zine is not the only way to stay on your visitors’ radar screens…

Stay tune for more…

A Cowgirl Dares to Dream

Financial Freedom Blog

Friday, April 11, 2008

Achieve Financial Freedom Thru Affiliate Masters Course – Day 19

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