An opt-in mailing list is usually THE essential component when it comes to recording and converting prospects who have expressed an interest in your products. Without an opt-in list any internet business will struggle to fully convert all the prospects that may buy its products.

Therefore the first part in creating a successful internet business is to create your opt-in list we will not be dealing with that subject in this article.
This subject is dealt with in my article “How To Build Your Business with An Opt-In List That Works”. If you would like me to send you this article then please email me.

This article deals with how you can use your opt-in list to make money and up sell higher ticket items to your prospects and customers.

An opt-in list is crucial to 99% of internet businesses, even for small or new sites the opt-in list can make a highly significant difference to the sites income. Use the opt-in properly and it will pay you handsomely.

The opt-in list allows you to establish and maintain communication with your prospects or customers. One point to make here is that a prospect is someone who has enquired about your products without actually purchasing them. Once the prospect has purchased a product from you then they become a customer.

You can use your opt-in list to send information about your products, special offers, newsletters, whatever you think your prospects or customers want and need. Remember your objective here is to get emotional buy in for your products or services. By providing them information, for example via newsletters, you are building up your companies trust and the more your prospect trusts you the more likely they are to purchase from you.

The whole point of an opt-in list is that your prospect has given you permission to send them information on your company and products. This effectively means you have been invited by the prospect to tell them about your products as they have already expressed an interest in what you have to offer. Therefore you cannot be accused of spam mail.

Newsletters are a great way to keep contact with your list and provide useful and informative information to your prospects. They also encourage your list to visit your site regularly and check for new content. As we all know content is king, if your prospects like your content then you are already more then half way to converting them to customers. Newsletters are also a great way to build your list.

The most effective and easiest way to contact your list via email is through the use of an autoresponder. There are many on the market today, most internet businesses use Aweber as do I and I recommend it.

You can set up your autoresponder to send messages to your prospects that have enquired about your products, its very simple to do. Your objective here is to appeal to your prospects emotions as we all know that when making a decision to purchase it is usually driven by emotion first and then justified by logic later.

I would recommend if you are new to internet businesses and to email follow-up messages then you get an experienced sales copy professional to help you compose these messages. It is well known that a prospect needs to be contacted at least 7 times before they will buy, so follow-up is key and the easiest way is through using your autoresponder.

Typically, most internet businesses try and get their prospects to buy something that is relatively cheap, lets say under $40. For most prospects this should not be a problem. Once the prospect has bought from you they become your customer and are now very valuable to you.

They have proved they are willing to get their credit card out and purchase from you. This differentiates them from prospects in a real way. You can now try and up sell your customers higher ticket items. This is where most internet companies make most of their money so you can see how important it is to know who your customers are and what they are interested in purchasing.

Once your list has grown you can make extra money not only by selling your own products and services but by using the following methods, obviously the larger your list the more money you can make:

a) Create and maintain affiliations with other companies that are involved in the same industry or sector as yourself. These other companies provide links on their products and services that you can add onto your site or newsletter. Every click made on the affiliates link will mean money for you.

b) Again by establishing affiliate deals you can ask for a percentage of sales made by your list purchasing products from your affiliates. Once a member on your list clicks through to the affiliates website and purchases goods, this is recorded and you get a percentage of the value of the purchase.

c) Sell advertising space. Many companies will be prepared to pay for banners and other similar adverts on your newsletters or even your website. The amount you can charge will vary on the size of the advert and how many unique users visit your website or how big your opt-in list is. I would strongly advise against selling or renting out your list, it will damage your reputation with your customers and lead to a long term loss in sales and will result in a shorter list.

d) You can sell information products in the form of e-books or even articles that you have written. There is great demand for information products on the internet, many people are willing to pay to gain knowledge. With the trust you created with your list, they will be much more likely to buy from you than someone they have not dealt with.

e) Use your list to its full potential, get your list to recommend you to their friends, family and business associates. You could use recommend-a-friend and offer some sort of free gift for doing so. An increase in your opt-in list will pay handsome dividends now and in the future.

Remember your list is the life blood of your business, look after it, take care of it, nurture it, make it grow and it will reward you handsomely.

After 5 years involved in various interent businesses, having gained some valuable experience, sometimes bitter, sometimes with fantastic results, I hope to share my experiences.

Yunis Khan

http://www.earnmoneydailyonline.com

enquiries@earnmoneydailyonline.com

Youve got your internet business and you have created an opt-in list. Now what?

Well, you have to encourage your list to buy from you. This is a lot harder than you may first imagine. There are series of books written on this subject and it really is an art. Many people have studied for years to perfect this, however Im going to go through some very important rules to follow when you start selling to your list. Email is the preferred method to contact your list as its free and very effective.

Always remember the vast majority of people base their decision to buy on EMOTION. They then justify their purchase through LOGIC.

When selling to your list you must address both these factors in order to maximise the sales from your list. Over the last five years I have been involved in various internet businesses and I have found the following rules to be most effective.

Get your customers begging for more information:

You have to grab the attention of your list, you must create enough interest so that your list is begging for more information on your products.

Carry out some market research for yourself, register with various companies and see how they sell, see how they make their products “sizzle”, this is sometimes referred to as “selling the sizzle” and can be very effective.

There are many ways to present your products and many promotional styles and methods. You have to grab your customers attention and get them to visit your site for more information and therefore buy your product. Content and creativity are the keys here, you are trying to lock in your customer to your marketing and therefore your products.

a) Keep your message simple, light and creative. Your customer does not want a long winded email with loads of facts and figure about your products and their performance. Keep it light hearted, your objective is to get your customer to read the email. We all live in a serious world, add a bit of humour or fun and it can pay off.

b) Add photos and splash some colour into your emails. Send out newsletters previewing your products, make them interesting, light hearted and eye catching. Grab your customers interest.

c) You must have good content and articles about your products. This will build trust between you and your customers. If necessary get a professional copy writer to do this for you in a style that is informative and light hearted, not stuffy. Outline the benefits of your products to your customers, do not talk about features, only benefits. Try not to be too keen here, people dont like products being forced upon them, hold back a little, this often works.

d) A picture is worth a thousand words. If you do have clear and concise pictures of your products then use them! This coupled with clear concise benefits can work wonders.

Grab Your Readers Attention With Your Subject:

This is sometimes overlooked by new internet business owners. They dont realise that just sending an email is not enough. In this day and age there are literally thousands of companies who market their products through opt-in lists via email. You have to realise that you are just one of the many companies vying for your customers attention.

Therefore it is imperative that you actually get your customer to open your email. To some this may sound rather a basic point. But do you realise that on average every 100 emails sent to an opt-in list, the average number of emails that are actually read is approx 30-40.

THE major factor in your customer opening your email is the subject heading in your email, that is why it is so important to get this right.

a) Try and keep the subject short and concise, it should ideally provide a summary of the content of your email. You need to grab the attention of your customer so that they are intrigued to open your email and read further. Tickle your customers curiosity, use emotion and selling words. Remember you only have a few seconds to grab your customers attention before they skip or delete your email.

b) A popular method is to indicate that your email will give your customer some sort of training or tips on certain subjects. You can do this by using such phrases such as “Guide To …” or “How To …” or “Tips for …”. These are known to work well but your email content must reflect your subject heading.

c) Asking a question in the subject heading can also work well. Again you have to get emotional buy in, even from the subject heading. So questions like “Are you looking for financial freedom?” or “Have you had enough of working for someone?”. These types of subject heading get your customers thinking straight away and are known to work well. Again always ensure your email content gives an answer to the question stated in the subject of your email.

d) New product announcements. This is perfect when previewing new products you are about to launch or make available to your customers. Headings like “Announcing great new …” or “2 weeks before launch of …”. Again can be very effective given the product you are selling.

e) Issuing a command or directive. Statements such as “Act now …” or “Limited opportunity apply now …” or “Triple your income, find out how …”. Again you are emphasising the benefits of your products to your customers.

Things To Avoid When Emailing Your List:

Online and email marketing is very common and your customers will be bombarded with many internet companies vying for their money. It is important for you to avoid getting into problems with the law or your ISP or with spamming. However, if you have created your own opt-in list then you should be o.k. and not have to worry from these problems. However there are still some things to avoid.

Remember it can takes years to gain a good reputation and only a few minutes to destroy it.

a) Analyse your email broadcasts, take note of those that bounce, i.e. that are undeliverable. Also get some information on how many were opened. Erase all bounced email addresses. Some autoresponders such as Aweber do this for you. Manually check the email address for common mistakes, it may be that it is a simple spelling mistake which you can correct.

b) Always but always provide an unsubscribe option at the bottom of your emails. Aweber automatically does this as do most autoresponders. It may be that someone used another persons email address so you need to give them an easy option to stop receiving your emails.

c) Do not send shocking or disturbing pictures or video, absolutely no pornographic content should be sent. You cannot be certain of the age of the person who has opted in to your list, therefore always keep your content respectable and above board. Always stick to the content of your site or your products.

Follow the above golden rules and you should be successful at marketing your products to your list and getting a favourable response. Remember, cultivating the relationship between yourself and your customers is key in establishing trust and thereby getting your customers to purchase from you.

After 5 years involved in various interent businesses, having gained some valuable experience, sometimes bitter, sometimes with fantastic results, I hope to share my experiences.

Yunis Khan

http://www.earnmoneydailyonline.com

enquiries@earnmoneydailyonline.com

Whether you are new to Internet Business or you are an experienced operator, you will no doubt have read the phrase “The Money Is In The List”.

From my experience in various internet businesses, this is absolutely the case. If you dont have a correct targeted list to promote your products and services to then your business will never get off the ground. You will be forever wasting your money on fruitless advertising that will not work.

The question then arises: How do I create a list of targeted people who will BUY my products or services? Note, we are in business here, the aim is to get people on your list that are proven buyers of products or services that are similar to the ones you are providing.

Many new comers to internet businesses try and email as many people as they can, a sort of scatter gun approach, hoping that some of the recipients of their emails will buy their products. In my experience this just does not work.

Even though you may be using opt-in lists bought from the numerous lead companies out there today, it very seldom works.

The best list is one that YOU create yourself, using your own products or services. In this way you know you have a quality list of people who have directly enquired about your products.

One method many internet businesses use to get a list of people interested in their products is to give free products or ebooks away to entice people to sign up at their website.

This can be very effective in getting a lot of people to sign up at your website . However, you need to ask yourself, is this list really comprised of people who will BUY my products? In my experience, giving things away for free results in a large list of people who want something for free.

Makes sense doesnt it. Ive used this method before and in my experience it is far inferior to the method Im going to concentrate on below:

What you really need in your opt-in list to grow your business is a list of people that have bought something from you, it really doesnt matter for what amount, it could be $2. The main difference here is that they have gone to the trouble to take out their credit card and actually BUY something from you.

This action of purchasing a product from you makes them worth their weight in gold.

You see it is far better to have a list of 500 people who have bought from you, then have a list of 5,000 or even 50,000 who have never bought from you.

Your objective here is to get your prospect to buy a product, it doesnt matter what, the cheaper the better in my experience. Then you can up sell higher ticket items because you have established trust with your prospect and now they are your customer.

This action of up selling is where you make your money dont forget it is going to cost you money to build that list, it wont come easy and it may take a while, but it is definitely worth it!

So lets have a look a how you can build that all elusive opt-in list of buyers:

Collection of data:

The most obvious place to start is usually with a lead capture or splash page. This is where you encourage your prospect or visitor to your site to buy the, preferably, cheap product you have for sale, lets say just $2. You should be able to send your product electronically as charging $2 you dont want to be mailing it.

There are many examples of lead capture or splash page you can see on the internet, they all have sales copy and inducements. My advice would be to pick the features of the best ones and preferably get a sales copy professional to do the wording for you.

Similarly there are many products available for you to choose. If you want a completely original product then my advice would be to write your own ebook! This is not as hard as it sounds, there are a huge number of resources on the internet that can help you.

Now, what information are you going to collect? The longer the form the less likely your prospect will fill it in and press the submit button. Recent surveys suggest asking for only the first name and the principal email address. The reason for asking for the prospects principal email address is that many people use services like hotmail, aol, yahoo for secondary emails and quite often they only look at these emails periodically.

You MUST get your prospect to read your emails thats why you should ask for their primary email address.

Next question, now you have captured the name and email address, where are you going to save it and how are you going to use the information?

Autoresponders are perfect for this and Aweber is the autoresponder most internet marketers use.

The autoresponder will automatically save the information from your capture form on your website and then automatically send out pre-defined emails on a timescale defined by you. This saves you an absolute fortune in time. It will follow-up your prospects and as we all know the money and conversion from your list comes from following up properly with your list.

I dont intend to talk about follow up emails as that is a subject for a whole book, but if you are serious in converting your list into sales then it is an absolute must you get this right.

Other sources than a website:

Classified Ads in newspapers
Brochures
Leaflets or postcards
Radio or TV

These are known as offline advertising sources. Dont discount these, they can be very useful sources of driving traffic to your website.

The key is getting targeted traffic to your site that wants and needs your products. Its really that simple, however its not easy to do. Again, getting targeted visitors to your site is a whole different ball game.

What I would say is that it takes time effort to succeed at any business and internet businesses are no different. You will need persistence and commitment to succeed and a never say die attitude.

After 5 years involved in various interent businesses, having gained some valuable experience, sometimes bitter, sometimes with fantastic results, I hope to share my experiences.

Yunis Khan

http://www.earnmoneydailyonline.com

enquiries@earnmoneydailyonline.com

With the rise of the Internet and the huge growth in online businesses, there is now a myriad of Business Opportunities available to people who would never have thought to start a business on the net.

There seem to be literally hundreds of new business opportunities coming onto the market every week all of them promise to make the people who take them up vast sums of money with little or no work on the part of the buyer.

We all know that there is no guarantee of success when starting a new business, the statistics on traditional business starts shows that 9 out of every 10 new businesses fail within the first year. My guess is that new internet businesses have an even greater failure rate as the financial entry level is much lower and the take up rate is much higher.

There is no doubt that if you achieve success with an internet business then the level of that success can be dramatic and in some cases fantastic. It is this possible future success that encourages so many people to try their hand at new internet business opportunities.

So the question comes, which internet business should I choose and why? What criteria should we use to identify the best of the new internet business opportunities?

Thats a hard question to answer, but there are many pointers to consider when choosing which internet business to select. I will outline the main qualities that make up the most successful internet businesses and which ones that the novice should consider:

Website:

This may seem an obvious point, but in almost all internet businesses you will need a website:

Are you provided with a website or are you required to create one?
Are you provided with the tools to create a website?
Can you change the website that is supplied?
How much will I be charged for website hosting?

Getting a website is only a very small part in making a successful internet business, you must be able to get targeted traffic to your site.

It is no good having the best website in the world if no one knows about it.

Internet Marketing, getting traffic:

This is a huge subject in its own right and there are many experts and companies that have invested millions of dollars into this field.

However for our purpose it is necessary to know:

Am I provided with any Internet Marketing training?
Does the company teach me the basics of getting traffic to my site?
Is my site already configured for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Does the company make it clear that I may have to pay to get targeted visitors to my site?
Does the company help with getting traffic to the site?
How will I get prospects for my products?

As well as getting targeted traffic to the site, you will also need to know how to sell your products to prospective customers and to convert visitors to your site into paying customers.

Internet Marketing, converting traffic into sales:

The best websites automatically convert targeted visitors into customers, they do this in a number of ways:

How good is the sales copy on your new website?
If you surfed the site, would you buy its products?
What are the products, how much do they cost and what is the profit margin?
What methods of conversion are used (static, audio, video etc)?
Does the site automatically follow up on enquiries?
Do they use autoresponders to automate this process?

Products:

One of the most important aspects of any internet business is what products you are selling and how exclusive they are:

How exclusive are your products and are they sold at competitive prices?
How are they shipped to the customer?
How does the customer pay for the goods (credit card, wire transfer etc)?
What is the after sales process?
What is the process for customer complaints?

Is the business Replicable?

This really is one of the key questions, just because the owner or creator of the internet business is very successful it doesnt necessarily follow that you will be too.

One of the key questions is can this business be replicated by me?

This really gets to the point, because all of the questions above will lead to knowing the answer to this last question:

If I buy this business, then can I make a success of it?

I have been involved in many internet businesses throughout the last 5 years and through sometimes bitter experience and sometimes fantastic success, I have learned how to set up and be successful at new internet businesses I set up and operate.

Hopefully, this article will point you towards asking the questions that will enable you to make a decision on what your thought process should be when considering a new internet business opportunity.

I have been involved in Internet Businesses for the past 5 years and I would like to share my experiences and methods with others who wish to increase their business on the internet.

Yunis Khan

http://www.earnmoneydailyonline.com

enquiries@earnmoneydailyonline.com