Online marketing technology and the internet changes so fast. Do you know how to create a digital marketing strategy that can keep up with all the changes? Here are some evergreen tips and advice for creating your own effective digital marketing strategy. This approach is especially suited to affiliate online marketing, as well as for product owners and service providers…

“Somebody said to me yesterday, “Dean, the internet and online marketing – everything changes so fast. How are we ever supposed to keep up?”

That is something I’m going to talk about this morning – speed.

The truth is, technology does move fast. But I can’t begin to tell you how much it is true – that the same principles that applied when I made my first affiliate commissions online ten years ago, still apply today.

The same principles, the same set of things that have to be done. Yes, the tools which we use change. The technology that can assist us, advances and changes. But the principles still remain the same.

For example, I still see so many people not building their own email list of targeted prospects. Still seeing so many people not focusing their energy and efforts on mastering one main strategy for traffic generation.

So let me say this clearly… Technology advances and moves fast. But the principles upon which you can build your business on, and run an online business successfully, remain largely the same as they were ten years ago (for me).

Let Me Lay It Down For You:

• Traffic generation – number one.
• Lead acquisition – building your list, basically.
• Customer acquisition – converting prospects that are on your list into paying customers that buy products.

Now those products could be yours, if you’re a product owner, creator, or a service provider. Or they could be someone else’s, as an affiliate, if you do not have those yet.

I started out as an affiliate marketer. Why? Because to be honest, I didn’t have the experience or knowledge to create my own stuff early on. So I promoted other people’s.

But I still did the same principles: Traffic generation, lead acquisition – building your list, customer acquisition – converting prospects into customers. How do you do that? You follow up with them every single day, through email marketing.

Now if you’re an affiliate marketer, that’s kind of where your job stops. Because you get those people into those products and then the upsells – and you get paid commissions on those.

Now ultimately, much of what I stand for is that I believe this traditional affiliate marketing business model… When you do things in that way, when you’re paying for traffic – it’s got more and more difficult. Increasingly difficult, because…

Traffic Costs Are Up, And Commissions Aren’t Covering Them

It makes it difficult. That’s why we have our Certified Partner program. That’s why we ‘certify’ our Partners. So that they have the full sales funnels at their disposal.

So when you acquire the customers, the sales funnels KEEP working for you. Making you hundreds of dollars in commissions, then four figure commissions up to three thousand dollars per sale. Which resolves that problem (of high advertising costs), okay?

Now if you do have your own sales funnels, then after ‘customer acquisition’ comes things like ‘value maximisation’ and ‘ascension’. Like, premium products and services. Selling more to your customers, both at the time of purchase and through follow-up.

So really, when you look at it… Yes, technology moves fast. And this is my answer. Things do move fast in a certain sense. Technology moves fast and advances quickly. But the principles of marketing – the principles of what you must learn and do to start and grow a business online – remain the same.

How To Create An Effective Digital Marketing Strategy

Learn how to…

1. Get traffic.
2. Build an email list of targeted people from that traffic.
3. Follow up with them, every single day.
4. Convert those people into customers of something.

Okay? So with that said, hope you found that helpful. Have a great day. This is Dean signing out for another day, another Drive done – until next time with “Example Of Sales Funnel Conversion Rate Optimisation Using Split Tests“. We’re at Internet Profits HQ now. Talk to you soon.”

What did you think of this message today, about how to create a digital marketing strategy? Would you be able to deploy this effective digital marketing strategy, and build it into your existing marketing plan? Feel free to leave a comment on this subject. And don’t forget to share this post on your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Click Here For “The Perfect Offer”

If you’re stuck for copywriting ideas for your email marketing campaigns, here’s a great email copywriter tip for creating and structuring addictive, response-generating content, very simply out of your most mundane day to day life events…

“And for my next trick… I’m gonna show you how to get more people opening and reading your emails every single day, using a little something that I call…

The Looping Cliffhanger Campaign

Good morning, welcome to this glorious, glorious day. It is Dean Holland here of course, en route to Internet Profits HQ.

One of the most important and valuable assets that an internet marketer and online entrepreneur will ever own, is an email list. But it can also become a useless, redundant, non-profitable asset if not done correctly.

Every single time you add a number to your email list – that is a real person, opting into your mailing list for additional information, to connect with you. It is your responsibility to build up that rapport. To build and develop that connection… To eventually go on to…

Get That Person To Know You, Like You, And Trust You

Now, one of the biggest factors that you can adopt, to allow that to happen… is consistency – consistent communication.

A lot of people though, struggle with what to say, what to send, how to say it, and how frequently to send it.

Many years ago, it was kind of common email marketing practice I guess – and I supposed to some people it still is – to email once or twice a week.

Now the problem with that is, more and more people are subscribing to more and more mailing lists. And if you do not start to

Establish That Rapport And Connection Immediately

…and consistently, on a daily basis, unfortunately they’re gonna forget who you are.

They’re gonna forget why they subscribed. And those subscribers… they’re gonna become unresponsive, redundant, and useless to your business. You don’t want that, right?

What you want, and what you need, is for your emails to be landing in that inbox… for them to see your name and want to open that email and say, “What is Dean Holland emailing me about today? Let’s take a look.”

And they click that subject line – they open it up – and they consume the email. AND… once they’re at that stage, the most important thing of course is… that they are taking the specific action that you want them to take.

Which is, of course, to click the link that’s in the email and go to the destination that you have set in your email… That is probably going to be for a blog post, a piece of content, a Facebook post, an affiliate offer, or to a product offer of your own, or a webinar, or something like that.

So, As An Email Copywriter, How Do You Help This Happen?

How do you break the process of people not opening, and not responding to emails? Well, I use a little something that I call “the looping cliffhanger campaign”.

What is this? Well, it’s my own adaption of stuff that I’ve learned over the years from several different people. There’s some amazing email copywriters, trainers and teachers on that subject.

I would say one of my favourite courses, which isn’t really high priced to be honest – it’s only I think two or three hundred bucks – would be Andre Chaperon’s Autoresponder Madness. I think it’s 2.0 or something like that now.

But great, great course for all email copywriters. It’s going to teach you how to write “in story”. So…

Story-Based Emails, That Get Responses

Here’s what I’ve done… I’ve kind of taken that story process and then added a couple of things to it.

What I basically do is – here’s my process in a nutshell – every single day I will send an email about something that’s happened to me in the last 24-48 hours. Sometimes in the last seven days, okay?

I’m simply sharing… because I don’t want to have to create, or come up with something… So what I basically do is, when I’m sitting down to write my emails… The first thing I look at is – write what just happened in the last few hours.

So for example, a classic example will be, “You’re not going to guess what just happened to me in the store…” I’ve stopped at the store on the way to the office, so I would write an email that would say, “So I’m stood there in the queue, waiting to pay for the milk to bring to the office, and I overheard someone talk about this…”

And I would go into it and just share a brief bit of “story”. That’s component number one: “Story” based upon something that actually has happened to me in the last seven days (usually in the last 24 hours) – that’s part one.

Element number two to this will be…

Opening A Loop Early On In The Email

So, what opening a loop is – it’s where you’re opening a loop about something else. You’ll mention something, but you won’t tell the whole story.

For example, and I do this very early on in the email – literally usually in the first like six to eight lines of the email. I’ll open the loop for the next email, okay?

So I would say something along the lines of, “Oh you’re not gonna believe what just happened to me at the store… Just before I reveal that, let me just mention something.” I’ve opened the loop about the thing at the store.

Or I might say, “You won’t believe what just happened to me at the store… But just before I do that, yesterday something very weird happened on the internet with a Facebook post, and I was completely stunned by it – I’ll tell you more in just a moment. But first of all, back to what just happened at the store.”

I’ve opened this loop and I’ve planted this seed that something weird happened on Facebook with one of my posts yesterday, and I’m going to share about it.”

So In Their Head, They’re Waiting For The Answer To That Thing

Now I go back into the story of what just happened at the store, okay? And I complete that story, and give a call to action.

I’m telling a story of something that just happened in the last 24-48 hours, which makes copywriting emails easy – because it’s something that actually happened. I don’t have to create something or be too inventive. I’m telling the story of what just happened.

I’ve opened a loop early on, to something else that’s happened recently… Then I continue that email and give my call to action… So I would tie that story into, “Oh by the way, have you grabbed a free copy of my latest product yet? If not, click here.”

Then… “Oh, so remember I just mentioned above…” So then I would bring it back up… “You know I just mentioned a moment ago about the weird thing that happened on Facebook yesterday? Well, look out for my email tomorrow – I’m going to tell you all about it. It is weird! It is just strange!! Talk soon, Dean.”

“P.S. Remember if you haven’t grabbed a copy of this… go there now and pick it up right away.” Y’know, call to action again.

That’s not the greatest of examples. But can you see what I mean?

Here Are The Components…

So… Story based, off what just happened recently – just a real thing that happened. It could be something seemingly mundane, that you’re just telling a story about.

Opening a loop, early on, to something else. Continue telling the original story. Then mentioning the loop as the cliffhanger at the end – bring it back up, and say, “Look out in my next email…”

Now if you use this email copywriter trick every single day, they’re going to start getting used to reading your stories, enjoying hearing from you… and looking forward to that next email to complete the other brief story that you haven’t told them the answer to.

I could obviously talk about this for probably 1 or 2 hours, easily, to fully help you to understand this. But I hope it’s at least opened your mind to this email copywriting strategy.

I call it “looping cliffhanger campaigns”. We send them every day. They’re simple stories, based on stuff that’s happening in your day to day life. You’re opening loops, you’re giving calls to action, and you’re emailing every single day.

So hope that helps. With that said, thanks for watching. I will of course see you back here again soon with, “What You Must Become An Expert At, For The Success Of Your Business“. Have a great one.

Click Here For “The Perfect Offer”

If you’re thinking of starting an email marketing campaign or want to increase email response rates, today Dean reveals his secrets to how he builds his highly effective email marketing campaigns…

“Someone asked me the other day…

How do I get a better result from the email list I’ve built? I’ve built this massive email list of tens of thousands of people, and I’m just not really getting the results I used to. What’s going wrong?

This is what I’m going to talk about in today’s Drive.

Good morning, good morning! Welcome to another episode of The Drive. Dean here of course, on the way to Internet Profits HQ.

I’ve got a great message for you today, based on something I was asked just this week.

A friend and former client of mine mentioned… they’ve built their email list very successfully, into the tens of thousands of subscribers. But they’re struggling to get the results they used to.

Their list has become less responsive. They’re not seeing the revenue from their list that they used to. And they basically asked me, have I noticed the same with my company? And have I got any advice to share with them?

It’s a really key topic…

So Many People Are Reporting Lower Email Response Rates

…and lower results from their email lists.

And whilst there are certain technicalities that can play a part here, such as the autoresponder you’re using… Perhaps they have blacklisted servers… Your email address, your server being blacklisted…

So it’s basically, ultimately all these technicalities I’m talking about… resulting in your emails not being delivered. Or indeed, landing in the spam folders.

Now this aspect… This is something I could talk about for, gosh, probably a whole weekend! But I just want to give you a few tips… a few bits of advice.

Number one; look at the factually correct things here… where lies the problem? If you say to me, “Dean, I’m getting a crap ton of opens, a load of opens, but nobody’s clicking through.” Then, you’re…

Writing Good Email Subject Lines

…but poor emails and calls to action.

The first thing is; the subject line has to get the open. So, the way in which you diagnose the problem is this:

1. If I’m not getting any opens, then there may be a deliverability problem. If I’m getting very poor performance of opens, there either might be a poor deliverability problem or your email subject lines need work – your email subject line is not enticing the open.

2. If you are getting opens, but no clicks or few clicks… Then your email copy and your calls to action need some more work.

Okay. So first, find out where the hole is in the bucket: Assess where the problem is, assess where the issue is, in order to improve email open and response rates, so you can diagnose it properly.

Now, when it then comes down to fixing this…

How Do You Write Better Subject Lines? How Do You Write Better Emails?

I like to use what I refer to as, story cliffhanger campaigns. So what I mean by that is, my emails are all very story driven. And early on in the email, I’ll do what’s called, “Opening a loop”.

Basically, I’ll open a loop to what they can expect in my next email. So, I might say something like,

Hey, how are you doing today. You are not going to believe what happened to me earlier. You’re probably gonna cry with laughter. But I’ll tell you about that a little later. First, let me explain about this.

So it’s kind of like, I’ve opened a loop. I’ve dropped a hint for something that intrigues them and gets their curiosity up. And then I’m telling them, “I’m gonna tell you about that a little later.”

Then I’ll go into another story, and at the end of my email I’ll say, “Oh and remember that thing I mentioned above, where you’re gonna laugh and cry?… I’ll send you an email later on today and tell you all about it. Look out for that.”

So it’s like, I’m opening a loop, I’m dropping a cliffhanger… so they’re actually looking forward to, or are curious about, the next email. Because, the way the human mind works is that we have to complete things.

We Have To Know The End Of The Story

If the story is enticing… we have to know the end. We have to know how this story ends, right?

And so I use these story based, curiosity driven, cliffhanger campaigns… Where I’m telling a story, I’m opening the loops, and I’m dropping cliffhangers, to get them excited for the next email.

And when you start doing this, and you continue to do it, and you email every day… and I’m actually significantly increasing the frequency of my emailing. Not just one email a week, or one email a day… like, two, three emails a day, sometimes more depending upon what it is that I’m sending out about.

So… increased frequency, cliffhanger story campaigns, make your emails interesting… and this will greatly improve email response rates for you. And a simple thing that I’ve been sharing with our clients recently is…

“How’ve You Come Up With All These Stories, Dean?”

Well basically, just share each day… Take something that happened in the last 24-48 hours, and share it in a story format. Everybody has stuff happening. There are 24 hours in a day. You only spend 8 or so of those hours in bed. That means you’ve got 16 hours approximately, that stuff is happening to your day, in your life.

So, what is happening? How can we spin that? Like, I’ll talk about how I was in a store earlier, and I saw this. Or I was at a bar, and I heard this argument and… whatever.

And so I’m sharing a story. What’s happened in the last 24-48 hours. Take it into a short story. Make it interesting.

Drop a cliffhanger, make it curious and pique their interest for the next email. Keep doing that and…

People Will Start Looking Forward To Your Emails

Cos it’s like, “Ah, what’s happening with Dean today? What’s Dean going to share today? What exciting thing is happening in Dean’s life.” People like to hear stories. People like to hear what’s going on in your life.

So share these stories. Do it in the way I’ve said. And you should hopefully start to see an increase in email response rates, and an increase in results from your email marketing campaigns.

Thanks for joining me here on The Drive. If you’ve enjoyed this, hit that Like button, please share this message. Have a great day and I will of course see you again in How To Grow Your Business: The 4 Letter Word That Grows Any Business – another episode of The Drive. Take care. Bye, bye for now.

Click Here For “The Perfect Offer”

Dean goes into detail here about an affiliate marketing mistake that so many beginners make that denies them the huge commissions they desire.

“In the past seven days something that we did in Internet Profits, in my company, really reminded me, or made me see really clearly…

…One of the biggest problems in affiliate marketing today, and why a large majority of affiliate marketers in our industry are literally losing so much money.

It’s now very different to how things used to be when I first got started.

So I want to talk about this today, and I want to tell you what we’ve done over the last seven days on what this affiliate marketer’s mistake highlighted.

And why…

If You’re Making This Affiliate Marketing Mistake

…you need to change this up. Because you’ll make a lot more money in your business, from your email marketing and in your promotions.

Good morning! Welcome to another episode of The Drive. It’s a glorious, glorious Monday, and an amazing start to the week. I’m on the way to Internet Profits HQ, and I’m excited!

I’m pumped up today. Because for the last seven days, starting last Monday through to Sunday, we’ve been running a one-week campaign to our Certified Partners.

Now This Is Something That I Wholeheartedly Believe In

…that we’ve done, put together and created for our Certified Partners – that’s not only providing them with an amazing collection of everything they need to get better results. But is also going to save them a lot of money.

So it is like, the ultimate win for our Partners. Whenever you’ve got something you wholeheartedly believe in, I see it as your duty to get into the hands of as many people as possible.

And so I said, “We’re not gonna do anything this week, other than show our Partners what we have, explain to them why they need it, and why they will benefit from it, and explain to them how to get it, and when the deadline is they can get it by.”

We committed our whole being for a full seven days. No promotion of other stuff in between. Just seven days…

Full Focus On This One Solution

…one thing, one problem / one solution, for our Partners.

This reminded me of when I first got started in affiliate marketing.

The done thing was; if you were going to promote and support a product that was being launched… meaning you were going to promote it to your audience. Then generally speaking, launches were for a seven day period, give or take. Some were five, some were a bit more.

You would commit to the entire launch period, the entire campaign.

And You’d Make Good Money, Great Money

But the thing is, the majority of that money would come in the final 48 hours. And the closer to the deadline, the more those sales would pick up – that’s where the bulk of the money would be made.

Now, I don’t really launch products publicly anymore like I did. I don’t do, like, the whole seven-day launch, where you rally up the support of bunches of affiliates.

But there was one product I did launch earlier this year, because it was something I actually did every year.

Wasn’t a profit maker for us – it was like a “giving back”. It was our thing we did every year to help people that were stuck and struggling with affiliate marketing, like I used to be, called…

The Quick Start Challenge

And this year it was $197 for a six-week coaching, and we gave all that money away to the affiliates.

But the biggest affiliate marketing mistake I saw, was that affiliates would do what I would call like a “pump-and-dump” strategy. Meaning they sent, like, one email on the start of the launch, and then that was it. Like, if it didn’t convert immediately at a high rate and put tons of money in their pocket on the first email… they would move on.

And what I obviously know, and realise with my experience is… When we were selling something at $197, even though it was great value for what it was, people don’t impulsively buy a 200 dollar product.

They needed to see it repeatedly – have repeated exposure – have the benefits explained, y’know… and have that full period of the five-day launch that we had.

The people that did support the five-day launch… in the final 36 hours…

They Made A Crap Ton Of Money!

Like literally, we had five figure campaigns from affiliates.

And this is why I came back into my head yesterday, and I thought I’ve got to really explain this today.

You need to understand that, as an affiliate marketer, if you aren’t…

• giving people repeated exposure,
• overcoming objections,
• overcoming questions that they might have,
• and resolving those barriers in their mind,
• and overcoming those objections that they potentially come up with for that offer…

…then you’re leaving SO much money on the table.

Right now, when I get into the office, I’m gonna see what happened over this campaign.

The last update I had was Friday, and I’m certain this final 48 hours would have been great. Because a lot of people sit on the fence. They think about it. They’re like, “Okay I know I’ve got until that date, I’m gonna think about it, I’m gonna think it through.”

Therefore, you have to continue to give them repeat exposure.

So If You’re An Affiliate Marketer…

…or you’re an online business owner of any kind… that’s my message for today.

I’m sure that when you’re promoting something, when you’re selling something… you must keep continued, repeat exposure for a defined period of time, where you’re going to keep following up, keep sending them to the offer, overcoming objections, adding bonuses… And stick at it for the full campaign.

And you’ll no doubt make a lot more money than if you make that rookie affiliate marketing mistake – of sending just one or two emails, for one or two days.

So there you go. That’s how to make more money as an affiliate marketer, or online product owner, digital product owner or business owner.

Have a great day. I will of course be back in “Best Online Business: 2 Steps To Build The Best Business Online For YOU” – another episode of The Drive. Thanks for joining me, speak to you soon.

Click Here For “The Perfect Offer”

This is a big important message today (about finding website traffic sources).

Hey what’s going on guys. It’s Dean here. Welcome to my balcony here on vacation in Cyprus. You can see the Sun setting behind me. It is amazing! It is beautiful. But I still wanted to give you this message and share this value with you.

So we’re gonna have a sit down for a few minutes, and we’re gonna talk about something incredibly important. I see a lot of people, both Certified Partners, and clients, and customers… a lot of people are struggling to get website traffic right now. The thing is…

Nobody Should Ever, EVER Have A Website Traffic Problem!

Because there are so many website traffic sources available… (Click here for my FREE traffic training video…) Let me say that again, “You should never have a website traffic problem!”

Now the reason is… look all these website traffic sources, where there are infinite, practically infinite amounts of traffic available:

• Facebook…
• Google…
• GDN…
• YouTube…
• Instagram…
• Twitter…
• Native ads…
• Email buys, banner ads, media buys, and the list could go on and on and on.

The problem isn’t how to get website traffic. The problem is converting the traffic. And this is what I want to talk about. I don’t want to talk about the conversions of a sales page, the conversions of an offer… I want to talk about…

Where The REAL Money Is Found In Your Business

And that is in the follow up with your audiences, e.g. the follow up with your email list. This is one that we could definitely focus in on here.

You see we’ve got, for example, Certified Partners and clients here at Internet Profits, where they are getting web traffic, they’re building their email list, and they’re not following up consistently and communicating effectively with that audience in order to convert them.

I stress again, like I just said, you will not have a website traffic problem. You will most likely always have a conversion problem. And the main point where you can affect that, is in the follow up with your audiences.

So, A Few Pieces Of Advice…

One: Are you communicating with your list every single day? Not once or twice a week, not a few times a week, every single day! Because if you’re not, then you are losing their attention. Particularly if they just joined your list.

You have to think about where the origin of that subscriber came from. If you’re using email buys, for example, otherwise known as solo ads, then your email lists, your subscribers, are no doubt receiving dozens of emails every day from other people.

You Have To Find A Way To Stand Out

Consistency is one of those ways. And you have to, second of all, find your voice. You only find this over time. It takes time. It takes practice. You’re going to have to hone that craft, master that craft, okay?

And so this is what I really wanted to talk about. Because I see this all the time. One: I wanted to come here today, sharing in this message that you do not have a website traffic problem… you have a conversion problem.

Because if you’re converting your list, you’re converting your audiences, then you will never struggle to get as much website traffic in your business as you would ever possibly want, right? That make sense?

Okay and the second thing is; the way to help solve that problem is communicate consistently with your audience, with a focus on converting them, with that consistent communication, to…

Get Them To Know You, Like You, And Trust You

And second of all, the way in which you do that is… You continue to seek to find your voice. Who are you? What is your character? What makes you relate-able to your audience? What makes you somebody they should listen to and follow?

Now we can no doubt go into this in much greater detail in future. But I wanted to share this message today, based on a few comments that I saw.

I literally had five minutes on Facebook today, while I was having some down time in the room here. And so I wanted to talk about it.

Website Traffic Is Not Your Problem… Conversions Are, Alright?

So if you’re building a list, you’re sourcing website traffic, you’re creating an audience… Make sure you’re communicating consistently, following up, and giving them a reason to listen to you, okay? Focus on converting that audience.

So with that said guys, until next time with “The Unpleasant Truth About The Internet Marketing Business World“, this is Dean signing out.

I want to share this one thing, the call to action, that you need to do in your business at all times, that will undoubtedly make you more money in your business.

Good morning. Welcome to another episode of The Drive. Dean here, on the way to Internet Profits HQ.

So, I never used to do this, right? I never used to do this thing, because I used to assume that people would know what to do.

But when I started doing it, I made more money. And now I always do it!

Okay, so what am I talking about? I’m talking about…

Always Give A Clear Call To Action In Your Marketing

Whether this is in an email that you’re sending, in a sales video that you’re recording, in a sales letter you’re writing, whether it’s in a content piece that you’re creating, a blog post, a social media post.

Whatever it is, if you want your audience, whether they’re reading, watching, listening, whatever it is…

If You Want Them To Take An Action, Tell Them To Do It!

Don’t just assume, because you’ve got a button on the page, or a link in the email, that people will automatically click on it, or know to click on it, okay?

So, for example right, I’m doing this Drive and, if you’re watching this on Facebook, then I would say, “If you like this video / if you like this content / if you want me to make more of this, then hit that like button and share this with your audience.” I’m giving you a call to action!

If I were writing you an email, and I was telling you about a particular offer that we had available, I would say click that link below and check out the offer, y’know.

Don’t just have the link that says the offer is here. Tell them! Give that clear, concise call to action in your marketing, okay?

And you will find you get more people taking action.

I don’t know what it is. It’s like people need that direction, y’know.

People Need That Instruction

Like, “this is what you should do next”. And I’m not saying be obnoxious about it or word it in a bad way. I’m saying, tell them what you’d like them to do next.

Give them that call to action! Give them that instruction, that direction to the next step. (Some cta examples here.)

If you’re watching this on YouTube, then I’m going to say, “Hey YouTubers, smash that subscribe button, hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss out on any of these daily videos and daily content pieces that I put out.” Right? A call to action!

Whether it’s, “Hit the Like button”, “Hit the share button”, “Hit the subscribe button.” Y’know, “Click the link below”, or “Go to this link right now”, “Go to this web page“. Whatever it may be.

As I say, you start giving those calls to action in every place necessary, every place applicable and suitable.

You are going to find that your results dramatically (not just slightly)…

Your Results Will Dramatically Increase In Your Business

So every time you’re doing something, think to yourself…

“Am I wanting somebody to take another step here? And if so, what is that step? And have I clearly conveyed that I want them to take that step? Have I given them a clear and concise call to action with this thing?”

Alright, so hope that’s valuable. If it is… guess what? Hit the Like button below now. And I will of course see you again in “Morning Motivation Tip: How To Get Stuff Done Early In The Morning“, another episode of The Drive. Thanks for watching.

Little bit later than normal going to the office today. We were actually at the office last night til, probably like midnight or just after.

I did a drive the other day talking about having to do what you’ve got to do. And at the moment, we’ve got so much happening, so much going on that I had to fit some stuff in late on.

Ultimately, like I said the other day, it comes down to doing what you’ve got to do.

So last night, we actually had a podcast scheduled but rearranged that. An hour after that, at 11 pm UK time – we do these webinars sometimes to fit in with the US market so it was 6 pm Eastern.

So we did a webinar last night, had a bunch of people on there and managed to get some new customers into one of our products, which is awesome – I love seeing people take action.

And that’s one thing probably to speak about. We didn’t have too many people on last night’s webinar, but for the numbers we had…

We Had A Good Percentage Of Sales, But Here’s The Thing…

Do you know with your business, whether you’re an affiliate marketer, you’ve got your own products, whatever it is that your business model is.

Do you know what a customer is actually worth to your business? Or do you know on average how much a subscriber on your email list is worth to you?

For example, if you had a thousand subscribers and you make a thousand dollars a month, then on average each subscriber will be worth a dollar, right?

So, Do You Know That Number?

That’s when you can really take hold of the stats, numbers and metrics of your business. What that actually tells you is, how much am I earning on average for every person I add to my list. And then how much on average am I earning for every customer.

Because when you know what a subscriber is worth, then you know ultimately what you can spend to get them.

Now as a whole, for most people, that never been a simple metric to work out. But in its most simplistic form, just look at how many people on your list and how much you made that month. So last month, if you had 10,000 subscribers and made $5,000, a subscriber would be worth 50 cents, right?

Then just keep a gauge on that every month in your business. Perhaps just have a spreadsheet and you keep it written down just on a monthly basis how much did I generate last month, how many subscribers were on my list… And just keep a record of that. And you’ll start to hopefully see…

Now, one of the things that happened with me, if I go back to when I first started building my list…

Early On, I Was Able To Generate $1-2 Per Subscriber

…on my list. And so, as my email list grew, with my first 500 subscribers I was making anywhere from 500 to a thousand dollars by sending email promotions as an affiliate marketer (I didn’t have my own products at that stage)

One of the things that I found – this may not be true for everybody – but as my list grew, the average value of my subscriber actually lowered a little, actually started coming down. Okay, that may be something to be aware of. But the key is…

How Do You Increase What A Subscriber Is Worth?

How do you do that? Well that’s one of things obviously you have to work on in your business continually.

But the biggest tips I could give you on that are:

• Consistent communication, and
• Find your own voice.

So what I mean by that is firstly…

Email Your Subscribers EVERY DAY!!!

This is particularly important because they’ll forget who you are. As much as you would like to think that, as an entrepreneur and a business owner, when somebody joins your list it’s because they’re genuinely interested in you – which some of the time may be true.

But most the time people are joining your list because they’re interested in what you can do for them. And if you don’t stay in consistent communication, they will quickly forget who you are, because they’re listening to other people as well. They’re receiving emails of a ton of other people.

And so if they join your list and you don’t communicate with them consistently, they’ll forget that they joined your list. And when you do email them they’ll forget why you’re actually emailing them.

The other email marketing tip I gave was…

Finding Your Own Voice

Now that just comes through sheer practice. What I ultimately mean is, learn to find your own voice – be yourself – have your own personality, let it shine through.

A lot of people are scared to be themselves, or scared to talk about certain things because they’re afraid that people will unsubscribe, or they’re afraid that people won’t like them. We’ll guess what – a bunch of people are not going to like you. It’s not that they dislike you, it’s just they probably don’t connect with you.

And so there’s my email marketing tip for today. When you’re building your list, or when you’re making sales, do you know what a subscriber or a customer is worth to you?

And are you consistently communicating with them and finding your own voice? To get them to know you, like you, trust you… And stick on your list, listen to you, and buy on your recommendation.

Alright, so have a great day. I shall speak to you again in Dealing With Entrepreneurial Stress: How Do You Cope With Stress? another episode of The Drive. Thanks for joining us.

We had a really late night, quite a late night again in the office last night. I’ve been running a boot-camp all week with our Certified Partners, basically teaching them and going through a brand new traffic system called Fuel.

It’s basically a completely revolutionary approach to driving traffic and doing online advertising to get prospects leads and sales.

Today I want to talk about emails. So right now, when I get into the office, one of my big jobs that I’m working on today, and probably the next few days at least, is writing email sequences for our new sales funnel.

Mainly what I’m going to be focusing on is the customer sequence. So, what happens, what gets sent out to a customer, what events take place to a new customer once they’ve ordered our upcoming new training called The Perfect Offer?

So I want to give some advice actually, because I study a lot to do with email, copywriting and all things like that. Because ultimately, your ability to get somebody to take an action based on the written word is probably…

One Of The Most Valuable Skills You Could Ever Learn

There’s a famous saying, “When you can learn to sell, you’ll never go hungry.” And obviously, a huge asset, or one of the most valuable access in any successful internet-based business, is your email list.

And so, having the ability to develop rapport and build trust and develop a relationship with your subscribers, with your customers, that is one of the keys to having a successful business, you know. Positive cash flow when you’ve got customers.

And so I want to give you a good tip here, because this is one of the things that I’m kind of weaving into all of my emails, or all of this campaign, is this particular tactic – this particular strategy.

So the whole purpose being here, is that when we’ve got a new customer in our business and on our email list, we want to engage with that person. We want to almost, when we first get them on our list, set the scene, engage with them and have them basically looking forward to receiving our emails.

A lot of people write their emails and they’re very generic, they’re very boring, they’re very monotone, you know, they’re very neutral almost. And one of the best things that you can do with your audience is to be polar, you know – polarize. I’m not talking about – you’ve got kind of a scale – you’ve got like boring on one side and then you’ve got…

Completely Ridiculous And Unbelievable And Crazy!

…and then you want to be kind of somewhere in the middle, where you’re polarising – you’re not afraid to speak your mind, you’re being yourself, you’re letting your audience actually get to know you.

So I want to share the strategy of how I get people, or how I have my audiences, my subscribers through my automated email follow-ups that we’re building into our autoresponder sequences.

How you get people to keep opening your emails. How you have people literally waiting, excited, looking forward to the time that your name shows up in your in their email inbox. It’s one of the most important things that you could do right now, because you’re fighting for the attention of the inbox.

So what we do…

I Call Them ‘Cliffhanger Campaigns’

Okay. Now what a cliffhanger campaign is – you know if you ever watch any TV shows, any soap operas, or any kind of TV shows that on let’s say once a week or once a month, you know, once every in a few days, twice a week. You’ll notice that these TV shows are the absolute best at doing this.

Let’s just say you’re watching a TV show and it’s approaching a commercial break, okay, so the the infomercials are about to come on at the midway point of the TV show.

You’ll notice that there’s always something that happens that makes you not want to leave the sofa.

So it might be something like, you might say like, “Oh my gosh, look what he’s doing over there!” and then like it cuts to the ads.

And it’s like, your left as a viewer thinking, what is he doing over there?

The Brain Has To Complete The Picture, Right?

So it’s like you can’t go anywhere because you fear missing what’s coming up, because they’ve left you with this cliffhanger. They’ve left you with this kind of open loop. And that’s what it’s actually called – it’s actually called opening the loop.

And so this is what we do with our emails. So we’ll say something like, so we’ll have this email and we’ll say whatever we’re saying in the email, but throughout that email or even sometimes right towards the end, we’ll drop a cliffhanger in there. So we’ll say something like, “Oh my gosh, you’re not going to believe what happened to me yesterday! It involved a video camera, a crazy lady and a mailman. I’ll tell you all about it in tomorrow’s email. For now check out this…”

That’s maybe not the world’s greatest example there, but can you see what I mean? I’ve opened this loop, I’ve dropped this cliffhanger. It’s like the curiosity in that person’s mind now that’s reading this – is consuming the email that you just written – but now they’re also awaiting the next email so they can find out what on earth happened.

So then the next email arrives and it’s like, “So I mentioned telling you about what happened the other day. So here’s what took place; blah blah blah.” And then we’ll open another loop. We’ll drop another cliffhanger…

We Keep Opening These Loops

Sometimes we open a loop for longer than one day. So we might say in one email something like, “The craziest thing just happened to me when I went to the store. I was there in line and there’s these two people in front of me, and it absolutely went wild. And you’re not going to believe what they what they did to me! I looked an absolute mess by the end of it. I’ll tell you more about it over the next few days. But for now I just want to mention X Y Z”

So we kind of open these loops where it’s always, like, the reader is eagerly awaiting the answer to that loop that you opened up. And I call them cliffhanger campaigns. And so what I’m about to write today is a sequence of cliffhanger campaigns that our new customers, when they come in through this new sales funnel, will start receiving – where I’m giving value, I’m getting them to take necessary actions, I’m sending them things and directing them places that I want them to go to ascend them up my sales funnel, through my line of products.

But in doing so as well, so that they enjoy reading my emails, so that they don’t feel like I’m just selling to them because that’s not my intention. My intention is to educate, build trust, develop rapport and of course ascend people up my sales funnel. But do so in a way…

That’s Fun, That’s Engaging, That’s Entertaining

…that has them looking forward to when my emails land in their inbox.

So I’m not just another one of those guys – instead I’m that guy that they’re excited to receive messages from, because they’re getting so much value. But they’re also just loving reading my emails because they’re entertaining, they’re engaging, and they’re doing this cliffhanger approach where they can’t wait to see what happens next.

It’s like a soap opera, a movie, a TV show, you know, your favourite TV show. Start to monitor, if you do watch TV, every time before a commercial comes on, the ad breaks come on, or every time at the end of the show when you know there’s another one in the next few days or the following week. Start to notice, because these tricks that you pick up will be killer for your email copywriting.

So hope you enjoyed that tip. That is the cliffhanger campaign approach for emails. So it’s time for me to get in the office and start writing. So with that said I shall see you in My Thoughts On The Media And News As An Entrepreneur – another episode of The Drive. Take care, have a great day. This is Dean Holland signing out.

The only way your future email marketing campaign is going to show good results is if your subscribers open up your emails. And in order to achieve that you’ll need to be making use of great subject lines. So how do we come up with such killer subject lines? It really is much easier than you think, when you have a bag of tricks to draw upon.

Likewise, you are going to need to keep in mind that on the reverse side of your email messages is not merely a subscriber or a bank balance, it’s a genuine person. That individual is usually trying to find alternatives and beneficial information, which means you always ought to give great value (this is actually the primary secret of marketing via email).

Loads of internet marketers write subject lines which can be full of hype, and even misleading, in an effort to obtain opens no matter what. This is not your best option. Even though some may get opens, they are almost certainly aren’t delivering value that fits the subject lines, consequently their subscribers inevitably unsubscribe or stop opening the emails.

Email subject lines that work can make or break a campaign. It won’t matter how compelling your offer is, if your subject line doesn’t persuade your subscriber to open your email. Further down are seven email subject line templates that you can use to spark your imagination.

Writing killer email subject lines that work is easier than you may think once you have a reliable bag of tricks to draw upon. Remember, on the other end of your send button is a person, not just a “subscriber” or a wallet, and it’s safe to assume they are also opting in to other lists, including your competitors.

They are the kind of people who are looking for solutions and helpful resources. This also underscores the first rule of email marketing: offer value. While it is possible to trick someone into opening emails, if there is no real value inside then subscribers tune out or unsubscribe.

What offers value? It depends on what your subscribers are interested in. That said, if your email subject lines use curiosity, a benefit, or a combination of both, you should get good open rate.

Listed below are 7 proven subject lines that get email messages opened and read, and maybe they will open up your imagination to a variety of alternatives for all your email promotions.

Seven Subject Line Templates That Get Your Emails Opened

1. How to [insert anything your target audience would want to know]

The more specific the “how to”, the more difficult the task, or the more immediate the reward, the greater the interest in your email. For example, “How to lose belly fat in time for your wedding” is stronger than the generic “How to lose weight”.

2. Don’t let [x] happen to you

The bad thing must be something your subscriber would care enough about to want to avoid, and the tip to avoid the bad thing must be credible. If you’re doing a sales pitch, try to tell the story of what your subscriber should avoid and how to do it before pitching the product for maximum perceived value and congruency.

3. Special offer for this weekend only

This can be an effective subject line when used in moderation. If you have these deals too frequently, your subscribers will only buy from you when you have sales.

4. Why [X] is better than [Y]

People like to hear strong opinions that help them make better informed decisions. If you never express strong opinions your message will blend into the background while more assertive voices stand out.

5. The best time to [insert benefit]

Make sure the benefit is something your readers want. It’s important that any curiosity you generate can be satisfied, curiosity without any real value is just hype.

6. Where to find [X]

Everyone likes to know the best place to find deals, the best quality, or the best selection. Of course, the best place may be your own products or services. If you are using this as a promotional angle, you could tell your subscribers the best place to find the equipment they’ll need to follow your exercise plan.

7. I need your help

People like to feel good and helpful. You can ask your subscribers to help you in many ways, such as giving you their opinion. It’s a good idea to keep the request for help within a range of things that would build good will and avoid seeming opportunistic.

These email subject lines can provide you with a wide range of possibilities. Again, the key to a good subject line is to combine curiosity and a benefit and then deliver in the body of the email.

Hi there. Today I’m just going to briefly talk about five tips for writing a marketing email to get the best out of your email campaigns.

The first one is to acquire your database legitimately. If you think about all the unsolicited emails that you get when you didn’t sign up for things or you didn’t expect to receive these emails, chances are you’re not going to respond to them. You’re just going to put them straight in the junk folder, and that’s exactly what everybody else does.

So, if you buy some database lists off some nasty little company somewhere, what you may find is that you’ll get a much larger reach, but less number of subscribers and certainly not that many people that are interested in your business. There are legitimate database lists out there. Just be very careful when you’re choosing them.

Number two, refining your signup process. On your website make it as easy as possible for people to sign up and give them every reason to. With your email opt-in and also with your social buttons, put them somewhere prominent on the page, maybe in the top right [corner]. Make the button quite big. Make it obvious to people so that if they are looking for it, they’re going to find it very, very quickly.

When they do click on it, when you get to the signup page, you want to make that as simple as possible. Ask for the minimum amount of information, maybe just an email address or email address and name, something like that. If you start going into addresses, dates of birth, type of work, size of company, all that sort of thing, unless you really need it, I would say leave it out. People get bored. They also get quite sensitive about sharing that sort of information. Chances are you’re going to cut down your number of subscribers.

Make it as quick and easy as possible. Tell them exactly what they’re getting, so that they’ll get discounts, offers, or exclusive bits and pieces. Make it clear to them what they’re going to get in return for signing up for your emails.

Also, I know a lot of people don’t like to do this, but make it easy for them to unsubscribe. People are more likely to come back if you allow them to unsubscribe easily and then re-subscribe.

If you force them into staying with you and repeatedly getting these emails they don’t want, they’re either going to junk you, which is going to look really bad and could cause issues with further campaigns, or they’re just not going to like you and they’re not going to want to use you any more. So keep it friendly. If they want to leave, let them leave. Chances are they will be back at some point.

Subject line. In your subject line you need to be obviously making it clear to people what this email is about and what it’s for. I wouldn’t use words like “free”, stuff like that. It can come across as quite spammy. It can also get picked up by quite a lot of spam filters, and it’ll go straight into anybody’s junk box. They’re never going to see you anyway.

Terms like “exclusive” or “limited time” are okay if it’s true, if that is what you’re doing and it’s not just a way to try and get people to open email. If you really are offering an exclusive deal to subscribers only or a limited time offer, then you can put that in the title.

Don’t use all capital letters either. It’s very tempting when you’re using words like “limited time only” and stuff like that, but you’re literally shouting at people, and they tend not to like that so much. Also, it can look a bit spammy.

All you’re doing with the subject line is giving them a reason to open. It’s not like a full description of everything that’s going on in the email. It’s just like a taster to get them to open it. So keep it short. Keep it sweet. After about 40, 50 characters people tend to turn off. So if you use that as a rule, then hopefully they’ll have opened it.

Timing. With your timing, again, think about the type of business that you have and how the timing will fit for you. If you email too much, people are going to unsubscribe. If you don’t email enough, they’re going to forget about you. It is going to be different for every industry. It depends what you’re doing, how time sensitive your line of work is. But maybe test a few different times, like start sending out maybe once every three days, five days, one day [etc]. Then, if that doesn’t work and you are getting a lot of unsubscribers, try lengthening, shortening, and see what happens.

Equally with the timing, you need to think about when you’re going to send this campaign. I would say avoid Mondays and Fridays because everybody’s tearing about trying to get the week started or finished. Avoid first thing in the morning, 9am. Again, everybody’s busy. Last thing at night, not many people are going to be there.

So maybe try mid-morning, mid-week, like Wednesday at 10:30am or something like that to start with and see how you go, again, unless your business model suits something different.

Frequency, same deal as timing really. If you send too many, then people are going to shut down. If you don’t send enough, then people are going to forget about you. Vary it about a bit. Try it, test it. Maybe ask a few people. Maybe even ask some of your current clients how often they think it would be acceptable or beneficial to be receiving an email from you.

That pretty much covers it I think. Thank you very much.

How To Make Email Marketing Work For You

Today on Bernadette TV, my top tips for making your email marketing sizzle. Welcome to Bernadette TV, where we help you be the best you can be in our business and your life. Today we’re talking about email marketing.

There are so many benefits of email marketing for a small business. Email is immediate, low-cost, and you can track your results. That said, all of us are far too familiar with emails that waste our time, pitches that annoy us, and downright spam. Those don’t work.

How Can You Make Email Marketing Work For You?

Today I’m sharing my top tips for making your email marketing sizzle.

First, get your email opened and read. The first thing you need to do is to get your email opened. The best written email in the world counts for nothing if it doesn’t get read. In a recent survey by MailChimp, the highest industry open rate they reported was 48.5%. That means that more than half the time your email probably isn’t even getting read.

Two Ways To Increase Your Open Rate

1. Establish a great relationship with your email subscribers by delivering quality content.
2. Have a great subject line.

Your subject line is like the ad for the entire email. Honestly, we could devote a whole episode to this topic, but here are two proven subject line formulas.

One, provoke curiosity. For example, “Why it’s time to say goodbye” or “I’ll admit it. I was wrong.” These both provoke questions in the mind of the reader and hint at a story behind it.

The other way to do it is to promise a benefit. For example, “How to keep going when you’ve got nothing left to give”. Not only does this promise a benefit, it also relates to the reader’s emotions. Or, “Get your inbox to zero with this”. That’s another example of an email subject line that promises
a benefit.

As a bonus tip for you, avoid these three words which have been shown to negatively affect open rates: “help” “percent off” and “reminder.” Who knew?

Don’t Sell In Your Emails

The next thing you need to do with your email is have a clear call to action. A big mistake that people make is they try to sell from the email. Let’s face it. A short email can’t possibly explain all the benefits of what you’re offering and overcome every objection. That would be a bit like telling a salesman he had to go close a sale but only had one minute to pitch.

It is far better to move your reader on to the next action in your sales sequence, which in online marketing is often clicking through to the online sales page On your sales page you can build rapport, establish the need for what you’re offering, present your solution, overcome objections and close the sale. You can’t do that with an email.

So think – what do you most want people to do as a result of reading your email? If it’s to click through to your sales page, then everything you say in your email should be about the benefits they will gain from clicking through. Do you see the difference? Instead of trying to sell the entire solution, you are selling the next action, which is clicking the link.

Something else you want to bear in mind here is to just have one call to action. There’s a saying, “A confused mind never buys.” Don’t have lots of different links to different pages. That will just confuse people. Ask yourself what the one action is you want your reader to take as a result of reading your email.

Here’s an example of one of my emails, where the one action I want the reader to take is to click on to my training video:

Notice how I sell the benefits of clicking the link and what my subscribers will gain when they do. Now notice, I do repeat the link and call to action several times through the email. That’s okay to do and I encourage you to do it, but it should be just one single next action. No choices, okay?

That was like an email master class in under four minutes. Now it’s over to you. I want you to put these tips into action today with the very next email you write.

Here’s Bernadette Doyle’s video, the source of this article:

I’m only going to discuss my personal views regarding the pros and cons of the Listwire free autoresponder here, with which I’ve had a little experience recently (yes I really went there!)

My Review of Listwire’s Free Autoresponder

Listwire is touted as “The world’s best FREE Autoresponder! The only 100% FREE autoresponder and internet marketing service on the web”. Fair enough, I suppose. I remember seeing them some years ago and, as they’re still operating today, conclude they’re an established and serious business. So I decided to take a closer look and give Listwire a try.

As you might expect, it’s a basic and straightforward autoresponder where you can build a series of follow up emails on multiple autoresponder lists. Listwire also lets you send out broadcast messages to your lists.

There are some basic list management tools such as add, unsubscribe, blacklist and export. There’s a very basic web form builder with a series of options such as In-Line for placing an HTML subscribe form on a web page, Pop-Up, Pop-Over, Pop-Under, Light box and Fancy box.

I only tried In-Line so I could mess about with the HTML to get it looking a bit better. Not Listwire’s fault but I found that for each line of the form code, WordPress would add a line break “<br>” at the end of each hidden input field which annoyingly moved the whole form down the page. I managed to rectify this with the following simple custom CSS:

.listwireform br {
display: none;
}

You can build plain text and/or HTML emails, and Listwire has a built in WYSIWYG email editor to help you build attractive emails. You’re also provided with a series of standard tags However you cannot save your work as a template in Listwire, and by the way there are no built in templates to chose from.

OK so far so good for a free autoresponder service, albeit clunky and outdated. I could just about live with this for basic usage if it wasn’t for the following issues.

My Problems With the Listwire Free Autoresponder

Listwire only allows double opt-ins. That is, all your new subscribers have to click a link to confirm their subscription. This would be a problem if I was focusing upon building a list as quickly and efficiently as possible using single opt-in, which I may want to try in future.

However, my goal is to build a relationship with folk who really want to be on my list, and not joining just to get a free report or some such (nothing wrong with that though). So I would probably be looking at double opt-in subcriptions anyway at this point.

So what’s the problem then? Well, when your new opt-in enters their name and email and clicks the button to subscribe, the page they’re taken to is a Listwire page which tells them to go check their inbox and click the subscribe link. OK, but with paid autoresponders you can select the URL that subscribing takes your new opt-in to, which is much more preferable to an internet marketer.

And then when your new opt-in clicks the subscribe link in the Listwire confirmation email, they are then taken to a page advertising other offers. You have no control over this either, so that’s another opportunity missed from an optimal internet marketing point of view.

Finally, and this is the major deal-breaker for me, the links you include in your follow up emails don’t take you directly to their intended destination. Instead, Listwire uses an iframe to place an advert in between your email link being clicked and arrival at the intended destination URL.

Listwire Free Autoresponder Conclusion

As you may expect from this Listwire free autoresponder review, I won’t be using Listwire. I understand that providing a free service requires a certain amount of monetisation somehow. But the level of intrusion I noticed when I tried Listwire, as reported above, is far more than is worth tolerating when I’m aiming to build positive, trust-based relationships with my subscribers.

Simply put, I feel it would be unprofessional of me to expect my subscribers to tolerate all that unwanted advertising. I also have to ask myself, if I subscribed to a Listwire list, how long would I choose to stay on it? Not long, if I had to wade through independent advertising each time to reach the link I clicked!

I’m sure that the Listwire free autoresponder is fine for some purposes. But for the reasons above, for me I think using a free autoresponder like Listwire is a false economy and I have chosen to invest in a paid autoresponder. I believe my subscribers absolutely deserve the best (ad free) experience I can provide.