When it comes to list building there is no easier way to go than with a blog of your own. Blogging is fun (and profitable) and a logical way to build your list. After all, you are truly giving before receiving. If you understand reciprocity and attraction, you know that sharing high quality content before asking for the order is vital. The good news of course is that you don’t have to create the content in order to share high quality content. We’ll get into that, and the all-important concept of content curation, in another article.

For now please enjoy this short video (it’s about 4 minutes long) on three ways to use a blog to build a mailing list of your own.

Using Herbalife Central for lead generation could be hugely rewarding or equally frustrating depending on how you decide to build it.

Traditionally, network marketers have been notorious for pestering their family & friends to join their mlm business. This approach has seldom borne desired results. The secret to network marketing success is finding like minded individuals.

With the dawn of internet, came a new breed of mlm companies that support internet marketing. This has widened the scope of succeeding in your business.

The basics of the business haven’t changed though! MLM is still a people based business and lead generation continues to be the most important skill that determines ones’ success.

Herbalife Central Lead Generation Tips and Tactics

 
The biggest advantage of internet marketing is the ability to source leads internationally. However, the conversions tend to be better if we can build a steady source of local leads.

Every business requires investment and so does lead generation with Herbalife Central. You have to decide whether you want to invest either your time or your money to generate network marketing leads.

Social media is a great free way to get in touch with like minded people and find prospects for your business. Twitter even provides a search option where you could find friends locally based on keywords.

‘Facebook groups’ is a fantastic source to find people open to earn extra income. One will save a lot of time by discussing strategies with their sponsors. If a particular social media tactic is working for your sponsor, it should work for you too.

If you are in a position to invest some money, Google pay-per-click (PPC) is the fastest strategy for network marketing lead generation network marketing lead generation.

Since Google allows region based targeting of ads, this source can be used to find leads from specific regions or countries.

It is important that you monitor your Google PPC results daily. Here again, a sponsor could be consulted for keywords that work best with PPC ads.

Herbalife Central is a marketing platform built on principles of delayed gratification; so is blogging.

 
Creating a blog based on your home based business will generate leads for you over a long period of time. Since every blog post is a permanent web entry you will continue to get leads from a blog post written years ago.

Building backlinks, integrating autoresponders and social media into your blog are tricks to skyrocket your rankings. The biggest factor that determines the success of your blog is persistence.

Taking up a challenge to write hundred blog posts in next hundred days will surely be the best network marketing lead generation technique.

The most important success habit for serious network marketers is to be in constant touch with their mentor. Choosing a proper mentor is of utmost importance. It is not necessary that you direct sponsor will be the best mentor for you.

A good mentor is genuinely interested in your success, and does not hesitate to share success strategies with you. Sharing your goals and dreams with your mentor and openly discussing your business assets and weaknesses will help the sponsor to guide you in the right direction.

If you are on a tight marketing budget and struggling to get your business off the ground then this is for YOU. This is the best Herbalife Central lead generation strategy available!

You’ve heard it before – if you want to succeed online you must have a list of your own.

Every guru says it. Ever wonder why?

Because it’s true!

With a list of your own you can advertise anything you want any time you want as often as you want … all FREE!

There is no more powerful weapon in any marketing arsenal than a well-developed mailing list.

And email marketing is by far the most powerful form of marketing online. It’s been proven again and again.

With a list you have marketing power and can even participate in joint ventures.

Without a list you have to buy advertising or do other forms of free marketing to get the word out.

Those work, and they work well, but they are much harder. So why not take the easy route?

The reason for list building is economic, plain and simple. If you want a real freedom the best way is to have a list of your own. In 2006 I made a full time living with a mailing list of only 12,000 people. This can be done!

You can do it too!

There is no doubt that the single most valuable asset I own online – more valuable even than owning the Directory of Ezines - are my mailing lists.

With them I can build, or rebuild, a business. Without them I’m back at square one.

But what if you have a list yet?

First things first – everyone who has a list now was in your shoes at one point. We all started with zero subscribers and had to learn the fine art of list building.

The good news here is that it’s not as hard as you think if you are willing to use the “slow and steady” approach instead of they hyped up “go from 0 to 100,000 in 90 days” approach.

One word about “slow and steady”. While I am not advocating taking any longer than needed to build your list I am saying that putting time on your side matters … a lot.

Think about how long you have been trying to make money online. Now thing about this – what if you had added only 200 people a week to your list every week of that time? How many people would be on your list today?

For many the answer is thousands and thousands.

There are many ways to begin building your list – too many to cover here. So today let’s look at four free ways that really work. 

Full disclosure: I used each of these when starting to build my list and still use each one of them today. They work!

Here are four simple ideas you can use today to start building a list of your own even if you don’t have any money to spend, a website of your own or any traffic!

But first, what do you need to get started?

It goes without saying that you will need a landing page and an autoresponder before you begin building a list of your own. You will also need messages to send to your new list.

These things are much easier than they used to be and both are covered in other articles on this blog.

Suffice to say that if you have Aweber you are good to go from a technology standpoint.

With Aweber you can build unlimited lists and they will even host a basic lead capture page for you free. 

Many people don’t know that Aweber will host your form for you but they will. This means you do NOT need a landing page other than the one they provide if you do it right. What they provide is basic, but it works and is included in your service so there is no cost.

That makes life so much easier!

Now to the four ideas for today. These tactics work for me and have for years. I hope they will work for you too.

Idea 1 – Your Email Signature Line

Go to your “sent email” folder right now and just scan the email you sent in the last month. If you are like most of us its hundreds of emails. Maybe thousands.

But does your email does include an offer for someone to join your mailing list?

It should!

Here’s why …

If you send only 20 emails a day (including replies) then you are sending over seven thousand emails a year!

What if only 1 in 7 people saw your link and joined your list?

That’s over 1000 subscribers to your list … free!

You may be thinking that many of the emails you send are to friends and family. Or that you send many emails to the same person. I thought that too.

But one thing to consider is this – if you add an offer to join your list to your signature those who are interested will take it up and those who are not will ignore it. This is perfect because people are self-selecting, which is the essence of permission-based marketing. 

You will find, as I did, that people will occasionally forward your email as well. When that happens an entirely new audience gets to see your list building offer. It’s a win-win.

And it costs nothing!

Idea 2 – Forums and Blogs

Ever visit a forum and ask a question? How about making comments on the blogs you follow and love?

Many people have done one or both but don’t leverage the experience in their favor.

Just about every forum out there offers a signature line feature, yet we see thousands of posts with no signature.

Almost all blogs encourage you to enter a URL when you comment but many comments contain no URL at all, when they could easily include the URL of your squeeze page or Aweber hosted form.

Don’t make this mistake!

If you post on the Warrior Forum or Michael Green’s How To Forum or any other, make sure to include a link where people can join your list.

The same thing goes for commenting on your favorite blog like Copyblogger or Chris Brogan’s blog.

Again, free and very effective. Put time on your side with this one!

Idea 3 – Twitter

Ah, Twitter – friend or foe? Great marketing tool or total time waster?

Great marketing tool!

Here’s how you can use Twitter today to begin building your list with no money. 

Start following people you know of and replying to their Tweets.

Make sure your reply makes sense and won’t waste people’s time.

Post fan Tweets – replying to a Tweet with something like “loved your book about ___” are 100% okay and often much appreciated.

Once you have been following for a while you will get followers too, and become a recognizable name in your circles.

When that happens, send a short Tweet about your new mailing list and where people can join it.

If you want you can even automate this process by using a service like Hootsuite or a software like TweetAdder.

The key here is to create curiosity which creates the click and that leads new visitors to your squeeze page.

And it can all be automated! 

Of course you can use other social media to accomplish this as well. Other articles will cover those methods. But I find that Twitter is the easiest way to start for someone just starting out, hence the specific suggestion here.

Idea 4 – Your Blog

If you don’t have a website you might be thinking “sounds good Charlie but where do I send them to sign up?”

Fair question.

The best answer is your blog.

If you don’t have a blog there is simply no reason to wait any longer. Go to Blogger.com and get one now. It’s free, they have templates you can use that look professional.

If you don’t like Blogger you can use a service like TypePad to host your blog.

Another option, if you have hosting, is to use an excellent theme from Studio Press (that’s what I do) or use Optimize Press or the Socrates Theme. The last two are highly optimized for online marketers.

The advantage of having a blog is that you can use it as a landing page only OR publish a full-on blog and build your audience even faster. 

Options are a beautiful thing! With one hosting account you can have an almost limitless number of blogs in various niches. You can create virtually any number of squeeze pages too.

If you can type, you can blog. And you should. Once you get a blog just put a form on it for your list and you are good to go!

So there you have it, four ways to begin building a real list of your own with no money and no traffic!

1. Your email signature line
2. Forums and blogs
3. Twitter
4. Your own blog

Begin using these methods today and you will put time on your side. Sooner than you think, you will have a mailing list of your own.

Once you have a list of your own the possibilities become endless. You can take polls to uncover needs, offer recommendations, warn them of online scams and so much more. All free!

And having a powerful mailing list is a beautiful thing indeed!

 

 

 

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Highly recommended!

Hello everyone. This is Charlie Page. I’m the owner of The Directory of Ezines and I wanted to share some questions and answers about marketing that have come my way.

Before we get into the first question, I want to share where these questions came from. These came from my consultations with lifetime Directory of Ezines members.

One of the benefits of membership in the DOE is free personal consulting with me. Rather than charge them anything or make them part of my consulting practice, members ask me whatever is on their mind, which allows me to see where people are and what kind of help they need.

It’s tough out there. Sometimes you get confused. There is too much information. You try something and it doesn’t work. You don’t know what to do next.

Rather than sell my time off, I thought, “I’ll give it to my lifetime members. They’re good people.” These are free one-on-one consulting sessions that are offered to lifetime members.

The questions have been fascinating. I want to create a series of short articles and videos like this one to share the questions and answers that have helped them and I’m hoping that it will help you, too.

Let’s get into the first question. The most common question I get is:

I need more leads.

That’s technically not a question. It’s a statement. And boy, do they make it a lot.

I understand. I’ve been there. I’ve been to the place where I had a pretty website and no one was coming. I didn’t know what was going on.

That’s the most common challenge of everyone who wants to make money online whether you want to sell a product and don’t care what the product is, you just want to make money or you have a passion for a particular product. Getting traffic is tough. Let’s take a look in more detail.

There are only two ways to get leads.

You can buy leads or you can earn leads. This is true about traffic to any website.

There’s traffic you can buy and there’s traffic you can earn. Those two sources of traffic are different. Whether you go after one or the other depends upon your situation. It’s completely custom to you.

Here’s the question you have to ask yourself right now. Do you have more time than money or more money than time? If you have more time than money, I know how that feels.

I was there when I first started as a member of The Directory of Ezines. If you have more time than money, you can go home at night and crank out two or three hours of promotional effort.

You can’t spend $5,000 or $500 right now. You’ll want to focus on these techniques.

Let’s go through them one by one. I’m going to give them to you in a nutshell.

Let’s look at them one by one.

The first is viral marketing.

 

This is creating a piece of information that other people can give away. When they give it away, it does something good for them.

Why would other people want to give away a piece of information you’ve created? You’re the creator of the viral marketing piece. They’d want to do it because they have something to gain.

They can put their affiliate link in it. It’s a piece of content they don’t have to create. They can use it to build their list.

You can make a piece of marketing material like a video, an audio, a book, a report or a series of email messages. Let’s say that you know how to write or you’re persuasive but you don’t have a lot of money for marketing.

If you can create a viral marketing piece then it will get out there to everyone. It will contain your contact information and your website. That will help drive traffic to your site.

There is article marketing.

 

I have a site called Article Marketing Live. I teach article marketing. Everyone and their brother is talking about article marketing right now.

Here is the essence of article marketing: Write an article that contains useful but incomplete information. I think Jimmy Brown coined that term and I couldn’t agree more.

It is useful but incomplete. That’s what the article does. It provides useful information but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

That creates curiosity. When people read your article they learn something. They want to know more about that topic. They go to your website.

SEO stands for search engine optimization.

 

It’s absolutely free. You spend time on your website trying to get it ranked highly in Google.

It’s not free if you buy these crazy products that promise you the first page in three minutes. I hope you don’t fall for that. It is free if you take time to research keywords and make sure that the content of your pages are good.

The internet is about content. When people search on Google, it’s job is to return relevant websites back to them. If your website is relevant and contains good quality content, Google will reward you and give you more traffic.

There are joint ventures.

 

Many people I talk to say, “I can’t do a joint venture. I’m not anyone. I’m not a guru. I’m not a well-known name.” You’d be surprised how many so-called “gurus” do business every day with people who are not well-known names.

These people trade services. They write copy. They post articles. They go into forums. They do things like that as part of the joint venture.

The joint venture doesn’t have to be “we are two equals who are going to work together.” A joint venture can be “I can do something you need you need done and you can do something, like a promotion, that I need done.” You trade your time for promotion.

Teleseminars

 

These are a good way to promote if you have more time than money. There are a lot of free teleseminar services on the internet now.

Perhaps you’re an expert at a particular thing whether that’s teaching people how to fly, how to build web pages, how to make video or what to avoid.

You can share stories of your successes and failures over time. You help people know what to avoid. Those are all worthy of teleseminars. These teleseminars are durable content that work very well.

You can publish your own ezine.

 

This works if you’re knowledgeable about a particular topic or if you’re a person who likes to do research. Publishing an ezine is easy. All it takes is an auto-responder account.

People can sign up. You can email it right out. There are many courses on how to publish your own ezine. You can get a free auto responder account online. These things don’t take money.

You can participate on forums.

 

This is a great one. Go to the Warrior Forum room. Go to Anthony Blake’s forum room. Go to Michael Green’s HowToCorp.com.

You have to participate. The key is to give. Reciprocity will bring that back to you. If you give, you will receive.

Participate on these forums. Answer people’s questions if you can. Ask questions that are meaningful. Don’t ask, “How do I earn $4 million next week?”

Everyone is doing that. That’s crazy. No one will go from $0 to $4 million in a week or even a month. Participate in the way that you can.

You can publish a blog using Blogger.

 

You can provide endorsements.

 

This is a backdoor technique that many people don’t know about.

If you purchase products and like them, go to the website. Find the contact form for the person or company and provide them an endorsement.

They’ll put your testimonial on their homepage. They will often provide a live link to it. We do that at The Directory of Ezines.

Social Networking

 

This includes things like Twitter and Facebook. These are free methods that help you get the word out to a lot of people.

You can combine these techniques. Let’s say you have a viral marketing piece written or cool articles. You can put them on Twitter and Facebook. Now you have a two-for-one deal. That’s one way.

Let’s talk about if you have more money than time.

If you have money, you want to promote and you need leads, then you need to buy advertising. That’s the bottom line. It’s very simple.

You can buy ezine advertising. There are solo ads, sponsored ads and classified ads. The place to do that is The Directory of Ezines. The place to learn about that is Ezine Advertising Live.

You can buy pay-per-click advertising. Google has tremendous tutorials on how to use Google AdWords and do pay-per-click advertising. They teach you a lot about it for free.

Banner advertising

 

This is still effective and it should definitely be done. Banners can be tremendously effective if you do it right. There are many sites online that will teach you how to do banner advertising.

There is email marketing.

 

I separate that from ezine advertising. You are buying an ad in ezine advertising.

In email marketing you’re either renting a mailing list or cooperating with someone who has a mailing list. They will send out your advertisement. They might not publish an ezine.

You can run your own affiliate program.

 

It takes a bit of money to get that set up properly. Affiliates can be a powerful source of traffic.

They’re out there swimming in different ponds than you’re in. They’re talking with different people. It’s logical that they will contact and meet people, know people and promote to people that you’ll never reach. It’s one of the most powerful ways to promote a product.

You can also repackage for success.

 

That means that you can purchase resale rights products and repackage those combining three or four into a super pack about blogging, ezines, banners or video.

If you have money, you want to purchase advertising and tools to help you succeed. What about your situation? Have you been trying to make money online for more than three months and you’re frustrated and not making any money?

Are you suffering from information overload and not really sure what to do next? If you spent money on programs that didn’t work or if any of these apply to you, then I’m going to pitch that you become a Directory of Ezines lifetime member.

This is exactly what my consulting program is all about. I’m giving this consulting time to Directory of Ezines members in order to help them answer and solve these problems. Consider becoming a member. If you’re a member now, log in. On the home page for members, you’ll see exactly how to get a hold of me.

 

 

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It’s true. At the Directory of Ezines we are 100% committed to helping members succeed. That’s why we recently increased the number of free ads members can place from three to TWENTY.

We started this only six weeks ago. Just look at the results. What you are seeing is a screenshot I took myself (sorry it’s not prettier) and it proves that DOE members are getting real traffic to their sites from these little ads.

If members are getting numbers like these in six weeks just imagine what months or years of exposure can produce. DOE Lifetime members can change these ads anytime they like, and promote ANY site they want, including their affiliate links!

I have blacked out the URLs to protect member’s privacy.

THIS WORKS AND WILL WORK FOR YOU … BUT … LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP TO THE DOE IS CLOSING SOON SO YOU NEED TO ACT NOW IF YOU WANT TO GET IN AT THE LIFETIME LEVEL.

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We meet many people in the course of our careers. Some we will get to know casually while others will become close friends and trusted allies. Then there are those I call ‘centers of influence.’

These ‘centers of influence’ people are like the hub of a giant wheel. As you look back, you can see where so very many good things, things like contacts, sales and help just when you needed it most, have come from this one person.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could know that a person was to become a ‘center of influence’ in your life *before* it happened?

Here’s the good news… you can!!

In fact, we will see today that not only is developing such relationships possible, but that such relationships can be developed without greed or manipulation.

If developing a ‘center of influence’ relationship sounds good to you, and you want to develop it using win-win methods, today’s article is just for you!

Create a ‘Center of Influence’

Let’s begin with a short quiz. One question. No pressure.

What is the best type of advertising?

When asked this question many people answer “the kind that works!” While no one can disagree with that, I submit that the BEST type of advertising is the one that is most overlooked.

I’m talking about word of mouth advertising.

While targeted email, banner ads, billboard ads, and even television ads all have their place, nothing compares to the power of word of mouth advertising.

Here’s why.

When one person tells another person about your product or service, the very fact that they are speaking about you constitutes an endorsement. While people might not trust advertising (in fact, they don’t) they do trust people.

If Jane feels strongly enough about what you do to tell Jim, Jim will take notice even if Jane gets the facts wrong. When Jane tells 15 or 20 Jims, she has become a center of influence.

This is exactly why no serious marketer can afford to overlook social networking for long. Social networking is the perfect place to begin developing relationships – in fact, it’s all about relationships! Unlike paid advertising or article marketing, social sites like Twitter, Facebook and more encourage dialog, not the usual sales letter monologue.

How can we develop a powerful word of mouth advertising campaign in our businesses?

By recognizing, developing and rewarding those people who can become a ‘center of influence’ in our lives.

It’s done in three steps. Let’s look at each step.

1. Recognition

In order to become a true *center* of influence, a person needs to be in regular contact with the type of people who can benefit from what you do. This begs a critical question. Do you know what your ideal prospect looks like? Once you know, do this.

• List the type of clients that you would like to have more of. List what makes them an ideal client for you (they need what you do, they are open to change, etc.)
• Find common characteristics. Do these super clients go to the symphony, play golf, visit certain web sites, participate in online forums? As much as you can, be where they are.
• Get to know them on their turf. Let them see you at events they attend. Volunteer to help their favorite charity. Make yourself visible. Before people will buy and recommend us, they need to get to know and TRUST us.

2. Development

This is NOT manipulation, but education. Have you ever had someone you know buy what you sell from a competitor because they just didn’t know YOU sold it? We are not at the top of people’s minds. They have kids, mortgages, college to pay for, as well as work pressures, just like you do.

We need to position ourselves at the top of their minds by being in constant contact. We have so many tools at our disposal for this purpose. Here are three to start with.

* Send them an email once a month to announce something new in your business.

* Phone them to say hello and announce your next big event. Ask them how they are first, and keep notes so you have a point of contact for the next call.

* A personal note works very well for developing this type of relationship. Have you written a new article or been in the newspaper? Write a brief note and send it along. Notes take time, which shows that you value this relationship.

3. Reward

No, I am NOT talking about only money here. This relationship goes much deeper than that. What I am saying is that, while you are getting to know them better and educating them about what you do, take the time to LISTEN to their needs.

When you can meet one of their needs, do it immediately, even if there is no immediate return for you. This person is important to your business. Don’t TELL them, SHOW them how important they are. If this relationship does not include reciprocity, it will degenerate into a ‘what’s in it for me’ situation that will not stand the test of time.

Please understand that these relationships must be open and honest in order to work. People like to help other people, especially those they know and trust.

Develop that trust relationship with people who are well positioned to help you. You must earn their referrals. When you do, your marketing will become supercharged with what is clearly the best form of advertising … positive word of mouth.

And that is a beautiful thing indeed!

 

Click here to return to the Driving Traffic Quick Course

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When it comes to making money online there are three elements that everyone MUST have in order to succeed:

1 — Something to sell
2 — A website that makes the sale
3 — People coming to that site and buying

Getting items 1 and 2 set up and in place are as easy as pie. In fact, you can have these in place in the next 10 minutes.

But it’s that third element, getting real people to come to your site and buy something, that has most people stumped.

Getting visitors to your site is called, in Internet terms, getting traffic. And there is no other topic on which so much is written, and so much is wrong.

Being a fairly simple minded fellow, I like to keep things simple and easy to understand. In that light, here are some thoughts on understanding, and getting, traffic.

FIRST THINGS FIRST…

There are basically two types of traffic:

What this means is that you are going to have to pay for traffic through either your efforts (free traffic) or your pocketbook (paid traffic).

Everybody pays… some with time, others with money. I’m sure by now you know that the “three click” wonders don’t work for anyone … except the people selling them!

So there is paid traffic and free traffic. Nothing more. Nothing less. Let’s look at each and see how they work.

In this post I’m going to touch on free traffic. In future posts (there are a few parts to this series) I will dig deeper into both free and paid methods, including what’s working now. First, an overview of free traffic methods that actually work, and some to avoid.

Free Traffic

If ever there was a siren song of the digital age, ‘free traffic’ is it.

Can you really get absolutely free traffic to your site? Sure.

Can you build a business based on this traffic? Yes.

BUT – and there is always a but – you will have to learn how to get it and work hard as well. If that’s okay with you, let’s look at how it works.

Here are the main sources of free traffic, along with a word about each…

SEARCH ENGINES

Often touted as the #1 way to get free traffic, the tactic here is to get your site listed in the venerated ‘top ten’ search results. You can’t trick the search engines, so the best way to do this is to provide content, and lots of it.

If your site is helpful to human readers you will do well.

If you try and outsmart the search engines to get traffic you will go broke buying the latest and greatest thingy that simply won’t work, or won’t work long.

Create a content rich site and the search engines will reward you by displaying that site when people search for the type of information you provide. But the content must be high quality and must be original. No rehashed PLR content for you. That will only get you banned, busted and begging for mercy.

FREE ADS

Free ads are a mixed blessing. They are free, which is good. They usually don’t work, which is bad.

If you can get a free ad in a place where ads are usually sold, like the free ad you get for subscribing to some ezines or classified ad sites that are visited by people, then it might be worth the time.

BUT – ad blasters and automated submitters do not work in testing and are to be avoided.

 ARTICLES

Without a doubt, marketing with articles is the #1 free traffic method. You don’t need to be Hemmingway to do this.

All you have to do is write a short article – about 500 words works best – that describes a problem people face and also provides ways to solve that problem.

HOT TIP: Have you been frustrated in your efforts to get an online business started and making profits? Have you learned from that experience? If so, that makes great article material. See, you really do have something to say!

Once your article is written, you can submit it to article directories, ezines, other website owners, and more to get the widest possible distribution.

Write and submit an article a week and very soon you will get very interested visitors who are proven to buy.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: How long have you been trying to make money online? What if you had written only one article a week during that time? For many reading this it would mean an inventory of 100 articles or more. And that is a large enough inventory of articles to make many many sales! Put time on your side by writing articles every week, and more often if you can.

VIRAL MARKETING

Viral marketing basically means creating something of value that others can give away while making sure you benefit from it being given away.

The key here is that you both win when the product is given freely.

In most cases, the person who gives the book away for you wins by providing good information that they don’t have to write.

You win because the product contains links back to your site.

A real win-win!

The most common form of this is either software or a short e-book or report.

Creating a viral marketing e-book is a win-win situation. You win because the links in the product are yours, so you get paid when people click. Readers win because you provide valuable information and they can give the booklet free from their website.

PUBLISH AN EZINE

Publishing an ezine is highly profitable and easy to do. All you need to do is gather, or write, articles about a specific subject and publish an ezine (like the one you are reading now) on a schedule. That might mean every week, or every month.

You can get great articles from all sorts of places, like article directories or ezine directories.

Publish an ezine, offer it to everyone in your address book and who visits your site, and watch your traffic grow.

PUBLISH A BLOG

This is super easy today. If you have a hosting account, the chances are you have blogging software on that account free. If not, you can always use Blogger.

The basic idea here is the same as a website … provide great content and the search  engines send people.

The advantage to a blog is that you can have some interactivity by letting people comment, and you can easily structure your blog for easy reading. Plus you can offer an RSS feed for those who prefer that method of getting content automatically.

Set up a blog today, provide great content, and the search engines will send traffic over time.

PARTICIPATE ON FORUMS

This is an excellent, and free, way to earn while you learn. The idea here is to visit forums that are specific to your site and post questions or make comments.

This works well if you understand reciprocity and are wiling to give a bit before you receive. It does not work at all if your forum post is simply an ad in disguise.

Once forum members get to know and trust you a bit they will visit the site you list in your signature area. If you visit the forums specific to your topic of interest and get involved, you will get very targeted free traffic on a steady basis. I know of one major marketer who built his reputation using this method more than any others. This works!

As you can see, there are many ways to get free traffic to your site. These methods take time that could be spent doing other things.

But if you have more time than money at this point in your life, these techniques will work to get traffic to your site.

I hope they work for you too.

Soon we will look at even MORE ways to get traffic free — so stayed tuned!

Thanks!

 

P.S. Like this article? Leave a comment or “like” it if you have time. I love hearing from you!

Click here to return to the Driving Traffic Quick Course

 

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If you are interested in driving traffic to your website, or are into list building or affiliate marketing, then you probably know the importance of a great headline.

It’s often been said that the ability to write great headlines is the most important skill in all of copywriting. That might be true.

After all, unless you have a great headline your selling message won’t get read.

This applies to solo ads, classified ads, sales letters, blog posts, social media marketing … basically anytime you communicate with the public.

In the email marketing and solo advertising business we often talk about the “hierarchy” of a great email ad. That’s just a fancy way to say that any email ad, especially a solo ad, must have three key elements in order to be effective. And by effective, I mean profitable.

1. A subject line (or headline) that causes the email to get opened
2. An offer the reader wants
3. A call to action that gets the reader to click now

If your ad has those three things you will likely do very well indeed. If you get one of them wrong you risk losing profits.

But here’s the problem for most people … how do you write a highly effective headline or email subject line?

Most professional copywriters have a swipe file they use. When they see a great headline or subject line they copy it and use it for inspiration. Of course, we never want to use anyone’s copy word-for-word without express permission but we are free to draw inspiration from great marketing. And we should do so. After all, why reinvent the wheel?

A second trick of the trade is having a blueprint to follow.

By blueprint I mean a simple “fill in the blanks” formula that empowers you to crank out winning headlines and subject lines all day long.

So if you’ve ever wanted to write great headlines and subject lines at will, or if you’ve ever been stuck and not known how to get started, the blueprints below will help.

NOTE: In the examples and information below I’m going to refer to these blueprints in email marketing terms. The truth is a great headline IS a great email subject line and IS a great article title and IS a great blog post title and IS a great Tweet and so on.

It all has the same purpose, to get people to read more and take action.

Master these blueprints and you will never again be stuck for inspiration. Heck, you might even find a new career as a headline writer!

Blueprint #1

 

“For _______, This Works Like Crazy” 

Overview: This is a great results-driven subject line that is certain to get people to open up your email and take a closer look. The idea here is to use the classic combination of  something the reader wants with a way to get it. By including “this works like crazy” you are saying “here’s how to get what you want”. All you need to do now is fill in the blanks and include what they want.

Your job is to provide the “what they want” part in the provided blank.

Examples: 

• For losing weight FAST, this works like crazy…

• For longer tee shots, this works like crazy…

• For making money fast, this works like crazy…

• For saving a marriage, this works like crazy…

• For avoiding bankruptcy, this works like crazy…

Obviously, you want what you are offering to be something that is highly sought after or highly interesting to the reader, and is directly related to what you are going to share in the email itself.

This subject line is great for just about any kind of mailing, whether it is a content mailing or a promotional mailing.

People open it for one reason and one reason only: it promises to reveal something that produces a result they want to achieve.

Blueprint #2

 

“Why Your ________ Won’t _______” 

Overview: One of the basic human motivations for response is driven by a fear of failure. This subject line is the exact opposite of the first one we looked at which hinted at producing results – this one hints at NOT producing results.

The idea is to talk about what they want and then an appropriate negative statement at the end after the word “won’t”.

Examples: 

• Why your diet won’t work

• Why your business won’t succeed

• Why your list won’t make you money

• Why your vacation won’t be fun

• Why your credit can’t be restored

Who could resist opening up to see WHY? Not many of us, I can tell you that.

HINT: Substituting the word “can’t” for “won’t” works very well. Feel free to experiment with other synonyms too.

If your result is something that we WANT to achieve, then certainly we’d want to read your email to find out what might prevent us from achieving the result. It’s a great time to reveal a mistake or a problem or a hindrance … and then offer your product or service as a solution, which will produce profit for you.

Blueprint #3

 

“The biggest mistake ______________ make”

Overview: Once again we are tapping into the fear of failure, a powerful motivator. This subject line that focuses on the negative or adverse result – things your subscriber wants to avoid if he is going to achieve the desirable results he is after.

The difference with this subject line and others that offer a sort of warning or caution is the emphasis here is on the word “biggest”. This isn’t just a mistake, it’s the BIGGEST mistake. It’s the number one, most common error that folks make regarding a particular topic and curiosity alone will get people to open up JUST TO SEE WHAT IT IS.

Yes, they’ll certainly be concerned about whether or not they are making this particular mistake, but even more than that, they’ll want to know WHAT this particular mistake is. What IS the “biggest” mistake?

Examples: 

• The biggest mistake husbands make

• The biggest mistake first-time parents make

• The biggest mistake dieters make

• The biggest mistake car buyers make

• The biggest mistake dog owners make

HINT: Adding the words “and how to avoid it” or “how you can avoid it” works very well with these headlines.

Obviously, the biggest mistake would be a matter of your opinion, so it’s open to your own objective perspective, which makes this one an easy subject line to work into your mix. And, it definitely is effective.

Blueprint #4

 

“The Fastest Way To ____________” 

Overview: Now it’s time to talk about the other super-motivator, promise of gain. Here we focus on being “fast”. We all want results – and, let’s face it – we all want them as quickly as possible. We live in a fast food world that promises instant results and that’s what we want. So, the key here is that word “fastest”. This isn’t just a way to success with a particular topic; it’s the FASTEST way to success with a particular topic.

Additionally, I’ve found that if you can plug in SPECIFIC results it makes this one so much more effective.

Examples: 

• The fastest way to make $500 online

• The fastest way to lose 5 pounds

• The fastest way to play guitar chords

• The fastest way to speed read 75 pages

• The fastest way to cut insurance costs by 25%

Notice in my examples that I didn’t make outlandish claims, I made reasonable claims. It wasn’t the “fastest way to make a million dollars online,” but rather “the fastest way to make $500 online”. Not “100 pounds”, but “5 pounds”. Not “play guitar”, but “play guitar chords”.

There are two reasons for this:

(1) If a person believes they can actually do what you mention in the subject line, they are more likely to open up and take a look, and

(2) Readers will subconsciously think they can INCREASE the results by DUPLICATING what you share inside.

In other words, if you mention the “fastest way to lose 5 pounds” I automatically think, “If he lost 5 I’ll bet I can lose 10! ”.

It’s human nature to think you can do better than the next person. That may or may not be the case, but that’s what many people think, and it compels them to take a look because your claim is BELIEVABLE and ACHIEVABLE.

Blueprint #5

 

“Get Your ________ Questions Answered” 

Overview: This is a great information gathering subject line to use when you want to survey any mailing list, be it your own or if you buy solo ad space. Surveying and taking polls works, and works well, and this approach helps it work even better.

The more you know about people who might become customers – what they WANT to know from you, what they are most likely to buy – the easier it is to provide them with quality content they can use and the easier it is to make offers that they will say “Yes” to. So, this is a great subject line to gather information with, by allowing your subscribers to submit their most wanted question to you.

Examples: 

• Get your blogging questions answered

• Get your weight lifting questions answered

• Get your insomnia questions answered

• Get your digital photography questions answered

• Get your pet training questions answered

HINT: You can change this headline to read “answers to your _____ questions” and it will work just as well.

LIST BUILDING TIP: You can promise to answer the top 5 for free in a report or training call or give a free copy of your completed product to all those who submit a question (and join YOUR list) or whatever you choose as far as the offer inside.

Blueprint #6

 

“Something Every _____ Needs To Know” 

Overview: Once again we have the “curiosity” factor in play. What is it that I need to know? The word “need” is very powerful and compelling. It gives the impression that something is a necessity, that it is required.

Testing has shown that putting a special emphasis on “first-timers”, “beginners” or “newbies” will increase the results of this headline or subject line. Because they are inexperienced, they are more likely to not only recognize they do have needs because of their lack of knowledge, but also will be eager to learn those things that you feel are necessary or required for success.

Examples: 

• Something every new mother needs to know

• Something every college freshman needs to know

• Something every first-time car buyer needs to know

• Something new affiliate marketers need to know

• Something every bride-to-be needs to know

Why do you think the Dummies® books have sold so successfully? Newcomers to the subject want to know what they need to know. And that’s why they’ll open this email up and take a look inside.

Blueprint #7

 

“Here’s A Shortcut For __________” 

Overview: When I say “shortcut” what comes to your mind? Think about it for just a second. You likely envision something that is “faster”, something that is “easier”, something that gives an “advantage”, something that “reduces expenses or effort” – all of which are highly desirable.

We all want to take the shortcuts in life – the easiest, fastest, most advantageous path to our destination. Which explains why this subject line continues to be among my most opened in my email marketing. It doesn’t matter if it’s rose gardening or entertaining inlaws or boosting metabolism or racing radio-controlled cars, we all want a shortcut.

Examples: 

• Here’s a shortcut for getting a great job

• Here’s a shortcut for creating an ebook

• Here’s a shortcut for boosting your memory

• Here’s a shortcut for mastering Forex

• Here’s a shortcut for learning to play piano

Tip: Let me also give you just a quick tip here for really producing profit with this particular subject line. When you can tie in some kind of product, software or service that fully or semi-automates the shortcut, then you’ve got a very good chance of getting the sale.

Just a quick, very generic example: You might share that a shortcut to success with customer support is to have a text file with your most asked questions and responses to those questions so when a new customer asks a question all you have to do is copy and paste your response instead of retyping out a response. That’s a shortcut.

Now, you could also PROMOTE an autoresponder service that would actually automate the process of getting those answers to the customer, you could promote a package of template responses to the most asked questions or promote a customer-service help desk software or even a third-party company that provides customer service.

The point is this: If you can provide readers with a quality shortcut, but then also promote a product, software program or service that automates that shortcut, you’re much more likely to get a sale. 

Blueprint #8

 

“Here Is Your ________ Checklist” 

Overview: One of the things that most human beings want – at least the human beings that I know – is a set of instructions that we can follow to make sure we do things correctly. That’s why offering a free checklist as your subject line is yet another great way to increase your open rate and get subscribers delving deeper into the mailings you send out.

Examples: 

• Here is your interview checklist

• Here is your “Baby’s First Year” checklist

• Here is your wedding checklist

• Here is your headline writing checklist

• Here is your travel checklist

I personally have seen greater results by ENTITLING the checklist. Not just “Here is your interview checklist” but “Here is your ‘Acing Any Interview’ checklist”. Not just “Here’s your wedding checklist” but “Here is your ‘The Perfect Wedding’ checklist”. A good name adds more desirability to the checklist.

Obviously, in your email you’ll want to provide the checklist. And your checklist is a PERFECT spot to make recommendations. Refer readers to your product or affiliate products for more information on every entry in the checklist.

A classic example is the “Setting Up An Internet Business” checklist where some of the steps would include “buying a domain name”, “finding a web host”, “creating a blog” etc. For most of those steps, you could provide a brief overview of them and then point them to resources to do the very things you instruct them to do … most of which make you money.

If there is one email subject line and corresponding email message that EVERY LIST OWNER should have in their sequences somewhere, this is it. It’s the surest way of making money with a list that I know of. Provide a checklist with useful steps and useful overviews and then point them to profit-generating resources.

Blueprint #9

 

“A Great _______ Resource I Just Found” 

Overview: This is a great subject line to use in promoting an affiliate link, especially if there is some kind of free information or discount involved at the affiliate site.

SUPER IMPORTANT: If the product or program you are promoting in your affiliate marketing offers free information you will do better by promoting the free information than by promoting the product or program directly. 

Examples: 

• A great discount travel resource I just found

• A great free traffic resource I just found

• A great genealogy resource I just found

• A great anti-aging resource I just found

• A great home improvement resource I just found

There is an element of newness and freshness here with the “I just found” reference at the end of the subject line, which brings a sense of urgency – we desire to be the first to know, the first to use.

Again, just another solid way to get folks to open your emails.

Blueprint #10

 

“This Ruins Most ____________” 

Overview: This subject line is one of the strongest in the group. It works again with the fear of loss super-motivator. It goes beyond sharing a mistake or even the biggest mistake to the point of revealing something that can have a devastating effect on the reader if they fall victim to it.

Again, we’re talking about both awareness of a potentially destructive pitfall, with a provided solution, only this time the language is stronger in that it could “ruin” the results for the person on the other end of the line.

HINT: Don’t overuse this one and don’t use it for things that readers might consider “minor”. There are products we promote that can have a dramatic impact on a person’s life – this type of headline or subject line is best used for those types of products in my view.

Examples: 

• This ruins most dieters

• This ruins most newlyweds

• This ruins most marketing plans

• This ruins most affiliates

• This ruins most childhood dreams

In this email, you’d want to reveal the most disastrous, destructive stumbling block that the subscriber might face, along with a solution for avoiding it.

HINT:  Provide the solution in your content in a brief, overview form so you do actually give them useful information, and then lead the subscriber to an offer to thoroughly explain the solution which allows you to make a sale.

There you have it – 10 ways to write headlines or subject lines that practically demand attention and create real results.

Now here’s your action step – take the headlines you are using now and compare them with these. Can you modify what you are using now to fit these blueprints? If not, take the blueprints above and apply them to every product you promote online. Then begin testing these headlines in the ads you place, articles you write and more.

These blueprints work – I hope you enjoyed them and profit from them as I have.

 

P.S. Got a great headline to share? Leave a comment below and share your favorite headline. And please “like” this article or tweet it out if you can spare a moment. Thanks again.

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Today money is tighter than ever. Many are suffering from long-term unemployment. Others have spent what they could afford on sites that promised the moon only to deliver disappointment.

So it’s time to talk about what one can do if funds are very limited.

Hey, we’ve all been there!

I’m not going to tell you that I was living in my car and eating at the soup kitchen. I wasn’t. But around the year 2000, we were having very difficult times. I remember driving through an ATM once and discovering that I had $15 to my name. Not a happy memory. I had a wife and two kids to provide for at the time. Talk about pressure!

I had to work online because I could not work anywhere else or take a job. I was unemployable and in very poor health.

I say all of that only to say I understand a limited budget. Now let me share five specific methods that helped me in hopes they help you too. 

These are same things that I did to go from being a member of the Directory of Ezines to being the owner of the DOE in less than 18 months.

Most of these methods take effort, and lots of it. But if you use them consistently I believe you will build multiple streams of highly-targeted traffic.

And that really is the key. Not one large flow that could stop but many smaller flows that can’t be stopped and add up to one large stream of visitors.

What I share next comes from experience. I use all these methods, not just teach them.

1. Social media

Social media is free to use but can be time consuming. You can get on Twitter and Facebook or have a Squidoo page. But none of that will do you much good unless you have something valuable to say.

Happily, you don’t have to be a writer to have good things to say!

If you have ever been to a movie and then seen a friend and shared a few reasons why you liked  (or didn’t like) the movie then you have what it takes to succeed with social media.

I believe the key with social media is what I call “sharing with a purpose”. None of us is going to be able to compete with Taylor Swift or Ashton Kucher when it comes to number of followers.

But we can compete when it comes to the quality of what we share. We can compete when it comes to providing value.

One key with social media is to share often and spontaneously. Are you reading a book and found a great idea? Tweet it out or post about it on Facebook. New technology like the Kindle (or Kindle app) actually let you do this with one click!

Another key with social media is to tease readers into joining your list by providing helpful information that leaves them wanting more.

One actionable idea is this – buy a Private Label Rights product that you can give away and create a Facebook page that gives the product free to people who “like” you. This can unleash a viral avalanche and help you build your email mailing list at the same time.

A win-win!

2. Pay-per-click

If you have a limited budget to try and sell things online consider using it for pay-per-click advertising. Why would I say that? Because with pay per click you know you will get traffic or you don’t pay.

One key here is to start with Facebook and not Google. No disrespect to Google but Facebook pay per click often costs less and is much more targeted.

As with all pay per click, you only pay what you want to pay and you should never be in risk of spending more than you want.

One key here is to send the traffic to your own squeeze page.

With PPC traffic you often want to use a longer squeeze page than with strategies like solo ads, but do focus on list building using PPC.

Research your competitors. Do a conservative pay-per-click campaign modeled around what they’re doing.

While you never want to copy their campaign directly, you can and should take a lesson from what they are doing that works well.

If you have a modest budget, pay-per-click is a great place to start. You control your expenses. You can try something for $20 or $30 and see how it works.

3. Forum Participation

I say this to a lot of clients. They look at me like I’m crazy. They think, “Posting on forums? Does that still work?”

Yes, it does.

Ask anyone who has done a Warrior Special Offer if it works. There are strong businesses online that have been launched by making Warrior Special Offers. If you don’t know what a WSO is, go right now to the Warrior Forum.

You can register for free. Become a member. Start poking around. You will see these special offers made. They’re often very good. Just watching how these are marketed can provide you a free education in copywriting.

Fair warning, there is more than a bit of hype on many Warrior Special Offers. So buyer, or reader, beware.

Visiting a top forum is a good place to start. Go there and lurk around. Get a feel for the place. See who’s talking about what. Find out where you can inject your product or the product you’re promoting into the conversation.

TIP: If your product can honestly solve someone’s problem then saying that, and giving reasons why, can lead to sales.

You can’t go to any of these forums and say, “Hi, my name is John. I think you should buy my product.” That’s considered advertising or spamming.

The key in forums is participation.

Even if you have more questions than answers, get in there and get to know people and become involved in conversations.

If you participate, make suggestions and try to help people, when the moment is right you can inject your product into the conversation. That’s very effective. I did that many times on several forums, and still do when time allows.

4. Links from Blog Commenting

Commenting on blogs in your niche is perhaps the easiest and fastest way to get links from high PageRank sites. And it works!

The key here is a to make a comment that shows you have read the article and one that extends the conversation.

That’s the key – extending the conversation. 

While it’s fine to say “I love this post”, short comments like that (even if they are affirming) are often seen as spam and are deleted.

So make your comment a bit longer, and feel free to ask a question too. Much like social media, commenting on blogs is all about the conversation.

One major mistake is trying to “automate” the process.

Don’t use software that sends out 9,000 comments to different blogs. You never read the posts. You’re just commenting on them. Those things don’t work. That’s cotton candy short-term stuff.

Finding blogs in your niche is easy. In fact, Google has a blog search feature. If you are interested in reading some of the most profitable blogs on the planet check out the Ad Age Power 150.

5. Article marketing

This is my favorite. This is the thing that turned me around. I love article marketing so much that I actually teach a course on this subject!

When I could not afford paid advertising methods I wrote articles and sent them to the ezines that I found in The Directory of Ezines. It created a strong flow of traffic.

What I did not know at the time is that the visitors article marketing created would be so interested. They felt like they knew me, and wanted to know more.

That was a beautiful thing at a time when I needed something good to happen.

In a few short weeks I went from no one reading my writing to hundreds of thousands of people reading my writing.

Article marketing means more than just blogging or posting to one or two article directories. It means submitting your article to ezines (online newsletters) in your niche, offering to be a guest blogger and more.

The best type of article marketing by far is having your own blog.

Why is having your own blog important? I believe there are three reasons.

1. It gives you a “home base”, somewhere to send all visitors so they can learn more. Having one site to which you send people matters, especially if you are an affiliate marketer who might promote a variety of products over time. Sending all traffic to your blog makes your advertising and promotion evergreen.

2. It empowers you to build a list of your own. Using tools like Aweber’s list building widget or a pop up from PopUp Domination you can build a list from your blog visitors quickly.

3. Blogs create high quality free traffic from the search engines. Search engines exist to do one thing – provide people who search relevant content. When your articles are relevant to what people are searching for search engines will send you traffic free.

One key to article marketing is to write useful but incomplete articles. What does that mean? It means your article helps people but does not try to be an entire course.

I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you’re promoting Aweber. This is my favorite auto responder.

You want to write an article about using an auto responder. You could write an article that says, “The three best ways to use an auto responder are to sell things, to follow up with customers and to recruit affiliates.” Those would be the three points of the article.

That’s useful but it’s incomplete. There are probably 50 ways to use an auto responder. That’s what “useful but incomplete” means. I think Jimmy Brown coined that term. I’m not sure. A lot of people use it.

That is the basic method of writing an article. Write useful but incomplete information. It’s useful and they appreciate it. They want to reciprocate. It’s incomplete and they want to learn more. Now they’re clicking your link.

There are many more ways to drive traffic without spending money of course. They are covered in other articles on this blog, and in my ASK Charlie area as well.

If you consistently use these methods I believe you will build multiple streams of highly-targeted traffic to your site.

And when that happens your sales will become automatic and your income will become reliable.

And that is a beautiful thing indeed!

 

Click here to return to the Driving Traffic Quick Course

 

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Everybody talks about how wonderful it is to do a “joint venture”. And when a joint venture is done right it can be very profitable indeed.

But what is a joint venture? And how can you get one going? Especially if you are a “newbie”?

These are good questions, and worth answering. So let’s dig into it.

First, a joint venture is an agreement between two parties where both agree to do certain things and they share profits. Simple really.

Party A and Party B combine forces to create a win-win situation that, hopefully, creates more results than either of them working alone. Synergy!

They both do different work and share revenue based on that work. It’s usually a situation in which people have complementary skills.

For example – one person is a copywriter and there other created a piece of software. The writer writes a sales letter and advertising material in exchange for a percentage of first year sales. No fees are paid; they share revenue instead.

Sometimes that share is 50-50. Sometimes it’s 80-20. It depends upon the nature of the joint venture that you arrange.

So that is what a joint venture IS … an arrangement to share work and revenue (and often, expenses) between two or more people who have complimentary skills or assets.

That leads to a logical question, and the source of considerable frustration among new marketers.

The question is … What is a joint venture NOT?

It’s important to understand what a joint venture is and what a joint venture is not.

A joint venture is not, “Send my solo ad to your list and I’ll give you part of my commissions when I get paid.”

That is a solo ad, which usually sells for money.

Far too many new marketers are told to go to ClickBank, find a hot-selling product and approach a person with a big mailing list and say to them, “Send this ad out for me. When I get paid by ClickBank I’ll give you half of it.”

Sadly, that’s not going to work and will only waste your time. Why?

Because the person who owns that list could go to ClickBank, get a link of their own and keep all of the profit and commissions.

Let’s me share some truths about joint ventures. These are things that others don’t often talk about, even though they are true. I feel you deserve the truth. After all, your time is valuable and wasting it is not an option.

1. Joint Ventures can be hard to find

Everyone is trying to create them. The reason that everyone is trying to create them is that they work.

The volume of joint venture requests I get personally has tripled in the last 18 months alone. I think it’s partly the economy (people have less money to spend on advertising) and partly that some marketers are teaching very spammy techniques for getting joint ventures.

The good news is this – you can find joint ventures if you know where to look and how to ask. Even if you are a newbie.

The two best places I know are below.

Warrior Forum

If you go to the Warrior Forum you will find a section devoted to nothing but joint ventures. You can access that here. My advice is to go there and lurk for a bit and see what good joint ventures look like as they are formed. Fair warning – there is a bit of pitching going on there and a LOT of ad swap requests.

But there are great JV opportunities too. Just today I saw folks looking for people who can write, looking for programmers to create WordPress plugins and looking for people with Photoshop expertise for a product creation JV.

JV Notify

In the spirit of full disclosure I will say that I am a paying member of JV Notify. I like to keep up with what’s happening even though I do very few JVs. The link above is not my affiliate link however.

That said, JV Notify is an excellent community of people who have a JV to offer and for people who are seeking joint ventures as well.

JV Notify makes it super easy to see what’s coming up soon so you can plan your marketing. This is one of my favorite features of the site.

Always wanted to know what big product launch is coming next? This is the site that can do that.

Check them out and see what you think. Their basic membership is free and you can become an affiliate and promote the site.

HINT: This is the type of site that is very easy to promote. Everyone wants a joint venture.

2. Not all Joint Ventures work

Sometimes they work great. Sometimes you work like a dog and make $75. It’s very frustrating.

On the way to success, sometimes you have to fail. If you do a joint venture that doesn’t work, don’t give up on the idea.

Knowing more about what good joint ventures look like will help you avoid the ones that don’t work.

I’ll share a story. I won’t share the person’s name. That would be wrong. Although this turkey deserves being called out, I won’t do that.

A few years ago I had a guy approach me. He said, “If you’ll mail for me I’ll mail for you. We’ll both make money and promote our products.” I said, “OK.” I mailed for him several times.

We sold a bunch of his product. I did get paid a commission. When the time came for him to mail for me, he flat out refused. He said, “I don’t use your product. I don’t know your product. I only recommend products I use.” He had several excuses and totally violated the gentlemen’s agreement we had made.

It got to the point where it was clear that he wasn’t going to mail for me. He failed to live up to his end of the bargain.

What I learned from that is to get the expectations clear up front.

Put your agreement in an email to your JV partner. Say, “I’ll do this on this date. You’ll do that on that date.” Then you have something to fall back on.

3. It helps (a lot) to bring something unique to the table

If you have a skill you can bring to the table you are in a great position for a joint venture. Many marketers simply don’t’ have time to do the things they want to do but are optional in business.

Here is a list of only a few skills I know work well in joint venture situations. If you have some of these you are in a great position indeed.

• Copywriting – articles, sales letters, email messages, etc.
• Creating graphics
• Building websites
• Posting to blogs
• Submitting articles
• Uploading videos
• Creating or editing videos

There are less obvious situations that work too. If you have deep knowledge on a topic but no idea how to build or promote a blog or site you can joint venture with someone and share profits.

Another – if you have specialized knowledge but don’t want to write (and don’t want to hire a writer) you can JV with a writer who will write your book for a share of the profits.

The possibilities really are endless.

Here are some more facts about joint ventures that are more encouraging.

Many ezine publishers are happy to do joint ventures.

They’re not standing on the street corner waving their hand saying, “Come joint venture with me.” But if you have a unique situation you will find they are very open.

It makes perfect sense that they would be good candidates for a joint venture.

• They have mailing lists already.
• There is no cost to them. It’s all profit.
• They own the list so can endorse your offer.
• They can send an email to the list quite easily and as often as they like.

If you come to them with the right idea, something unique, profitable and most importantly something that matches the theme of their ezine, then they will be very receptive to a joint venture.

4. Joint ventures can be hugely profitable

It’s true that sometimes you work like a dog and make $75. Sometimes you work hard and make tens of thousands of dollars. I know because I’ve had both happen to me.

It all takes work. Sometimes the work can be very profitable. I don’t want my candid comments above to discourage you from looking for joint ventures.

When the fit is right there is nothing more profitable than a win-win joint venture.

After you’ve done a few successful ones and you know what to look for, they all become profitable.

5. Joint ventures establish you as a marketer

It is worth your time to pursue establishing joint ventures? Yes, for many reasons. And here is one more.

Once you do a joint venture you have a track record.

You can say to other people, “I did a joint venture with this person. Would you be interested in doing the same thing?” You have a track record. That’s important.

Five more ways to find joint ventures

We talked above about the Warrior Forum and JV Notify. Those are great if you are in the Internet Marketing space. But what if your thing is health or electronics or houseplants?

Here are a few more ways to find the right JV partner.

• Find someone who has a list in your niche. This can be an ezine publisher or simply a top website or blog who offers updates via email.
• Super affiliates in your niche often make good JV partners. If you have something of value to offer them they will often mail for you.
• Product owners are great JV partners, especially if they are busy. Ask if they are doing as much article marketing as they like (for example) and, if not, offer to fill the void.
• Almost all niches have forums. Visit forums in your niche and look for the people who post most often. They are often great advocates if you have a product to sell.
• Social media is a great way to find JV partners. Post a message in your social spaces saying you are looking for partners and let people tell you how they see you fitting together.
• Mailing lists you are on now can be a good place to start as well. If you are receiving email from sellers in your niche consider replying and asking them if they need help or are open to promote other products for a percentage.

There are many more ways to find joint ventures than can be listed here. I hope this list gives you some food for thought, and that you see an action item on that list as well.

After all, the person who takes action is the person who wins!

Finding a JV is a lot like dating. You don’t expect to walk into a crowded room and leave with the person of your dreams, although that can happen. You have to get to know people and develop a relationship.

The real keys to finding a win-win joint venture are finding a person with whom you are a good fit and then working out how both of you win.

The more people you get to know online, and the more value you can bring to your joint venture, the more likely you are to land your first JV.

And win-win JVs are a beautiful thing indeed!

 

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