Revealed: How the Gurus Really Make Money

I wish I had a dollar for the number of times that someone said: "the fortune is in the list" because I'd already have a fortune! You might get tired of hearing it but the truth is that the fortune really is in the list. If you know how to grow a successful opt-in list then you can pretty much write your own cheque; and it's as simple as getting people to do just four things.



1. Request to join



The first step to building a profitable list is to encourage people to give you their name and email address of their own free will. The best way to do this is to offer them something valuable in return, such as a free report or a mini-course that will solve a problem for them.



Build a squeeze page with the following three elements on it:



A. An attention grabbing title: Which report would you prefer to read: "How to Stop Smoking" or "6 Tips to Help You Kick Smoking Without Packing on the Pounds"?



B. A list of benefits: You need to explain to your reader the reasons why they should download your report. Make a list of three to six desirable answers to their question: "What's in it for me?"



C. An opt-in submission form: Your mailing list management company should provide this for you as well as instructions on how to install it into your squeeze page.



You should also include the attention grabbing title and the opt in box in your sidebar to increase the number of sign ups.



2. Receive your emails



Once the prospect has requested to be added to your list you need to take all the steps you can to make sure that they actually receive your emails. Using a professional service like Aweber or Get Response to manage your list should increase the chances of your email being delivered.



You can also ask the prospect to "approve" your emails by adding your email address to the white list of their email programme.



3. Read your email



Getting your message into the prospect's inbox is only half the battle, you also need to encourage them to read it. Just think about how many emails you receive each day; why did you actually open the messages?



The first thing you need to think about is the subject line. How do you make your email stand out from all the other messages in the inbox? Your aim is to make the reader curious so that they have to open your email and see what you have to say. A good tip is to keep a swipe file of all of the subject lines that actually encouraged you to open an email message.



Let's say you received an email with the subject line: "This affiliate tip is almost too easy...". Every time you are drawn to open an email you should add the subject line to your swipe file. You then simply amend the subject to suit your audience. How about: "This weight loss tip is almost too easy..." or "This marriage saving tip is almost too easy..."



4. Respond by taking action



Once you have convinced your subscribers to open and read your email you then want them to take action. You might want them to click on a link, visit your sales page or visit an affiliate sales page. The overall outcome is the same, you want them to buy the product you are promoting.



A great way to do this is ensure that your messages are "useful but incomplete". Essentially you provide enough information in the email to make it useful to the reader, but there is something else that they could do to enhance or maximise the content.



Let's say you sent out an email called "This weight loss tip is almost too easy..." and the tip is that they could lose weight just by wearing a certain kind of flip flops. The information is useful, but to make it complete they need to buy the flip flops in order to put the tip into action. And there is your cue to promote the flips flops via your affiliate link.



See how it works?



If you want to make more money that your wallet can hold just by building an opt-in list you need to get people to do four simple things; request, receive, read and respond. Can't really get more simple than that can it?





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