Tips

5 Simple Techniques To Build A List From Blogging

Any online marketer worth his/her salt would have heard the line, “The money is in the list.” It has been repeated ad nauseam and still thousands of beginner marketers are clueless as to how to build a list.

To make matters more burdensome, most autoresponder software companies charge a monthly fee for their services. So, this is a recurring cost that must be recouped quickly to keep the beginner marketer in the green.

When you’re first starting out on your blog, you’ll not need to build a list. You should first track the amount of traffic on your website. The moment you’re getting 50 to 100 unique visitors to your blog daily, it’ll be time to sign up for an autoresponder. This will buy you some time if your budget is tight.

Using A Freemium As An Incentive

A freemium is a gift that you’ll give away for free in exchange for an email address. The freemium could be a short report, or a 3-part video training or a checklist, etc. What you give away has to be of value and congruent to the niche you’re in.

If there’s a disconnect between your freemium and what the reader wants, very few visitors will join your list to get the free gift. Spend time crafting a good lead magnet that attracts subscribers.

You can either outsource the job or create one yourself from scratch. Alternatively, you may use private label rights (PLR) content and rebrand it. This will allow you to create a product with your branding quickly while maintaining quality.

Connecting Your Autoresponder

Once your lead magnet is ready, you’ll need to create a landing page for it. You can do a quick Google search for ‘best landing page examples’ to get an idea to model. You may wish to get a cover image done for your freemium on Fiverr.com.

After your landing page is complete and looks great, you’ll want to sign up with an autoresponder like Active Campaign or Aweber, and embed the sign up form on your landing page. Most of these software have video tutorials to guide you. So, don’t get put off by the ‘tech stuff’.

Once the form is embedded, you’re well on your way to collecting leads and building a list.

By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.

All Roads Lead To Rome

In this case, Rome will be your landing page and this is something that you own.

Whether you’re using a YouTube channel or Facebook group or Pinterest board to drive traffic to your blog – you should always be aware that you do NOT own these sites. You’re building your house on rented land, and that’s always risky.

To mitigate the risk, you’ll want links from these social media entities pointing to the landing page on your blog. In this way, you’ll be able to siphon traffic from these high traffic sites and build a list of subscribers who wanted your freemium. Now you have some degree of control and your own asset.

Opt-in Tools

One of the best tools you can use to build a list on your blog is Thrive Leads. The software has options for you to create a non-intrusive scroll mat that allows readers to sign up. Besides the scroll mat, there are also sticky bars and pop up options for you.

You may create a visual image to perk interest and spark a click through action which will trigger a 2-step opt-in. This increases the potential subscriber’s micro-commitment and is more likely to get the lead.

Thrive Leads is designed to help you get as many subscribers as possible from your blog. It’s a worthwhile investment that will reap dividends many times over.

Locking Your Content

This is one of those techniques that’s annoying to some people, but highly effective nonetheless. You’ll need to use a content locking plugin to execute this method. If you have Thrive Leads, you can use it too, with a few tweaks.

Basically, you’ll have an interesting and highly valuable blog post where you share some insider information. Somewhere around the center of the post (preferably the most interesting part), you’ll insert the content blocker.

This will hide the rest of the blog post and insert an opt in form at the chosen spot. The only way the reader can access the rest of the post will be for them to sign up to be on your list. Once they’ve signed up, the full blog post will appear and they can carry on reading.

Some readers may get put off and close the page, while others will sign up. Whatever the case, you’ll know that those who signed up are truly interested in what you have to say and you’ll be building a list of highly targeted subscribers.

By now you’ll realize that building a list on your blog is a piece of cake if you have traffic coming in. All you need to do is insert forms for them to sign up to your list (in a variety of ways). With the versatility of Thrive Leads, a good landing page and a value-driven freemium, and a solid autoresponder, you’ll be able to build a list of targeted and interested subscribers in just a matter of time.

Drops make an ocean. So, get started today and in a few months from now, you’ll have an email list that trusts you and buys the products you recommend. This is where you’ll find the money in the list i.e. the saying should more accurately be “The money is in the customer list.”

Using Challenges To Develop Self-Discipline

Ah, the prickly subject of self-discipline! We all want more of it so we can achieve our goals and dreams but it can sometimes feel so elusive.

Well, let’s look at a couple of ways that you can use to develop more self-discipline and hopefully this will enable you to become more successful than ever. Sound good? OK, let’s get started…

One way you can develop more self-discipline is to use challenges. This makes it more like a game and less like a chore.

Also, there can be the element of competition with others and having others help hold you accountable which improves your odds of success.

Challenges are very popular and you can find them in many places. Or you can make up your own and share it with a group of people. You also can make your own challenge or use one from someone else to just challenge yourself. However, you end up doing it is up to you.

When looking to see if a challenge will be useful to you, there are some factors to look for, so you can best benefit.

Is the challenge realistic? You want to stretch yourself, but not to the point where you have no chance of success.

For example, you could challenge yourself to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, but that is not very realistic. You also want the challenge to not be too easy.

You need to see if you have the time to devote to it. Be sure to include time for learning new things.

For example if you challenge yourself to build a new blogging website in 30 days, remember that if you have never done one before, you will have to learn some things and that will be extra time above just writing the blog posts,

If the challenge is a large one over a longer period of time, are there clear-cut milestones along the way to help you have a sense of accomplishment? If your challenge, for example, is losing 60 pounds in a year, you need to set up smaller weight goals along the way so you can keep up the momentum.

Milestones also help you see if you need to tweak the challenge, either lower or higher. If you lose 10 pounds in about 2 months, you are right on schedule, If you have only lost 5 pounds in that same time period, though, you may need to lower the amount you plan on losing in a year. Now if you lose 15 pounds in 2 months, you may want to raise the amount you plan on losing in a year or cut the time down to say 10 months.

When you do a group challenge, you have some added benefits. There is a sense of camaraderie when working together on a goal that you do not get just competing with yourself.

Other people can give you ideas, too. For example if you are in a group losing weight, people can share healthy recipes and support. Just remember that the primary person you are in competition with is not the others, but yourself and you can really enjoy doing a group challenge.

As you can see, challenges are a great way to build more self-discipline and one of the reasons they work so well, especially with group challenges, is due to accountability so let’s take a look at that next.

How Accountability Can Help You With Self Discipline

Many people think self-discipline means doing it all on your own, but it does not mean that at all. In fact, having a coach, or a group, or an accountability partner can really help you to develop more discipline.

An example would be when someone puts off housework until they know someone is coming over, and they race around to get the house all tidy before their visitor arrives.

It is far easier to give in and be less disciplined when you just have yourself in the picture. When you have a person or people hold you accountable though, you are far more likely to make sure it happens.

An accountability partner is someone you set up a contract with to hold each other accountable for reaching goals. This is a mutual pact and is probably the easiest to set up.

The goals do not have to be the same ones, the point is to connect on a regular basis, often once a week, and share with each other how much you have accomplished. The best way to do this is to break up the task into daily chunks and do each one each day so that you are not trying to finish up the project the night before you meet with your accountability partner.

It is often easier to schedule a meeting with one other person than a group of people. You also usually do not have to pay for this method, and most masterminds and coaches are paid programs.

You also have more flexibility in how you meet with an accountability partner. You can just call them on the phone, or use an instant messaging program, You could meet for lunch once a week at a restaurant, or at your house.

You may prefer joining a group like a mastermind instead of just a one on one accountability partner.

The advantage to having a group is additional pressure on you not to let the whole group down, and the fact when you run across an obstacle, the group can help brainstorm ideas to help you out. Two heads may be better than one, but sometimes multiple heads are much better than just two.

You may find that you want some one on one coaching, or small group coaching instead, to keep you accountable. Maybe you are trying something new and need teaching as well as the connection.

One on one coaching tends to be the most expensive option since you are taking up a lot of the time of your coach.

Group coaching is becoming far more available because it allows the coach to help more people at the same time, plus gives the advantage of having other people that can help you out with specific issues, like a mastermind. They also usually cost a lot less than one on one coaching so may be more in your budget.

Whatever method or methods you use, remember you still have to be disciplined for them to work.

Use Mindful Meditation To Boost Confidence And Self Esteem

Having confidence means that you view yourself favorably. You know that you can do what you need to do, that you have the skills and talents to be able to handle yourself.

You trust that your instincts, thinking and abilities are sufficient. When you don’t have confidence it means that you struggle to accept who you are. You’ll lack confidence to do things because you simply don’t trust that you can.

You go through life feeling as if you’re not educated enough, skilled enough, smart enough, talented enough, pretty enough, or handsome enough. You judge yourself, often thinking of what you could have, should have said or done, and you always fall short.

What mindfulness does to help you change this and build your confidence is replace the feelings that you’re not enough with the trust that you are. Using mindfulness calls for you to not dwell on your past or on any negative experiences where you feel that you failed or fell short.

It helps you to not focus on the future or on what you hope to be and it helps train you to focus on who you are right now and see that who you are is good enough. You learn to accept yourself – and with that, a strong confidence in yourself is built.

Practicing mindfulness can also boost your self-esteem. Mindfulness can lead you to a life settled in the present. With living in the present comes a non-judgmental acceptance of who you are.

So many people have an internal voice that’s extremely ugly. This internal voice has been conditioned to speak this way by us. The disturbing results are that when we allow this internal voice to have a negative say, we can trigger stress, anxiety and even depression.

This self talk has a direct impact on how you feel about yourself. Learn to be aware of this negative self talk. If you call yourself names, that’s a sign that you’ve been engaging in negative self talk that can lower your self esteem.

Some people call themselves stupid or idiot. When they consider doing something, this internal self talk always tells them why they can’t. You’ll tell yourself things like “I’m not smart enough” or “I’m too dumb to do it.”

When you allow these thoughts to run rampant, you can get into the mindset that you can’t do something – that you’re unworthy – and then your feelings follow that internal self talk until it becomes a belief.

This habit can be so ingrained within you that the negative self talk plays constantly in your mind, so much so that it becomes like white noise. What mindfulness does is bring your attention to the inner dialogue that’s eroding your self esteem.

You learn what this internal conversation is doing to you and how it’s impacting your emotions. Mindfulness helps you learn to accept who you are without expectations or blaming. You’ll gain skills that you can use to learn how to raise your confidence and acceptance of yourself.

Copywriting For Beginners: How To Write Good Sales Copy

Learning to write good sales copy isn’t something you can learn by reading a quick tutorial – it takes practice. Although you probably won’t turn into a world-famous copywriter overnight, there are a few tips you can use to increase the response from your sales letters.

The first thing you should learn is that the headline is incredibly important. If your headline is terrible – or worse – boring, most people won’t even read the rest of your sales letter. A headline needs to be exciting, enticing, and intriguing.

It needs to grab the attention of your visitor quickly. Your headline might have shock value, ask a compelling question, or be the beginning of an extremely interesting story. “Six months ago, I was living on the streets of L.A., homeless after my Adjustable Rate Mortgage soared so high I couldn’t make the mortgage payments, but now I’m living in a sky-rise apartment twenty stories up that I paid seven figures for…”

This makes the reader want to know more – how did this person go from being destitute to being wealthy? Good sales copy usually tells a story that the audience can connect with. Copy ideally shouldn’t tell a fictional story, though.

You certainly don’t want to run into any trouble with the FTC or an attorney general with something to prove. Good copy gives people a reason to keep reading. If you tell an interesting, compelling story that’s somehow related to the product and how it will affect them, it will naturally appeal to your visitor.

Every single paragraph should lead into the next paragraph, drawing the reader further and further into the pitch.

Consumers usually buy based on emotion, and then they justify their purchase with logic. They rarely buy based on logic alone.

They don’t buy a product because of the features – they buy because of the benefits it will provide to them, the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) factor. If you’re selling a car, you can’t tell the buyer that it has Corinthian leather seats, ABS brakes, and a superior sound system.

You have to sell them on the fact that their neighbors and coworkers will be envious, girls will flock to them, and they’ll feel like the king of the world whenever they drive it. Then they’ll buy based on the fantasy you’ve just given them, and they’ll use logic to justify their purchase later.

Within each online sales letter, you’ll want to have a main headline, numerous sub-headlines sprinkled throughout, and aside form the written storyline, you’ll want to add sections of benefit-driven bullet points that break up the monotonous text.

So. the headline is incredibly important. But it isn’t the most important part of your sales copy!!

Any idea what that is?

The most important part of your sales letter is the ultimate claim you’re making throughout the sales letter.

This is the big idea – the main premise around which you’re going to build your sales letter.

I’m talking about the primary purpose and promise of your product. This is the desired outcome your prospects have been hoping for.

Without a big idea, your sales copy will be pretty much the same as anyone else’s which will make converting your prospects much harder.

But with a powerful big idea, you will be able to stand out and this gives your prospects hope that your product or service may be the one that actually delivers on its promises.

Combine the big idea with a unique mechanism and now you are really compelling. The unique mechanism is the way in which your product works to produce the desired effect.

This can make all the difference in marketplaces that are saturated and sophisticated i.e. they have been exposed to the same type of offer for years.

If you are in a niche that has a high level of marketplace sophistication, it is imperative that you are able to stand out and having a big idea and a unique mechanism helps you to do just that.

And you should be incorporating the big idea and/or unique mechanism into your main headline(s) to grab attention and arouse curiosity, so take some time to develop these to draw your readers in.

Don’t forget the call to action at the end and a Post Script (PS) or two that sums up the order in case they’re bona fide skimmers who hate to read.

In all honesty, most people will not read the entire sales letter, but skim to the things that grab attention such as headlines, bullet points and the PS which is why it is important to really work on these to either increase the pain points or clearly explain the benefits.

Go to some of your favorite sales pitch sites and emulate their style and approach. Bookmark it for your “swipe file,” where you borrow ideas (not content) from the original author and use it on your own target audience.

The best sales copy is a complex mix of marketing and sales messages. The marketing is about the prospect; their desires, pains etc. and the selling is about the product; features etc. so the best sales letters focus heavily on marketing.

The reason for this is that a good marketing message can create a lot of desire for the product before you even mention it and this makes selling much easier.

So, in future, think more about your prospect, what they feel and what they want and how your product can give that to them and you will find that your conversions and sales will be much higher.

And be reassured; writing good, persuasive copy is a skill that can definitely be developed by anybody. Like anything, it just takes time and effort to get good at it and hone your skills.

But if any skill is worth developing, especially online, it is being able to write persuasive sales copy, so I urge anyone reading this to seriously consider learning it as soon as they possibly can; it will pay dividends in the future, believe me.

How To Create A Facebook Business Page

Everyone knows that having a social media profile is pretty much a must have for any online business.

In fact, many business will have multiple profiles across multiple platforms. This is fine if you have the time to manage them all (this is why social media tools such as Content Studio are so popular to streamline posting to multiple platforms).

But, if you happen to be short on time (and who isn’t, right?) then the most important platform to focus on for the vast majority of marketers would still be Facebook.

It is pretty simple to set up a Facebook page, but you want to optimise it so it will perform as well as it possibly can.

So, with that being said, if you want an engaging Facebook business page, here are 15 things you need to know to get the best results:

1: Don’t Confuse Business Pages With Personal Profiles

If you create a personal profile for your brand instead of a Facebook Business Page, you’re going to miss out on content creation tools, analytics and paid promotional opportunities.

Worse yet, people will have to send you a friend request before they can actually engage with you.

Business pages are there for a reason; to engage potential customers and encourage them to take some kind of action, so don’t make the mistake of trying to use a personal profile for your business.

Of course, you can share content from your page on your personal timeline, and promote your page on there too so you can get more folks to your business page and you should be doing this, although do it sparingly.

2: Don’t Create A ‘Professional Profile’ Associated With Your Business

Let’s say you have a personal profile on Facebook and you want a second profile for professional reasons.

This goes against Facebook’s terms of service and could get you in trouble.

Yes, there are marketers who have multiple personal Facebook profiles, but if they get caught they could be booted off the platform so the risk isn’t worth it.

And why do it anyway? Facebook pages are free, so there really is no reason to try to use multiple personal profiles.

The only reason I can see people doing this is because Facebook does have a tendency to reduce the organic reach of posts from business pages because they want you to spend money on ads and boosting posts.

3: Choose A Friendly, Engaging Cover Photo

This cover photo takes up most of the room above the fold on your Page, so you’ll want a high-quality image that attracts and holds your visitors’ attention.

You might consider hiring a professional to create this image for you.

Keep words in the image brief and to the point.

Faces work well at holding attention, and bright colors are good, too.

You can also use video on your cover too so this may be a way to showcase your products and/or brand.

4: Use A Profile Picture That’s Easy To Recognize

It could be your logo or your headshot if you’re the face of your company.

Being recognizable is important to getting found and liked, so choose your picture carefully and then use it consistently.

Don’t get too caught up on whether to use your face or a brand logo; the key is to be consistent.

Personally, I think most would do well to at least start out with a brand and design a recognisable logo for it.

Personal branding works for some, but if you look at most traditional business, they are full of logos rather than personalities.

Whatever you choose to do in your business, keep doing it so people will be able to associate it with your business brand.

5: Fill Out Your ‘About’ Section

This isn’t visible anymore when visitors arrive on your page, yet it’s still one of the most clicked-on items when they want more information about your business.

Put in your general description, company information, your story or whatever fits for your business at a bare minimum, but the more you fill in the better.

Visitors will want to know about your business so give them the information they are looking for. If they can’t find it, they may decide to look elsewhere.

The internet is awash with potential competitors for your business so you need to make people trust you and being transparent and giving them as much information about your business as possible will help them to start building that trust.

6: Add A Call-To-Action Button

This is a great way to drive traffic to your website and build your list.

Your call-to-action button might be to have visitors watch a video, sign up to your list and so forth.

All your posts will ideally have some kind of call-to-action, whether that is to go and read a blog post or to visit a sales/squeeze page.

Getting people off Facebook onto a platform you own is a smart move as you have much more control on your own websites.

7: Post Often, But Not Too Often

If you don’t post for months at a time, then your business does not look professional. Heck, you don’t even appear to be in business anymore.

However, if you post non-stop, you’ll likely annoy people.

It’s a matter of finding that happy medium, and that can vary from one business to another.

You can post your own content, motivational quotes, funny memes etc. but you can also post other people’s content.

This is known as content curation and if you do this, you should always give the original author credit but it is a good way to be posting content on your page without you doing all the writing.

8: If You Have The Time To Respond, Then Let Fans Message You Privately

It’s an awesome idea to let your customers and fans send you private messages – this can result in better customer service, fewer complaints made publicly and even more sales.

However, if you don’t have time to respond to these private messages then it might be best not to enable private messaging.

The good thing about using something like Facebook Messenger is that prospects are highly responsive so it is definitely worth considering if you have the time.

You can also use platforms like Mobile Monkey or ManyChat to create an automated sequence that will automatically respond to your prospects when they message you. If you want to make the most of this kind of automation, consider picking up this excellent training course on chatbot marketing by JayKay Dowdall called Destiny.

9: Monitor Your Page And Respond To Comments Promptly

You can monitor and respond to comments using the ‘notifications’ tab at the top of the page.

If people are taking the time to comment on your posts, it means that they like what you are doing, so really make the effort to respond to any comments that are being posted.

This also has an effect on the Facebook algorithm and may even make your page posts more visible to people who like and follow your page so a win-win situation all round.

10: Pin Important Posts To The Top Of The Page

As you post, older posts get pushed down and buried. But there are times when you want a post to remain at the top, even after you’ve published new posts.

You can pin one post at a time and use these to promote events, offers and announcements.

Don’t underestimate the power of a good pinned post. Make it a strong one with a clear call-to-action as it will be the first post that your new visitors will see when they visit your page and you need to grab their attention and grab it fast!

11: Post Visual Content In Your Timeline

Photos and videos are up to 40 times more likely to get shared on social media, so take advantage of this fact and share lots of visual content.

Memes, GIF’s and motivational posts are always good content to post on your page, and if they are good, they may get shared and this will get more eyeballs to your page.

Video content can be particularly engaging for your viewers. Just try to keep them short and sweet; 2 minutes or under tend to work best on social media.

12: Consider Using Live Video

People typically spend more than three times more time watching a Facebook Live video than they do a recorded video.

You can even use tools to let your followers know that you intend to go live at a particular time.

Let them know in advance what the topic will be so they can come with their questions. This can be super engaging and Facebook puts a lot of emphasis on viewer engagement and will push your livestream out to more people.

13: Use Facebook’s Targeting Tools

You can target certain audiences with tailor-made updates.

Segment by age, gender, relationship, location and so forth, and then send highly targeted messages to those groups for a greater response.

These tools can be really powerful but may take a bit of getting used to.

However, it really is worth getting to know your audience so you can tailor your content to their needs.

14: Promote Your Page. A Lot

Create an ad to promote your page, choose your target audience and choose your budget. Make sure your ad is directly targeted to your ideal customer and test.

This is where knowing your audience comes into play, as you can get really targeted ads to a highly specific audience to maximise your ad spend.

You might also consider boosting a post once a week as this will again push your page into your followers newsfeeds so they don’t forget about you!

15: Measure Your Success

Dig into your page’s insights to track Facebook-specific engagement metrics.

Analyze and adjust as needed.

It might all sound complicated, but you’ll quickly get the hang of everything here.

So, there you have it. 15 ways to optimise and get the most out of your Facebook business page. If you only implement a few of these I’m sure it will make a difference but imagine what a difference it would make if you managed to implement them all!!

For more information on creating a Facebook business Page, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/business/products/pages