This has an effect on everybody involved:

1. Advertisers get increasingly more desperate to make their ad campaigns work, which leads to lower pay-outs, more annoying banners, etc.
2. The end users end up being barraged with ever-increasing amounts of ads, thereby leading them to be even MORE likely to dismiss them.
3. The blogger, looking to generate some revenue, ends up making less money with more ads.

The Problem

Here is a screenshot of the click stats on a small little banner campaign I recently ran on a site via BuySellAds:

Now, I fully admit that the banner I used in this campaign wasn’t the greatest. But, look at that click-through rate! Really, really low.

In this case, I am the advertiser. And, I won’t be renewing this ad. It just isn’t working. Good thing I didn’t pay out too much for it in the first place.

Most advertisers will agree that click-through rates, across the board, are low. You can get the CTR up with really ideal targeting (hard to pull off unless the niche is very specific), or one tries to combat it with more noticeable ads. You know the ones: animated images, “punch the monkey” ads – crap like that. Ironically enough, some companies have increased their CTR by going back to basics and making their banners look like simply HTML blue hyperlinks.

As a site owner looking to make money with ad campaigns, it puts us into a position, too. We’re compelled to accept more annoying advertising in order to make a buck. Or we try to make up for it in quantity. All of this just makes your site more annoying to visit.

Interruption Marketing versus Permission Marketing

The problem comes down to that.

Interruption marketing is advertising that is designed to reach out and grab your attention from whatever you’re doing and entice you to come on over. Banner ads ARE interruption marketing. You’re almost never looking for the things being advertised. They’re trying to make an uninterested prospect (who isn’t really a prospect at all)… and turn them into a prospect.

This is incredibly difficult to do – especially these days. The noise level is through the roof. While there are various studies out there with claims on the number of ads people are exposed to every day, it is safe to say we’re all exposed to a LOT of ads every single day. That number is increasing, too.

Neither bloggers or advertisers are helping the situation, either. Bloggers pack their sidebars with 125×125 ads, for example. With all those ads, the likelihood of any of them being clicked on is almost zero. Many bloggers try to make their site look popular by packing affiliate banners into those spots, not realizing they’re sending their click-rates through the floor by doing that – along with their incomes.

The other way to go is permission marketing.

You’ve probably figured it out already, but this means marketing to people who are pre-qualified and interested in that kind of message. The engagement level is MUCH higher this way.

But…

The Bar Is Raised – Yet Again

Even though marketing with permission is obviously better, the truth is even this has been abused to the point where now people are starting to perceive permission marketing as just more… interruption!

People are one-click away from unsubscribing to any email list. There are ad blockers out there. Systems like Google Voice are even making it more difficult for phone advertisers to get through. So, basically, advertisers started abusing these permission-based mediums. And consumers are throwing up their guard.

Time To Re-Think The Approach And Return To Basics.

In online marketing circles, the word “relationship” is used alot. It is important to build a relationship, a bond, a form of friendship with your blog readers. Then, NEVER, EVER abuse that relationship.

Put yourself into the position of curator, for example. All this noise is happening out there. But, you have an audience of people hopefully united by a goal of some kind (an important factor in niche selection, BTW). And, you only bring offers to them which are personally vetted by you, known to be good, and you recommend it as a source of help.

Is this easy to do?

Nope.

And those looking for the easy button or quick revenue will still try to default to the interruption marketing and hope to squeeze a few bucks out of it. It can still work. I mean, despite the metrics, companies are still spending a boatload of money on online ads.

But, even the ads work better if you respect your audience. Don’t pack your site with so many ads that it is like being raped in the eye. (NOTE: sorry about that visual, but it is how it feels sometimes.)

There are those who operate by the notion that the more you send out (in terms of promotion), then the more income comes in. While true, in essence, it is also short-sighted. Because, when taken out to a high degree, you begin to abuse your own lines of promotion. Then your prospects begin to find you annoying and all your ads have the reverse impact of what you wanted. That’s the mentality of a spammer. And the effectiveness of this approach has never been lower than it is today.

Some Tips For Everybody

Let’s do this list style, just to make it nice and simple.

1. PUBLISHERS: Realize you can make more money utilizing the permission-based approach than with banner ads. For example, a promo email to your list or a blog post can have a far better monetary effect than a banner ad. Think about it… you either eye rape them with a banner ad, or you post a piece of truly helpful content and then gently lead them into an offer which makes perfect sense given the content they just read. Which do you think will perform better?
2. PUBLISHERS: If you’re trying to work out private ad deals with companies, don’t limit things only to banner ads. Use sponsored blog posts and solo mailings to your list as parts of the ad campaign. Explain to the advertiser the value of these mediums. Charge accordingly. (NOTE: NEVER abuse your list, or hand over emails. Respect your subscribers and obey privacy policies).
3. ADVERTISERS: Realize that a banner ad is more for branding today than click performance. But, in order to get the most bang out of working with a blogger, you need to be willing to explore permission-based marketing. Real content, relevant promotions.
4. PUBLISHERS: Don’t overload your site with banners. In many cases, you can make more money with less. Just test it and see what works for you.
5. PUBLISHERS: If you want to make money with affiliate promotions, the easiest way to do it is by putting the banner ad on your site. But, because it is that easy… it is also the least effective. Put more effort into your affiliate promotions. Create real content and fully explain WHY you’re recommending this product to your readers. If you’re trying to drive affiliate sales using banner ads, you’re most likely going to be quite disappointed.
6. ADVERTISERS: Create “swipe” content for your affiliates or sponsored campaigns. In the online marketing world, this is done all the time. But, outside of that niche, not so much. On my tech site, for example, almost anything I would promote simply has a lame selection of banner ads. These companies don’t think like permission marketers! They don’t make it easy for their campaigns to work. Instead, create REAL content that bloggers can use. Encourage bloggers and site owners to advertise you in permission-based ways and respect the audience.

The wild, wild west of the Internet is disappearing. It used to be easy to make money in this space. Plop a few ads up and – bam! – you had an income.

But, then everybody piled on. The Internet isn’t anything special these days. No gold rush mentality. Sure, there are TONS of ways to run a business online. The opportunities are many, and the costs of entry are incredibly low.

But, the easy buttons don’t exist. The noise level is so high now that only the real cream rises to the top.

The awesome part is… anybody can be the cream. It just takes work and dedication to your readers. Help them. Treat them with respect. And stop trying to eye rape them.

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Would you think I was nuts?

Well, let me explain why it isn’t nuts. And, in fact, it might be something you want to do on an annual basis.

Engagement > Numbers

Simply put, the number of email subscribers who are actually paying attention to you and act on what you say…. is FAR more important than the size of your list.

I’d rather have a list of 1,000 people who open every email I send them than a list of 50,000 who mostly don’t open my emails and just send my stuff to their spam folder. And I bet I can make far more money with those 1,000 engaged subscribers than a non-engaged list of 50,000.

Now, those numbers might be a little extreme. After all, if I had a list of 50,000, I’d be doing a pretty piss-poor job if less than 1,000 of them actually care about my emails.

… but, it goes to show that the size of the list isn’t what’s important. It is how engaged they are with you. Do they open your emails? And do they click on things?

The fact of the matter is that a majority of the emails you send to your email list are going nowhere. They’re not being opened. Yet…

• It is probably costing you money to have those emails on your list.
• It is reducing your open rates.

Almost all email list services (including Aweber, which I use) charge more for the number of emails in your database. Why pay for them to be there if they’re never opening your emails?

But, then there’s the effect on open rates. Not only does it artificially deflate your open stats, but it could be harming the open rates of perfectly valid subscribers. See, in the ongoing battle against spam, ISPs are now taking into account people’s open habits to determine whether you’re a spammer or not. So, if they see that a bulk of their clients are not opening emails from you, then they’re more likely to just flag all your emails as spam. This means you’re less likely to get through even to perfectly valid, interested subscribers. Not good!

The Solution Is…

It is a re-engagement campaign. The idea is simple…

Most email list services (like Aweber) provide segmenting options based on a number of factors – including whether a subscriber is opening your emails or not.

So, what you can do is run a search for all subscribers which haven’t opened an email from you  before a certain date (say, a few months ago). You save those leads into a segment. The result is a segment of your list which contains the “aged leads”, or those subscribers who (according to the system) aren’t opening any of your emails.

A small note: It IS possible that a subscriber is opening emails yet isn’t being counted. This is because most services use a tracking image to detect an open, and most web-based email services (like Gmail) block images by default. So, open rates are inherently inaccurate. However,  a CLICK counts just like an open. After all, if they clicked on a link, they’d have to have opened it to do that.

Once you have this segment, you then begin a series of emails to them over the course of 2-3 weeks which invites them to “reengage”. You can do this however you like, but the entire point is to get them to either open the email or click something. By them doing that, it shows they’re indeed still there and Aweber will automatically remove them from the “aged leads” segment.

After 3 or 4 emails trying to get them to do something… if they still haven’t responded, then it means that their email address is old, they’re not checking it anymore, or they’re indeed not interested in hearing from you. This, of course, means you can delete them from your list and save them and you the hassle.

An Example From Me

The idea of running a campaign like this just entered my world 2-3 months ago. And, over the last month or so, I’ve been working on it for my PCMech.com email lists. Once that is done, I’ll be running a similar cleanup on the DavidRisley.com lists. In fact, I’m changing some things with how I interact with my list (but, more on that later).

Being in this business as long as I have, I had several different sub-lists created for various purposes.

With PCMech.com, I have the main weekly newsletter list. I also have a daily alerts list and a forum list. These lists are all used presently. Now, I had 3 lists associated with PCMech which were no longer in use. Collectively, these 3 lists had over 4,000 people on them. I had no way to know whether they were getting my weekly newsletter or not. They were just…. there.

PCMech Reengagement Squeeze Page

So, I started out by sending a series of 4 emails to each of these 3 lists. I set up a simple squeeze page for the main newsletter (using OptimizePress, of course). The entire point of the emails was to inform them that their subscription was queued for removal, and if they want to continue hearing from us, to please subscribe to the newsletter on that squeeze page.

That squeeze page is pictured above. Or you can click here to see the real thing.

Since Aweber provides inclusion/exclusion options for multiple lists, I just make sure that each email EXCLUDED the weekly list. After all, if they’re already getting the newsletter, I don’t want them thinking I’ve gone bonkers by acting like they’re not getting it.

I sent these 4 emails over the course of about 3 weeks. Over the course of those 4 emails, I could see the open rates going down… and down. Which means it was working and I was truly whittling the lists down to the truly inactive subscribers.

Once the whole thing is done and I can tell I’m not really squeezing anymore valid people from these old lists, I simply de-activate the lists in Aweber. They hold the list for 30 days (unless you contact their support and tell them to just delete it). After that, those old leads are gone and will no longer be affecting open rates or your monthly bill.

Now, here’s the part which makes people nervous….

Once I handled the old sub-lists, I was faced with the main weekly email list. It has about 25,000 people on it. However, when I ran a search for aged leads (using August 1, 2011 as the cut-off dates for opens), I came back with a little over 11,000 leads. That’s 11,000 people sitting on my list which, according to Aweber, haven’t opened or clicked on anything since August.

That’s pretty freakin’ substantial, but also not surprising. I had NEVER done a re-engagement campaign before! So this is literally YEARS of buildup.

Here is the email I sent to these 11,000 leads:

You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the PCMech.com Weekly Newsletter. You subscribed back on {!signdate long}.

According to our records, you haven’t opened one of our newsletters in quite some time. In the interest of making sure we’re only sending to people who truly want to hear from us, we’re sending you this email.

Do You Want To Continue Receiving PCMech.com’s Free Weekly Newsletter?

As a reminder, here’s the summary of the newsletter:

=> Sent every Wednesday
=> Running for well over 400 issues (and counting)
=> Keeps you up-to-date on the latest news from the world of computers and technology.
=> Includes an article of the week, a weekly rant from our head writer, and a download of the week (usually free)

You’ll be able to stay informed, get announcements on tech deals you may be interested in, and learn new ways to use your computer.

So, all we need for you to do is select one of the following answers:

YES, I want to continue to receive your weekly newsletter.
(this click will take you to our homepage, but the click will register your interest to continue your subscription. It is free and you can unsubscribe at any time.)

or…

NO, please unsubscribe me from your list. I’m no longer interested in your free newsletter.

Please take a moment to respond.

If we don’t hear from you at all, we’ll assume your email address is no longer valid and it will be queued for deletion in the next couple weeks or so.

Thanks for your time.

- David Risley
Founder, PCMech.com

So, I gave them a clear yes/no option. Clicking “yes” will take them to our site, but will register the click and therefore remove them from the aged leads segment. Clicking “no” is a direct link to unsubscribe. You can see I also showed them WHEN they subscribed, reminded them of the benefits, reminded them it was completely free.

If you wanted to get all “ninja” on this, you could make the “yes” option take them to an offer of some kind. Hmmm….

But, you get the point.

The open rate on this email is pretty low (considering I’m sending it to inactive subscribers), but the good news is that about 80% of the people are clicking the “yes” button.

Freak Out Time!?!?!

There’s a solid chance that, when this whole thing is done, I’ll be removing close to 10,000 people from the PCMech main email list.

Insane?

Some might think so. It certainly does hamper your bragging rights. When people ask how big your list is, you don’t have as impressive a number. If you’re in the internet marketing arena, you’d need to consider that. After all, getting nice joint ventures often comes down to how big your reach is.

But, that is a tradeoff you have to consider. It seems to me that if your open rates are low (and many people are now considering a 20% open rate to be good… which is rather sad, really), then having a big list is irrelevant. Your REAL list size is only the number of people who open your stuff. The rest of them might as well not even be there. You’re just paying more to keep them there. Plus, their presence can negatively effect delivery for everybody else.

Constant care of your email list is the secret to high open rates. 50%… 60%, 70% and higher… those kind of open rates only happen when you really take care of your list. That includes sending them valuable information which they look forward to…. as well as removing those who aren’t interested.

I’m probably going to start doing this once per year or so. You may want to consider it as well.

To end off, a few relevant links for you:

• Aweber. The segmenting abilities of Aweber are awesome and make running a reengagement campaign a fairly trivial matter.
• Optimizepress. If you’re trying to merge lists, you want to point people to a high-converting squeeze page for your main list. Optimizepress is awesome for this.
• Master Your List. To learn how to really get the most out of your list, keep them engaged, and know what to say, check out my mini training course: Master Your List.

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A lot of great questions have come in for the “20 Questions” webinar next week. Make sure to RSVP for it.

We all want to build up our email lists and get more subscribers.

And the common way to go about that is to offer an “ethical bribe”, or “free giveaway”. And, in almost all cases, this ends up being an ebook.

In some niches, an ebook is still a rather novel idea. However, in a growing portion of the Internet, free ebook giveaways are getting so common that the effectiveness of the offer has dropped a lot.

Of course, much of this comes down to how well you entice people. With an effective title, good cover images, enticing bullet points which tap into that sense of mystery… you can undoubtedly still get people to drool over your free ebook.

However, the perceived value of an ebook has dropped. The novelty has worn out, to a degree.

So, let’s look at some more uncommon ways to go about it. “Uncommon” not in the fact that nobody has thought of it before… but because the majority don’t seem to do it.

#1 – Webinars

Doing webinars is a FANTASTIC way to build a list. Think about it… not only are you getting their email address when they register, but you’re also getting a PRIME opportunity to really build a strong relationship with them by providing solid information for an hour or so.

More people are doing webinars now, but a vast majority still don’t. They either think it is too technical, don’t like the cost of a GotoWebinar account, or are still afraid to do a live event for fear of looking like an idiot. But, I promise you… it isn’t technical, the cost is minimal when compared to the return, and you’ll get over that nervousness VERY quickly.

Take what you might otherwise offer in a blog post and doing it in a webinar instead. You should know what kinds of things your market will go for.

On the technical side, it is imperative that you capture emails. If you use a GotoWebinar system, the emails go there. You can export the emails and put them into an email system like IContact… but that’s tedious. A MUCH better way is to use a system which dual-subscribes the user. It captures their email in your email list and RSVP’s them for your webinar at the same time.

There are a few of these solutions out there now, but my favorite (and the one I use personally) is WP Webinar Pro. You just set up a page on your WordPress blog for the webinar RSVP page, enter the settings, pick a template – and you’re done. Instead of pointing them to GTW directly, you point them to your own RSVP page.

I personally prefer WP Webinar Pro over the others because I think the templates are better and the functionality is just cleaner to use. And, I’ve tried several others.

Works fantastically to build an email list.

#2 – Free Membership Sites

Simple idea, of course. The big idea behind it is that membership sites have a higher perceived value than an ebook. So, whatever you might otherwise pop into a PDF and give away, just put it into a membership site instead. You can even use other forms of delivery (like video, MP3, etc.) because you’ll have that flexibility.

Using Wishlist Member, you can have people sign up for a free membership very easily. Wishlist will auto-subscribe them to your email list using the built-in autoresponder integration.

#3 – Facebook Fan Pages

This is one that I’m going to be soon acting upon. See, I have a Facebook fan page. I even have a custom landing page on it. However, I DON’T have it set up to subscribe people to my list. And I should.

The way to do this is using a “fan gate”. It means showing different content for non-fans versus fans on a custom tab. So, you set your page to point to a custom tab. That page defaults to the non-fan version, which of course is all about getting them to hit the LIKE button. Once they like the page, they then see the fan version… which is an OPT-IN FORM.

So, first they like your page, then they opt-in. The fan-gate page can be customized to tell them why they should opt-in. You can even have video on there if you want. And, now you’ve just suddenly turned your fan page into a real lead generator.

There’s a free Facebook app called TabPress which can help you set up a fan-gate. Problem is, you’ll need to manually code some stuff in HTML to use that.

A much more full-featured solution is WP Fan Pro, which will allow you to set up your fan page using… WordPress. Freakin’ awesome.

#4 – Facebook Opt-in Forms

I’m starting to see these on a few sites, but it is still a pretty new idea. Instead of having an opt-in form have the standard name and email fields, you have a form which is pre-filled using the reader’s contact information from Facebook.

This is powerful because (1) they see their own profile photo, which is instant recognition, (2) the name is pre-filled and it is actually accurate, (3) the email is pre-filled using their REAL email address.

Those last two points are important. Because more and more people are (unfortunately) entering “throw away” email addresses into opt-in forms these days. Or bogus names (like “Mickey Mouse”). However, on Facebook they have their real information. And most of us are surfing the Internet already logged into Facebook.

These are super easy to make now using Aweber (my preferred email list provider). Aweber now provides super-easy Facebook opt-in forms you can use. If the person isn’t logged into Facebook, they just see a normal opt-in form.

#5 – Comment Opt-In

When people post a comment on your blog, they’re entering their email address anyway. Why not give them the option to subscribe to your list right then and there? Only make sense, doesn’t it?

An easy way to set this up is using the Action Comments plug-in. The only “catch” is that this won’t work if you’re using a third-party comment system like Disqus or Livefyre. You have to be using WordPress’s built-in comment system.

#6 – Mini-Courses and Training

This one is, again, simple. If an ebook is a 2 or 3 on a 10-point scale of coolness… access to a full training course would be a good solid 9. Give your subscriber something you would normally expect to pay for… but they’ll get it for free just by subscribing. A 10-video series might be a nice example. Really over-deliver.

I’m throwing some ideas around to set this up myself. I mean, my Blueprint report is pretty good (so I’m told), but still…its an ebook. There are clearly untapped opportunities here. Hell, the Blueprint itself could even be turned into a mini training course.

You could even use Wishlist Member with this idea and protect the whole thing with a free membership level (see above).

.

.

The idea here is to think outside the box. If everybody else is giving away an ebook, there’s a lot of opportunity in trying something different.

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Chris and I have met at several different events. The first time, though, that we really hung out was at an Izeafest event in Orlando, FL. We ended up going to dinner with several other people, but a small enough group where we all had a chance to talk for awhile. My friend from Vegas, Warren Whitlock, was there, too. It was a great meal.

It was at this event, though, that Chris met me. And, an inside joke formed. I don’t even quite remember how it started, but now I’ve got a nickname of “handsome Dave” from this thing.

Yeah, I’m just THAT sexy.

Anyway, let me get to the point of this…

In the times I’ve interacted with Chris since, I’ve always been impressed that he remembered my name quite well. More recently, Chris and I hung out at a bar in LA for Blogworld and it was more like catching up. He even complemented how I do things here on DavidRisley.com.

I’m not the only person who has had this experience. Chris Brogan has always impressed me with how well he remembers names. He’s freakin’ uncanny at it. He’s very personable. He’s likable. He has a sense of humor. And I think it is no coincidence that he is as well known as he is.

I told you this story to make a point…

People want to feel important. They want to feel acknowledged. They want to feel like you care about them.

When you do that, they will remember you. They’ll go to bat for you.

How can you apply this to your online business? Your blogging?

Well, here’s a few ideas:

1. Make a point to reply to blog comments whenever you can. Try to acknowledge people in your comments.
2. Make a point to reply to your emails from your readers. Don’t become a snob who outsources your email to a VA and has no way for people to contact you without a middle man. This is a people business we’re in here.
3. Interact with people on social media. Reply to tweets. Reply to wall posts.
4. Be super-cool. Be real. Don’t write like a professor. Write like a real human being and treat your readers like friends.
5. If you’re selling something, consider personally emailing people to THANK THEM after they’ve bought from you. This means so much more to people than an automated thank you email from your shopping cart. If you want to go the extra mile, you can even send them a letter in the mail.
6. When you can, address people by name. Sometimes it is hard. Online, it is easier because you often have their name in front of you. Offline, harder. I personally SUCK at remembering people’s names unless I really get to know them better.
7. Include your personality with your content.

I’ll throw out another name for you. A friend of mine. His name is Pat Flynn. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

Pat is another guy who I think does a great job of keeping it personable. In fact, he’s done a great job of scaling it up as his SPI blog has grown. People are fond of Pat because he just keeps it real. And keeps it personable. And he’s super cool.

Being personable is important.

It starts with GIVING A SHIT. This is a people business.

And don’t you forget it.

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Then, Twitter was supposed to be a potential “facebook killer”. People flocked to it. Social media gurus and marketers all went into hyperdrive to add as many followers as possible.

Then, Google+. A new “facebook killer”. People flocked to it. The social media gurus and marketers all went into hyperdrive to…. yeah, you guessed it.

As a blogger, we sit here, heads shaking, wondering where to dedicate our energy.

I mean, we don’t have TIME to be active in all these of these networks. At least if you want to accomplish anything else, too. Honestly, some of these folks who are posting things all day… I don’t know how the HELL they do that and manage to get anything else done. Perhaps they don’t.

I’ll tell you how I see these networks today.

Facebook > Google+ > Twitter

And, depending on your market, I’d probably even throw LinkedIn in there… but BEFORE Twitter.

Twitter

In other words, I now look at Twitter as the least effective social network, in terms of time spent. Today, I primarily use Twitter to share cool blog posts (including my own) and keep in touch with people I already know in my niche. I am not actively trying to expand my network there. If people want to connect with me – cool! I’ll get into conversations and reply to anybody.

But, I don’t really look at Twitter as an effective BROADCAST tool. And I say that because I know many bloggers take to Twitter as if it is going to be their ticket to fame. The truth is… the noise level is so high over there now that it is really only effective for communicating to core groups (aka lists).

Today, your best use of Twitter is to connect with individual people. Broadcasting on Twitter still has its place, but the noise level has made it much less effective (and a bit of an echo chamber).

• Follow @davidrisley on Twitter. Be sure to reply and say hey.
• If you’re still in the dark on Twitter, you can check out this free Twitter manual I wrote some time ago.

Google+

Google+ has been, for me, like that weird todo list item that I know I need to do, but I keep forwarding it to the next day.

Like many, my first reaction was… “You mean I have ANOTHER place I’m supposed to be?”

And, so, I haven’t been that active (at least until recently).

But, I believe Google+ is a very effective social network in terms of ROI on time. The level of interaction is much better. There’s none of that stupid Edgerank stuff to deal with. And, especially with some of the recent changes to the Google search results, building up your influence on Google+ is likely to help you with your SEO, too.

So, I’m now making a more concerted effort to be active on Google+. I’ll at least check in on it once or twice per day now. If only they would release a freakin’ API!

• Circle me up on Google+
• If you wanna learn the ropes, you might want to check out Chris Brogan’s book, Google+ For Business. The guy has been kicking ass on G+, so he knows his stuff. Probably a good Kindle read. Plus, he calls me “handsome Dave”, and that deserves a shout out.

Facebook

Ahhhh…. Facebook. Face it, we’ve all been “zucked”. Quickly approaching the 1 BILLION registered user mark, Facebook is the big kahuna. But, it isn’t just about registered userbase… it is also about engagement.

See, the truth is that most people who have a Twitter account simply tweet a few things, then get bored and never return. With Facebook, most of their userbase is actively engaged. A huge chunk of them go to the site each and every day. Pretty much regardless of what niche you’re in, your readers are on Facebook. The same can’t be said about G+ or Twitter.

For this reason, building your presence on Facebook is also a very effective use of time for any blogger. Building your community on a Facebook page or opening up your personal profile to subscribers is a good idea. You can also experiment with Facebook advertising. The audience is there and they can be targeted quite nicely by Facebook’s system.

• Connect with me on Facebook.
• To learn some really effective ways to build your community, I highly encourage you to register for this webinar with Lewis Howes and Amy Porterfield. It has been making the rounds online (due to their launch), but I attended it and it is indeed info-packed. Definitely worth an hour of your time if you’re AT ALL serious about building your biz on Facebook. Which, considering almost 1 BILLION people on there… you can do it.

Your Own Approach

So for me, I focus on Facebook, then G+, then Twitter. Honestly, I’m probably dropping the ball on LinkedIn… I know it is valuable, but I guess I just don’t have the throughput. But, I check in on it every week or two.

So, what’s the priority for you?

How do you find yourself dealing with all these social networks now? Are you getting in on G+?

Post your comment below and let me and the community know. See ya down there.

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This is a guest post from Dusti Arab, a professional copywriter. Stay tuned to the end for a special webinar invitation. Take it away, Dusti!

It’s the ultimate frustration. You’ve put time into your blog, you’re following the popular advice, and you’re doing XYZ to your blog because important-blogger-so-and-so says it works for them. Everything seems to be going smoothly, so you decide to take the leap and put up a sales page for your new service.

And then you wait. If you put it up, they will come, right?

You know better. This is not the way to take your blog to a business.

You might be an amazing writer. You can have subscribers who love you, even.

But the #1 reason your product or service isn’t selling is: Your copy sucks. 

Don’t feel too bad. There are tons of good writers out there who have no idea how to write a sales page, let alone good stand-alone copy for the rest of their site. That’s the real difference between having a blog and an online business. Businesses have great copy that speaks to their audience. Blogs don’t.

If you don’t know how to talk to your people when it’s time to offer them a solution to the problem you can uniquely solve for them, you’re in for a reality check.

Fortunately, it’s not too hard to figure out what’s wrong with your site copy. Here are the main problems of my copywriting clients – and they’ll probably sound familiar to you, too.

4 Likely Reasons Your Copy Sucks

And they are:

1. You don’t know who you’re talking to.
2. You don’t know how to talk to them.
3. No one knows what you’re actually selling.
4. No one knows why you’re selling what your selling.

These sound super simple, but addressing each one of them means you have to know your business inside and out. As a seasoned copywriter, I’m going to take you through a couple of the exercises I take my copy clients through to get them crystal clear on each of these common mistakes.

#1 - You Don’t Know Who You’re Talking To.

Yep, it’s all about your target audience. If you haven’t drawn – yes, drawn - up a customer avatar yet, do it! There is a reason major agencies use them. They are effective.

When I was developing the business side of my blog, I could often be found having animated conversations with Sheila, the avatar pinned up next to my desk. (I love Sheila. She’s like my best friend.)

Creating an avatar gives you a clear, explicit idea of who you are talking to. So where do you start? Easy. When you think of who you’d like to talk to, who pops up in your head first? Don’t judge your first instinct – just get it all out on paper.

Who are they? What are their likes/dislikes? Focus on the psychographics over other potential ways of classifying them because online, psychographics are the basis of how people find you. They were looking for an answer to their problem – and they foundyou.

Your customer avatar will evolve and change over time – this is normal. And your copy will start evolving, too. Roll with it!

#2 – You Don’t Know How To Talk To Them.

It’s been said over and over on marketing blogs for a reason: talk to one person. Why? Because if you’re talking to one person, you can address their needs and desires specifically. By speaking to their needs as an individual, your reader is much more likely to feel understood. And feeling understood is one the deepest human desires.

So talk to an individual! Write a post with one reader in mind who loves what you do. Then, rewrite your sales page to show them how your service fixes their problem in a more complete way - because you understand what they need.

#3 – No One Knows What You’re Actually Selling.

I don’t believe in talking to your audience like they are brain-dead. That’s not the person you want to have a conversation with. You want to engage with the person who understands the issue you’re talking about.

However. That does not mean this super awesome person can read your mind. You have to explain exactly what you’re selling. Don’t leave any room for guessing.

Are you selling an infoproduct? What kind? What mediums (ebook, mp3 recordings, webinars, etc.) does it use? How many words or pages in the book? Do I get to see a free chapter to decide if it’s for me?

The most important thing to clarify on your page of offerings, though, is the problem you solve and how you solve it.

Example: As a copywriter, I tell the stories of others when they can’t tell them themselves. I do this by working through an extensive questionnaire and interview with the client, drawing out their key stories, and translating them into beautiful copy. Depending on the type of copy package they purchase, that translates into more sales, more readers, and/or more exposure. (Usually all of the above.)

Key pieces to identify for your product or service include:

• The price
• The problem you’re helping them solve
• The solution you’re presenting (it’s not a secret – you want them to know it)
• The exact method of how you help them solve their problem
• All of the deliverables they can expect to receive

#4 – No One Knows Why You’re Selling What Your Selling.

It’s the difference between douchy marketing tactics and relationship-based businesses: Tell me your freaking motive. What are you getting out of this? Why are you offering this service? Is it just about the bottom line?

So what is your motive? Make a list of all of the reasons, personal or professional, why you are putting this offer on the table for your people. Pick the best ones, and talk about them with your audience! They’ll love you for it.

Great copy begets great business. Make sure yours is telling the story you want it to, and you change the game. Your blog can transform into a business – but you have to start treating it like one first.

Dusti Arab is the killer copywriter and brazen brander at Undefinable You. You can learn how to write sexy site copy in a free, live webinar on Dec. 5th by signing up here.

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When Kajabi first launched, it seemed to raise the awareness in the market about automated marketing funnel systems. Kajabi was supposed to make squeeze pages, membership sites, all those little technical aspects of online marketing a lot easier.

Of course, Kajabi came with a monthly fee. So, it led people to look for alternatives. Sure, enough, there are many of them. I’ve looked at several of them, including Optimizepress, JVPress and Premise. There are others, too.

The two which get the most “press” seem to be Optimizepress and Premise. And this leads to the natural questions:

1. What’s the difference between them?
2. Which is better?

So, I thought I would do my best to answer these questions.

I will tell you, up front, that I personally prefer Optimizepress and have more experience with it. But, I own and have personally used both.

Optimizepress

Optimizepress is a WordPress theme designed to allow you to set up professional squeeze pages, sales pages and membership sites. When this theme is activated, you have a TON of custom page templates to choose from. So, you simply choose the type of page you want. Any page can be either a:

• Squeeze page
• Sales page
• Membership page

Any of these have many variations available. So, you select the type of page you want and then define all the various options for it.

Aside from the visual elements of Optimizepress, the theme also automates evergreen launches. In other words, you can have a prelaunch sequence set up to run automatically (in conjunction with Aweber or whatever autoresponder you prefer). It takes care of setting the user cookie to ensure people who have opted in already are taken right to the correct page in the launch sequence. If they haven’t opted in yet, it routes them to opt-in first and then sends them on their way.

So, in short, Optimizepress can help you simplify or automate the following:

• Evergreen launch funnels
• Squeeze page creation
• Fully functional membership site (only the theme, not the actual management which would be the job of something like Wishlist Member)
• Sales page generation
• All kinds of on-page elements, like video (using included video player), call to action buttons, timed release content, exit pops, etc.

Optimizepress also includes a blog template if you want to run a blog with it, although you might find you want to customize it further since blogs aren’t really what OP was designed for.

Premise

Premise is a plug-in for WordPress. This is one of the most marked differences between the two products. While Optimizepress is a theme, Premise runs as a plug-in which means it can run in conjunction with whatever theme you’ve chosen to run for your site.

Premise is designed mainly for landing pages and squeeze pages. This means that, unlike Optimizepress, Premise does NOT include any membership site features.

One thing that Premise does which is unique, though, is the copywriting assistance and web-based copywriting training that comes with it. Basically, they’ve included backend access to some copywriting training and some buttons for 1-click sales templates. I think it is a nice selling point, but not one which will be necessary long-term, in my view. We’re buying a solution, not training, after all.

Premise also has a few things, design-wise, that Optimizepress currently doesn’t, including price comparison tables and tab-styled sales page (where you scroll sideways, similar to what I did on the 3DayMoney sales page). There are ways to do price tables with OP, however it is more of a manual process. As for tabbed sales pages, I find they don’t convert as well anyway, honestly. Premise also has a large library of design graphics piped in, and it is updated via their API.

So, Let’s Compare…

As I said before, I prefer Optimizepress and now I’m going to tell you why.

First, if you want to set up evergreen launch funnels, OP can do it and Premise cannot. Technically, you could do it with Premise (since much of it comes down to your autoresponder), but you wouldn’t have the ability to control the flow of the subscriber in that launch sequence.

Second, if you want to do membership sites, the membership site templates of Optimizepress are the best I’ve seen. They are simply awesome and you can make a VERY professional membership site training portal with OP. Premise simply lacks this.

From a technical perspective, the KEY difference is that OP is a theme and Premise is a plug-in. Since you can only have one active theme at a time with WordPress, you’ll need to set up separate WordPress installations for different setups with Optimizepress. This is not any kind of problem, however. In fact, when you bring a product to market, you’ll most likely use a separate site anyway.

The only time this might seem annoying is when you simply want a squeeze page on the same domain as your main blog. This is the one point where Premise does make it easier. Being that Premise is a plug-in, it will work along with your blog’s theme. That being said, the pages Premise creates DON’T jive with other themes and the design of your landing page will still be completely different looking than your main blog. Unless you get into some pretty ninja customization, that is.

So, either way, your landing page will look different than your main blog. With OP, you just need a separate WP installation and, with Premise, you don’t.

Which brings me to my last point…

I personally think that the designs of Optimizepress are far more professional looking than those of Premise. The output of Premise looks a bit more amateur, in my opinion. I recognize this is TOTALLY a matter of opinion, so you’ll need to make that call for yourself.

Lastly, I also personally found Optimizepress to be less complicated.

In my view, Premise offers less features for more money. If you value the training that comes with it, then perhaps Premise is a better way to go. If you absolutely insist on trying to do everything on a single WordPress installation, then Premise is the way to go on that. Otherwise, Optimizepress can do more, looks better, and costs less.

To be clear, Premise starts at $85 – which is cheaper than Optimizepress at $97. However, you only get 6 months of Premise updates unless you pony up $165. With Optimizepress, updates are unlimited.

So, There You Have It

Premise is a good system. I think one of the major competitive advantages of it is that it works in conjunction with any other WordPress theme. In a world where the 1-click installation of WordPress is all over the place, though, I really don’t see that as a major draw.

For most setups, Optimizepress outperforms. It does more, looks better, and has features designed for a serious marketer. All in all, it is more affordable, too.

1. Click Here To Learn More About Premise
2. Click Here To Learn More About Optimizepress (the one I use)

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In order to step off the cycle of stupid, you need to have an offer. At least one.

But, what if you don’t have one yet? Where do you start? How do you know what to offer?

It starts with coming up with your perfect offer. This exercise is great for anybody, but it is even more useful for somebody without much of an audience yet.

See, if you already have readers, you can simply ask them what they want. Run a survey, ask them some questions to find out what they need and want, then go build it.

However, if you DON’T have an audience, you have nobody to survey. But, you still need an offer.

To come up with your perfect offer, you have to first get rid of all worries about logistics or the amount of work involved. You don’t want to be worrying about limitations at this point.

So, you start brainstorming and it starts with a simple (but loaded) question…

If you could create the perfect offer for a member of your market, what would it be?

They have some problem and you’re going to devise a solution for them. Realize, too, that that’s all that is needed – the solution. You don’t need to give them a big “box of crap”. In other words, you don’t have to bloat up the size of the product just to make it look bigger. Just come up with the perfect solution.

What effect will it have for the person who takes you up on your offer?

Will this offer generate goodwill toward you? Will it cause positive effects in your market?

And what is your big promise? What about your guarantee?

Again, don’t worry about the logistics of delivering it… or even whether you think you CAN deliver it. You’re coming up with the PERFECT offer here, not necessarily exactly what you’re going to create.

Answer these questions with some thought behind them… and do it on a sheet of paper.

This exercise can change your mindset. It gets you to start thinking like a business. And that’s important.

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But, what product? Do you have to have gone through a bunch of work to create your own product in order to have a reason to do a webinar?

Nope.

How I Was #1 Affiliate For Traffic School

Some of you may remember the launch of Traffic School a few months back. Corbett Barr released it. It is a fantastic course on how to build traffic. Corbett asked me if I wanted to be an affiliate for it. The prior time he had asked, I wasn’t able to help for timing reasons. But, this time I decided to participate.

I ended up being his #1 affiliate, even beating out my friends Pat Flynn and Derek Halpern. How?

Because I did a webinar with Corbett and they didn’t. Period. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had a chance. I also offered a pretty killer bonus, so I’m sure that helped.

The formula, then, is…

Affiliate Marketing + Webinars = $$$

This is how you can use webinars, make money, help your audience… and not have to build the product yourself.

The logistics of this shouldn’t be a mystery. It works very similar to how you would use a blog post to promote a product. You can even avoid “the pitch” and still market an affiliate product if you want. Like this.

So, here’s what you do…

1. Identify a product you would like to promote to your audience as an affiliate.
2. Create a presentation you can deliver which is related to that product. The presentation should be helpful and useful, and mostly pure content. If the webinar is going to be an hour long, then you should have at least 45-50 minutes of good, solid content in there before you ever even talk about the product. An exception would be if the entire point of the webinar is how to use that product.
3. Set up an RSVP page to invite people onto your webinar.
4. Drive traffic to the webinar.
5. Deliver the webinar. Record it as you do it.
6. Take the recording, edit it up to make it professional, and make it available in order to drive additional sales even after the live event is over.
7. Optionally, put the replays of that webinar on autopilot.

What this does is creates a high-converting sales funnel for your blog – all while providing high-value content which you’re proud to refer your readers into – and all while not having to actually create the product yourself.

And, I forgot to mention…. doing all of this will build your list and your traffic. People RSVP for webinars so you get their emails. Put them on your list. Use the list to bring people into your blog. The whole thing perpetuates and grows.

Thinking Beyond The Blog

As a blogger looking to make money, you’re really in the content marketing business. You’re using content to sell things indirectly.

To make money with your blog, you need to have a business backend of some kind. The blog itself probably isn’t going to make a dime unless you litter it with annoying ads.

When you think beyond your blog, big things happen. Webinars, done strategically, are an awesome way to go about it.

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As you guys may have noticed, I have been doing more webinars lately. I intend to do more, of course. I have some plans coming up in that regard which I’ll tell you guys about soon.

But, there are good reasons why I’m doing webinars. Here are 6 of them…

#1 – They Hold Attention Quite Well

Written blog posts don’t hold attention very well at all. Case in point, if you’re reading this very text, I’m proud of you. Because most people will simply scan the sub-headlines of this post and move on. Most people don’t read entire posts because their attention is so scattered.

Webinars, by their event-based nature, hold attention FAR better. The average webinar is about 45-60 minutes long and, most of the time, you can get people to pay attention for that entire time. This allows you to deliver your message, build the relationship, and do ALL the things we know we should be doing but is far more difficult if we never pull people off our blogs.

#2 – You Get Real-Time Feedback

When you write a blog post, you have to wait and see if anybody cares enough to post a comment. And, in most cases, they won’t.

On a webinar, you can ask them for feedback right then and there. You can even see their names and ask them. They can type questions and comments into the little questions box and you get them in real-time. You can answer them in real-time, too. It is SO much more interactive. You can even adjust your presentation on the fly to suit their needs.

#3 – They Have Implied Scarcity

Anybody in marketing knows full well the power of scarcity. Well, a webinar brings a sense of scarcity simply because of the fact that it is LIVE. So, anything offered on the webinar benefits from this scarcity. You can drive people into action much better because they are there in real-time and, at some point, that event is going to end.

#4 – They Make Sales Like Crazy

The reason you see more and more people doing webinars is because, from a marketing perspective, they work insanely well. While a typical sales page converts at less than 10% (usually FAR less than 10%), a webinar can often convert as high as 20%-30%. Obviously, it all comes down to your presentation skills and the awesomeness of your offer.

For all the other reasons listed on this post, webinars sell. And, if you’re in the business of making sales online, you’d really be dropping the ball if you’re not using webinars in some way.

#5 – You’re The Expert.

Anybody can fake expertise in a blog post. On a live event, you really can’t. If you have people on an event and you’re doing a presentation, you need to have some command of your subject or it will show through. On one hand, this can seem daunting. On the other hand, however, this puts you into the “expert” role for the people listening to the webinar. Enhanced authority is a good thing.

#6 – They’re Reusable In Numerous Ways

You can get residual benefit from a webinar in a few different ways. For example:

1. You can use the recording for future presentations. You can even chop it up into a series of free videos you’ll give away.
2. You can use it to record a product, then turn around and sell it later.
3. You can set up automated recurring webinar replays, allowing people to RSVP for pre-scheduled viewings of the same webinar at times that are convenient to them. NOTE: If you do this, don’t fake it being live. There’s nothing wrong with pre-recorded webinars, but don’t lie and tell them it is live when it isn’t.

I encourage you to evaluate how you can use webinars to further your own business. You have to begin to think outside the blog, you know?

Oh, and the cool thing is that you don’t have to have your own products to justify doing webinars. But, more on that one a little later…

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