Mike Paetzold back again for my final day here at Tony Tezak Say… Next week The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour will be moving on and you can follow the complete tour on Squidoo at The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour.

Thanks to all for your attention why I have been here now let get to it.

First a quick review of how we are creating our list building system.

• Day 1 – We discussed why you need a list
• Day 2 – We discussed what you are going to sell to those subscribers
• Day 3 – We discussed enticing people to subscribe
• Day 4 – We discussed the 3 page web site for building your list

Now it is time to start sending traffic. Notice that traffic comes at the end once you have built a system and is not where you start.

Before we start on traffic though it is important that you are tracking your results. The reason is very simple. Even after creating over a 100 list building systems they rarely work right from the start.

You will need to keep adjusting things as you go and consistently improving things to get the best results. If you are not tracking and split testing your results you will probably become quite frustrated and probably tell me I am full of you know what when you try list building.

You can get more information on how to do this with my ebook “Tracking Your Way To Profits“.

Now to traffic. Back on day 2 when you were deciding what to sell you were checking where your potential subscribers hang out. Now to go back to these places to start generating traffic.

Below are some ways to get traffic but you need to match these sources to your ideal prospect from the information you generated during your research phase.

Traffic exchanges – This is probably the most used by readers of this blog as Tony is well known as the ultimate surfer before he moved to the dark side and created his own traffic exchange Tezak Traffic Power.

Because people using traffic exchanges are primarily interested in promoting there stuff these work best when you are offering something that will help them do just that or make more money from what they are currently doing.

Safelists and List Builders – Very similar to traffic exchanges in that the users are interested primarily in promoting their own stuff. You need to be appealing to the same emotions as when you use the traffic exchanges.

JV Giveaways – These can be a great way to drive traffic and there are giveaways that target a variety of niches so if you can get in one that matches your niche they will work quite well. You can use some of the free resources like safelists, list builders and traffic exchanges to drive traffic if you have not got enough subscribers because these work because everybody promotes each other.

Forums – Being active in forums and using a signature file that links to your list building system can be very effective. Some forums offer banner advertising that can be very inexpensive and creating banners that link to your squeeze page can be very effective.

Article Marketing – This is a great way to drive traffic by linking to your squeeze page from your signature file but it takes more than one or two articles. I have one system that uses this for a traffic source and now that I have 20 articles targeted to various keywords it generates one subscriber a day and the results have doubled each month but it took 3 months of being consistent to get there.

Blogs – This is one of my favorites but it is like article marketing in that you need to have a large amount of targeted content but the conversions can be excellent. The best way to do this is through using pop ups or slide ins on your blog. The light box pops work best for most of my niche blogs but not all of them.

Email Swaps – Now these are one of my favorites but you can not use them until you have a subscriber base. You do not need a huge list because you can find other small list owners that will send your offer to their list and you send their offer to yours. This can be done once you get to 500 subscribers.

That gives you a variety of free/low cost traffic sources. Test your system and keep improving things. It takes time and effort but a responsive email list can repay you over and over again.

The key is to make sure that you actually take action. Understand that you will never get it perfect so get it done and improve it as you go.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs. Currently you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow me on Twitter

Technorati Tags: advertising, article marketing, blogging. list building, forums, Mike Paetzold, Old Bald Guy Blog Tour, safelists, Traffic Exchanges

Mike Paetzold back for day 4 of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. Hope you are enjoying my visit I have enjoyed providing some great information to move your business forward.

Before we start a quick review…

• Day 1 – We discussed why you need a list
• Day 2 – We discussed what you are going to sell to those subscribers
• Day 3 – We discussed enticing people to subscribe

Now that all the groundwork is laid today we will discuss the pages you need to create to start your list building efforts. Now if you do not have a website of your own I am going to make a very strong recommendation that you get one.

Without your own hosting you can not properly monetize your signup process and after all if you are going to put in the effort don’t you want to take advantage of all the monetization you can get.

If you do not have webhosting I recommend you go clikc on the little banner on the right for Zoot Host. You can get everything you need and great service from Jon Atwood and you can reward Tony for all the quality information he supplies here at the same time. Nuff said.

You need 3 pages in your signup process.

• Squeeze page
• Thank you page
• Download page

The process works like this. You send traffic to the squeeze page. Once they sign up they are redirected to the thank you page which explains how to whitelist your email address and that they need to confirm their email address before they get what you promised. Once they click the confirmation link from your autoresponder they go to the download page.

Squeeze Page

This is your offer that will convine people to give you their email address and permission for you to send them email. Now I could do two weeks of blog posts on just creating a quality squeeze page but there is not room to do that here. You must always remember though that you are telling your potential what’ in it for them. Quite truthfully they do not care about you they want to know what benefit they get for filling out the form.

If that benefit is stronger in their mind then the thought of allowing you to have their email address they will fill the form in. You can help alleviate that concern by having a privacy policy and contact information because it makes you more trustworthy.

Thank You Page

This page is where you can begin to monetize the process but first and foremost you need to explain that they need to whitelist your email and click a confirmation link before they will get whatever the item is that you offered.

Next one thing that I have found that increases the number of subscribers you get is to have a second chance opt in box on the page. The reason is simple. Have you ever just filled out a form with garbage details to grab the gift? Come on I have and you probably have too.

That one thing according to my stats on some pages adds 25% more subscribers to my list. Because I made it easy if they still want the gift they will now give me a good email address.

Finally there are ways that you can monetize this page. Create steps and ask people to follow all the steps.

• Step 1 – Whitelist this email
• Step 2 – Click the confirmation link
• Step 3 – Send them to a related offer
• Step 4 – Give them a bonus – Any membership site that you may belong to that has a free front end with an oto usually has a thank you page ad.

This page now increases your potential subscribers because you explained the process and you have a chance to make commission on the offers you presented in the process and if they gave you a bogis email they have a second chance to sign up.

Note: You can do this without these pages if you do not have a webhost because they will send them to generic pages but you will miss these chances to earn money. One OTO sale on one free to join site can easily cover the costs of your hosting for the month.

Download Page

Here is where you will give your new subscriber what you offered along with any instructions they need to use it.

Once again it is easy to monetize this page through the same step process as you used on your thank you page. Something like this works quite well.

• Step 1 -Download your gift by clicking here
• Step 2 – You may need a pdf reader get it here or anything else like a zip extractor that they will need.
• Step 3 – Make a related product or affiliate offer
• Step 4 – Another free bonus that has the potential to reward you

Those are the basics and if you set these pages up properly and you have the right offers this can allow you to make 50 cents or more on average per subscriber before they have even gotten your first email. If you do not have a webhost you can still build your list but at even 25 cents a subscriber the additional revenue will cover your hosting costs and add a few bucks to your pocket on just 100 subscribers a month.

Want to see the whole process first hand and example pages. Here is a page that I used in ad swap with a friend of mine. Sign up and pay attention as you go to through the process. Once you reach the end if you do not want to hear from me just click the unsubscribe link in the first email. Subscribe here

Tomorrow the discussion will turn to how to generate traffic to your new list building system. See you then.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs. Currently you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow me on Twitter

Technorati Tags: Mike Paetzold, monetization, Old Bald Guy Blog Tour, squeeze page, webhosting, website

Mike Paetzold back again here at Tony Tezak Says.. as part of The Old Bald Guy Blog Tour. Hope you are enjoying this series on list building and I would love to get your comments so dont be bashful and leave your comments below.

First a quick review. On Monday we discussed why you need a list and yesterday we talked about finding a product to sell to your list and then locating the people that would want that product. Today we will discuss how to entice those potential buyers to join your list.

Your research so far has shown you what problems your potential buyer has that they want solved. Now to create an ethical bribe or as my buddy Jerry Reeder would say bait that they need more than they fear giving you their email address.

Now this enticement (I try to be polite but it is really bait) can be in many different forms and the form will depend on how people consume information in that niche.

It can be a simple report in pdf format. You can easily create a word document with free software form Open Office and convert it to pdf. Now if you have Office you can create fancier documents and you can use a variety of other items to create your pdf with Adobe being the best but also the most expensive.

The big thing is to get it done and if you can only afford free just use Open Office. You can upgrade your tools as you make money. Here is a sample page where I give away a free pdf on Twitter.

Another thing you can do is create an mp3. You can do this on your computer with a simple microphone. If you have a better quality microphone such as some of the usb headsets the quality will be better but as long as it is good enough and you have quality information it will work.

You can use a conference line and do a quick call and download the mp3. Edit the file in Audacity to clean it up and you have an enticement to gather subscribers. Get it transcribed and you have made it even more valuable but you can just use the mp3. You can see a sample of this type of giveaway I did for information on membership sites here.

The final easy way to create your enticement, ethical bribe, bait (yes I used them all so you can decide what you want to call it) is to use a video. With a screen capture like Camtasia you can record a power point video, screen capture video as your gift. The ease of using new digital cameras like the Flip Camera will allow you to create a video interview or a talking head information video quite easily.

The thing is to create something that your target audience will want enough to be wiling to part with their email and give you permission to continue to contact them.

Now the real key is to create something NOW. You can make it better a you go but trying for perfection will keep you from ever getting it done.

Tomorrow we will talk about 3 page website you need to actually get people to subscribe to your list.

Remember one commenter will get rewarded during this series so leave your comments below and Ill be back (done in my best Arnold imitation) tomorrow.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs. Currently you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy.

Technorati Tags: audio, ethical bribe, List Building, Mike Paetzold, pdf, The Old Bald Guy's Blog Tour, video

Mike Paetzold back once again as your guest blogger here at Tony Tezak Says… Thanks to those who commented yesterday. One of the things I will be doing as I travel across the blogosphere on The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour will be to give things away. Commenting is the best way to win one of these things.

Now back to the topic of the week -List Building.

First let me clear a hurdle that may have upset some of you. You see lots of offers online that all you need to do is join here and you will be rich – no selling necessary. Nobody makes any many unless something gets sold and everyone of you sells every day.

I can hear you right now. That Old Bald Guy is nuts.  I never sell anything and never could. Everyone sells.

When my kids were younger every night I would sell them on why it was bedtime and they would sell me on why it wasn’t. Your better half ever ask you to do something you really didn’t want to do? Didn’t both of you sell the other on why your side was right? You either bought the idea or you sold yours. So you will need something to sell.

Selling does not have to used car salesman in your face type of thing but you are always persuading others to take an action (for those that don’t like the s-word.

Here is the one thing that steps up and bites you in the lower region all the time,  yet so many new people and even not so new people skip this step.

Plan out what you are going to promote first…

To create a profitable list building system (and who wants one that isnt?)  you need to know what the end result you are looking for is. When you build a list building system you build it backwards. Things are much easier when you have already planned out what you are going to persuade/sell others to do.

It does you no good to get a list of subscribers that are not interested in what you sell.

Now I have a lot of products about WordPress, blogging and Web 2.0 strategies to help your blogging. If I built a list of people interested in pay per click marketing and sent them information about blogging and Web 2.0 what is going to happen?

Well, they will probably unsubscribe or ignore me and they definitely won’t be buyers for what I am selling as that is not where their wants are.

While we are doing this planning the next thing we need to know is where can I reach the people that want my product.

Now if you open a hamburger stand and have the worlds best burgers (think 5 Guys, mmm) but you open it in a vegetarian community where no one eats meat how many people will frequent your restaurant. Your product is the absolute best burger in the world but vegetarians don’t want it.

So once you have your items that you are looking to promote (for those that dont like the sell word) you need to look for where those hungry meat eaters hang out so you can put your hamburger stand where they see it. One of the best tools for this is a site called Quantcast. Just go there and fill in the url of the products you are going to promote and you will get some great information on who visits their site and more.

Now that you have found products and know a bit about the target audience tomorrow I will show you how to use that to build your list.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs. Currently you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy.

Technorati Tags: finding products, List Building, Old Bald Guy Blog Tour, selling, using quantcast

Hi All,

Let me introduce myself I am Mike Paetzold and some know me as the Old Bald Guy. I will be traveling through the blogosphere for the next two months and this is the first stop on The Old Bald Guy Blog Tour.

I am an avid blogger and have taught classes in conferences, teleseminars and webinars on a variety of topics having to do with working online from home.

This week I will be discussing list building here on Tonys blog and look forward to your questions as this series goes forward. Special thanks to Tony for allowing me to visit.

Now lets get down to business. List building is one of the best ways to build your business.Today we will discuss some of the reasons why.

1. Most sales are made after the first contact. If you do not have a way to bring people back to your site (even if it is an affiliate site) the odds of you making a sale are in the slim to none category.

Yes occasionally you get lucky but if you are paying for traffic (and all traffic is paid for whether with your time or your money) then you want to do everything you can to improve your return.

2. A list of people that know, like and trust you will be much more likely to buy from you. As Jeffrey Gitomer says

All things being equal people want to do business with their friends. And all things NOT being equal people still want to do business with their friends

Having a list and talking with people regularly allows you to be that friend. I know for a fact there are readers of this blog that will wait to see if Tony is promoting something to buy from him.

It is not because he is the best salesperson or best looking person (I know because we have met in person but then neither am I ) it is because he has become a friend. Regular dialog with your list can help you build that friendship.

3. Research – One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not offering what people want to buy. Notice I said WANT not NEED. Having a list allows you to ask people what they want. I run numerous surveys on my marketing blog at a href=http://mikepaetzold.com target=_blankMike Paetzold Recommends/a because I learned the hard way that even though people need something they wont pay for it unless they want it.

Having a list of people that have a relationship with you and finding out exactly what they want will save you lots of time and frustration. Every item that I created that did not sell well the reason was never that people did not need it. They just did not want it enough to pay for it.

So there are 3 good reasons why you need a list. Here is the biggest one though. I just told you about doing surveys with my list quite often. Every time I have asked the question  are people making money and how many subscribers do they have the results always come in the same way.

Amazingly 53% had made no money and 53% did not have a list of at least 500 people. As the percentage changes slightly every time I have run the survey the number of people without at least 500 subscribers and the number of people who had not made money was virtually the same.

Coincidence? I doubt it so this week we will work on getting you started building your list.

One last thing before I sign off for the day. Knowledge without action is absolutely worthless. So make sure you apply what you learn.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs. Currently you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy.

Technorati Tags: blogosphere, business, List Building, marketing, Mike Paetzold

Folks you are in for a treat!  Mike Paetzold better know as “The Old Bald Guy” is taking his blogging on tour.  Mike is the ‘expert’ on anything to do  with blogs as far as I am concerned.  Mike is the one who keeps my WordPress Blog up to date.  Mike will appear at various blogs as a guest poster.  Guess what – we are first in line.

Mike will be sharing his thought on list building.  I am excited about this!  You can read all about Mike’s tour at his blog, WordPress Made Easy .  It should be an educational treat to follow Mike on his tour.

So set back, grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy Mike’s postings.

Technorati Tags: guest blogger, List Building, Mike Paetzold