How To Make $1000 Online.

10/16 ProBlogger Blog Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:04:00 +0000

October 15, 2010 at 4:12 PM

This post was written by the Web Marketing Ninja—a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who's sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger. Curious? So are we!
Darren has written a lot about how he has evolved his autoresponder sequences on his blogs. But I want to take this a step further and describe how you can turn a good auto responder into a great one.

Step 1: Segment your subscribers when they give you their email addresses

When you ask users to give you their email addresses, you should keep the process as frictionless as possible. If you can, just ask for the address itself. If you really need to, ask for their name so you can personalize messages—but that's it.
Given you've only got one piece of information, how can you segment your audience?

Segment A: Existing Customer: match the email address to your list of orders and see if the person is an existing customer or not.
Segment B: Blog Commenter: if you're requesting people include their email addresses when they post comments, match against that to determine how connected they are to your blog.
Segment C: Community Member: if your blog includes a forum, chances are you'll have a record of user email addresses from your forum signup process. Use this to determine if they’re already part of your community.
Segment D: New Subscriber: this is the bucket for anyone who doesn't fit into the above segments. These are fresh faces to your blog.

Step 2: Tailor an autoresponder for each segment

You’ll probably follow a similar process to the one Darren created here. However, you should create a sequence that's specific for each segment. For example, you might welcome a new subscriber by sharing with them some of your most popular posts first. Then, you might send them a copy of your latest newsletter. Finally, you might send them an offer on one of your products. Alternatively, you might simply send an existing customer the content they gave you their email for, as they're already in your sales cross-sell and up-sell cycle.
As a starting point, try to put yourself in the segment's shoes, and create a process you'd like to see if you were them.

Step 3: Test and refine each segment's autoresponder

This is where it gets a little harder and, sometimes, a little confusing. It's time to refine your autoresponder sequence to find that optimal conversion rate for each segment. Some of the considerations you need to take into your testing could include:

Sequence of events: e.g. free ebook –> links to popular blog posts –> latest newsletter –> paid ebook
Email delivery time: during business hours/outside business hours/weekday/weekend
Delay between emails: one month, one week, one day, one hour
Email format: HTML, rich text, or plain text
Email copy: long or short, informational or sales-focused

Warning: when you’re testing, you can easily get out of control creating variations. For example, if you had three different test cases for each of four segments, you’d have 12 tests running simulations. And if they have four emails each, that would be 48 emails you need to write! I’d start with what you think is right, and over time evolve your approach—just like Darren has.
Now unfortunately I'm not sure of any email services offering this level of depth when it comes to allocating people to certain lists based on their customer profiles (if someone knows of one, let me know). So you might need to have something custom-created for you to take an email address, decide what segment the user fits into, and assign that person to the appropriate list. However, a little investment up front can pay huge dividends in ongoing reader-to-customer conversions.
Even if you're only getting a handful or subscribers each day, putting them through a focused autoresponder program that's been tailored to them will, without doubt, increase your conversions.
Stay tuned from most posts by the secretive Web Marketing Ninja—a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who's sharing more of his tips undercover here at ProBlogger over the coming weeks.
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10/17 ProBlogger Blog Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:02:00 +0000

ProBlogger Blog Tips

Blogger Accountability 101

October 16, 2010 at 4:04 PM

This guest post is by JC of JCDFitness.
Every blogger who's responsible for a sizeable readership knows the excitement associated with gaining new subscribers and exposure.
The process is encouraging and humbling at the same time – people are actually reading what you have to say. They're not only reading, but commenting and coming back every single time you hit publish. They have your site bookmarked, and never fail to tweet about it whenever you publish something new.
Everyone has their reasons for producing content, but if we take a look around the web, it's easy to see the reason why most of us are blogging. It's a basic need that everyone shares: community. Ultimately, it's your responsibility to manage and nurture reader relationships through content. Every piece of content you write and present must be of superb quality—if it's not, don't click publish.
How can we ensure that everything we create is genuine, worthwhile, and full of awesome?
By being accountable.
Without some form of accountability and sincerity in your work, your blog will likely never make it. Let yourself slip up too many times, and you'll become another screech in the cacophony of blogging noise. Your readers will figure you out and many of them will leave.

Accountability in action

Many months ago, I received a product from some fellow bloggers in my niche. They were launching their first digital download for profit and had set up an affiliate program to assist with promotions. I was familiar with their work and enjoyed their writings on multiple subjects.
I opened the ebook within a few weeks of receiving it. I scoured most of it, but not all—and that was my biggest mistake. Thinking it looked fine, I signed up for the affiliate program.
Finally, while I was writing a post, I realized that the product fit nicely into the discussion, so I promoted the product in my post, and hit the Publish button.
And then it hit me—square in the kisser.
I received an email from a colleague I've garnered much respect for. He questioned my motives for promoting the product and challenged me to read it a few times over and re-examine why I was promoting it.
After my second and third looks into the product, I found myself asking the question, "Would I purchase this and if I did, would I recommend it to my friends and family?"
I wish I could have said yes, but it was impossible. I had nothing against the author or their previous writing. But their product contained a few things I disagreed with. I simply couldn't feel good about referring it to anyone—especially my readers.
I took down the link, checked my affiliate account to ensure a refund could be processed if needed, and called it a day. Later that evening, I made a decision.
I made up my mind that I will always seek another's opinion before I publish something I've never promoted before on any site I own.

Developing an accountability system

That night, I phoned a friend and established a weekly accountability system. He, too, is a blogger in the same niche, and we now meet once a week to discuss our goals, the articles we're working on—we even critique each other's writing before publishing.
If we catch an affiliate product link, paragraph, or even one measly sentence that's incongruous with our goals and ideals, we communicate this to one another immediately. It's our goal to produce the best content with our readers' interests in mind.
They are, after all, the only reason we write.
While most would like to go it alone, it's fairly easy to let ourselves slip up every now and then. No one's perfect, and none of us can expect to make the right judgment call 100% of the time. But, what if that one time we screw up, it costs us our entire audience? What if it could've been avoided by inviting some extra accountability from someone you respect and who cares about you?
You'd be crushed if you inadvertently did something that ruined your relationship with your audience. All your hard work would be in vain, and re-establishing your credibility would seem almost impossible—and it might be. It would be even more frustrating if your mistake could've been avoided altogether had you created an accountability system to keep you on your toes.
If your audience means anything to you, I challenge you to seek out one or two people who will hold you to the standards you'd like to live by—someone who's not afraid to call a spade a spade, and who'll give it to you straight if they see you're headed for trouble.
What about you? How do you hold yourself accountable and ensure your work is always your best? Let us know in the comments.
JC is the author of JCDFitness, where he shows regular people how easy it is to lose fat, build muscle and transform their body using his simple No-BS Approach to Looking Great Naked. Follow him on Twitter.
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10/18 ProBlogger Blog Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:51:00 +0000

ProBlogger Blog Tips

From Side Project to Sustainable Business … Using Social Media

October 17, 2010 at 10:00 PM

This guest post is by Clare Lancaster, of WomenInBusiness.com.au.
Over the last 18 months I've built two profitable businesses with the help of social media. One business was a sure thing; the other was a side project. My side project was a blog: womeninbusiness.com.au. All of the important numbers (subscribers, page views and profits) are growing monthly and I’ve never paid a cent to promote it.
When I decided to drop out of corporate life, my first move was to open a consultancy. I had been working online since 2001 and by 2008 was confident I'd accumulated enough skills and experience that finding work wouldn’t be a problem.
Around about this time, Twitter was the next big thing. I realized if I wanted to offer my clients the best service I could, I'd better get to know what Twitter was, and work out it was going to be any good for business.
Little did I know that the answer would be a resounding ‘yes’—and that it would help me take my side project from an idea to a sustainable business in less than two years.

Ten steps to sustainability

1. Establish a personal blog.

I started blogging on clarelancaster.com before I launched my consultancy.
I had a clear objective for the blog—that was, to demonstrate my knowledge and start to build my online reputation. I wrote about social media case studies, the basics of online marketing, and my journey so far. I shared my knowledge with wild abandon and started to attract an audience.
Not only did this blog allow me to demonstrate my knowledge but it provided me with a home base to send people I'd connected with through social media.

2. Build a social network with purpose.

Twitter was (and still is) my social networking platform of choice. When I signed up, I spent months observing the conversations, getting to know the etiquette and slowly but surely growing my network strategically.
I sought out and connected with industry thought leaders and journalists, identified people with similar work backgrounds and ethics, and spent time chatting and sharing links not only to my blog posts but to articles that I was reading that I knew would benefit my network.
My patience and consistency paid off when I received a DM from the editor of Australia's largest small business magazine. She'd been following my blog and invited me to write a five-page article about social media.
That article led to another DM, this time from the editor of Australia's largest online business magazine. I was invited to write a column with the potential of becoming a monthly contributor. I've just filed my 14th column with them.

3. Connect with people who share your interests.

While much of my network building was strategic, I also enjoyed connecting with other people who shared my interests.
One day I was chatting with another woman involved in online business who was writing about similar topics. A few days later I woke up to find that I'd been listed on Forbes as one of 30 female entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. It turned out that contact was a writer for Forbes, and the result of that coverage was 3000 new followers in three days.
Some might say it was luck. I say, you only get lucky when you put in the ground work.

4. Connect with your readers outside of your blog.

In addition to emailing a thank you to every commenter who interacted with my blog, I'd also visit their blogs and add them to my Twitter network. If they had a LinkedIn account promoted on their blog, I'd add them there too. This strengthened the relationships I built, and made a lasting impression. I still do this occasionally today.

5. Build anticipation for the launch of your business.

We all know that at the heart of social media is authenticity and transparency. As I was building my consultancy website, and deciding on my services and pricing, I chatted about it on Twitter. I asked for feedback on taglines and navigation text, and focused on involving my network in the journey to launch.
When the time came to open for business, I had a network that helped spread the word for me. They felt invested in the process and the journey I'd taken to get to that point.

6. Develop products based on your audience needs.

One of the first strategic networks that I built was focused around my industry peers—marketing and digital types. Six months after launching my I consultancy, I'd just experienced my first nightmare client and was looking into diversifying my income streams.
My first experiment was an ebook—a guide to using Twitter for business. I sold the majority of my guides to other marketing consultants and learned a valuable lesson: know your audience, listen to what they need, and create it. Then use social networking to spread the word. Don't hesitate. If you spot a need, jump on it.
One of the reasons my ebook sold so well was because it was one of the first on the market. The reason it spread was because it told the reader what they needed to know, they got results, and they recommended it to their networks.

7. Rinse and repeat.

After I'd been writing on my personal blog for a while, I got the opportunity to acquire the womeninbusiness.com.au domain. I snapped it up and have since used social media to build traffic to the site and foster community around its message, which is to help women create their own paths using online business.
As with any profitable blog, this site has a variety of revenue streams that are dependent on the trust, influence, and interest of my audience both on my blog and on the social networking platforms I use.
I used the same technique that I used for my consultancy to launch this business.

8. Monetize the trust you've earned.

I know there's something icky about framing the idea this way, but it's the cold hard truth. You've worked hard to provide (free) value on your blog and social networking platforms, and to keep the attention and trust of your audience. If you want to create a sustainable business, you'll need to monetize their attention.
I do this by recommending affiliate products, selling my own products and services, and advertising.
I view the products I choose to be affiliated with as part of my overall product range. I only recommend products I've used and feel proud to associate with my name and the reputation I've worked hard to build.
A successful affiliate promotion should span your blog, social media platforms, and mailing list. A profitable one will perfectly match the needs of your audience. If it doesn't, it's better to find one that does, than to compromise that trust.
I recently launched my first premium product, a do-it-yourself online marketing ecourse. Twitter was a great platform to tell the story of this offering, and let people know about it in a natural way. In fact, the less salesy I was about the product, the more registrations I received.

9. Promote your meaningful transactions.

When you own an online publishing business there are two things you'll be doing continuously: creating and promoting.
You'll create content and you'll need to promote it. Not only do you need to promote your content, you need to promote the meaningful transactions that affect your bottom line.
Meaningful transactions are the actions that turn a passive visitor or reader into an active part of your business. They're the things that will make your business sustainable. As a blogger, an essential meaningful transaction occurs when a visitor subscribes via RSS or email. If you're also an affiliate, a meaningful transaction would take place when a reader clicks on your affiliate link.
Write a list of your meaningful transactions and cycle through them, not forgetting the social media success ratio of one part promotion, one part sharing, one part conversation.

10. Keep a critical eye on your output.

Even though it's important to promote your meaningful transactions, it's more important to keep an eye on the quality of your output and the reaction that you're getting from your social media audience.
When I first started kicking goals I would excitedly jump on Twitter and tell the world. After a while, I could tell that my excitement was coming across as self promotion. I scaled back and remembered the golden rule. In social media, it's not about you. It's about what you can do for others.
How are you using social media to grow your blog’s following and your business?
Clare Lancaster offers blog reviews to help improve the business performance of your blog. She is passionate about helping people make their own path in work and life and can be found on Twitter most days (@clarelancaster).
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