You’ve probably heard this a million times before… “The money’s in the list.”

You know what? It’s true. OK, it’s fair to be pedantic and say that a huge list of subscribers that hate you isn’t going to make you much money, so technically it should be, “the money’s in the relationship you have with your list”, but if you don’t have a list, the relationship aspect is irrelevant!

List Building As An Internet Marketing Strategy:

List building, and then nurturing your lists, are the best Internet marketing strategies I’ve found for generating traffic and sales, bar none. I’ve been building a list for my niche UK technology blog, and it’s already closing in on 1,000 subscribers. And there are about 40,000 subscribers on my main list! I’ve been building my email lists and emailing people since 1997.

BUT… a major problem with listbuilding is getting your emails delivered. It’s always been an issue with email… but there’s a new solution and it’s pretty cool.

It’s a super-simple whitelisting service… Check it out here. It lets your subscribers whitelist their email address while they’re still on your website. Pretty cool, eh? You can actually KNOW they’ve verified and send them to the free report or other opt-in bonus immediately. Is this the end of… “please go and verify your email” messages?

If you haven’t already seen this, check it out.

Aweber, a big autoresponder company, have released some very interesting email marketing statistics such as which days do most emails get sent and which days get the highest open rates.

The overall average open rate is an astonishingly small 13%.

Wow. 87% of emails sent from Aweber don’t even get opened.

I wonder what it is for GetResponse… :p

I’ve stuck with plain text emails, which means I can’t determine open rates… but I’m thinking it’s an important metric to track, so I may switch to sending HTML emails.

What do you think?

In response to seeing this in an email he received…

“If you get easily offended, STOP reading now and scroll down to the unsubscribe link at the bottom cause you are wasting space on my list reserved for someone who is serious.”

… Martin Avis commented…

“Okay, I will. Because you are wasting serious space in my inbox.”

You tell ‘em, Martin.

What amused me, beyond Martin’s comment, was how the marketer sending the email could possibly consider that any subscriber was “wasting space on my list”. Huh? How does that work? Some of the biggest super affiliates have lists that are hundreds of thousands of email addresses. The last time I checked, there wasn’t a fee based on list size… or if there is, it’s much diminished from the early days of Internet marketing when we seemed to pay more for every 1,000 email addresses.

Oh well, I guess the marketer couldn’t be bothered to use “because” instead of “cause”, was arrogant and offensive to their own list and so probably isn’t likely to see the incongruency in accusing people of “wasting” space on their list.

I think, when this “get off my list if you don’t like it” tactic is used, it’s so that the marketer can subsequently pursue a more aggressive marketing line and consider it to be alright. Presumably, “if the people receiving the emails had wanted to unsubscribe, they already would have” justifies the increased marketing aggression to people who remain on the list and are therefore “serious” about taking action. I don’t agree with it, I’m just trying to understand it. It sounds like psychological blackmail to me.

What do you think?

If you ever want to know how to write a quality newsletter, check out Internet Marketing Secrets by Michael Campbell.

Not only is the content 100% useful, but the newsletter itself makes a great case study for someone wanting to write a newsletter. Check out the headlines in the latest issue…

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1) Traffic Generation Experts Part 1
2) Why the Best Meat is in the Tail
3) SEO Tools for the Firefox Browser
4) Benefits of “Jiggling” the Web
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Did you notice how they’ve been cleverly crafted to make you want to read the whole newsletter? Did you also notice the SEO aspects, so that when the newsletter goes online it has a good chance of ranking for “traffic generation”, “traffic generation experts”, “SEO tools”, “SEO tools firefox”?

Michael then has a lead piece where he mentions the audio part of the newsletter (available here and also on iTunes.) So, not only are his subscribers getting a text version, but also audio content. Presumably that means subscribers are finding Michael’s audios on iTunes and other places (podcast directories?) and he’s gaining new subscribers from those sources.

After the audio section, Michael crafts an affiliate promotion. If you’ve ever wondered how to pre-sell and give content at the same time (not an easy task!), check this out…

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The Best Meat is in the Tail

(Quality headline. Invokes interest and is amusing)

I’ve been saying it for years… in 1999 I told you to focus your sites on product makes and model numbers. In 2001 I told you to go either ahead or behind the retail curve. (It’s called the Long Tail now.)

(Establishes how long Michael has been teaching Internet marketing to his audience)

In 2003, I told you how to build mininets out of thematically related sites. I showed you how to link the sites together. I also diagramed the first ever thematic internal linking structure.

“Start with a generic home page, link it to targeted category pages, which link to highly focused make and model number pages.” (Which – depending on who borrowed the idea – are now called virtual real estate, spokes and nodes, themeing, silos or pyramids.)

In 2005 I told you to build landing pages for PPC ads. To target “buying phrases” like “nokia n80 lithium battery” and avoid the generic terms like, “cell phone.”

(Highlights how Michael has been on the “cutting edge” of Internet marketing and usually ahead of the curve, for many years.)

There was one student who listened to everything I said. Look at this testimonial he sent me back in 2004.

“Mininets and have been responsible for an explosion in my online revenue. It’s really about site building, cross linking, and monetization. Your ebook put me over the edge and synthesized that for me.” **this testimonial for Michael re-emphasises how he’s the “authority figure” in this context**

You probably never heard of my student because – like most good students – he stayed under the radar, quietly building a successful web empire. He went from humble beginnings to become a Jedi Master of marketing. And he does very well for himself. His name is Dave Tropeano.

(Strongly positive introduction of “student”.)

Now Dave is sharing what he has learned. A true character trait of success. Having enough abundance and confidence that he’s willing to share his wisdom in a new affiliate training system called, “Long Tail Cash.”

(Endorsement of the “student” by the “teacher”.)

Recently Dave told me, “The original inspiration for my course and my approach to affiliate marketing comes from Clickin it Rich. It tries to be a successor to your ebooks.”

“It’s a basic plan for people to follow, by marketing vendors, makes and model numbers. I’ve had great success with this and owe a lot of it, to my years of reading your newsletter and listening to your advice.”

That pretty much sums it up. I’ve watched the videos Dave produced, and they are certainly “inspired” by my ebooks Clickin’ it Rich (CIR) and Revenge of the Mininet (REV). If I had rewritten them in 2008… that’s probably what they’d look like.

(The killer point… Michael endorses the product and says it’s what he would have written. The credibility and authority he just built up now transfers to the product he’s endorsing.)

So if you liked my works, and were looking for the modern equivalent of them, then take it from Dave Tropeano, the student who became a master, that is willing to share all he has learned.

Long Tail Cash is the best affiliate marketing course you can get right now. So if you want to learn affiliate marketing, invest in yourself, invest in this knowledge. Slather it into your brain. For an investment in yourself always pays the highest dividends.

Learn Affiliate Marketing
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There’s further quality content in “3) SEO Tools for the Firefox Browser” and “4) Benefits of “Jiggling” the Web”. The latter, especially, gives some quality tips for how to use Web2.0 properties to get rapid links and search engine indexing. I love how he calls his technique, “Bleached white hat for my stuff… a little “beige” for the others”.

Michael is now using a hybrid system of his own written content married with the audio section where he interviews other marketers about different aspects of Internet marketing. For meontization, he blends both “sponsored ads” and an “advertorial” into the written newsletter seamlessly.

Simply an excellent example of how to write a top-quality newsletter.

Check out Michael Cheney’s current auction for a review/promotion of a website of your choice. The current bidding has reached $1,100 to get your website reviewed by Michael and the video promoted to his list of 60,000 people next week.

Ever wondered why people build email lists, or say “the money’s in the list”? Now you know. Just one auction per week, at $1,000 each, would earn Michael $52,000 per year for making one movie a week.

(the auction ends Friday, so if you want to bid, get a move on!)