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Empowering People Through Service, Information & Opportunity

How to Overcome the Fear Of Creating Your First List & Banish Bullies From Your Life Forever

Here is an article that I submitted earier today to EZA about list building.  I usually don’t post these articles on THIS blog, ( and really don’t recommend you do either) simply because they are written for a pretty general, generic and often "newbie" type of reader. 

But, in this case, I decided to post it here as well, partly because I have nothing else interesting to say today, and sort of could use some content for this blog for the 12 people who stop by semi-regularly.

But also, because I think it applies.  And fits, to a large degree, mas or menos, with lots of the folks who are on MY list, and do read this regularly.

While lots of the people I’ve interacted with personally on here DO have a list, and ARE actively trying to build, nurture and grow their own, I dare say…..unfortunately, most of the people who stop by and even comment ( about 2% or less of my visitors…..but, by very definition, those more inclined to "take action" on the material) DON’T have a list.

Want to know the truth?  If you looked at my analytics account and saw the HUGE traffic surges this blog gets ( and I say huge in a very relative way….but still very significant from a traffic standpoint) it’s NOT when I add new content.  Not when I jot down another deep thought that emanates from the very core of my creative essense.  It’s not when I post cute baby pictures, either. 

It’s ONLY when I send an email out to the list and let ya’ll know that there is new stuff to read.  That’s it.  A straight bar graph UP on the totem pole of traffic.  And if you have ANY online presence at all and are not doing the same thing, you are making a mistake.

Want to know what I think keeps people from building their first list? 

It’s fear.  Plain and simple.  It’s that leap.  That sort of putting yourself out there, frailties and all, and being willing to be responsible to a crowd of people who are hungry to hear what you’ve got to say. 

And that can be a scary thing. 

Look – when I first started selling stuff online, I hestitated to start building my OWN list. 

Why? 

I still hadn’t fully gotten over getting beat up by Robbie Hawkins in second grade for stealing his baseball cards. 

He literally bitch slapped me in the playground for the better part of 15 minutes while my history teacher just watched and ate a tuna fish sandwich.  And it’s still painful to think about. 

But you know what?  I got over it.  And so too will you.  Check out the article below, and if it applies, put it aside and get started today.

(article below)

In this article we are going to talk about how to build a super big opt in list very fast. Now, in my opinion, list building is probably the central piece of the online marketing puzzle, and I dare say that most active online marketers would probably agree. Yet, it never ceases to amaze me how many people KNOW that list building is a crucial, and critically important component to building a viable online business, yet….don’t do it anyway.

Want to know what I think it is? Fear. People are honestly, genuinely and truly Afraid to build a list.

Why?

Who knows, I’m not a mental health professional, and didn’t stay a Holiday Inn Express last night either.

But if I had to guess, I would probably say it has something to do with their inner child being wounded.

Or, they are simply afraid of the perceived responsibility that having a list entails. What am I going to say? What do I offer? How often do I email them? What if they unsubscribe? What if I’ve just got NOTHING creative, compelling or otherwise worthwhile to communicate?

Does that sound like you? If so….here are a few simple pointers for quickly overcoming list building phobia and building a MASSIVE opt in list, and in a hurry.

Don’t have anything worthwhile to say? Don’t sweat it. Neither do half of the guys making millions of dollars a year mailing their lists. It hasn’t stopped them, and it shouldn’t stop you.

You WILL Improve. Start with short messages, build your confidence, and equally as importantly, build the confidence of the people reading YOUR messages. Inspiring people is easy, and all that is required to be a magnificent marketer to boot.

Borrow the sequence from someone else. If you are selling an affiliate product, you can ETHICALLY "borrow" the vendors sequence, loosely re-calibrate it so that it’s yours….and that’s totally kosher to do. (remember, they want you to sell their stuff)

Put your form everywhere. Yes, on your blogs, on your squidoo pages, link to it on blog comments and forum posts,on your bike rack when you’re heading for a long weekend in the Hamptons. The more places that people see your form, the more exponentially, and explosively your list will grow.

Get best of breed giveaways. Simply search and scour for good stuff to give away. Search your niche on the major engines and append "free", "ebooks" "pdf’s", etc – search blog directories, Twitter, etc….and just have primo free stuff to offer. Nothing will do a better job of growing your list in rapid fire turn around time than free stuff, and there is plenty of it around for EVERY marketplace if you are willing to look!

(end article)

Remember, you can go out and get opt in templates that are PROVEN to convert, and all you really need to do is copy and paste your own content in, where the appropriate spots are.  ( lots of people, it seems….are afraid of creating the actual PAGE itself)

Also – as above, you can literally take an entire email sequence that you KNOW is already working, drop it into your own sequence, borrow an ebook or giveway ( or even simply buy one that gives you the rights to offer, which can even be better for opt in conversions) and just use article marketing to drive traffic to the page and get the fabulous list building fiesta fired up…and fast.

I truly can’t think of anything easier…..and if any of the above is holding you back, think it through again – this stuff is NOT tough, and if it was….I’d probably be doing something else.  

How to Get More Eyeballs in Front of the Same Content Without Being as Smart as a Ninja

I got an email from someone a few days ago who took me up on my advice about targeting very general, high volume keywords in his article titles – but, he told me he’s getting no views.

NINJA.jpgNow, I’m a big believer in targeting the "ocean" rather than the "pond" when it comes to off site article submissions.

Why? Very simply – there is pretty much NO phrase that EZA doesn’t have a decent shot at giving you front page and center rankings for straight out of the gate.

I’ve done this over and over in just about every niche out there, including the "make money online" niche and for phrases that THIS blog would have no chance at ranking for immediately, for example – simply by piggybacking off of the default page trust that a high ranking directory gets, you can get your personal message out in front of the masses in a hurry. ( mine is one of hope, peace and back to back Phillies world series rings

Your rankings may not "stick" for a super long time, but if you are list building, which you should be, you only need a few weeks at the top of the engines with a huge volume phrase to kick start your business in a major league way.

I’m going to give you two quick, sort of different, but equally effective strategies for doing this a bit – both are quite simple and – one takes a little more work than the other for self evident reasons – and one is more of an "online" phenomena specifically related to article marketing ( and maybe SEO if you have a high volume site and a bit of time to play) but they both work really well for very for getting more eyeballs in front of your offers, which is my middle name, baby.

Take very general phrases that you want to target – and then "flag" a specific subset of the broader marketplace in the second part of your title -

For example -

Credit Repair Secrets might be the phrase you want to "own" – yet – putting a qualifier in the article to specify a subset of the market who this is "best" for:

  • 2 Credit Repair Secrets You Must Not Miss ( Only for People with a 620 FICO or Below)
  • 2 Underground Fat Burning Tips You Will Love ( Must Be 10 Pounds Overweight or More)
  • How to Get Your Girlfriend Back Fast ( Best For Guys Desperate That She’s Gone Forever)

Etc – This isn’t rocket science of course, nor is it really super "ninja" psychology, because  let’s be honest, ninja’s were largely NOT a very smart group of people in general and would have sucked at article marketing anyway. 

Quick Sidebar: I know this isn’t politically correct to say, but I hate all of these "NINJA article marketing references &E books"….I mean,  "stop him – he kill teacher" ain’t the kind of poetic prose that’s gonna get your stuff on the 15 most viewed articles in your niche list any time soon.
And if you saw Enter the Dragon 12 times like I did, you would already know that peaceful negotiation is a far more powerful persuasive tool than that flying boomerang thingy, which doesn’t even work in real life.    Plus Kareem Abdul Jabar won a few fights in that movie, and he was a basketball player with no real martial arts training, and later admitted to being stoned the whole time he worked on that film – and if you’ve ever been in a fight while high, you already know it’s not easy, especially if you’re throwing kicks and stuff.  So those Ninja guys are highly over-rated in general in my view, and I sort of wanted to get that out.  End Sidebar.

Anyway, the point is, you’re just trying to get a few more people to raise their metaphorical hands while they’re reading your stuff, and the key to doing that is just target very HIGHLY desirable keywords, and create "islands of inclusion" within the titles themselves.

In general of course, you want to set the baseline level of the second part of the equation to be as "general" as low as possible, to be as INCLUSIVE of the largest part of the populace as possible.

For example – if you said – "only for people 50 pounds overweight or more" – you are going to lose a lot of interest, and most people will assume you are talking about some drastic procedure that they wouldn’t be interested in….or simply isn’t relevant to their specific needs.

Alternatively – most people, obviously, who are finding and reading an article on weight loss, probably find themselves 10 pounds too rich on the chunk-o-meter already, so the " this is for me" threshold is easily met.

Same thing for credit scores – for example – when I screwed my own credit for the 8th time years ago and was looking for ways to fix it – I saw and ad that said – "Credit repair techniques guaranteed to work for anyone with a FICO score of 550"…. or below. My thought was – "what kind of deadbeat has a credit score of 550, or lower?" I wanted no part of that part of the American landscape.

If they would have said, instead – "credit repair techniques for anyone who got rejected for a Value City credit in the last hour", I would have been all hands in – in a hurry.

That was probably a bad example, but I think you get my point.

The key takeaway – and I PROMISE this works, so try it ( it also works great on blogs and for "link bait" style stuff ) is use broad, highly desirable 3 word phrases on the front side, and then use power or persuasive WORDS to target a very specific, YET, research relevant subset that’s going to represent the broad majority of your demographic.

The other technique, and this does work pretty well for EZA articles is that’s your thing – is the "bully" technique, where you simply pick a really high volume, highly desirable keyword phrase and simply hit it hard with lots of submissions, where you keep the FIRST part of the article title the same, and simply change the second part of the article title to suit.

I do NOT do a ton of this, simply because I bore relatively easily and, well – life is short, but I know people who do really well with this approach, and I’ll bet if you do a little bit of keyword research on your own niches…..you’ll see that at least a few of the SUPER desirable phrases are owned by aggressive article marketers who do this well.

So – in the above example – you would simply keep the credit repair secrets part of the article static, and change up the second part of the title accordingly.

  1. Credit Repair Secrets – The 1 Underground Method the Credit Bureaus Fought To Ban Forever
  2. Credit Repair Secrets – 6 Reasons Why Chicks Dig a Guy With a Super FICO score

Etc – I’m getting tired, as was probably pretty obvious by the second paragraph, but – this stuff works, and works really well for attacking the wide open spaces where most people fear to tread….and if you are assertive with them, they’ll work for you as well! 

The Best Way To Build a Bigger ( and Better) List, Better Relationships, Make More Money & Get Into Heaven in 3000 Words ( or Less)

I‘m 100% sure that 75% of the above is true.

And considering I usually shoot for a 65-70% truth baseline with my posts, I feel pretty comfortable recommending you read the whole thing..:-)

Simply stated, the very BEST way to improve your conversions and make more money from your list is NOT mailing more frequently, finding better offers or even neccessarily changing ANYTHING you are already doing right at this very moment.

Other than one very simple, super easy thing that doesn’t cost a thing.

Building better bonds.  And real relationships.  And to borrow a phrase, applying the strategy of pre-eminence to your marketing mindset….the ONE most powerful shift you can make in your affiliate marketing arsenal, that’s free, fun and super good karma to boot.

Read the whole thing right here – and don’t forget to leave a comment when you’re done..:-)

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