• How accessible should you be with your readers?
• How do you deal with the issue of pricing of your products and avoid “sticker shock”?

I’m aware that some bloggers (those who aren’t making much money, mind you) may potentially take issue with what I’m about to share. However, this blog is all about being REAL with you and help you guys make as much money as possible from your blogging.

What Is Strategic Positioning?

Honestly, I just came up with that term off the top of my head. But, here’s what I mean…

It is the purposeful positioning of your personal/online brand in order to foster the MINDSET that you want inside the heads of your audience.

In other words, you can custom tailor how you want your readers to perceive you and your perceived value.

This can have a direct impact on the prices you are able to charge as well as the overall level of authority your readers grant you on your subject.

Have you ever thought about what you want your readers to think of you? Obviously, you probably want them to like you and like what you have to say. But, when we start taking this into the realm of business, it doesn’t always translate into income. Being liked doesn’t mean anybody is going to take out their wallet for you.

Likability is a key factor in the art of persuasion, however. You want to be a likable person and accessible, but with some thought put into how you do it. Let’s go deeper.

Make Them Reach A Little

There is a balancing act in life of reach and withdraw. The best way to illustrate this is the world of dating. Yes, dating.

We’re all familiar with this. You deal with a member of the opposite sex who is too “clingy”, who is always there, who is calling you all the time. What happens? You recoil. You need your space. It is just too much! On the other hand, playing “hard to get” stereotypically makes the other person reach more. They want you because you don’t overly want them.

Now, am I saying you need to play “hard to get” with your blog audience? Well, not really. However, this concept does still play a role in strategic positioning.

Let’s take two bloggers with an equal amount of knowledge on a subject. Blogger A is very accessible. He answers every email, replies to every comment, every tweet. He is a social animal. Then we take Blogger B. This guy is responsive to his audience, but not to the degree where everybody gets a reply. He has systems in place to handle communication. Perhaps he uses a VA to handle his emails. Most of his audience’s interaction with him is via the mediums he controls – the list and the blog.

When it comes time for Blogger A to sell something, he is much more likely to run into resistance because he is already insanely accessible. It leaves no room for added value. See, the truth is that in many cases, increased access to the authority is a major selling point. People want to have more one-on-one interaction with the person who knows. Blogger B is in a better position here. He is accessible enough to be in good communication with his audience, but he leaves enough of a gap there to provide an offer of increased access in the form of a paid program.

Having your audience be a little hungry is a good thing. It keeps them coming back and it makes them more open to potentially buying the right offer from you.

Admittedly, this is a difficult concept to communicate in words and hopefully I’ve done it. This is a balancing act. It is important to be accessible and to be REAL to your audience, however it is also possible to be TOO accessible. Having a slight level of authority and elevation within your crowd is good for your bottom line.

The Pricing Position

Now, you have a slightly hungry audience. What about selling them something?

Well, a common issue is the fear of charging too much. The audience may not place value in your offer, so you end up low-balling the price. You think you’ll sell more because of the lower price, but often the opposite ends up being true.

This is where price positioning comes in. If you’re practicing what I talked about above, then you have authority and elevation with your tribe. Next is to position yourself so that you can charge adequate amounts of money for your offers without them freaking out.

What you need to do is “train” your audience what to expect in terms of pricing. Give them a point of comparison.

This is why you need a high-end product for your market. Many people will include a one-on-one coaching option at a fairly high price tag on their blog. It isn’t expected that many (if any) will take the offer, but having it there provides a point of comparison. The high price tag serves to position you as a person who charges what you’re worth. It also positions you as an authority in your market, since most people equate higher prices with increased quality. Lastly, it provides a point of comparison so that future products you release at lower prices look much more attractive.

The Important Follow-Through

In this post, I’ve provided two important marketing concepts. Both serve to affect your perceived value in the mind of your audience.

There is one VERY important item that has to be included, though.

MAKE SURE YOU DELIVER LOTS OF VALUE.

Simply put, if you do the things above and you don’t follow up with delivering major value and be a straight-up honest person, then it only makes you a manipulative dirtbag.

Engineering authority and elevation in your marketplace when it isn’t deserved is not a good thing. Putting a slight separation in place between you and your audience and not using that to create and deliver truly awesome value to them is not a good thing. And charging higher prices for crappy products is obviously not a good thing.

All of the most successful entrepreneurs out there do what I’m talking about in this post (whether intentional or not). But, it can easily backfire on you if you’re not doing it with your readers in mind. Focus on value. Over-deliver. Treat your customers like gold. Then, all of this jives like a well-oiled machine.

Your Next Move Is…

I’m curious what you think of this material. In marketing circles, this information isn’t really new. For a lot of bloggers, this is probably not something you’ve seen anybody talk about before when it comes to positioning on a blog.

It works, however. And my job is to show people how to use a blog as the face of a successful online business.

What are your thoughts? Do you see how this works? Do you see it in practice?

Post a comment and do your thing!

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Many of the times, the conclusion ends up as follows: The people making good money online are the ones who talk about making money online.

It leads to a huge catch-22. It leads to skepticism. But, is it true?

Why Its A Myth

In my opinion, it is a myth. My own experience tells me it is. I was making a six figure income as a blogger in the technology market – WELL before I ever uttered the first word about blogging for money.

The problem is that people looking to make money often have tunnel vision. Because they’re interested in making money, they read other blogs about making money. And who is going to talk about how much money they make? Yes, people trying to gain credibility in the market. It just makes sense.

I never talked about my income as a blogger until I decided to enter this market. Bloggers in other markets don’t go around talking about their incomes, so it never crosses anybody’s radar.

The whole thing leads to a false impression that only “make money” blogs have the potential to make money. It looks like circular logic, but it is only because those are the blogs you’re paying attention to – not because those are the only blogs making an income.

If you were interested in making money as a blogger, chances are you would never read PCMech.com. And that just proves my point.

The Reason The Market Works

The “make money online” market is just one market of many. It happens to be a good one, however.

In the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint, I go into more detail about what makes a good market. In short, the criteria are:

1. An emotional push/pull toward increased pleasure in life.
2. An emotional pull away from a fear.

Any market with financial viability has to have core emotional drivers that will drive the prospect into action when it comes time to sell them something.

For all of us, making more money translates into freedom, power, ability to increase pleasure in our lives. It goes right to the heart of the matter in terms of a viable market. Same with markets like health (a pull away from the fear of having health issues), dating (the push toward a life partner, which is an emotional need), etc.

Many times, hobby markets can work well, too. Sometimes, the audience is smaller, but for people who practice the same hobby, there is an emotional desire to fulfill those goals.

News blogs don’t work because there isn’t an emotional need to help with them. Blogs on news, politics, celebrities – these types of things are inherently hard to monetize because they lack core emotional drivers into any item you can help them with.

Remember, a MARKET is any collective group of people, united by similar goals, who are looking for solutions, and are willing to pay for it.

So, it just so happens that “make money” is a good market for the same exact reasons any other market with core emotional drivers is a good market. But, it certainly isn’t exclusive.

Finding YOUR Market

Let’s look at that definition for a market one more time…

A MARKET is any collective group of people, united by similar goals, who are looking for solutions, and are willing to pay for it.

So, start out with a list of your passions, interests, areas of expertise. If you aren’t an expert in something, you can still enter the market if you are indeed highly interested in it. You will need the high level of interest to drive yourself to learning more as you go.

Now, with a prospective subject in mind, ask yourself:

1. What are the goals/fears of this market?
2. How can I help them with that?
3. Are they looking for solutions?
4. Are people buying solutions in this market?

The answers to these questions will be based on gut feelings mixed with your own research into the market.

The most common mistakes I see bloggers make is:

1. Blogging about whatever is interesting to them and then looking to magically make money from it after the fact.
2. Entering a market where there is some interest, but they’ve never evaluated whether the audience is looking for any kind of solution that they can provide.
3. Looking for a market where there is nobody doing it. In reality, if there is nobody in the market, there is probably a reason for that. Having “competition” is a good thing.

Lastly, I’ll end off with this comment…

Do not get into a paralysis over this. Market selection is not an exact science. I’ve had people email me asking my opinion of a market, as if they think its going to result in a magic payday just because I say it would be a good idea. No!

You can enter a good market and still screw it up if you don’t do the right things to get off the ground. It is also very possible that you could enter a market and not totally know if it’ll work when you start out. The trick is to do SOMETHING. You judge the market with some of the above criteria, do some basic research, and if you think it might work, give it a try. You can always change your mind. It isn’t as if you’re stuck with any blog you start for the rest of your life!

But, if you are interested in making money as a blogger, begin to think of your topic selection as a MARKET. Judge it accordingly. You’ll get better results.

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Today, however, is no ploy for attention. I am asking an honest question. This has been rolling around in my head for several days now. At this point, I am leaning toward the conclusion that the long-form sales letter has passed on into the white light. Must send flowers.

The Usual Approach

There is absolutely NO doubt whatsoever that long-form sales letters work. They have been tested every which way and they have worked ever since the original days of direct response marketing.

Many copywriters today create sales letters that can be upwards of 20 pages long. For the people new to all of this, that simply means that, were you to print out the text onto paper, it would be that long to read. Obviously, on the computer screen, it is just one LONG sales letter.

The usual rule of thumb is that the sales letter only has to be as long as it has to be. In other words, do what works. On average, we’re seeing lengths between 10 and 20 pages.

Today, most long-form sales letters end up getting the usual range of reactions. Some immediately see it and their guard goes up because they know it is meant to sell. Others get annoyed by all the scrolling it takes to get to the bottom of it. They’ll read the big headline, then scroll WAY down to the bottom to find the price. Then, they’ll use the price to determine whether to read the rest of the letter.

Copywriters are trained to deal with this, BTW. The use of the P.S. at the bottom of the letter is designed specifically for those who immediately scroll to the bottom. The sub-headlines are used to catch the attention of the scanners and hopefully entice them to read in more detail. Done right, the sub-headlines of your sales letter should deliver roughly the same message as the entire letter, just in short form.

Truth be told, as many people who complain about these long-form sales letters, the proof is ultimately in the pudding. They work and they make sales. Hence people use them.

Are Times Changing?

Ever since my Blog Masters launch (which I’ll go over in a minute), I’ve been rolling this idea over in my head. Then, as if the stars aligned, I’ve been noticing similar rumblings out there.

It started with the launch of Third Tribe. This is the program by Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, Sonia Simone and the notoriously handsome Chris Brogan. The sales letters for Third Tribe is not long-form. What it is is a shortened sales letter broken up into tabs. It is not a hard-sell, and the tabs immediately break the flow up.

Immediate pattern interrupt to the usual ways of online marketing. Good idea to back up the whole “third tribe” concept.

Then, I saw Dave Navarro with his post, Short Sales Letters (And Why They Work). He makes some great points, but he also features Laura Roeder, who just launched her own Twitter-related product using this same approach. She simply made a quickie video and essentially that was her sales letter. What Laura did was use a solid pre-launch, building that relationship before they ever even saw this video. By the time they visit the video, they are practically pre-qualified.

I’ve also noticed this trend in the past. Even internet marketer extraordinaire, Frank Kern, often does sales letters which consist of nothing but a video with a big BUY button next to it. And Frank is making a killing.

My Observations From My Recent Launch

As many of my readers know, I just recently completed the re-launch of Blog Masters Club.

Now, I am a constant student of online business. I practice what I preach, but I also learn from what I do and make adjustments. So, along that line, I’ll share what I saw with my own launch.

I used a long-form sales letter for my launch. In fact, let’s be honest: My sales letter was longer than HELL. It was. Jordan Cooper even cracked that it broke his scroll wheel!

Now, because this was honestly a shotgun-style launch, one that I pulled off with little prep and really quickly because of the pending birth of my son, I did not have the time to set up any split tests. I even forgot to track my damn conversion rate, as embarrassing as that is. But, I’ve got numbers to run some calculations with.

If we look at the total number of visits to the sales letter, versus the number of signups during launch week, I did roughly a 5.5% conversion rate.

Now, considering the average conversion rate for a sales letter is around 1%, I did OK. That said, I’ve heard of others who’ve converted between 10% and 15%, the difference being professional copywriting and the content of the prelaunch.

But, more important than the overall conversion rate is this…

Most of those sales came right after my prelaunch webinar, and on the last day as I was streaming live on Ustream all day.

So, after a 10-day prelaunch with a lot of videos and stuff, it culminated in the webinar. About 31% of the sales from the entire launch week came in the first 3 hours after that webinar. A little over half of the entire volume of the launch came before the doors even officially opened. This was all driven by the prelaunch content and the webinar, which was completely live.

On the last day, I live-streamed for 12 hours on UStream.TV. I embedded the live feed and the chat room right on the top of the sales letter. About 14% of all the sales came on the last day, while I was on camera.

What does that leave us? Work those numbers and only about 30-35% of the total sales volume happened during the launch week itself, powered by my sales letter.

My Conclusions

The majority of my sales volume was driven by LIVE interaction with me. When that was happening, people more or less scanned the sales letter and went right for the button to enroll. When left to their own devices, they mostly bounced off the sales letter.

In other words, my sales letter didn’t work very well unless I was there to back it up. People wanted interaction with me, not the sales letter. They needed ME to answer their questions. They got a feel for me during prelaunch. The sales letter threw them off.

What it comes down to is the difference between relationship marketing and cold marketing. For a cold prospect who had never heard of me before, a long-form sales letter is probably more necessary. For a prospect who already got to know me via my blog and the prelaunch, the long sales letter got in the way and probably just made me look like just another frickin marketer.

For Me, They’re Dead

I think there is a time and place for a long-form sales letter and there always will be. For me, though, they’re dead. I do not intend to use a long-form letter like that again. When it comes time to launch my next thing, I will test out something drastically different.

For those reading this post, here is the thing to keep in mind…

Bloggers who make money are inherently in the business of relationship marketing. Things work different. People want transparency. People want to know you’re real. People want to know, like and trust you. If you do a good job with all of that, then you don’t need to use a big long sales letter and break their scroll wheel to sell them something.

And I would argue that, these days, using them actually hurts more than they help.

The way I see it, if your testing shows that you need a big, long offer page, then perhaps you’re not doing a good enough job with the pre-launch and relationship building.

In my case, I think my pre-launch and live interaction worked awesome, but the sales letter was a bit of a lead weight.

So, what are your thoughts on these long sales letters? And, if you’re a marketer or copywriter, what is your experience when them versus the more “third tribe” approach?

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If you’re not already familiar, an autoresponder is simply a pre-scheduled series of emails that get sent out to a new subscriber on automatic after they subscribe to your list.

For many months, I was using an autoresponder sequence. I still am a supporter of the idea, however I’m currently in the process of re-evaluating the idea. That said, there is certainly an issue with an autoresponder when you’re engaging in a structured marketing campaign.

When you do a product launch (which I just got done with), you are going to be emailing your list with pre-launch and launch emails. If you are running a pre-scheduled sequence at the same time, the messages conflict. From a subscriber’s viewpoint, your message during pre-launch is literally all over the place.

The solution is to turn off your autoresponder sequence, at least temporarily.

The problem is… Aweber has no way to place a sequence on pause. It seems like an easy enough thing to do, so perhaps I can talk them into adding that feature at some point.

In the meantime, here is a sneaky little work-around for putting an Aweber autoresponder sequence on pause:

1. Take a screenshot of the current ordering and timing of your AR sequence. You will use this later to put everything back, if you wish to do so.
2. Go into each message in your sequence and set the interval to 999. Note that the “0” message (the welcome message) needs to stay in place, so you might just need to re-word it to make it fit into your new campaign.
3. Do your launch.
4. If/when you decide to put everything back, then consult the screenshot you took in #1 above and reset all the intervals to what you had before. Delivery will resume from where it left off with all subscribers.

Hope that helps somebody.

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This video shows a simple way of evaluating any potential blogging niche from a psychological standpoint. I’m getting down to the emotional core of the reader here.

In this video, I mention two particular (big) markets and how they measure up. But, the power comes in getting into the minds of YOUR reader, in YOUR market, and seeing how you can apply this test. And, if you’re finding a shortcoming, usually you can shift your approach and stay within the same market… but, all of a sudden you’re gaining a lot more traction with your audience.

You may have heard before that people buy based on emotion and they justify with logic. Your key, as a blogger, is to tap into that emotional motivator.

The material in this video represents one of the many principles I teach my students in the Blog Masters Club. This concept is covered in Module 2 – Market Research.

Click Here To Watch This Video.

After you’ve watched the video (about 8 minutes long), let me know what you thought about it by posting below.

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The reality is, though, that there is a segment of the blogger population who thinks this is the case.

Are you adverse to the idea of marketing on your blog? Do you feel as if you have to become one of “those people” to make a buck?

Shooting Yourself In The Foot Sucks

… and if you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Shooting yourself in the foot.

The truth of the matter is that being afraid to market on your blog is about the same thing as taking your success, tossing it in a hole, and pouring concrete over it.

Let us, for a moment, just look at how Wikipedia defines the word “marketing”. It says:

Marketing is the process associated with promotion for sale goods or services. It is considered a "social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others." It is an integrated process through which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.

Now, I added the emphasis in there and I did it for a reason.

As bloggers, we are in the business of creating VALUE and building STRONG RELATIONSHIPS. If you’re doing your job correctly, then that’s what you do every day. You want to build up repeat traffic. You want lots of comments and interaction. That’s what this is all about, right?

Where a lot of bloggers stop is at the point of capturing value from customers in return. Why do you stop? You’re providing value. Lots of value. Providing yet more value and then getting something back from them (in the form of an email or even a little money) is a natural part of this equation.

Our society is BUILT on marketing. It is everywhere – even places you don’t think it is. Your blog, if it is a “no marketing zone” is actually an exception to the rest of society and it shouldn’t be.

The Reality of Blog Marketing

Here’s the big thing that many bloggers fail to understand…

If you get a bad taste in your mouth about the idea of marketing, it is probably because you were subject to some really piss-poor marketing at some point. You don’t want to be THAT guy.

Not all marketing is that way, however.

Furthermore, bloggers are in an IDEAL situation to market things without being the slimy dude we all try to avoid. Why? Because we are, just naturally, building up relationships with our audience. We control the message on our own blogs. And we provide TONS of value.

The Simple Formula

I like formulas. They’re nice and easy to follow. So, here’s one for you.

This is my little formula for how you make money with a blog without being a slimeball…

1. Provide lots of VALUE to your audience and do it continually.
2. Be REAL. Never BS your audience. Be transparent.
3. Be CONNECTED. That means you respond to your readers. You’re out there in social media. You don’t ignore them. This is all about communication.
4. Make an offer. Alas, the step so many bloggers skip right over. Have something to sell your readers.
5. Have confidence in the offer you make. Make sure it adds VALUE to their lives and you show them that.
6. Repeat all of the above. Continue adding value to your blog, being a real person, respecting your audience, and fostering communication.

Does that make sense?

As I end off, I’ll just say this…

There is NOTHING wrong with selling something on your blog. You’re actually failing to serve your readers and yourself when you do that. If you resort to banner ad overload on your blog because you’re too stubborn than to sell something to your readers, you are failing them and you are failing yourself.

Marketing is the simple act of offering value and them offering value back. It is how this world works.

Learn More

If you want to read more about my take on blog monetization, I invite you to check out the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint.

This report has been downloaded almost 4,000 times in the last few days and the feedback has been, well, humbling as hell.

As you read this report, I think your view of making money as a blogger might shift. I’ve been getting TONS of feedback to that effect from the people who’ve read it.

But, think about this as you read it. That report is me applying the above formula. I do make offers to my audience, and in about a week I’m about to offer something to my blog readers that I’ve spent the last six months working on. Believe me, the Blog Masters Club is the very definition of “lots of value”, as you will soon see. But, I provide lots of value on the outside, too, and the Blueprint is part of it.

I practice what I preach.

So, go check out the Blueprint. I’ll have another video for you tomorrow (most likely). Plus, details forthcoming on a free, public LIVE webinar I’ll be doing for you guys on Monday.

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Do you get the feeling that internet marketing is becoming difficult? These days, unless people know and like you, it’s harder and harder every day to get started.

If an unknown internet marketer offers a product that guarantees to make the customer a millionaire overnight, without any effort on the customer’s part; everyone, probably quite rightly, shouts “SCAM!” and walks away. If that same unknown person offers a product where the customer needs to do something themselves in addition to leaving it all to the product to do for them, everyone shouts “CRAP PRODUCT”, moans that they have to get off their arse, and they walk away. Result = no sales in either case.

If the product claims to do everything for the customer with no effort on the customer’s part, the customer sees it as a scam and doesn’t buy it. Yet when a product turns up that asks the customer to do something more than sitting on their arse waiting for results, the customer complains because they have to do something rather than having the product do it all for them.

Sometimes you just can’t win. It’s heads they win or tails you lose. But, if you’re already known, it’s a different matter.

You’d be surprised how many people still judge a book by its cover too. While I was promoting 3Day Money, a top-quality product from David Risley, I saw a girl on Twitter asking for business opportunities. I gave her my affiliate link to 3Day Money, which she immediately said was a scam as nobody can get rich in 3 days without lifting a finger.

If she’d have bothered to read anything or watch the video then she’d have seen that the course is designed to last a minimum of 3 days, and is a guide to setting up an online marketing business which involves her doing something. A lot of work in all honesty.

The thing was that she didn’t know me and she’d never heard of David Risley. She didn’t know about David’s reputation for a quality product every time. Also, I was a new Twitter contact who could easily be another scammer for all she knew.

No internet marketing strategy seems to work without some previous kind of relationship with the potential customer.

Well, in that case, since it appears to be so difficult for any internet marketer to sell anything, how come a few internet marketers are making a six-figure income?

I’ll repeat the last thing I said before that question was asked:

No internet marketing strategy seems to work without some previous kind of relationship with the potential customer.

The answer is… by building up a reputation, and by building up relationships with people as a consequence of that; on social media, on lists, on forums, on other blogs.

Once people get to know and trust the marketer, they start to buy the marketer’s product. As a thank-you, or even as a precursor to any sale, the marketer gives things away. The customer and potential customers continue to get value from the products they’ve bought from the marketer, and also from the free products that the marketer has distributed via their blog or otherwise.

Suddenly people are actually queuing up to buy the marketer’s latest product! They were sold by the quality of the free stuff being given away.

They haven’t seen what’s inside the product. However, they know that it’ll be of great value because they’ve never seen anything less from the marketer.

The marketer now has a reputation. The marketer is known, liked, trusted, and people will buy the marketer’s products. All because of the value of free content / value-packed giveaways.

So, what valuable information are you giving away for free?

Sharron Field is a tech-blogger of 18 months, and a BlogMasters student. She uses her blog to share computer and electronics knowledge, as well as for marketing purposes.

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The special began on Friday at a little after 1PM EST when I sent out my first email to the mailing list. On Sunday at 3AM EST, I sent a “final notice” to let them know the deal was coming to a close. The deadline was 8PM EST on Sunday. Why 8PM? Because it would be easy to pop onto the computer after dinner and turn the special off. And why did I send the last notice at 3AM? So that the people on the west coast would be after midnight and I could tell them that the special was ending on the same day (more urgency).

So, in total, the entire promo consisted of 2 emails to the list, and about 15 minutes of work on the site itself. I think I had about 45 minutes of my time in this promotion – total.

Here’s how it was done…

The deal was 30% off of the yearly membership. There was clear urgency because of the pending deadline. And just to drive that home, I put a timer on the top of the sales page to count down to 8PM on Sunday. I also made clear the money-back guarantee (which is always there). I also made clear that there would be no renewals (no obligation or contract, as some people perceive membership sites). I didn’t disable renewals so much as part of the deal, but mainly because the refund rates on yearlys seems to be higher anyway (members forget after a year).

Also, the emails I sent to the list were low-key. I was not in sales mode, really. I just told them what the deal is. And by telling them I wasn’t in sales mode and that I’d rather be with my family (all of which was true – after all this was Thanksgiving), it enhances empathy. It is also a pattern interrupt from all the overt marketing people get around Black Friday.

As usually happens, people wait until the last minute. The last day saw over half of the total sales, many of them coming in the last few hours.

Here are the “take-away’s” you should employ in your own marketing:

1. Always employ urgency in your marketing. It drives people to take action. Give them a reason to act and a clear deadline.
2. Visually show the deadline with a timer. It works.
3. Give a reason why. Every time I conduct a promotion like this, it is tied to an event (such as me traveling). This time, the event was obvious – Black Friday. Everybody was in a retail mood (the society more or less trains it into them). Take advantage of it.
4. Tie a membership site in with your blog. Marketed right with quality content and it will turn into a cash cow.
5. You need a mailing list. The reason this promotion was so easy was because I had an established mailing list. Without it, it would have gone over like a fart in church.

So, there you go. A small behind-the-scenes look at a recent promo. Pretty simple stuff, actually.

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In fact, you should be THRILLED.

Better yet, you should be using it as a huge kick in the ass to put on your A-game, get into gear, and start creating a real business.

I’ll go more into this in an upcoming report I plan to write (stay tuned for it), however let me give you the long-and-short of it.

Blogging as a business is RELATIONSHIP MARKETING. If you want to make money as a blogger, this is the short version of what you do:

1. Create a product line.
2. Attract people to you through quality content.
3. Get people into your sales funnel. In other words, capture them as a lead. Get ‘em on your list.
4. Build the RELATIONSHIP. Get them to know, like and trust you. Be a real person. You want them to trust your expertise, but also view you as a friend.
5. Sell them things by providing quality recommendations they can trust.

Now, traditional internet marketers are all consulting their lawyers over the new FTC regulations. One of the biggest things that will affect the industry is the use of testimonials to sell. To make a long story short, you will not be able to throw out a bunch of glowing testimonials, throw in a “results not typical” footnote in tiny print at the bottom of the page, and move on with your life.

In fact, in a recent report put out by John Reese, he said to forget using testimonials! That’s right. No testimonials. By not using testimonials, you just avoid that whole FTC mess.

Why is this a huge piece of good news for smart bloggers?

Because bloggers who are doing this right are building up a RELATIONSHIP. And a solid relationship makes testimonials a much less important sales tactic.

Most marketers sell people stuff because they fall onto the sales page and you have to overwhelm them with social proof in order to get over that natural distrust they have.

In the NEW way, your loyal tribe will have a relationship with YOU. And they’ll buy what you recommend if they have a need, but because they trust that YOU told them it was OK.

Know. Like. Trust. It is everything.

And bloggers are poised better than almost any internet marketer to do this, both through their blog as well as their mailing list.

The FTC guidelines don’t matter. In fact, it is going to be more of a game changer for the people who’ve not been doing this business with relationships in mind from the beginning.

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1. Find or create something which people in your market will find valuable or helpful,
2. Give it to them in exchange for their email address.
3. Do this a lot.

Now you know. If you tell anybody else this secret, be sure to whisper.

P.S. Oh, just one more thing. It also helps to have a mailing list solution worthy of building a big list with. and for that, I recommend Aweber. That one isn’t any secret because most people worth their salt like Aweber, too.

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