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When I first started Internet Marketing almost two years ago the very first thing a guru said to me was: “The Money is in The List”, and he went on to explain what that meant.It was obviously possible since he seemed to be doing very nicely out of it. To me it was a total “mish-mash” of things I had no idea how to do.

Squeeze Page, Traffic, Articles, Hosting …. the list went on.

I’d convinced myself it was all too hard, when coincidentally a day or two later, what did I come across in the Warrior Forum? A WSO from a guy telling me “Not to believe all those gurus who say ‘you must have a list to make money’…”. Boy, this was the guy for me. His methods seemed so simple. He had testimonials galore confirming exactly what I suspected – that this was indeed the way to go. Why oh why would anybody bother with all that awful list building stuff when you can easily make money ‘this’ way.

Long story short, a year later and more list-less products than I care to admit, and I was still not making it big online. I started to consider the fact that I may have been wrong, and began beating myself up for not catching on sooner. So I looked at a range of gurus and how they make their money and guys, I want to tell you that I was wrong. I should have listened to that guy on day #1. Who knows where I might be by now.

Anyways as far as I could tell, albeit with some fancy refinements not strictly necessary when you’re starting out, the gurus were ALL making their dough like this:-

1)   Put up a Squeeze Page

2)   Drive traffic to it, and…

3)   Email Market the list

Oh, and 4) Earn the right to ‘Bank large’ if you do it consistently well over time.

There’s Not a Moment to Lose

So if you need a little help to get started in the right direction, then this is what you should be doing – starting now! Keep in mind that this worked for all the gurus.  It worked for me, and it will work for you too.

Now in this post of limited length, I can’t cover all that goes into buying a domain and hosting. But in a sentence, you buy your domain from a respected Registrar (Google that and you’ll see loads to choose from). I recommend you buy “yournameandsurname.com” or as close as you can get using a hyphen if necessary. This is going be your business hub and you’ll create a blog around it.

Also, buy hosting from any well known Company. Again Google “Domain Hosting” and the best ones will be on page one. Buy monthly packages if you’re on a budget, but these will be the worst value. If funds permit, buy the year package.

OK, to business. Now this post isn’t about the blog or anything other than what will be your main way forward in this business. So just stay with me on this. The rest will come in time – don’t worry about that.

Build a Squeeze Page

The first thing you have to do is to create a Squeeze Page and display it at your domain.  Your Squeeze Page essentially contains 3 things.

i) A great headline

ii) An offer of a high quality free, and

iii) An opt-in form where your visitor can enter their email address to request the free gift and join your list

You can have some bullet points under the headline showing some benefits of your free gift. This helps create a good impression, and most people do this. Remember, your squeeze page is only a single page on which your offer is displayed. It should be simple, uncluttered and have a clear call to action.

Your Free Gift

OK, so your squeeze page is done and online. You now need to create a free gift of value to give away. In the limited space I’ve got here I’ll give guidelines about what to do rather than a fully detailed description.

Basically, you need to create a product. It’s usually going to be an eBook or report for a first attempt, but it can be an MP3 recording or even a video once you get a bit more confident, and it needs to be helpful to people in this niche.

That is, it needs to address the things that people in this niche are talking about and having challenges with. You want to help them with those issues. So how do you find those things out? Simple, just go to the places where people in this niche hang out. Forums and blogs are a great start. Just Google “niche+forums” or “niche+blogs” and tons will come up, but just join a couple of forums and read the blogs to see what people are talking about.

How many have thought of this? You can even type questions directly into Google in the following format:

Niche name FAQ (with or without quotes – the best ones will still be on page 1)

So now you know what is being talked about in this niche. Make a note of the questions. Research the answers from the exact same sources or even by typing the exact questions into Google.

From your research, simply compile a well laid out and researched eBook/report of about 20 – 30 pages in length. Get the guys from Fiverr.com to make up an eCover for the front page, and you are done with the content.

Convert it to PDF format and upload it to your domain to make it available to your visitors.

Traffic

So now you need to start driving traffic to your squeeze page. You’re going to be building a list of subscribers to email market to remember, that’s where your income is coming from.

There’s paid traffic and there’s free traffic. Paid traffic is quick, but costs. Free traffic is slower, but there are no out of pocket expenses.

Most newcomers are reluctant to buy paid traffic. They seem concerned with keeping a cap on costs while they’re still learning, which I kind of understand. But the fact is this is a business, and in business you need to use the right tools. It’s kind of like starting a Taxi business and not wanting to pay for petrol, you get nowhere fast. The way I see traffic, you can pay to send traffic to your offer, get the job done fast, and get on with building a list and earning money. Or you can go for free methods and take longer, which in turn delays your earning capability by the same time frame.

Also, free traffic can be quite time consuming, so using paid traffic is sort of a double whammy. You get your stuff happening faster, AND you get to use the time you save doing something more profitable, like building a second squeeze page or split testing your first squeeze page to get it converting (getting more subscribers) better!

There are many ways to get free traffic to your offer. I’ll list a few but there’s not space here to go into them. They’re all easy to find more information on however.

So, free traffic methods:

1)   eBook syndication to Ezine Directories

2)   Blog commenting

3)   Forum posting/marketing

4)   YouTube video marketing

5)    Article Marketing

6)   Ad Swaps (although you do need a small list to do this)

7)   Guest Blogging

Paid traffic methods are many and varied, so I’ll list just a few that I know work well:

1)   Facebook ads

2)   Solo Ads

3)   Ezine Advertising

4)   Direct to Site Banner Ads

Clearly, I’ve only talked about ways to drive traffic. I don’t have space in this post to discuss the ins and outs of each method.

Once you have a blog and a list of 1000 subscribers, there are other things you can do to take your list to the next level.

For instance, you can survey your list to better understand their needs and wants, and with the information they provide create an information product or maybe even a software tool. Promote this product using affiliates at 100% commission. This will be a front end product, with up-sells and higher ticket items available once they buy. This way, your list will grow like crazy. Did you get that?

Email Marketing

And then of course there’s the Email Marketing side of things. This is where the fun really starts.  But folks, that’s a whole other story, for next time maybe. You now have more than enough to be getting on with as you get started on your new path to success.

Well, in a nutshell folks, that’s it.

Now is the time to get going with those 3 simple steps and get things moving. Get your blog going and let it tell the story of how you turned the corner and moved to higher ground with this simple system.

On your Blog, write useful and helpful content for your subscribers about your learning curve, and tell them about your success. Write things that will help others in your situation and broadcast the link to your posts to your list. Comments and social activity will follow, and not far behind it the snowball effect, and success, will show up!

That should just about do it folks. Thanks for being with me, and I really hope you get something useful from this post.

My best to you,

Paul Henderson

Zero to Hero Marketing

This is a guest post written by Paul Henderson, if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.