Increase Sales

Many business people spend a great deal of time and resources getting new leads. Lead generation doesn’t just build traffic and profits; it helps to build your brand and expand your customer base. However, in the midst of looking for traffic, people often neglect to turn their leads into paying customers.

Email marketing is effective not just for lead generation but for conversions, if you handle it correctly. Here are a few easy autoresponder techniques that can give you a needed bump in both leads and conversions.

1. Offer Free Trials or Products

Even the most jaded customer cannot resist a freebie. Offering free trials of products, even digital products such as eBooks or membership in a VIP club, is bound to bring more people to your website.

When you use an email autoresponder to handle this task, this is a very low investment way to build your email list as well as your traffic. You can further improve lead generation and conversions by ensuring that your free trials are high value and encourage traffic to become paying customers.

One caveat to this advice: don’t make people jump through hoops or go through an endless series of steps to get their free stuff. This is frustrating and will leave them feeling resentful and distrusting of your business.

[Read more…] about 7 AutoResponder Techniques That Quadruple Your Lead Generation

One of the most resourceful ways in which you can make money online is by doing freelance writing. If you are not part of a large freelance network like Elance (soon to be called Upwork) or Freelancer, you could still make money writing for independent blogs and online publications.

Chances are you won’t just get a better pricing for your post, you can also showcase your byline to a large audience, which in turn will give you more exposure and opportunities and skyrocket your growth. If you plan on building your freelance writing career, here are 30 websites that you can check out and apply to.

My Collection Of 30 Blogs That Pay To Write

SlickWP

SlickWP accepts guest posts focused on WordPress and Genesis themed tutorials or reviews of WordPress themes and plugins. Posts between 1250 and 2000 words long will be paid $100 USD via Paypal along with a link to your website or social media profile. Visit SlickWP to learn more.

Photoshop Tutorials

If you’re a Photoshop whiz, you can submit your tutorials and earn yourself $50 for quick tips, $150-300 for full tutorials or between $25-50 for article roundups. Grab all the submission details here.

ThePennyHoarder

This blog focuses on uncanny ways to make, earn and invest money. Payment for posts depends on how viral the posts go. For instance, if your post hits 50,000 pageviews, you earn $100. You can find all the additional details here.

TheTechLabs

TheTechLabs accepts tutorials on web designing with a special exclusive focus on Adobe products such as Flash and Flex with payments ranging from $50-$75. Check out this page to see how you can become an author here.

WritersWeekly

WritersWeekly purchases articles for a couple of publications, WritersWeekly.com and The Write Markets Report. The articles are focused on how to make money by writing and accepted submissions (over 600 words long) are paid $60. Click here to read their terms.

IWA Wine Blog

If you are a wine lover, a wine expert or have plenty of knowledge about storing and enjoying wine, you can submit your expert articles to IWA Wine Blog. Payment starts at $50 a post and you can find more guidelines on guest post submission here.

eCommerce Insiders

eCommerce Insiders invites writers who are retail subject matter experts to share their experiences and knowledge on their website. They pay $75 for articles between 400-600 words and $125 for every article over 600 words. Get the rest of the details here.

American College of Healthcare Sciences (ACHS)

ACHS graduates, students, and industry experts can submit guest blog posts for the ACHS blog. Posts should be between 600-1000 words plus on topics related to holistic health and wellness. Each published post will earn you $50. For more guidelines and tips on submission, click here.

WorkOnlineBlog

This website accepts articles that offer advice and experiences that you may have had in your career as a contractor or a business owner or list posts on resources that will benefit businesses or contractors trying to maximize their potential online. Payment is $50 a post. Find all the submission details and application form here.

iWorkWell

If you have the confidence and skills to work as a subject matter expert on a range of topics related to Human Resources, you can apply to join the team of instructional designers and reviewers here. Payments can go all the way up to $200 per article but that depends on how well you accomplish the task. Read more about iWorkWell’s conditions here.

Your Online Biz

This website is offering $100 for high quality posts but is scanty on the nitti-gritties. You can get in touch with Darnell on this page and he will send you the instructions for submitting your article.

Back to College

Back to College accepts posts on the subject of adult re-entry education. Payment ranges from $32.50+ for reprints and derivatives and $65+ for original feature articles between 1,000 – 1,500+ words. You can find all the details about submission of posts here.

Write Naked

Write Naked accepts interview posts, publishing trends, and insights on writing essentials and pays $50 for accepted articles. You can find more details on their guest blogging policy here.

A Fine Parent

Share your parenting tips, expertise, and wisdom on this blog and get paid $100, plus earn links to your site and get a shot at picking up an annual bonus of $200 if your article ends up as the most popular one on the blog at the end of the year. Hit this link to get more details about the program.

Techopedia

If you can provide insight and inspiration to IT professionals, technology decision-makers and the geeks of the world’s, submit your articles to Techopedia. They pay competitive rates for accepted submissions. Click here to join the editorial team.

Listverse

Write on any topic, keep it over 1500 words long and create an unusual list about anything that is unusual or interesting. If you get accepted on ListVerse, you could get $100 for your efforts. More details are available here.

The Travel Writers Life

If you have experience in travel writing, photography, or running your own tours and want to make money sharing your insider tips, you can write to the Travel Writers Life. Payment is variable and ranges from $50-$75 for articles that the site requests for the website, $100-$150 for interviews and personal stories, and $150-$200 for articles on income advice. Read all the details about the gig here.

Knowledge Nuts

Have an interesting piece of fact you want to share with the world? Submit them to this site and if you get published you’ll get $10 for your efforts. Submission details are available here.

Top Tenz

These guys pay $50 for contributing top 10 lists that are original and have plenty of submission guidelines and instructions on their Write for Us page, which you’ll want to read very carefully.

BootsnAll

This travel website offers various types of writing opportunities for writers who are passionate about indie travel. The Featured Article Program offers $50 and there’s plenty of instructions, resources and guidelines you’ll need to check out before you pitch your ideas. Get all the details by clicking here.

Belt Magazine

Belt Mag accepts Rust Belt related pitches for features, articles, commentaries and first-person essays. The website does not specify the payment terms but all writers are paid if accepted. You can reach out to them via the instructions on this page.

Matador Network

This site is looking for original writing, photography, and videos on cultures and identities of people from around the world. Payment is $40 depending on article type and length and you can get more details about the job description here.

Lab Mice

White papers, guidelines, how-to’s, and technical explanations on IT topics such as Windows 2000 Administration, Computer Security, Technical Project Management and such are accepted here. Payment for articles begins at 25 cents per word. You can read all the detailed guidelines for submission here.

BlessThis List

This is another website that accepts list posts and pays $100 for interesting and unusual works. You can find all the rules and guidelines here.

International Living

If you know of any places in the world that is delightfully different or unique from the world that we know and read about everyday, tell your story to these guys. Payment if accepted is $75. Learn more about the gig here.

World Start

Know any cool Windows, internet, and e-mail tips, get them out to World Start and you could get paid between $15 to $35 depending on the article length. Click here for all the submission guidelines and details.

Treehouse

Another website that accepts posts on web designing and web development is Treehouse. This page lists all the pitches accepted and should the articles get published, writers will get paid between $100-$200 per post.

HowlRound

This website is a commons site for the theatre community. The site offers different writing opportunities and you get paid according to the type of program you opt for. You can learn more about the different writing opportunities here.

Doctor of Credit

If you are a someone with a legal background and have an analytic mindset, you can submit your ideas to the Doctor of Credit. Payment is $50 a post and you can find all the guidelines here.

Income Diary

If you are an expert in the field of website creation, social media or making money online, you can submit articles to Income Diary and get paid $50 per article for your efforts. You’ll find all their submission guidelines here.

If marketers use email marketing the right way they can generate a ton of traffic and sales. There are bloggers who believe that the money is in the list and are able to build massive lists and generate revenue from them on an on-going basis.

There are two different reasons most marketers use email marketing platforms like Aweber or GetResponse.

• Send out regular blog posts
• Send out email campaigns

Many marketers consider both these systems as email marketing strategies. While the first one can drive some traffic to your blog the second one can help with sales. As marketers we cannot choose one over another, we need both and in high numbers.

The top management is always in need of something that the competitor cannot have or are struggling with. Before marketers can do that, they need to clearly define what type of email marketing they are doing. Which would define the type of metrics they can track and also report to top management.

Lets not focus too much on the reporting side of things, rather lets take a look at the different types of email marketing that is being done. Based on the list here, you can decide for yourself what type of marketer you are and if you need to make changes to improve your email marketing campaign and start showing some improved results.

Lets take a closer look into these two topics and see what difference does it make and what best practice we can follow to ensure that we generate the best volume of traffic and also sales.

Send Out Blog Feeds

The first and foremost type of email marketer is one that sends out their blog feeds to their subscribers and call it email marketing. Email marketing comprises of much more work and detail that I will talk about at the end of the post. But first things first, sending out blog feeds to your subscribers is not called email marketing. Its just using an email marketing solution to facilitate blog feed distribution.

If you are someone who send out just the blog posts to your subscribers and are thinking you are doing a good job at email marketing then, you might want to re-consider you game plan and add in additional elements.

Things you can add to enhance your email newsletters:

• Add a unique message, tips or suggestions that would add value to the user.
• Mix and match blog posts with promotional messages
• Sneak in a strategy or concept message

Build Email Campaigns

Then there are those email marketers who work ever so hard on email campaigns, planning, budgeting and what not but never get their hands dirty. Building an email campaign is great and planning, budgeting is essential to a healthy campaign as it helps in calculating ROI.

While these marketers work hard on these aspects they most often do not work on the actual email and metrics in terms of responses and optimization. This turns out to be a big loss for marketers as they never get the full circle of email marketing. The management and their bosses might be happy with the work but in terms of gaining knowledge and becoming a better marketer, I think they would be lagging behind.

My advice to these type of markers is that learn every aspect of email marketing even the boring reporting and analytics part as it would make you a better marketer and deliver better results. Your planning would improve, your budgeting would make a lot more sense and of course you will be the master you always wanted to be.

Use AutoResponders To Drip Feed Emails

I’ve been part of several email lists from some top bloggers. One thing I found in common with many of them was that they never sent out their blog feeds. They never sent out promotional emails. But they mastered the skill of using autoresponders. They would lay out a process flow and write an email for each of this process and set them all up in the autoresponders.

This way when a new user signs up, the sign up process immediately initiates the autoresponders and the emails are drip feed to the subscriber on a regular basis. This happens ever so methodically that even before you notice or realize you have purchased a product they had recommended along the way.

Most of the time these autoresponders are emails educating the subscriber on something that is essential that way the subscriber stays on.

My advice to these types of email marketers is to remember that there is more to marketing than just automating the entire task of email marketing. Engage and communicate with your subscribers. Automation is fine but it does need a personal touch every now and then.

Pitch With Every Other Email

These are the types of email marketing I believe that every one hates. Just because the only thing they know to do with email marketing software is to spam their subscribers with continuous promotional offers. I remember signing up for a few of these back when I started blogging. Signing up for a few email newsletters automatically signed me up for a bunch of more email newsletters and ever since my email inbox is filled with spam.

Caution: Be careful who’s email newsletter you sign up with. Do not just sign up because they give you a free guide. See how genuine they are and what difference they can make to your blogging or marketing efforts or something relevant to the niche you are in.

By the way I give away a free guide and if you are interested pick up your copy here.

Email Once In a Blue Moon

These are some of the most awesome email newsletter one can sign up for. The marketers grow their list, collect email, collect emails and collect some more emails. You will be surprised that after the first email you will rarely receive another email from them again.

These are the marketers whom I’d like to refer to as the Lazy marketer. Not because they are lazy to send you emails, but because of the frequency. These marketers when they do send out emails are most of the time one of the most valuable emails you’d read in a while and would be worth every bit. From time to time you also get a promotional email that you wont mind because they email you quite rarely.

As I like the lazy marketer a lot I do not have any suggestions for them.

A good marketer is one who is able to build a balance of engagement, analytics, planning and execution. To be able to send out different types of emails to your audience is way to not be boring. This will get you high engagement rates, higher open rates and even higher conversion.

So what type of marketer are you? Are you any one of these I’ve listed or you a completely different type? Share it in the comments and we can talk about it.

Bloggers these days quickly branch out into various monetization models from blogging. Its no longer about banner advertisements or Google AdSense models or even affiliate marketing. Bloggers have started creating their own digital products even starting up Joint Ventures with other bloggers to build up their online empire.

While blogging is ever changing the core principle behind blogging has not changed much. There are bloggers who still write and make a living online purely from their blogs. Even I own a few web products but I’ve not monetized them and keep the money making just from my blogs.

Making money from blogging brings great joy to bloggers and this in turns motivates them to work on new monetisation models to increase their revenue. This in turn has brought about new ways for bloggers to make money. Its still a risky move for many bloggers as they are venturing into spaces they do not know much about.

As a cautious move, almost all the bloggers I know first come out with four base products. Not all at once, but these are the digital products they like to launch as the impact is not very high in terms of money. They like to create videos, eBooks, and consulting gigs. These are not easy things to do, I’ve tried and if you are not good at a skill it only makes it harder to create a digital product let alone make money from it.

[Read more…] about Quality Digital Products Every Blogger Should Create