I’m a daddy again! 

Yup, my new baby boy was born earlier this month and its been a bit of a whirlwind.  Its been hard finding time to work and be productive, and since I’ve been concentrating on a couple of other projects too I decided to take a bit of a hiatus from this blog.

But I’ll soon be adding some new posts so check back soon!

PS – for all you trick or  treaters out there…have a safe and happy Halloween!   Save some candy corn for me! 

Basically I plan to have a whole portfolio of digital products covering various marketing topics and I want to use Aweber to maintain my lists of prospects and customers.  I want to be able to stay in touch with people who buy one of my products so I can sell to them again and again.

Right now the only products I have to offer are my PLR article packs and my Yahoo Answers guide. But since I plan to add a lot more in the future I really want to make sure I set up the best possible system that will allow me to keep in touch with my customers while making as little work as possible for myself.

That last part is key.  I don’t want to be stuck wasting all my time managing email lists when I can be doing more important things.  And let’s face it…the whole reason I got involved in IM to begin with was to provide for my family and have the financial freedom to do what I want when I want.  And I’d rather play games or color with my kids then fuss over 101 email lists.

So my question to Tiffany was how she managed her lists.  As you can see by her blog post on the subject she wasn’t sure what the best solution was.  So after going back and forth a little and reading Aweber’s help areas, I think I found a solution that works for me!

Basically I want to be able to have as few lists as possible but have the ability to customize a bit for the buyers of each product.  I need the ability to cross-promote new products to past buyers, and I want to automate as much of the process as possible by using pre-written autoresponder messages.

But I don’t want someone to buy Product A and then receive new emails promoting the same product!  And it will look bad if they receive the same email multiple times if they sign up for multiple lists.   And so I played around a bit and whipped up a test campaign and used a bunch of gmail addresses to map out my plan…

I’ll have one list for prospects.  This will consist primarily of a pre-written autoreponder sequence that will provide solid content and build trust.  Of course I can still blast out emails whenever I want to promote something or have something to say.

If someone from my ‘prospect’ list buys one of my products they’ll automatically be moved to my ‘customer’ list (Aweber is cool like that).   My customer list will receive a slightly different autoresponder sequence and they will be segmented by Product Name.

Aweber lets you segment your list using various criteria but I think the one that works best for me is Product Name. 

Since I already use DLGuard to manage product delivery and protection, its a piece of cake to automatically pass product names and numbers to Aweber right at the time of purchase.  All you have to do is make sure your ‘customer’ list is integrated with DLGuard and product name and number is passed.  This literally takes about 20 seconds to set up in your Aweber list settings.

I can then create as many new segments within my list as necessary.  If I want to email a promotion for my XYZ product I can simply create a segment that excludes anyone who already owns XYZ.  That way people who have already bought it won’t receive the email.  Pretty cool huh?

But what if you don’t have DLGuard?

Well first of all you should because its an awesome tool that saves me countless hours and protects my files from unauthorized downloads.  But if you want to get by without it, you’ll have to find another way to pass the Product Name on to Aweber.

Or you can create segments based on Ad Category.   If you go this route your list will be segmented by where they subscribed.   For example you’d use one web form for people who bought ABC and another for XYZ.  You’d have to make sure they were coded correctly so your buyers didn’t end up in the wrong segment.  I think this would definitely work but it would be a little more manual and there’s more room for something to go wrong.

For me the combination of DLGuard and Aweber works perfectly. 

But what do you think?    Do you have a way that works better??

And now you’ll be happy to know that I’m launching an affiliate program that will pay you a ridiculous 75% commission on all sales you generate!

You can make money promoting Answers Domination in lots of ways…

• Post a review on your blog
• Send an email to your list
• Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages,etc
• Be creative!

To get started all you need is a free Clickbank account.  then go to the link below and grab your affiliate links to start making money!

http://answersdomination.com/affiliates.html

1. Varying Media Types – Don’t just rely on one specific style of delivery for your content. While articles are very useful and the most common form of content marketing, using video, audio and holding teleseminars are all equally appealing options to readers. Some of these take a little longer to create, but they all have their advantages. Using multiple forms of content delivery makes it easier to reach a larger audience.

2. Social Networking – Social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Digg are perfect vehicles to create your business networking contacts. You can link up with people who are interested in your service and even create partnerships with other people to increase your exposure.

3. Referral Programs – Use your clients or customers to help bring in more people through referral programs. You can offer a reward for the people they bring in or make it a contest for whoever brings in the most over a certain period of time.

4. Affiliate Programs – Set up an affiliate program so you can have other website and blog owners online market your content for you, while also referring people to your products or service. The ability to earn a commission on any sales they send your way is a must for this type of program. This costs you nothing unless the affiliate sends you a sale, but drives people who are interested in what you have to offer to your site and increases the chances for a sale.

5. SEO – Search Engine Optimization is the means to better placement of your website at the top of online search results. This is a fantastic way to position your content in those search results directly related to your product. The more keywords you are linked to, the more likely people will find your content through online searches. There are free tools available to help you streamline your keyword efficiency.

Using one or all of these marketing techniques will bring the customers to your website and have them already interested in what you have to offer.

Many websites have taken the “bigger is better” theory to heart, too. Superstores like Overstock.com and Walmart have websites consisting of thousands upon thousands of pages. And they are doing quite well for themselves.

When there are so many large sites online, it may seem futile to try to get a piece of the pie. The average person doesn’t have the time or money to set up such an operation, let alone maintain it. But you don’t have to. A mini site can flourish in a land of Internet giants.

The reason mini sites work is because they do not directly compete with the big guys. Instead of trying to be all things to all people, a mini site simply seeks to do well in a small niche. In this case, smaller is better.

The most successful mini sites go after a small but underserved niche. They find a need that isn’t being filled, and they fill it. This puts them into a position to get better rankings in the search engines, because the keywords that people would use to find their offerings are not often targeted by webmasters of larger sites. With some good SEO, they can get targeted traffic at very little expense.

Once the visitors are at the mini site, the sales letter grabs their attention and, hopefully, convinces them to make a purchase. Those who are on the fence may sign up for a newsletter or free course. This provides the opportunity to maintain contact and persuade them to buy later.

A mini site can hold its own, even with millions of other web pages online. You just need a good niche, a quality product and a strong sales pitch.

Ready to learn more about mini sites??  Sign up for my newsletter at http://mikecollinsmarketing.com to receive your free Mini Sites Explained report.

But part of it is because I’ve been devoting more time to my family.  Balancing work and family is always a challenge.  If you’re not careful the scales start tipping too much in one direction or the other. 

For me, I noticed I was spending too much time working and my family life was starting to suffer.   My kids missed play-time with daddy while I was too busy on the computer.

It’s an easy trap to fall into.  What internet marketer hasn’t pushed his family away so he can work on his “big project”.  And its all too easy to justify that attitude with the notion that “I’m doing it all for them.”

If you find yourself saying that you need to take a closer look at yourself.  Because while you’re working away to make more money to buy your family “things” …they’re missing you. 

Last night I planned to get some work done after dinner, but I ended up saying “screw work” and cuddling on the couch with my girls watching Enchanted.   And they were happy as hell just sitting next to me and talking about what was happening in the movie. 

It reminded me of a valuable lesson…Its not how many things you can afford to give them.  Its how much of YOU you give them.

In my last post I told you about my new report…a step by step guide to generating traffic using Yahoo Answers. Today I’m going to tell you how to get it for a fraction of the price everyone else has to pay for it.

If you go to my sales page at AnswersDomination.com you’ll see it for sale for $17.

But don’t buy it there!

Instead go to my WSO (Warrior Special Offer) at the warrior forum and grab it for just $7.77!!

But do it quickly because the WSO price won’t last for long.

Click here now to get Answers Domination at a special price.

Well earlier today I finally launched it!

Answers Domination will take you by the hand and teach you everything you need to know to tap into the huge traffic potential of Yahoo Answers!

Here’s just a small sampling of what you’ll learn…

• How to link to your site without getting flagged for spam
• How much traffic you can expect to generate with Yahoo Answers
• An easy way to find the most relevant questions to answer
• How to get notified as soon as a targeted question is asked
• Advanced methods for monetizing your Yahoo Answers traffic
• How to earn the coveted Best Answer
• What to do to get a suspended account reinstated

Even if you’ve tried to use YA in the past and failed miserably, I promise this guide will help you turn things around so you can absolutely dominate your niche using Yahoo Answers.

Download it today at http://AnswersDomination.com

Since my wife and I are expecting again we’ve decided we need a bigger house to hold our little family.  I’ve been doing a lot of painting and other projects to get the house ready for sale and its taken up a lot of my free time!

Since I don’t make a ton of money from this blog it was the first casualty when time was tight.  Instead of posting here I’ve been working on my more profitable niche sites and I’m also getting ready to release a new report that will teach you how to drive traffic to your blog using Yahoo Answers.

I’m dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and the report will be available soon.  As a bonus to my readers, I’m offering a discount to all of my email subscribers (this is not the same as RSS subscribers). 

To get the discount just subscribe to my newsletter which is powered by Aweber.  When I launch I’ll shoot my subscribers a special link where they can download their copy at a discounted price. 

To subscribe just enter your name and email address in the form at the top of the navbar on your right.

I’m a big fan of article marketing for a couple of reasons:

•  Its free.  If you’re just starting out and you’re on a tight budget there’s no better way to drive targeted traffic to your site. 
• You can use your article to pre-sell the reader on whatever product or service you’re offering.  By the time they click through to your main site they’ve already been warmed up.
• If you do it right some of your articles will send you traffic for YEARS.

Awhile back I shared some of my own results from an article marketing campaign I was running for one of my small niche sites.  I mentioned that one of my articles had been viewed 7169 times and had generated 4115 click-throughs to my main site.

Well I just checked my stats and in the 18 months it has been live it has now been read 14729 times and generated 7753 click-throughs to my site.  And that is all completely free, 100% natural search engine traffic. 

Want an even more impressive example?  While checking out some competitor articles in that niche I found an EZA article that has been viewed an astounding 1.7 MILLION times! 

I did a little reverse engineering via Yahoo’s site explorer and found the article listed in lots of blogrolls, web site footers, and other purchased link spots.  Its obvious he’s buying up links and pointing them at the article to give it a boost in the search engines. 

And oh boy is it working!  I’m finding that article at or near the top spot for one keyword phrase after another. 

That is one marketer who obviously knows what he is doing.