The Three Core Values That Will Ensure Your List’s Success
If you’re a list marketer, you know that list marketing, as exciting as it can be, isn’t a slam dunk.
If that was the case, then the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people trying their hand at list marketing would be overnight millionaires.
That, obviously, is not the reality.
Most people fail with list marketing because they’re not operating with key values. Don’t get me wrong. These people know what to do.
They know how to find the right market, they know how to set up their mailing list, they might even know online marketing like the back of their hand.
Regardless of their knowledge, however, their actions are informed by and motivated by the wrong core values and they fail again and again.
If you want to achieve breakout results with your list marketing efforts, listen up.
Not only should you know what to do, you should also understand the right motivation. You should be pushed by the right values.
Otherwise, things are not going to work out for you. Chances are, you probably would just quit ahead of time.
That’s how a lot of otherwise intelligent, driven and motivated people fail in this game. It’s not a question of knowledge.
It’s not a question of having access to the right resources. It’s not even a question of having the right skills. In other words, it’s not a question of what but why.
You have to be motivated by the right values for you to succeed because let me tell you, list marketing can be hard on your nerves. It really can be.
You’re putting in effort day after day and regardless of what you do, regardless of what you try, regardless of how intense your efforts are, things don’t pan out.
Nobody’s immune to this. All of us suffer those down days. If you are motivated by the wrong values, those days will get the better of you until eventually, you quit.
So, what are these three core values that I’ve been taking about?
Core Value #1: Build Your Business Around Existing Demand
The first thing that you need to do is to avoid the mindset of “build it and they will come”. Usually, people who think along these lines think that they are geniuses.
These are people who think that whatever ideas they come up with are so new, so revolutionary and so earth-shattering that nobody has thought about these ideas.
Talk about presumptuous.
Regardless of your idea, chances are, somebody has thought about it before you. If the problem exists, you can bet that somebody has tried to solve that problem.
Their implementation or specific idea may not be identical to yours but I can guarantee that it comes close.
You have to understand that what makes a business successful or not turns less on the novelty of the idea but on how that idea fits people’s needs.
In other words, how are these ideas implemented and executed?
For success to happen, your target customers’ needs and demands must be met. Otherwise, your business is dead in the water.
Unfortunately, too many people, regardless of how intelligent they are, regardless of the amount of business experience they have under their belt, flat out fail because they build their business around the hot idea instead of existing demand.
If you are a list marketer, you have to go out there, figure out where your customers are, rub digital shoulders with them, and pay attention to what’s going on on the ground.
Once you have that information, you then have access to the data points you need to build a business system that speaks to existing demands.
You’re no longer dealing with theory. You’re no longer dealing with “that would be great” types of ideas.
Instead, you are several inches close to the kind of implementation that would actually make an impact on people’s every day waking reality.
Build your business around existing demand. Doing it any other way will either be too expensive, take too much time, and is too uncertain.
Core Value #2: Zero In And Meet Your Audience’s Needs
Understand that the essence of excellent salesmanship hasn’t changed.
If you ask an old-school veteran salesperson who is extremely successful, they will tell you that the secret to sales is classic. What is the classic formula? Very simple.
To help yourself, you must first help others. See, I told you it was simple.
In fact, it’s so basic that it seems like common sense. But most people are unable to grasp this. Instead, they focus on what they need.
They focus on how awesome their product is.
They obsess about how many features their product brings to the table but let me tell you, the cold hard truth is people don’t care about your features, about what you know, until they know that you care about their needs.
This should be obvious because you are always asking yourself “what’s in it for me?”
Now, if you ask yourself that question, don’t you think everybody else is asking that question?
If you were to zero in on that psychology and make sure that you position your product to speak directly to that question, then you have a competitive advantage.
Other than that, you’ll just basically be committing the same mistakes that everybody else is committing. Everybody’s talking about how great their product is.
Everybody’s talking about how revolutionary their stuff is. But nobody’s talking about the needs of the audience. That’s what puts food on your table.
That’s what makes sure the lights stay on. That’s what pays your rent. So, focus on that. Put your customers’ needs first before your need to get paid.
Core Value #3: Always Include KLT In All Your Updates
When you’re sending out updates to your mailing list, understand that you are in the act of seduction. That’s what you’re doing.
Basically, you are telling the prospect that they should pick you not another company, not another smooth-talking mailing list, but you.
To make this happen, you must first get the person to feel that they know enough about your solution and the problem they have.
Next, get them to like your particular solution and then eventually, if you do this right, they start trusting your particular solution.
Your messages must be set up to reflect this. All your messages must lead to trust. Otherwise, you are playing the game wrong and you are going to fail.
Keep the three core values listed above top of mind.
If these core values are not motivating your company and how you deal with your list members, chances are you will eventually fail.
Master these core values and make them your mantra and they would lead you to one victory after another. It’s your choice.
The 4 Step Process for Online Conversions
When was the last time you bought something from a total stranger?
Regardless of whether you were thinking of buying a service or a product or some kind of merchandise, I would venture to guess that the last time you bought something from a complete and total stranger is never. I
f that’s your answer, you are hardly alone because this is how most normal people think.
If I can’t tell you from Adam and there was no way for me to find out about your background, you can rest assure that your chances of converting me to whatever it is you’re selling is absolutely zero.
This is how normal sane people think. It’s all about trust.
It’s all about giving themselves a more than even chance of getting actual value from the hard-earned money they would be spending on you.
Let’s put it this way. Just as you would not entrust your hard-earned dollars with a complete and total stranger, people wouldn’t do the same with you if they did not know you.
Given this reality, it still continues to blow my mind why so many list marketers and online promoters completely ignore this.
They think that they just need to send out links and people would sign up for their mailing list.
They’re under the impression that they just need to send out email after email with links to certain offers and people would buy.
Now, you can see why the vast majority of people who tried their hand at list marketing come up empty – handed.
They came in with the wrong expectations and assumptions and it is not a surprise to find out that they failed.
The main reason they fail is because of their ignorance of a four-step process for any kind of conversion.
I know that this blog post uses the term “online conversions” but let me tell you, this four-step process applies to the offline world as well.
People have to get the impression that you know what you’re talking about and that they know enough about you’re offering.
Second, they have to feel that they like whatever it is you’re offering for them to build trust in it.
Finally, if they trust you enough, you can call them to action and that’s when they buy.
Sounds like a long process, right? Well, not necessarily. For some people, this is actually a short process.
They just need to feel confident enough that you know what you’re talking about so that they like whatever it is you’re offering.
This then makes them trust your offer enough so they buy. Others take a long time.
They need a lot more information for them to get off the fence and decide that they like you.
They then take their sweet time liking you until they feel that they trust you enough to buy from you.
Everybody’s different. This is due to the fact that we have different experiences and we look at the world in different ways. We come from all walks of like.
The best way to convert people is to go through this process.
Regardless of whether you are advertising through Facebook or through forums, you still have to communicate with people this way.
- You have to start out with information that gets them to develop the impression that you know what you’re talking about.
- You keep educating them until they feel that they know enough about the problems that your product or service addresses.
- Eventually, with enough updates and enough information and sufficient exposure to whatever it is you’re sharing, they develop a liking to your solution.
- You’ve explained to them the benefits that your product brings to the table and after enough outreach, they begin to like and trust whatever it is you are offering until eventually, you call them to action.
This is the four-step process for any kind of conversion. Ignore this or overlook it and you will not make a sale. It is that simple.
So, do yourself a big favor and make sure that all these four steps are present in your mailing list, your updates and in the content that leads up to your squeeze page.
Seven Free Traffic Sources for Your Squeeze Page
Congratulations! If you put together a squeeze page, you have overcome a lot of obstacles.
Chances are, you have overcome the tendency to “build it and they will come”. Chances are, you have done some audience research.
You probably have put in the time to know where your audience members are and what their needs are.
This is all great and everything and if done well, it’s manifested in a smooth squeeze page paired with amazing updates.
But with that said, there is a missing piece here.
You may have put together the most amazing mousetrap in the world that would work like a charm but the problem is, for that trap to work, it needs mice.
Similarly, you can put together the best machine in the world but for it to wok, it needs an energy source. You have to pump a consumable input into it for it to do its job.
The same applies to your mailing list. It needs traffic. As you probably already know, the iron rule of the internet is no traffic means no money.
Thankfully, there are seven free ways to get traffic for your squeeze page.
Utilize these traffic sources properly and you can turn free traffic into cold hard cash in your bank account.
Quora
Quora is an online question and answer platform. People from all over the world ask all sorts of questions and people from all over the world answer those questions.
Pretty straightforward. As you can well imagine, this is a great platform for you to blow your own horn.
If people ask questions regarding your niche, you just swoop in there and offer credible information that would draw attention to a piece of content on your blog which then has a link to your squeeze page.
That’s how you play the game. Don’t just drop the link to your squeeze page. Otherwise, you will get banned for spam.
Yahoo! Answers
Yahoo! Answers pretty much works the same way as Quora although it doesn’t get as much traffic.
Yahoo! Answers is still a relevant and useful source of traffic because it can be very targeted.
However, since you cannot post live links on Yahoo! Answers like you’re able to do on Quora, you have to get a little bit creative.
I get around this restriction by instructing people to do a Google search for a term that I know I rank number one on. It can be a term that nobody has heard of.
It doesn’t really matter as long as you rank number one for it.
Get people on reading your responses on Yahoo! Answers to follow your instructions and they end up where you want them to be.
YouTube Comments
There are lots of videos in YouTube that cover all sorts of niches.
If you search for your niche on YouTube, chances are you will find a video that is either directly related to it or somewhat related.
Look for videos that have a lot of views but don’t have too many comments. This increases your likelihood that people will see your comment.
When commenting, do not drop a link. Chances are, your comment will get removed if you do that. Your account might even get banned.
To get around this problem, I do the exact same thing I do with Yahoo! Answers. I just instruct people to do a Google search for my top-ranking terms.
Facebook Page Promoted Via Facebook Groups
Facebook pages enable you to catch the eyeballs of your followers and fans when you post an update.
This is a tremendous opportunity because when you post an update, they might see a link, they click the link, they go to your site. Pretty straightforward.
But for this to happen, you have to have enough Facebook likes because not everybody who likes your page would see your updates.
To get this user base going, post a lot of content on your Facebook fan page and then go to Facebook groups that are related to your page, interact with the people there, become credible, become some sort of authority and then start sharing links from your Facebook page.
If you do this properly, people can click the like button and the number of fans you have on your page can go up.
Share Content That Promotes Your Squeeze Page Link on Facebook Groups
It’s always a bad idea to post a direct link to your squeeze page on Facebook groups.
You may be able to get away with this every once in a while, but the more groups you market to, the greater the risk you run.
You have to understand that a lot of marketers would love it if they can shut you down.
They think that the more of their competitors they can put under, the more traffic they can get. That’s how they think.
Don’t give them a reason to report your account and let me tell you, sharing content that consists of nothing but your squeeze page link will put you in hot water.
If not now, then soon enough. Don’t do it. There is really no other way around this. Just don’t do it.
The good news is that you can promote a blog post that is very useful to your target audience members.
You can put the link to that blog post along with some explanation and people would not think anything of it. They wouldn’t think that you’re spamming.
But when they click the link, they can see the content and on the side or in the body of the content itself is an invitation to join your squeeze page.
Promoting your squeeze page on Facebook groups this way is perfectly acceptable.
Use Third-Party Content and Autorotate This Content on Twitter
What do I mean by autorotate? There are many tools that you can use to publish on Twitter. You don’t have to manually publish each and every time.
By using these publication tools, your tweets will get sent on time every time.
You should get a lot of third-party content that talks about your niche and helps people with your niche. You should also use hashtags that cater directly to your niche.
You then mix and match these hashtags with third-party content and mix in to this content your own content.
By “your own content”, I mean content that has links to your squeeze page in addition to valuable content in the main blog post or page.
Using such automated tools, you can blast Twitter with your content and people won’t report you for spamming.
Market on Forums
When you’re on forums, it’s always a good idea to talk about brands and never post a link.
This is the best way to build a solid brand because people would start wondering about your brand. People would start talking about your brand.
But it won’t be obvious from your interactions with other forum members that you’re actually promoting that brand. Do you see the difference here?
Alternatively, you can ask people to Google your top keywords so they can end up on your website.
By using the seven free traffic sources above, you can experiment your squeeze page to maximize its conversion rate.
You can also validate different traffic sources so you can zero in on specific traffic channels that produce the best return on investment.
Equally important, you’re able to identify potential traffic sources that you might want to start paying for.
Use these seven free traffic sources so you can maximize your chances of making money off your list.
The 5 most common mistakes list marketers make
If you are new to the list marketing game, welcome aboard! I wish I could tell you that it’s all going to be quick and easy.
I wish I could make the claim that everything would be smooth-sailing from this point on. Unfortunately, if I were to tell you that, I would be misleading you.
You have to understand that the vast majority of list marketers do not succeed precisely because they keep making the same 5 common mistakes.
They might not commit all 5 errors, but even if they mess up on just 1, that’s usually more than enough to spell their doom.
If you don’t want to join their ranks, pay attention to what I’m about to say. Make sure you don’t commit these errors.
Most importantly, make sure that you do things in such a way that you prevent yourself from making these mistakes.
Mistake #1: Send irrelevant updates
The easiest way for you to torpedo the commercial value of the list that you worked so hard to build is to send irrelevant updates.
These are off-topic content updates, which don’t have anything to do with the reason why people joined your list in the first place.
For example, if you’re giving away a free book on how to adopt a Keto diet and the updates you send are about Chihuahua puppies, don’t be surprised if people don’t open your emails.
Don’t be shocked if they don’t click your links. In fact, you shouldn’t even be that surprised if people start reporting your email as spam.
Send relevant, on-topic updates. Otherwise, don’t send any updates at all. You would be breaking the trust the people have in your list.
Remember, when they signed up to your mailing list by giving you their email address, it was with the understanding that you would give them content that fits the context of the stuff they’re interested in.
They couldn’t care less about anything else.
Mistake #2: Send irrelevant offers
A lot of list marketers try to play a quick and dirty game with list members.
On its face, when you look at their updates on a superficial level, it seems that the list owner is sending relevant information.
For example, if you sign up to a mailing list that is all about German chocolate cake. When you look at the headlines, everything is related to this amazing dessert.
When you read the emails, it’s German chocolate cake talk all day, every day.
However, when you look at the actual links where you are being called to action to buy something or sign up for another list, it’s talking about Chihuahua puppies, espresso makers or baby shoes.
Do you think people on that list will be motivated to click?
This is not as offensive as sending straight up irrelevant updates but believe me, it’s probably going to get under people’s skin eventually.
Do yourself a big favor and send only relevant offers.
Mistake #3: Fail to understand how to do audience needs profiling
A lot of list marketers think that since they recruited their list members regarding one specific need that they are stuck with that concern.
They feel that they really have no business talking about something else.
They feel that it doesn’t make any sense for them to talk about other topics regardless of how closely related they are to the main topic of their list.
Since they feel that their hands are tied, they might not be able to send the right offers because those offers may not be all that abundant.
They may be few and far in between. As a result, the list doesn’t make as much money as it could. It flounders. Eventually, it fails.
This is a very common mistake, and it all involves the list marketer’s inability to profile people based on their needs.
Let’s put it this way: People who share one need usually share other interests.
For example, if you have a mailing list for couples who just got married, you may be thinking that the need they share involves wedding-related stuff.
Well, after they got married and the wedding is over, the need for your list is actually quite low.
You need to start thinking outside the box. If you look at the profile of those people, they have many shared interests.
For example, people who just got married are usually looking for a new place to stay. They don’t want to live with their parents.
Most Americans don’t want to depend on their parents. We’re independent, so we want to strike out on our own.
Whether we buy a house or an apartment, it doesn’t matter. We’re seeking to start our own home.
Not surprisingly, newly weds also tend to be interested in big screen TVs, houseware, certain types of insurance products, you name it.
This is how effective audience needs profiling works. You can’t just focus on the specific need that animated people to join your list in the first place.
You need to look at their shared interests. This way, when you send updates and properly explain these updates, they won’t come across as spam.
Instead, your audience members will start to believe that you are able to read their minds. You see how this works?
Mistake #4: Fail to educate with informative updates
If you want to sell people on a product or service, you need to educate them.
You have to understand that when a person signs up for your mailing list, they may do so not because they completely trust your brand 100%.
They might just want to know more about a particular problem.
Maybe they already liked your particular spin on the problem and your range of solutions, but they are still unsure whether they want to buy from you.
If you were to just send calls to action to your list to buy stuff and that’s all your updates consist of, you probably couldn’t convert too many people.
In fact, your emails might have the opposite effect. Instead of getting them to buy, the only thing you might convince them to do is to report your email for spam.
You have to educate people on your email updates. You basically have to hold them by the hand and shepherd them through each stage of the buying process.
Get them to feel that you know what you’re talking about.
Look credible in their eyes because you keep sending them information that proves that you’re some sort of authority.
Next, get them to like the specific implementations you offer. They are not ready to buy, but you get them to like because you give them details and they fit their needs.
Finally, through enough exposure as well as explanation and education, they are likely to trust what you have to say.
You may be thinking that this is impossible because it takes so long.
Well, guess what, your competitors don’t have the same advantage as you because they have not been talking to your prospects as long as your brand have been talking to them.
That’s the biggest advantage you have. Don’t blow that advantage.
Educate your prospects with informative updates and you’d be surprised as to how many of them would convert.
Mistake #5: Unclear value-add
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve signed up to a mailing list only to ask myself at some point in time in the future why I signed up in the first place.
The reason I get that impression from time to time is that the updates that I get are unclear as to what value they bring to my life.
Do you think I would be excited to convert? Do you think I would be falling over myself to click that link that leads me to a sales page?
Absolutely not. To avoid this problem, stop beating around the bush. Don’t waste people’s time with bland or lifeless headlines.
There has to be a direct fit between the emotional urgency of the headlines, the value of the content, and the needs of the recipient.
Otherwise, you’re playing the game wrong.
If you want your email marketing business to succeed, pay close attention to the 5 most common mistakes I outlined above.
They can go a long way in ensuring the success of your business or guaranteeing its failure. The choice is yours.
5 quick and easy Youtube traffic tips
The great thing about Youtube is that it truly brings to life the old Chinese saying, “One picture is worth a thousand words”.
Think about it, if pictures are able to trigger all sorts of emotions and speak to people in so many different levels, can you imagine a video, which is composed of thousands of pictures?
That’s how powerful the marketing opportunity Youtube videos bring to the table.
Unfortunately, a lot of marketers think they just need to stuff Youtube with all sorts of worthless videos targeting all sorts of SEO keywords for them to make a lot of money.
I wish it were that easy. There was a time when people got away with that kind of “spamming”, but not anymore.
Youtube’s algorithm is much smarter now that the quick, easy and dirty tricks of the past simply no longer work.
If you want perfectly legit traffic from Youtube, here are 5 tips on how to do it.
Copy your competitors’ keywords
If you want to make sure that you’re in the same ballpark as your competitor’s video so you can roughly get the same eyeballs and possibly get clicks from roughly the same people, you need to start with the right keywords.
You’re more than welcome to find keywords on your own, but it would be anybody’s guess whether you find the right one.
Besides, why would you reinvent the wheel when there is an easier and more obvious alternative out there?
The alternative, of course, is to simply copy the competitor’s keywords.
How can you find this information? Look at their video titles. Pay attention to their file names, and most importantly, look at their descriptions.
These should give you enough clues as to what their target keywords are. Play around with those keywords and see whether your videos rank higher.
Write clickbait titles with call to action and your keyword
It’s very important to mash SEO considerations with human interaction considerations.
In other words, you don’t want to label your videos in such a way that nobody would click on them.
You have to understand that Youtube ranks videos based not only on keywords but also whether people watch the videos.
It’s going to be very hard for people to watch your videos if your titles are not very appealing.
You have to include a call to action in your title and it must include a keyword. I know this is difficult at first, but the more you practice, the better you will get at it.
It’s like writing Japanese Haiku poetry. Eventually, you will get the hang of it.
Mention SEO keywords in the actual video
Here’s one of the most important secrets of effective Youtube video marketing.
For the longest time, Youtube would rank videos regardless of the fact that the main keyword in the title of the video, as well as the description, is never mentioned in the actual video.
Well, things changed when Google automatically transcribed each video.
Since Google can reduce the sounds of the video into actual text, it can then run that text to look for keywords.
This is why you have to mention your SEO keyword target inside the actual video content. Say it a couple of times; it’s not that big of a deal.
Produce video that is at least 5 minutes long
As I’ve mentioned above, it used to be very easy to spam Youtube. Basically, people would come up with all sorts of crappy slideshows consisting of Amazon products.
They would then use automatic file re-labelers to label these videos with SEO keywords and upload them in huge numbers to Youtube. It’s completely worthless.
It’s a complete waste of people’s time and that’s why they got banned.
One common feature of such spammy videos is that they’re very short. We’re talking about 1 to 2 to 3 minutes.
If you don’t want the filters created by Youtube to weed out such spammy videos, make videos that are at least 5 minutes.
I am not talking about videos that are very long in terms of playtime but are actually full of dead air.
I’m talking about real videos where the content lasts at least 5 minutes.
Share your videos on other social media platforms
It’s important to note that Youtube ranks videos based on keywords, video length or playtime, number of views, and engagement.
Whether the engagement involves a thumbs up, the comments or shares, it doesn’t matter. Youtube is looking for “real” user engagement.
If you want your videos to rank, give Youtube that kind of engagement by simply sharing your stuff on your Facebook fan page, your Twitter feed, your Pinterest account, and many other places on the internet.
Get people to interact with your media so that the certain percentage of them would actually go to Youtube and produce the engagement that you’re looking for.
Let’s put it this way, even if that engagement level is fairly low, it’s better than nothing.
Depending on how competitive your niche is, even a seemingly low level of engagement may be enough to put you over the top.
The top 3 ways to get free traffic out of Facebook
Facebook has over 1 billion active users every single day. Let that sink in for a minute.
Regardless of where your target audience members are, regardless of whatever it is you are promoting, you cannot, I repeat: cannot overlook or ignore Facebook.
If you do, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. I hope that much is obvious.
Facebook is huge.
Unfortunately, a lot of online marketers, whether they are pushing mailing lists or traditional blogs trying to get ad clicks, quickly give up on Facebook.
They think that they have to pay good money just to get the visibility, brand awareness and targeted clicks they’re looking for.
What if I told you that you don’t have to spend a red cent on Facebook to make good money out of this social media platform?
The iron rule of internet marketing will never change. The iron rule, in case you are unaware, is “Traffic means money”.
Put it in another way, if you cannot generate traffic or don’t know how, you’re not going to make any money. Forget it. Drop it.
That’s how crucial online traffic is and if you ignore Facebook, you’re leaving a lot of traffic on the table.
Sure, free traffic out of Facebook may not be as effective as paid traffic. You definitely have to wait for a longer time.
But if you’ve just put up a website or just cutting your teeth in affiliate marketing, you would take what you can get. This is especially true if you have a limited budget.
So with all that said, here are the top 3 ways to get free traffic out of Facebook. I’m not talking about garbage traffic either.
This is traffic that can convert into actual, paying customers if you play your cards right.
Search for blogs that use the Facebook comment plug-in and post comments.
This seems pretty straightforward. Using Google, type in a search term that enables you to find blogs that use the third-party Facebook comment plug-in.
Many of these WordPress-powered blogs use a Facebook comment plug-in.
The reason why they do this is that it enables their blog to plug in directly to Facebook’s community system.
Some people comment and automatically leave a copy of their comment on their Facebook wall.
This can lead to more traffic for the blogs that use Facebook’s comment plug-in.
That is why this plug-in is quite popular.
Take advantage of this by doing searches for your SEO keyword or target keywords to look for blog posts that have comments made possible by Facebook.
Post using your Facebook account and use your target SEO keywords in your answer along with the call to action to the website you are promoting.
This might seem pretty basic but it works. It all boils down to how targeted the posts you’re commenting on are.
Start a Facebook page and engage with other Facebook pages
A lot of newbie Facebook marketers flat out fail because they start a Facebook page and drop it. They just post content and don’t even bother promoting it.
Well, unless you’re waiting for Facebook to proactively promote your fan page, it’s going to take a long time for your page to get the eyeballs it’s looking for.
You need to be proactive. You need to go to other pages in your niche on Facebook and engage.
By “engage”, I don’t mean dropping a link to a content from your fan base. I don’t mean dropping a link to your target site. That’s spamming.
Instead, give useful, whole comments. Like certain posts. Engage with people on a personal basis and establish your credibility.
If you keep this up long enough, people would see that you are worth paying attention to.
In fact, they might find what you have to say so valuable that they click through and end up on your Facebook page.
When they are on your Facebook page, they can click the Like button and see your updates.
If they like your updates, they can click through and end up in your squeeze page or blog.
There are many ways you can play this but what’s important is you have to get as many likes on the Facebook fan page as possible.
Promote your Facebook page content on niche-related Facebook groups
It’s crucial that you post high-quality content on your Facebook fan page.
The good news here is that you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to produce original content.
You can find the very best content produced by third-party websites and blogs and share them on your fan page.
After having a track record of posting the very best niche-related content, you can then go to other Facebook groups that are related to your niche and post third-party content there.
Engage with people. Otherwise, build credibility.
Once you become somewhat of an authority, then and only then should you share links to your Facebook page content.
If you do this right, a lot more people would like your Facebook page and see more of your updates.
By using these Top 3 free Facebook traffic methods above, not only do you save a lot of money, you can also invest in building credibility for your brand.
It takes quite a bit of time, but it’s definitely well worth it if you stick to it.
The 3 safest ways to market to other Facebook pages
One of the biggest dangers in Facebook marketing is to simply give in to laziness. I’ve seen this happen even to the very best marketers. These people know better.
They know how the online and affiliate promotions game works but they can’t help themselves.
They find themselves on a Facebook page that caters to their niche but sooner or later, they just drop a link and call it a day.
When it comes to Facebook groups that target the same niche they’re into, it’s the same story.
They would find all these groups using all sorts of sophisticated software, apply to get in, and once they’re in, it doesn’t really take long for them to give in to the temptation.
They just drop a link with very little content or no content at all and they leave.
I wish I could tell you that the link they sent was at least a content link, meaning it goes to some article that adds some sort of value to the readers’ life.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case in most situations. Most of the time, they just drop an affiliate link.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is not welcome. People aren’t happy when you do this to their group.
These people show up because they want a real community. They are there because they are extremely interested in getting stuff done or in solving certain problems.
They are not there to wade through spam.
Not surprisingly, if you engage in any kind of such a risky marketing behavior, don’t be surprised if your Facebook fan page gets deleted or your account gets banned.
Instead of looking for a quick and easy way to vacuum traffic out of Facebook, the better question to ask would be, “What are the safest ways to market to other Facebook pages?”
Here are just 3. There are probably many others out there, but here are 3 things that I have direct experience with.
Share target pages’ content on your page first then do outreach
The first thing that you need to do is to make sure that your own Facebook fan page is credible. How do you do this? You stock it with high-quality content.
Now, you’re probably sweating and shaking in your boots because just like almost everybody else, that high-quality content costs money.
It’s definitely not cheap. The good news is that you don’t have to pay for all your content. You don’t have to post all original content. You can get a third-party content.
These are other blogs and other companies; share their content. They wouldn’t mind. In fact, they’d love it if you do that.
When you do this, you build credibility for your page. It tells the people visiting your page that you are interested in a fairly narrow range of interests.
This makes your page look more credible and authoritative. In between those authoritative third-party posts, post some of your own stuff.
These are materials that go directly to post on your blog.
Once you have done this, go ahead and do outreach.
In this way, when people click on your avatar and end up on your Facebook fan page, they won’t see a barely constructed page.
Instead, they will see a page that is directly focused on the niche they are interested in.
This makes you look more credible, and people are less likely to dismiss you as a spammer.
Comment heavily first to establish credibility than do outreach
It’s really important to make sure that when you’re doing outreach, you reach out only to Facebook fan pages that are directly related or logically related to your niche.
In other words, you are not taking shots in the dark where you just want to get as many eyeballs to your page as possible.
Let me tell you right now, that strategy doesn’t work. People would think you’re a spammer. People would think that you’re wasting their time.
Even if you’re able to drive that much traffic to your target website, I got some bad news for you.
Most of the traffic probably won’t convert because there’s no targeting done there. There’s no filtering, so it’s not qualified traffic.
Do yourself a favor and comment heavily first on these handpicked, niche-specific pages.
Get people to like you, share information, help them with their problems and identify with them.
Once you do this, reach out to the admin of the page and ask them, “Can I share my content here?”
If you play your cards right, that person would not have a problem because you have paid your dues.
If you just cut to the chase immediately and ask to share your content on day 1, you would probably get a cold reception because you would be acting like a scammer.
You haven’t proven yourself. You haven’t paid your dues.
Do outreach to do content swaps and cross interviews
If you were to reach out to Facebook fan pages and get explicit consent to share your content, you are winning. Let’s be clear about that.
You are ahead in the game because that’s what you want. You want to put your content in front of eyeballs of people, who are known to want that content.
However, if you were to settle there, you are going to be leaving a lot of money on the table. You’re really just blowing a lot of opportunities.
You need to take it to the next level. How? It’s very simple. You engage in a formal sharing of content with the Facebook fan pages you are active on.
In other words, these fan pages become “brand partners” of your page. You’re no longer some random page marketer.
Instead, the admin behind these niche Facebook pages that you’ve reached out to would start treating you like a partner.
And guess what? Their followers and fans would start thinking along the same lines. You’re no longer some sort of untried quantity or some stranger.
Instead, you are a brand partner and they are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt, follow your call to action, and behave in a way that puts more dollars in your pocket.
In addition to swapping content, where you post your page content on their page and they post their stuff on yours, you can also do interviews.
They can interview you and you can interview them. You can post the live video on your site and their site. There are just so many ways you can do this.
My point in this article is that there are many ways to market on Facebook pages that do not involve spam.
The more authoritative and friendly your marketing is, the more credible you become.
The more credible you are in the eyes of your target audience members, the more likely you will be able to convert them into buyers. That’s the name of the game.
The Four Most Common Mistakes Marketers Make When Buying Traffic
The main reason people buy traffic is that they get access to eyeballs as soon as possible. They don’t have to wait. They don’t have to have special skills.
They just need to go to the right place, fill out the form, pay, and they get the traffic.
I simplified the process to highlight the problem. This is how most people think. They think it’s like ordering a pizza.
If you feel like a Hawaiian style pizza, you pick up the phone, you say Hawaiian style pizza and sure enough, before 15 minutes is up, you have yourself a hot steaming pie.
This is not the case with traffic.
There’s a lot of things that has to go on before you buy, during your purchase, and after your purchase for you to get a positive return on investment on your money.
Otherwise, you can kiss all your marketing budget goodbye because all that bought and paid-for traffic is probably not going to improve your conversions all that much.
Why? You committed one or more of the four most common mistakes marketers make when buying traffic.
Common Mistake #1: No Niche Targeting
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I come across offers that tell me that the seller has all this traffic for a ridiculously low price.
If you come across such an offer, the first question that you must think of must be the simple word “why”. Really, it doesn’t get any simpler than that.
Think about it. If somebody has access to all that traffic, wouldn’t they be selling their own stuff? Wouldn’t they be pushing all sorts of affiliate offers?
At the very least, they lack confidence in the quality of their traffic or they just simply can’t convert it.
This should be a red flag in your mind because chances are, they might not be niche-targeting for that traffic. Let me clue you in on a secret.
A lot of the cheap traffic packages being sold on the internet are generated through dead domains.
These are domains or sites that used to be active and when the person or company behind the site decided not to renew their domain registration, that domain was bought by somebody else.
Since the previous owners put in a lot of work to drive traffic, that domain still gets traffic. That’s awesome but the problem is that traffic might not fit your niche.
Do you see the problem here? I can pump a million hits of people looking for blue-eyed cats to my sales page each and every day, all day every day.
But if I’m selling left-handed monkey wrenches on my sales page, I probably won’t convert the vast majority of that traffic.
In fact, my conversion rate would probably be close to zero. Do you see the problem here? Do you see the very common mistake?
Common Mistake #2: They Buy a Big Batch Immediately
I have to plead guilty to this. The first time I spent a really big money and I’m talking about more than 800 dollars on an online ad buy is on a forum.
I noticed that a lot of traffic to my website was coming from some sort of forum.
So, I clicked the link and I found myself in a forum and I saw that they were running ads.
So, stupid me, I asked the administrator how much an ad spot cost and he told me it was 800 bucks. So, I went to PayPal and sent 800 bucks.
My grand conversion rate from that ad campaign was a big fat zero.
It turned out that the reason why I was getting so much hits from that site was not because that site featured a link of mine but they were using an image that was hosted on my server.
Given that background, there was no way I was going to convert that traffic and there was no way I was going to benefit from that.
My big sin here was I jumped in with both feet. I would have saved myself a tremendous amount of grief and yes, a loss of 800 big ones, if I had bought a small batch.
During my negotiations with the website administrator, they were willing to give me a 50-dollar test buy.
I should have taken their offer because if I did that, I would have quickly found out that their traffic doesn’t convert.
Common Mistake #3: Post Only Ads with No Educational Element
How may times have you seen ads that just showed a picture and nothing else?
Well, unless the picture is very, very explicit and very targeted, chances are people wouldn’t know how to make heads or tails of that picture.
If people are confused, they can be counted on to do one thing each and every time: do nothing. That’s how it works.
Post confusing stuff, you’re not going to get the action that you’re looking for.
You have to educate people with your advertising materials. There has to be enough clues there as to let people self-select and self-segregate in terms of interest.
Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time. It’s anybody’s guess who will click on your ad and who will see your offer.
If they are not truly interested in your niche, you can bet that they probably are not going to buy.
Common Mistake #4: Dumping Traffic to Your Main Page
A lot of people buy all sorts of traffic from all sorts of sources and they all dump it in one central location. Usually, this is the homepage. This is a serious mistake.
You have to understand that people need to be educated as to what to do. They also have to be qualified in terms of their interests and niche focus.
None of that is happening if you’re just buying up all this traffic and dumping it on to your main page.
The main page will appear generic and it’s not probably going to do a good job speaking to the specific needs of people who find themselves on your page.
This is why a lot of expert marketers come up with specially-created landing pages that tightly fit the traffic sources they’re pulling traffic from.
Keep the four most common mistakes in mind if you want to make money when buying traffic. Since you are paying hard-earned dollars for traffic, you cannot be lazy.
You have to do advance research before, during and after your purchase.
Otherwise, you’re probably going to have very little to show for all that hard-earned cash you spent on your campaign. Don’t become another statistic.
Be mindful of the mistakes I covered above so you can adjust your campaign accordingly.
Top 4 ways to get more traffic from your current list members.
If you already have a mailing list with a lot of members, congratulations! I know how hard you worked to get that list going. Recruiting people to a mailing list is no joke.
You have studied your niche. You figured out the right things to say at the right time to appeal to the right people so they can produce the right actions.
Once again, congratulations!
It would really suck for you to just sit on your list and pump it full of offers. That’s how most people play the game, and unfortunately, this ends up with them failing.
Like it or not, your list needs to constantly engage for people to want to stay on, and more importantly, for people to want to click on the links in the updates you send.
Here are four best ways to turn your current mailing list into not only an active list but also a self-perpetuating list.
By self-perpetuating, I am talking about interacting with your list members in a way that they help you grow the list on their own.
The best part in all of this is that you don’t have to pay them one penny to do this. They would do this voluntarily. Here’s how it works.
Include a sign-up link in all your updates and call recipients to action
I know this sounds pretty straightforward. It definitely sounds easy because it is. In fact, it is so basic that it seems almost ministerial. It’s like an afterthought.
But regardless of how seemingly obvious, this step may be, too many list marketers are completely blind to this. They don’t even know this.
You just need to include the sign-up link in your updates.
It means that whoever receives the email and click on that link, they can join your list provided they are not already a member. How easy is it? How simple?
As powerful as that capability may be, people wouldn’t know the link that exists at the bottom of your email or near the middle of your update unless you draw their attention.
This is why you have to call people to action. You need to be fancy. You don’t have to write an essay about it.
You just need to ask your recipients to forward your email to their friends and family members if they find it valuable.
People like to feel that they matter. People like to feel that their views count, so you ask the question, “Did you like this email?
If so, please share it with the ones you love.”
Hold traffic contests to encourage list members to share your squeeze page on social media
There are many ways you can hold contests. A lot of marketers think that holding an online contest necessarily mean that they have to award money.
It’s absolutely wrong. In fact, according to many marketing strategies, it turns out that “symbolic” rewards are more potent than cash contests. I mean, let’s face it.
Given inflation nowadays, even if you were to offer $20 or $50, people wouldn’t care because their time is worth more than that.
Instead of offering cash incentives or prizes for your contests, offer psychological rewards.
These can involve some sort of graphic that tells people they are number 1 in something or that they are recognized in some sort of specialized body of knowledge.
Psychological rewards go a long way. Don’t underestimate its power.
So what’s the point of holding such a contest?
It’s very simple: The action that you are rewarding, which will be the basis of the contest, is the sharing of your squeeze page in your social media.
The more they share your squeeze page, the more likely you’d be able to get new list members from their circle of friends, co-workers and family members.
This has a viral effect because once those people join and participate in the contest, they start sharing as well. Don’t be surprised if you reach millions of people.
Direct list members to tag their friends on your Facebook page
One of my favorite tricks to growing my current mailing list is to send an update telling my current list members to visit my squeeze page posts on my Facebook page and tag their friends.
When they go to that post, they see the squeeze page, “So anybody wants to join my list? You can just click the link and join my list.” It’s pretty straightforward.
Here’s the clincher – I call my list members to action by appealing to their emotions, asking a favor or even holding a contest to tag their friends in my squeeze page post.
When they tag their friends, their friends would be notified by Facebook that they got mentioned.
Curious, these people would show up and see the squeeze page.
Even if only a tiny fraction of those people go on to click on the link and enter their email address, those are free members.
I could not have had the access to them if I had not run a contest or called my list members to action.
Ask for feedback on the promise to publish the feedback in your update
As I mentioned above, people like to feel that they matter. We live in an anonymous society.
It’s very easy to get the impression that regardless of what you do and however far you go in life, ultimately, you’re just another face in the crowd.
People hate that feeling, so if you were to give people recognition, it’s easy to see why they would get motivated.
By simply asking people for their feedback and then mentioning them in a future update, people will start believing that they have an emotional investment in your list.
This makes them more likely to share your list updates with people they know.
This is more likely for them to share the word about your list on Facebook and other social media platforms.
Keep the top 4 methods above in mind if you are trying to leverage your existing list members to organically grow your list.
You have to understand that the cheapest source of customers you could ever get comes from your existing customer base. Funny how that works, right?
Well, old-school salespeople would tell you this has been the case since forever, and I suspect this would always be the case.
5 Common Danger Signs of Failing List Marketing Campaigns
The saddest thing about mailing list campaigns is that oftentimes, the people who run them are the last to know.
They only find out that something is very wrong when they’ve already sunk in a tremendous amount of time, effort and money into their campaign.
In other words, they’re a day late and a buck short.
Thankfully, a lot of those people are actually backed up by big money.
They either have investors with deep pockets or they themselves are well-funded or have access to a lot of cash.
Unfortunately, not all entrepreneurs are like that. Chances are quite good that you don’t have such access.
It’s very likely that you only have so much money to work with as far as your list marketing campaign budget is concerned.
You need to get it done right the first time around. This is why I’m sharing with you the five common danger signs of failing list marketing campaigns.
Keep your eyes peeled to these danger signs because they can go a long way in saving you money. The moment you see any of these, start getting curious.
Look under the hood of your campaigns and get on the road to making the necessary changes to put your campaign back on track.
If you’re lazy or ignorant about these, then you will only find out when it’s too late. It’s kind of like learning at the last moment that you have stage 4 cancer.
Consider yourself warned.
Danger Sign #1: Low Squeeze Page CTR
This is the most common danger sign. You know something’s wrong when people don’t bother to get around to clicking on your squeeze page link.
It doesn’t matter how you’re driving traffic. Maybe you’re driving traffic from Facebook, Google search results or forums.
The fact that people are not clicking through to your squeeze page means you are sending the wrong messages, you are qualifying your visitors the wrong way, or you are trying to drum up traffic from all the wrong places.
Danger Sign #2: Low Sign-up Rates
Once you reach a point where you’re able to drive people to your sign-up page but very few sign up, you have a more manageable problem in your hands.
The problem with the low squeeze page CTR is that it’s anybody’s guess why people aren’t clicking through.
However, assuming that you’re able to get them to click through, then your problem becomes easier to manage.
Now, you have a fairly fixed set of parameters to play around with to get your sign-up rates up. Maybe you can change the pictures in the sign-up page.
Maybe you can change the text. Perhaps there’s an issue with the font or the size of the font or the colors of the text.
In other words, the universe of the things that you have possibly gotten wrong is much smaller in this context than when you’re dealing with a low squeeze page CTR.
Do yourself a big favor and keep playing around with the different elements and keep running the traffic to see if you can continuously increase the conversion rate of your squeeze page.
Danger Sign #3: Low Open Rates
Now that you’ve gotten people to sign up to your mailing list, you might be thinking that you’re out of the woods. Well, not quite.
You can have 100 thousand people on your mailing list but if your open rate is pathetically low, you’re probably not going to make money off your mailing list.
People have to open your email for them to click on your offer so they can put dollars in your bank account. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
The good news here is that this problem is fairly limited because you know that they’re not opening your emails at all.
This means that you need to play around with the subject lines of your email. They have to stand out.
They have to grab the eyeballs of your list members and slap them around.
The great thing about this is you can keep experimenting with different headlines until you get titles that produce the right effects.
Danger Sign #4: Low In-Update Link Click Rates
You may be able to get your list members to the point where they’re opening your emails at a high rate. It seems that a lot of people love to read your emails.
This is great. But the problem is, they’re not clicking on the link inside the body of your emails. This is going to be a big issue because this is what pays you.
This is what puts dollars in your bank account. Well, it starts the process.
The good news here is that this is a fairly limited problem because you only need to keep changing the call-to-action text and maybe the surrounding text.
With enough experimentation, you should be able to improve your click rates.
Danger Sign #5: Low Sales Conversion Rate
Assuming that you’re able to get people to open your emails, click on the links inside those emails, the next step is to get the page that they land on to convert them into buyers.
This gets a little tricky because if you’re promoting affiliate offers, chances are you did not create that sales page. It was created for you.
You either have to take it or leave it. You really have no hand in it. This is going to be a problem.
The good news is, by changing the offer as well as changing how you talk about the offer, you may be able to improve your conversion rates.
Keep the five common danger signs above top of mind.
Otherwise, they might creep up on you and you may end spending a tremendous amount of time, effort and energy on list marketing with pretty much nothing to show for it.
If you enjoyed what you read so far here’s the real deal:
