Email Marketing

Purpose:

The purpose of this bonus lesson is to talk about Email Marketing. The objective is to:

• Review why you should use email marketbling
• Discuss what services are recommended
• Present a bonus that will help you
• Learn how to configure your blog to collect emails "Blog RSS Feed Style"

Why Email Marketing? Because It Works!

There are several reasons why you should use email marketing.  Aside from simply mentioning that it works, we'll look at two of those reasons:

1. Rule of Multiplication: an effective email marketing approach enables you to show your offer multiple times PLUS provide multiple offers to a targeted audience.
2. Rule of Repetition: effective use of email marketing provides an easy way to get repeat traffic.

Multiple Times

Depending on whom you talk to or which survey results you read, it generally takes about 7 reminders before the average customer converts to revenue.  Whether this number is less, more, or exact, the point is that it takes multiple times to convert a customer.  Email responders make the task of reminding quite easy.
Another issue is the reality that not every offer will be of interest.  Using an email list allows you the opportunity to advertise multiple different offers quite easily.  Doing a different offer every few days will show which offers convert.

More Repeat Traffic

Nobody argues the value of repeat traffic.  Using autoresponder / email services, you now have the ability to email your readers when your blog's RSS feed is updated.  That means when you have a new post on your blog it will automatically get emailed to your readers.  This ability has been provided by a few services for years but now nearly all of them do so.
A very cool and powerful option now available with these services is the ability to have category-specific RSS feeds.  Completely optional, you are able to create an RSS feed that is specific to a category so that content posted to that category is automatically broadcast for that category's feed.  You could even go in and occasionally create an email for that blog which, once posted to that category, would have it automatically sent out to that specific audience.

What Services?

There are a lot of email services out there but the one we recommend the most is Aweber (we also use a rebrand of Aweber called Prosender). The reasons for choosing Aweber are:

• it is cost effective
• it has lots of features
• it has excellent delivery rate

You can check out this very reliable service at http://www.rssfeed.com.  It's a great service for those just starting out and, at the time of creating this lesson, Aweber's first month offering was just $1.00.
A couple other good services are...

• http://www.rssfeed.com/icontact
• http://www.rssfeed.com/getresponse

There are many other services out there, and if you are currently using one that is not included here and are happy with it, then just keep using it :)

What About Free Services?

There are options for services which are free and these free autoresponder services come in two forms:

• Self Hosted: such a service requires you to run a script, ensure your IP does not get blacklisted, and a bunch of other time consuming things.  PLUS, your delivery rates WILL SUCK!
• Third Party Hosted: a good starting point if finances are tight but they do add their own ads into your emails and their features tend to be limited.

Clearly we are not selling you on the first option and, while a consideration, even the second option is somewhat discouraged.  As a matter of personal opinion, if you're going to get into email marketing, you'd be better off spending the money to let someone else manage this system.  At $20/month to start, you get a good system that frees your time up to focus on building blogs and traffic!

How To?

In the following steps, we'll show you how we inorporate email marketing into our blogs.  While we have suggestions for what tools to use, feel free to use your own since the main point is how to go about getting your email list, not the tools you use to get it.
Now, one of the tools we use is the very powerful plugin called "PopUp Domination".  For those of you that have access to the Auto Blog Installer, you already have access to this tool as it is installed with your blog. As part of our developer's license agreement, we are able to offer it free for every blog installation done using our Autoblog Installer.
If you do not have access to the Blog Installer then you may want to check out "PopUp Domination" for yourself here http://rssfeed.com/popupdomination.
As an added bonus, regardless of which popup software you use, we have some great opt-in graphics that everyone gets access to, you can download them from http://rssfeed.com/

Incorporating Email Marketing "RSS Feed" Style!

Step 1: Ask yourself, "Is my blog ready?"

Using Auto Blogs to focus on lead capture is EXTREMELY powerful... especially if you own a business that knows how to follow up with those leads.
In the start of this training series, We mentioned how collecting emails as a core focus is effective for long term results. The main challenge with email marketing however, is you need a lot of combined traffic to get enough leads, and it can take a few months for your blogs to get enough traffic. The other issue is effectively following up with your email leads. Its great to want to capture leads, but if you are not going to follow up with them and sell to them, well then you may as well not do it.
If your initial core focus is NOT email capture then before you consider getting started with email marketing, you need to ask yourself:

1. Are my blogs getting enough traffic to justify adding email capture? The percentage of visitors to your blog(s) that actually sign up for your email list can be small, sometimes only 1% to 2% and that means to get even one lead a day you need 100 visitors. Now if you have a network of related blogs, you can of course have the traffic from all the blogs work together, since the combined traffic should be good. The choice is up to you, but I personally shoot for a 1% at one a day, which means our blog must get 100 visitors a day before i will focus on using email capture. Remember this is only relevant if your blog(s) were nto initially designed for lead capture, if your blog(s) is built for the purpose of lead capture, then of course you will want to incorporate it right away.
2. Am I willing to invest time in following up with my leads? If you are not sure if you will dedicate time to setting up offers, and emailing them... then why waste your time up front. Do not think that you can build a list up and then in a year email them... they will have no idea who you are and your conversion rates will be brutal. You need to contact them as soon as they opt-in and stay in contact with them until they buy something or unsuscribe. That may sound harsh but you are in this to make money, not to collect free email subscribers.

NOTE: Not every blog market is good for email marketing.  If you have a product that doesn't have a recurring passionate audience, getting them to opt in can be a challenge, even when offering backend offers such as a free product-related e-book. Also, there may not be a lot of offers you can send them on the backend.

Step 2 Create a "Bribe":

In simple terms, find a site-related offering you can offer visitors as a "bribe" to opt in.  Using the site we've been showing throughout our training (grindbrewcoffeemaker.org) as an example, we might offer a free e-book on coffee recipes.  The visitor would see this offer and enter (opt in) their name and email address in the provided fields.
For creating the actual bribe, the easiest strategy is to offer either an ebook or an email series.
To offer an ebook, the simplest option (in our opinion) is to purchase a product that has resale rights.
A few good places to look are...

• http://www.theplrstore.com/
• http://master-resale-rights.com/
• http://www.masterresalerights.com/

All three of these websites offer a huge selection of products that you can give away. Make sure you check all three sites, i have found that they often carry the exact same product but will have different prices. No one store is always cheaper then the other, so take a few minutes and look around. IMPORTANT: Make sure to check out the license for the specific product, some do not permit you to give the item away.
If you want to offer an email series, you can either purchase material or use a website like http://ezinearticles.com/ to locate a few solid articles on the topic you are promoting. Make sure to also work in promotional content with your mailings as well. An excellent option for the email series is to actaully post to content on your blog and in the emails, sent them the link to the post. Make sure the email has text to encourage the reader to click the link and make sure to monetize the content on yoru blog. You will also want to make sure there is no time stamp on the post, people are turned off if the date of the content makes it appear liek it is outdated. By removing the date, you eliminate this issue :)

Step 3 - Create Back End Offer

Set up a "Back End" offer (up sell) on your "Thank You" page - when the person has opted in for the free offer, create some content and provide access to a second offer (up sell) that will make you money.  You don't want to just give something away and not make some effort to capitalize on the fact that the person is now likely in the right mood for other things.
In the example used in the video, we found a related ClickBank offer and created a "presales" affiliate page that ensourages the reader to check out the product. Keep in mind that the example given is just an example and was created purely for demonstration purposes.

Step 4 - Set Up Your Auto Responder

Each of the recommended auto responder services have a unique process they use for creating your email list and is beyond the scope of this training guide. I do however recommend that for "legal" reasons you should always have your list set to double opt-in.  What this means is that when they give you their email address, a confirmation email is sent to them asking them to confirm their opt-in.  Once that is done, another email is sent to them containing the download link for the free offer as well as containing an up sell offer. By doing this, you keep yourself out of trouble from a legal perspective.
Remember to have the auto responder send the subscriber to custom thank you page that you monetize with an upsell. You can simply create a page on your auto blo to accomplish this.

Step 5 - Set Up Your Follow Up Messages

Your follow up messages are what your subscriber will recieve once they opt in. The first message should contain instructions as to what they will recieve. If it is a pdf to download, clearly state what they are to do. If they are going to be recieveing an email series, then tell them what to look for and how often they will recieve the messages.

Step 6 - Add Opt In Forms to Your Blog

If you take a look at our example site (grindbrewcoffeemaker.org), you will notice a popup opt-in box appearing on the index page of the site using "PopUp Domination".  This has been configured to show again only after 7 days of the person first visiting there.
You should also notice the free e-book offer presented in the popup opt-in box.  This is the "bribe" to get the visitor to opt in by filling in the name and email address fields.  When this is done, the visitor is taken to the download page which, incidentally, is also the 'Thank You' page.  Notice the "Back End" offer included on the page with a variety of means to access the offer (hyperlinks, etc.).
If you return to the index page, you will notice the opt-in box does not appear.  However, going to other pages (e.g. blog page), you see an opt-in box, including the initial free offer, in the sidebar.  This makesthe opt-in available in multiple, easy-to-access places and in easy-to-see locations.

• Step 1: Double check to ensure your blog is ready
• Step 2: Create a "Bribe"
• Step 3: Create a "Back End" offer
• Step 4: Set-up your Autoresponder
• Step 5: Set up your follow up messages
• Step 6: Add Opt-In forms to your blog(s

What Are You Aiming For?

Purpose:  

The purpose of this lesson is to guide you toward the kind of thinking and behavior that can help keep you focused and motivated toward achieving your financial goals.  In this lesson we will …

• Discuss the question of what you are aiming for
• Present you with a campaign challenge
• Discuss the steps involved in completing the challenge

By the time you have completed this lesson, you should have …

• A clear idea of what your goals are and how to achieve them
• Created a visual motivator (in the form of a document) of the goals you wish to achieve
• Learned about the Auto Blogger challenge and the steps involved in completing it

What Are You Aiming For?

In order to succeed with the  Auto Blogger , you MUST have some idea of what it is you are aiming for.  This idea is answered in the question “what are you aiming for”.  In other words, what do you want to earn?

• $200/month
• $500/month
• $1000/month
• $4000+/month
• Not sure??

The truth of the matter may be that you don’t know what you want to aim for, but if you want to succeed you NEED to have a target you are aiming at:

• If you don’t know where you are going, how can you ever expect to get there?
• You must know what you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it.
• Having something to aim for means having a goal, which is crucial to your success.

Goals are CRUCIAL!

Goals are crucial to personal and professional success.  So many ignore this because they want to dive in and start doing things right away, but unfortunately this approach just leaves you spinning your wheelsand going no where:

• Goals are the foundation of what you will build your business upon.
• Knowing exactly what you want to achieve is what will get you there.

Goals are not the only component to your success.  While they are the foundation of what you will build your business on and a motivator for getting there, goals are only the first step.  You also need to have…

A Plan

Larry Elder, an L.A., California radio talk show host, said it well:
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
How can you achieve your goals if you have no plan to get there?  You need to define your goal and then build a plan to achieve that goal.

What is Your Financial Goal and Plan to Achieve It?

99% of you are taking this Auto Blogger training because of a desire to earn more money.  Why else would you be here?  So it’s quite reasonable for you to focus your attention on establishing financial goals.
However, for some, the idea of focusing on money can be problematic in that it is often seen as something negative.  Terms like “greedy”, “money hungry”, etc. are floated as criticisms toward those that focus on money.  But this does not have to be the case.  Consider this…
Wealth is not negative, it is the means by which it is earned and spent that is.
In other words, if you use negative means to earn that money or spend that money in negative ways, than it is reasonable for others to judge your focus on wealth as a negative.  However, if you are using positive means to earn that money and spend it in a positive way, than any judgment others place on you can only be positive.  So the key is to focus on the good that you can do with the money you earn and always achieve your financial goal in a good way.
So be smart.  The successful ones understand exactly:

• What they want to earn (the GOAL)
• How they are going to earn it (the PLAN)
• How they are going to spend it (the SUCCESS)

The  Auto Blogger  Challenge

You know why you’re here: you want to earn money.  And we’ve told you that your financial success is defined by setting a goal and then making a plan to achieve that goal.  In this section of the training we would like to present you with a financial challenge that you can define as your goal.
How would you like to be earning an extra $57,600 a year in PASSIVE income, one year from now? 
By “passive income” we mean money that is earned above and beyond what you are currently earning.  Achieving this goal may result in you being able to quit your current job but that is not the focus here. The focus is setting the goal, establishing a plan to achieve it, and then reaping the benefits of successfully achieving it.
Does the goal of earning a yearly income of $57,600 in passive income ONE YEAR FROM NOW seem impossible?
Well, it’s not … we will show you exactly how to do it!! 
Now, you can set your goals higher or lower if you want but whatever your goal, don’t be afraid … YOU CAN DO IT! 
Don’t look at the number and think, “that’s too hard.”  This training will show you, STEP BY STEP, how to achieve the goal of reaching $57,600. 
Yes … YOU CAN DO IT!

Steps to Completing the $57,600 Challenge

$57,600 a year equals an average of $4,800 a month.  To achieve this goal requires 5 steps:

• Answer the question “why do I want to achieve this goal”
• Create a visual for motivation
• Position your visual for maximum impact
• Create your plan
• Implement your plan

Step 1 – Answer the Question

Answering the question of “how much money do I want to earn” is a good starting point but you need to follow this up with an equally important questions:

• What do I want the money for?
• How will I spend it?” 

To answer these questions, you will want to list all those things you would like to spend the money on.  For example:

• A new car
• Support for a specific charity
• A new home or a cottage
• A dream vacation
• Investments
• Pay off debt

Any number of items can appear on this list.  Now, as mentioned earlier, $57,600 a year equals $4,800 a month.  Taking your list of items, you can now decide how you will apply that $4,800 to those items. 
Here is a made up example for you to see what is meant:

• $1000/month on a new Ford F150 4x4 (includes $250/month on insurance and maintenance)
• $500/month onto my mortgage to reduce it to be paid off in 5 years
• $1000/month into my 401K investments
• $500/month to my church youth group
• $500/month into savings for a vacation to Hawaii for 2 weeks ($6000)
• $750/month into my tax free savings account to achieve a balance of $9000 by the end of the year
• $550/month into an education savings account for my children’s college.  This will add $6600/year.Do you see what was done here? 

By doing this you create one list to answer the question of WHAT you want to spend your money on and then follow this up with a second list that answers the question of HOW you will spend that money.
By breaking it down in this way, you are able to maintain your focus and gauge how well you’re doing in meeting your goals.
NOTE: It is important to remember that this plan is focused on creating a yearly income of $57,600 a year, which does not mean in one year from your start of the  Auto Blogger  you will have earned a total of $57,600. This is important to understand when creating your individual financial goals. The number is based on the principle that in one year from now you will be earning $4,800 per month, which is $57,600 per year.

Step 2 – Create a Visual

The crucial step in realizing your goals is being able to visualize them.  Being able to actually see what you want to achieve increases the motivation to get it done.
In order to create your visual, you can take your list of items that you created and add images to each item.  In our example, we used Microsoft Word to create a document for our visual template.  Adding the images adds an extra boost of motivation because you can actually see what it is you are aiming for.  As well, at the top of the template is your stated goal:
“My goal is to be earning an extra $57,600/year by (insert date here) so I can afford every month to spend my money on the following…”
Put a date of one year from the time you begin executing your plan.
 Clik Here to download the blank worksheet template that you can use.
To see our example for reference Click Here
NOTE: The images are taken from off the web (e.g. Google Images).  Since this is a personal document (not meant to be shared with anyone) it is okay to use any image you wish to as there is no copyright infringement involved.

Step 3 – Position Your Visual

“Out of sight, out of mind.”  That’s how the old adage goes.  In other words, if you don’t see it, you’re likely not to be influenced by it. 
In this step you want to change this to “In sight, in mind.”  Place your visual somewhere where it serves as a constant reminder for you.  You can frame or laminate it for emphasis, and place it somewhere where you will see your goals EVERY DAY, whether at your workstation, your bedside table, wherever. 
Each day, REVIEW THEM!  Go over your goals.  Look at the images.  Gain inspiration by what you see and read.  Then go ahead and continue executing your plan in a highly motivated way.

Step 4 – Create Your Plan

Now that you have your list of goals and a visual of them to help motivate you, the next step is to create your plan.  Your plan is really created by reverse engineering (working backwards) from what you want to achieve to how you’re going to get there.
In this training, we’ll walk you through the $57,600  Auto Blogger plan which is the plan you will follow over the next year to achieve your goals.  Now as you go through this plan you will see how you can easily adjust the numbers to achieve whatever goal you want to achieve.  You will also see how realistic and achievable this goal is when following the Auto Blogger system.
Based on experience, each blog you create with the  Auto Blogger  system should earn you approximately $40/month on average.  You can earn even more (and we do) but $30 - $40 a month is a good average income to achieve. 
You will also find that many of these blogs will produce MUCH more then $40 per month (many times more) but that is not always the case.
To do this:

• If you spend 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, you can build 10 blogs a month, which equals $400 each month from those 10 blogs.
• If you build 10 new blogs each month for 12 months, you will have created 120 blogs (each earning $40 a month) for a total revenue income of $4800/month. 
• At the end of 1 year, you will have 120 blogs earning you $4800/month for a grand total of $57,600/year.

So your plan is to create 120 blogs over the course of the next year using the  Auto Blogger  system.
NOTE: Yes, it is possible to manage 120+ blogs. This may appear to be too much when starting out, but as you begin to gain experience with the system, processes will become much clearer and easier. You will also want to reinvest some of your income into hiring people (outsourcing) to help manage parts of your auto blog empire. Do not worry or get hung up on issues like this, focus on the plan laid out before you... follow through on the steps... take action and you WILL succeed.

Step 5 – Implement Your Plan

With everything in place (your goals defined, listed and prominently displayed for daily review and inspiration, and your plan for how to achieve your goals), the next step is to implement your plan.  Simply follow the exact steps of the  Auto Blogger   system and repeat the process every month to achieve the goal of $57,600/yr in one year.

• Step 1: Create a detailed list of what you would spend your money on.
• Step 2: Create a visual for motivation using our provided template.
• Step 3: Post your visual at a place you can review them daily for maximum impact.
• Step 4: If not following the $57,600 plan, then create your own plan.

Going Forward

In this tutorial you have:

• Gained a clear idea of what your goals are and how to achieve them
• Created and prominently displayed your visual motivator
• Learned about the Auto Blogger Challenge and the steps involved in completing it

In the sessions to come, we will get into how to research, build and promote your auto blog empire that is going to earn you a recurring income of $57,600/year in a year.

Are you ready?  LET’S DO THIS!

Blog Automizer

Blog Automizer: An Auto-Blogging Introduction
Welcome:

Welcome to the "Blog Automizer" training area. From the philosophy behind this system to step-by-step instructions on how to install, configure and promote your blogs, this training gives you the complete how-we-do-it approach to building your own auto-blog network. If you are unsure of what a "Blog" is, it is essentially a website that uses a specific type of back-end platform (script) to help manage its content and appearance (template, colors, fonts and more). For the most part they are much easier to set up and manage then a standard website. There are many types of "blog" platforms that can be used, but our recommended choice is provided from "WordPress" and is 100% free and VERY powerful. We cover more on this in Lesson 10.

You should have no problems finding the information you need. Starting at the beginning .... that's right here .... and moving forward step by step through the lessons, everything you need to be successful is made available through video and text. If it's not found directly on the lesson page, we provide the necessary links to get you to it.

We do want to point out one thing, though. When we put this training system together for you, we originally used PDFs for the text portion. Well, we moved all that information to right here on the web (yep, you're looking at it!). Now, while we've made every effort to remove references to the PDFs from our training material, you're likely to encounter some, particularly in the videos. We apologize if that confuses you. Just ignore the reference as it refers to the information you're already reading.

So with that said, let's get on with the business of learning to build your auto-blog empire.
Purpose:

The purpose of this first lesson is to introduce you to the process of auto-blogging.  It will explain what auto-blogging is and where most auto-blogging models go wrong. Finally, this lesson will cover what you will be learning and creating with the Blog Automizer system.
Auto-blogging – An Introduction:
1. What Is It?

Generally speaking, auto-blogging refers to the process of creating blogs that are set up to have certain tasks done automatically.  For instance, with auto-blogging you can publish focused content (content that targets a specific topic) to your blog(s) as well as automate the task of creating back-links (links that point to your blog from another website or blog). The details of how those things are accomplished will be explained as you go through the training.
2. Why Use It?

There are three main reasons why auto-blogging is a valuable tool in your marketing campaign:

1. Love of the search engines:

Search engines absolutely love regularly updated content.  In context of your relationship with the search engines, freguent updating (such as a new blog post every day or two) is a good thing.

At present, Google holds about 70% of the search engine market share, this number fluctuates a lot but the point is that Google is the big boy in this game and that about 70% of search engine traffic flows through Google.  While other search engines are of value, you definitely want to focus your attention on Google above the other search engines.

2. Time is money … don’t waste it:

Creating focused content or having to spend time configuring back-links can be very time consuming, especially in markets that you have not yet proven to be profitable in.  Auto-blogging can take care of those tasks for you, freeing you up to focus on tasks that have a better return on investment.

3. Time is money … use it wisely:

Like already said, auto-blogging takes care of such time consuming tasks as focused content publishing and back-link creation for you automatically.  This frees you up to quickly set up multiple blogs with which you can quickly test multiple different micro-niches for profitability.  Once found, you can then move on to expansion and domination!
Auto-blogging – Where Others Go Wrong:

Auto-blogging has been around for some time and the use of auto-blogging systems is not uncommon.  However, these systems have received a bad rap over the years because of their over-emphasis on speed and have made even the term "Auto Blogging" one that sounds bad to some.  For example, an old 2004 model of internet marketing suggested that internet marketers should focus on fast results (quickest ROI possible) rather than on quality of content.  The result?  Blogs were built with a mashup of useless content that had little to no value to visitors of the site.  The hope was that the site visitor would simply ignore the content and move straight on to clicking on the ads (after all, that’s where the revenue comes in).

Well, in today’s tech-savvy market, this model no longer works.

Not only are discerning visitors demanding quality but so are the search engines.  As already mentioned, search engines love updated content but now they demand a more natural content flow.  By ‘natural’ we simply mean that it has all the appearance of human involvement.  By producing quality updated content, you offer value to both the search engines and your human visitors.  So, while speed is an important component to the marketing process, you definitely want to give attention to quality.
Blog Automizer – Learning and Creating:

As mentioned earlier, this tutorial is an introduction to auto-blogging and the Blog Automizer system.  In the following sections we will discuss the final two points of this introductory tutorial: what you will learn and what you will create with the Blog Automizer system.
What Will You Learn?

There are three main items that you are going to learn in this course:

    How to research and identify hidden and potentially profitable micro-niche markets around a "Core Focus" that you can drive traffic and leads to. What’s a “core focus”?  It’s any number of things, such as an affiliate product, a website you already own, a business you have, an opt-in you’re trying to get leads for or a category of products like "Kayaks".
    How to create small high-quality and high-value (value to search engines and humans) auto-blogs for each discovered micro-niche.
    How to identify and filter out the money-makers and what to do with the winners and the losers, with the intention of helping you focus your energy on the sites that make you a lot of money vs. those that make you only some money.

What Will You Create?

The creation of your auto-blog network involves the following points.  Remember, this is just the introduction – each of these will be discussed in more detail in subsequent training sessions:

    Identify your “core focus” site (website, email leads, affiliate products, etc.)
    Create a number of micro-blogs, all pointing to your “core focus” site
    After about 4 weeks (usually), start to identify those blogs that are starting to earn good revenue and getting good traction with the search engines
    Add more custom / unique content to the identified sites and start an aggressive traffic-generating campaign
    Decide what to do with lower-earner sites
    Build more auto-blogs and repeat the process

Lets Get Started!