Sunday, November 12, 2006
Blogitive Set To Expand
Just when you had started thinking that the current pay-per-post way in which bloggers make money using the innovative blogitive.com is just too good to be true, the site has announced that there are several other programs in the works.
All the programs are targeted at people looking for practical and fairly easy ways to make money online.
To name two of those proposed services, there is NewsNerve where those participating will be able to display relevant syndicated news headlines. They will then earn money from every click that their site visitors make on the news stories.
Then there is also a proposed Ghost Writing program where online writers will be able to make money taking up writing assignments from clients through the Blogitive system.
According to a press release, Blogitive plan to launch a number of other innovatibe programs for people to make money from.
All the programs are targeted at people looking for practical and fairly easy ways to make money online.
To name two of those proposed services, there is NewsNerve where those participating will be able to display relevant syndicated news headlines. They will then earn money from every click that their site visitors make on the news stories.
Then there is also a proposed Ghost Writing program where online writers will be able to make money taking up writing assignments from clients through the Blogitive system.
According to a press release, Blogitive plan to launch a number of other innovatibe programs for people to make money from.
To Build An Opt In Email List Almost Instantly...
Many times I will combine various posts containing some really valuable information that will be of great help to folks out there. Of course it is important that you spend a lot of time with the title, because the title headline will make or break a special report.
What I usually do is that instead of relying on one special report, I try and create as many as possible. This works very well because it creates many tiny niches within the general market that I am trying to target. Whenever you focus on a narrower segment of the market, it always means that the response improves dramatically.
This is what really makes all the difference. And then the numbers too, help a lot. Sample this. It is quite a task to generate 10,000 names from a single report. However it is much easier to generate 100 names from a single report and fairly easy to set up 100 special reports that will each generate 100 names. That gives you your 10,000 bulk opt-in email number easily, almost effortlessly and in a flash, so to speak.
What I usually do is that instead of relying on one special report, I try and create as many as possible. This works very well because it creates many tiny niches within the general market that I am trying to target. Whenever you focus on a narrower segment of the market, it always means that the response improves dramatically.
This is what really makes all the difference. And then the numbers too, help a lot. Sample this. It is quite a task to generate 10,000 names from a single report. However it is much easier to generate 100 names from a single report and fairly easy to set up 100 special reports that will each generate 100 names. That gives you your 10,000 bulk opt-in email number easily, almost effortlessly and in a flash, so to speak.
Opt-in Bulk Email List: How To Get 10,000 Names In A Flash
For those who find it very difficult to build up the numbers in their bulk email opt-in list, here is a method that I have found to be very effective.
I usually make a lot of use of special reports in collecting bulk opt-in email addresses. They are the most effective way I know of getting people to opt in to n email list. The way I do my special reports is that I look for a really hot tip from my posts, something that I could easily get away with charging money for. I will then use it to prepare a special report.
I usually make a lot of use of special reports in collecting bulk opt-in email addresses. They are the most effective way I know of getting people to opt in to n email list. The way I do my special reports is that I look for a really hot tip from my posts, something that I could easily get away with charging money for. I will then use it to prepare a special report.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Serving 16,000 Students In 63 Countries
Anybody running an online business is a perfect candidate for a bachelor degree online. This is mainly because it is so easy to get one. You don't have to drop everything and head to a campus somewhere.
You don't even have to change your schedule.
There are a number of excellent online universities. Take Capella University as an example. Founded in 1993, this online university offers graduate degree programs in business, information technology, education, human services, and psychology, and bachelor's degree programs in business and information technology. Within those areas, Capella offers 76 graduate and undergraduate specializations and 16 certificate specializations. The online university currently serves 16,000 students from all 50 states and 63 countries.
You don't even have to change your schedule.
There are a number of excellent online universities. Take Capella University as an example. Founded in 1993, this online university offers graduate degree programs in business, information technology, education, human services, and psychology, and bachelor's degree programs in business and information technology. Within those areas, Capella offers 76 graduate and undergraduate specializations and 16 certificate specializations. The online university currently serves 16,000 students from all 50 states and 63 countries.
Why I Find Yahoogroups So Valuable
I find Yahoogroups so useful in managing my various opt-in lists. There are many reasons for this
1) Yahoogroups is reputable and folks receiving email from it will be sure that it is not SPAM. That makes messages get read a lot more, and responses higher.
2) Through the site, you can also bag a lot of subscribers directly.
3) Of all email services I have used, Yahoogroups is the most effective in getting through to subscribers.
4) The service is very reliable.
And that's why I dumped everything I had before for Yahoogroups.
1) Yahoogroups is reputable and folks receiving email from it will be sure that it is not SPAM. That makes messages get read a lot more, and responses higher.
2) Through the site, you can also bag a lot of subscribers directly.
3) Of all email services I have used, Yahoogroups is the most effective in getting through to subscribers.
4) The service is very reliable.
And that's why I dumped everything I had before for Yahoogroups.
Is Bulk Email Really Dead?
It is not often that I recommend other people's sites. However, the following long pice about bulk email marketing will teach anybody a lot of things, in fact enough things to enable you t revolutionize your online business.
Bulk email is controversial, it is even said that many people consider all bulk email spam.
Anyway, pick up the nuggets and visit this nice lady's site and I am sure you will be able to turn your online business into pure gold.
Its 2005----Bulk Email is Dead
By Laura Betterly
A typical day at the inbox
Today, I received 374 emails total.
A pretty light day considering some days I get more than 1,000.
To clarify what they were35 were for business, 4 were personal in nature, 11 were from groups I asked to get information from like Neiman Marcus and Urban Outfitters, VH1, and a PR Newsletter.
The balance of 324 was unsolicited (UCEunsolicited commercial email)in other words spam.
If I extrapolate the UCE I’ve gotten in the last six hours alone, I find I must be missing something about myself on some spiritual level..
I am a balding, fat man with a small penis that doesn’t work. I am in debt.
I am looking for a lower interest rate on my mortgage while at the same time making thousands of dollars with no effort on my part in the privacy of my own home—filling out surveys, stuffing envelopes and not selling something that miraculously sells itself.
Even better, I can be a travel agent without wrinkles; obtain a college degree while waiting for my 1500 advance to show up in my bank account; I can restore my credit rating legally while watching my free satellite TV and munching on my drugs sent courtesy of an offshore pharmacy that has a doctor who will write me a prescription… HMMM…definitely something to consider. NOT.
I’ve also discovered that I am a prime candidate to help an African Prince transfer funds into the US. He trusts me. All I have to do is give him my bank account information.
The problem is that I am a woman who doesn’t suffer those ills. Someone thinks I do…There is something wrong with this picture.
The future of bulk email and why it is likely to remain dead
Now, you might be asking why I, who was dubbed the “Spam Queen” in the “Wall Street Journal” three years ago, am even bothering to say anything about email?
Just to set the record straight, I have never advocated spam or sending spam.
One reporter said to me, "Some people consider all bulk email as spam. What do you have to say about that?" to which I replied, "Then I guess you'd call me the spam queen," as a joke.
In our sound byte media world, one editor turned this little quip into a buzzword and I became known almost instantly, all over the world, as representing what everyone, including myself, hates about email.
The media as usual emphasized sensationalism and missed the point.
I am not complaining because my marketing business skyrocketed as a result.
At that time I advocated email as a very effective medium for small business, which because of its low cost lets small businesses level the playing field against big corporations.
At no small personal risk, I visited the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC, and spoke my peace about small businesses and not throwing out the baby with the bathwater before even the very term spam could be legally agreed upon and defined to the satisfaction of marketers, ISPs and the government jointly.
Small businesses are the lifeblood of the US economy, and entrepreneurs with their dreams are what have made the US the economic powerhouse it still is today.
Email that is sent to people who WANT to receive it, and that is in accordance with their preferences, still gets a high response. It allows many small businesses to get ahead. I didn't want to see big corporations or the government take over email and bar entry, filter, and extort everyone else while still sending their own advertising messages freely.
And then came the CanSpam act, which I and many other legitimate marketers welcomed, because it had a great promise of getting rid of the noise while keeping the signal.
As it turned out, the opposite happened. Email filters from ISP's now block a large amount of legitimate messages, which they call "false positives".
Marketers can't send the text they would like to send to their subscribers, so they have to resort to filter tricking tactics such as spelling the word spam as sp@@@M so that they can get past the filters that were intended for another purpose entirely.
In a climate like this, legitimate companies that had been diligently following best practices, and keeping their lists clean for years, suddenly did not want to stay in business with ambiguities in the law and the potential litigation that might ensue even if all the rules WERE followed, so many companies just folded.
However the people that continue to send email illegally did not fold.
Often times sending from outside the US borders, they stepped up their operations even more, to the point that there is almost no truly legitimate bulk email left.
In other words, the signal has become lost in the noise.
The simplicity is this — bulk commercial email has gotten to the point where it isn’t effective. We just don’t do it anymore. What’s the point? It doesn’t get a response, and we found people are overloaded with advertising messages and no longer willing to receive more, especially in their inbox, unless they specifically asked for it.
As a marketing professional, the only thing that should count for you at the end of the day is effectiveness. Bulk commercial email has turned into the above, a bunch of unprofessional, ineffective scams.
In other words, Spam is a fourletter word.
Legitimate marketers are staying away in droves and it’s easy to see why. First of all let’s look at some facts. In the United States, it is legal to send unsolicited commercial email. The CAN SPAM act allows for this. You have to provide a way to optout and not hide who you are, and a few more simple but ethical rules.
Although it is legal, there isn’t an internet service provider in the United States who will allow you to send unsolicited commercial email.
Larger mailers have optin information from lists they purchase which imply consent but those lists aren’t originated from the mailer, but from other submailers—you get a free thing or access to a particular site and the user checks a box that it is okay to get information from their “affiliates and partners.”
The “affiliates and partners” they are referring to are those who pay for the email addresses and optin information.
These guys are sending you mail legally, but the fact is, they are not getting into your email box for the most part. Blocking, filtering, and doing it the “legal” way bulk wise, is just not working.
Not to mention, there is no way to prove that the recipients opted in or are willing to get the message since they opted in at someone else’s site, not yours.
The response rate is pathetic and when that mail does get through, you have many disgruntled individuals who never remember opting in, so in their view, the mail is unsolicited. The only way to get email into inboxes en masse is by not following the rules, so the only messages getting through are the scams, including the pornographic, illegal, and objectionable.
It is ironic that the very thing people want to rail against, they are getting more of in the aftermath of CanSpam.
So where does that leave us?
What can a small businessperson do to get their message out, and not break their bank?
How to market effectively in the new internet wave
If you are a small businessperson, there are 3 alternatives that you should consider, which are described in this next section:
What is effective you might ask? (Ask away, it’s kind of the point here..)
1) First party offers that impart some value added (a tip; some information, something the consumer is interested in.)
Lets say John Q. Consumer gave his email address for a newsletter, or for more information on a particular subject, or to play a game.
Chances are he probably would not be angered to get an email from your company especially since he asked for you to contact him. He would recognize your domain name since he spent enough time on your site to actually ask the info.
Additionally, your internet service provider would not shut you down for violations and you’d start to build a small but effective list of people who are actually interested in what you, as a business owner, have to say.
This has been effective since the beginning of the internet. The only problem is, how do you reach people the first time, to get them to your site?
How do you find a target market for your products that is likely to be interested in what you have to offer and sign up for your newsletter, visit your site, and hopefully buy your stuff?
Is there anything less costly than television, radio, and (ugh!) banner ads?
Yes there is. Drum roll please…..Search Engine Marketing. If you write good ads, and compete with the right keywords, people who are already searching for an answer to a question, doing research, comparison shopping will go to a search engine and type in their parameters.
If you know how to market well, only people who are interested will go to your site.
If you have a web site that is compelling and you are offering a value added, they will ask for more information or sign up for your newsletter, or get your free download.
Now, getting to this point can sometimes take a little time, but if you are persistent, and know how to interpret your statistics, you can do this. If you want the result without the learning curve, hire a Search Engine Marketing Firm.
So the new tools for small businesspeople to stampede traffic to their websites in 2005 and beyond are going to be:
1) Search Engine Marketing
2) Publicity, including press releases that provide meaningful news
3) Providing quality content and expert commentary for radio, TV, and internet hubs in your field
You can be successful on the internet and these tools help to establish you as an expert in your field, as well as attract the very people who are looking for your product or service at the same time.
These are the tools of a new form of marketing, which people are calling "In Touch" Marketing, or "intelligent marketing" and is one way to cut through and actually get you the most possible business, at the lowest possible cost, with laser precise targeting. In future articles I will teach you how to use them with deadly precision.
This is the new way for small businesses and entrepreneurs to succeed in 2005 and beyond.
Remember, you heard it here first :)
Laura Betterly
CEO, In Touch Media Group
http://intouchmediagroup.com
laura@intouchmediagroup.com
Laura Betterly is the CEO of In Touch Media Group, (OTC:ITOU) and has successfully launched many ebusinesses for herself and others
More information is available at http://www.intouchmediagroup.com
Bulk email is controversial, it is even said that many people consider all bulk email spam.
Anyway, pick up the nuggets and visit this nice lady's site and I am sure you will be able to turn your online business into pure gold.
Its 2005----Bulk Email is Dead
By Laura Betterly
A typical day at the inbox
Today, I received 374 emails total.
A pretty light day considering some days I get more than 1,000.
To clarify what they were35 were for business, 4 were personal in nature, 11 were from groups I asked to get information from like Neiman Marcus and Urban Outfitters, VH1, and a PR Newsletter.
The balance of 324 was unsolicited (UCEunsolicited commercial email)in other words spam.
If I extrapolate the UCE I’ve gotten in the last six hours alone, I find I must be missing something about myself on some spiritual level..
I am a balding, fat man with a small penis that doesn’t work. I am in debt.
I am looking for a lower interest rate on my mortgage while at the same time making thousands of dollars with no effort on my part in the privacy of my own home—filling out surveys, stuffing envelopes and not selling something that miraculously sells itself.
Even better, I can be a travel agent without wrinkles; obtain a college degree while waiting for my 1500 advance to show up in my bank account; I can restore my credit rating legally while watching my free satellite TV and munching on my drugs sent courtesy of an offshore pharmacy that has a doctor who will write me a prescription… HMMM…definitely something to consider. NOT.
I’ve also discovered that I am a prime candidate to help an African Prince transfer funds into the US. He trusts me. All I have to do is give him my bank account information.
The problem is that I am a woman who doesn’t suffer those ills. Someone thinks I do…There is something wrong with this picture.
The future of bulk email and why it is likely to remain dead
Now, you might be asking why I, who was dubbed the “Spam Queen” in the “Wall Street Journal” three years ago, am even bothering to say anything about email?
Just to set the record straight, I have never advocated spam or sending spam.
One reporter said to me, "Some people consider all bulk email as spam. What do you have to say about that?" to which I replied, "Then I guess you'd call me the spam queen," as a joke.
In our sound byte media world, one editor turned this little quip into a buzzword and I became known almost instantly, all over the world, as representing what everyone, including myself, hates about email.
The media as usual emphasized sensationalism and missed the point.
I am not complaining because my marketing business skyrocketed as a result.
At that time I advocated email as a very effective medium for small business, which because of its low cost lets small businesses level the playing field against big corporations.
At no small personal risk, I visited the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC, and spoke my peace about small businesses and not throwing out the baby with the bathwater before even the very term spam could be legally agreed upon and defined to the satisfaction of marketers, ISPs and the government jointly.
Small businesses are the lifeblood of the US economy, and entrepreneurs with their dreams are what have made the US the economic powerhouse it still is today.
Email that is sent to people who WANT to receive it, and that is in accordance with their preferences, still gets a high response. It allows many small businesses to get ahead. I didn't want to see big corporations or the government take over email and bar entry, filter, and extort everyone else while still sending their own advertising messages freely.
And then came the CanSpam act, which I and many other legitimate marketers welcomed, because it had a great promise of getting rid of the noise while keeping the signal.
As it turned out, the opposite happened. Email filters from ISP's now block a large amount of legitimate messages, which they call "false positives".
Marketers can't send the text they would like to send to their subscribers, so they have to resort to filter tricking tactics such as spelling the word spam as sp@@@M so that they can get past the filters that were intended for another purpose entirely.
In a climate like this, legitimate companies that had been diligently following best practices, and keeping their lists clean for years, suddenly did not want to stay in business with ambiguities in the law and the potential litigation that might ensue even if all the rules WERE followed, so many companies just folded.
However the people that continue to send email illegally did not fold.
Often times sending from outside the US borders, they stepped up their operations even more, to the point that there is almost no truly legitimate bulk email left.
In other words, the signal has become lost in the noise.
The simplicity is this — bulk commercial email has gotten to the point where it isn’t effective. We just don’t do it anymore. What’s the point? It doesn’t get a response, and we found people are overloaded with advertising messages and no longer willing to receive more, especially in their inbox, unless they specifically asked for it.
As a marketing professional, the only thing that should count for you at the end of the day is effectiveness. Bulk commercial email has turned into the above, a bunch of unprofessional, ineffective scams.
In other words, Spam is a fourletter word.
Legitimate marketers are staying away in droves and it’s easy to see why. First of all let’s look at some facts. In the United States, it is legal to send unsolicited commercial email. The CAN SPAM act allows for this. You have to provide a way to optout and not hide who you are, and a few more simple but ethical rules.
Although it is legal, there isn’t an internet service provider in the United States who will allow you to send unsolicited commercial email.
Larger mailers have optin information from lists they purchase which imply consent but those lists aren’t originated from the mailer, but from other submailers—you get a free thing or access to a particular site and the user checks a box that it is okay to get information from their “affiliates and partners.”
The “affiliates and partners” they are referring to are those who pay for the email addresses and optin information.
These guys are sending you mail legally, but the fact is, they are not getting into your email box for the most part. Blocking, filtering, and doing it the “legal” way bulk wise, is just not working.
Not to mention, there is no way to prove that the recipients opted in or are willing to get the message since they opted in at someone else’s site, not yours.
The response rate is pathetic and when that mail does get through, you have many disgruntled individuals who never remember opting in, so in their view, the mail is unsolicited. The only way to get email into inboxes en masse is by not following the rules, so the only messages getting through are the scams, including the pornographic, illegal, and objectionable.
It is ironic that the very thing people want to rail against, they are getting more of in the aftermath of CanSpam.
So where does that leave us?
What can a small businessperson do to get their message out, and not break their bank?
How to market effectively in the new internet wave
If you are a small businessperson, there are 3 alternatives that you should consider, which are described in this next section:
What is effective you might ask? (Ask away, it’s kind of the point here..)
1) First party offers that impart some value added (a tip; some information, something the consumer is interested in.)
Lets say John Q. Consumer gave his email address for a newsletter, or for more information on a particular subject, or to play a game.
Chances are he probably would not be angered to get an email from your company especially since he asked for you to contact him. He would recognize your domain name since he spent enough time on your site to actually ask the info.
Additionally, your internet service provider would not shut you down for violations and you’d start to build a small but effective list of people who are actually interested in what you, as a business owner, have to say.
This has been effective since the beginning of the internet. The only problem is, how do you reach people the first time, to get them to your site?
How do you find a target market for your products that is likely to be interested in what you have to offer and sign up for your newsletter, visit your site, and hopefully buy your stuff?
Is there anything less costly than television, radio, and (ugh!) banner ads?
Yes there is. Drum roll please…..Search Engine Marketing. If you write good ads, and compete with the right keywords, people who are already searching for an answer to a question, doing research, comparison shopping will go to a search engine and type in their parameters.
If you know how to market well, only people who are interested will go to your site.
If you have a web site that is compelling and you are offering a value added, they will ask for more information or sign up for your newsletter, or get your free download.
Now, getting to this point can sometimes take a little time, but if you are persistent, and know how to interpret your statistics, you can do this. If you want the result without the learning curve, hire a Search Engine Marketing Firm.
So the new tools for small businesspeople to stampede traffic to their websites in 2005 and beyond are going to be:
1) Search Engine Marketing
2) Publicity, including press releases that provide meaningful news
3) Providing quality content and expert commentary for radio, TV, and internet hubs in your field
You can be successful on the internet and these tools help to establish you as an expert in your field, as well as attract the very people who are looking for your product or service at the same time.
These are the tools of a new form of marketing, which people are calling "In Touch" Marketing, or "intelligent marketing" and is one way to cut through and actually get you the most possible business, at the lowest possible cost, with laser precise targeting. In future articles I will teach you how to use them with deadly precision.
This is the new way for small businesses and entrepreneurs to succeed in 2005 and beyond.
Remember, you heard it here first :)
Laura Betterly
CEO, In Touch Media Group
http://intouchmediagroup.com
laura@intouchmediagroup.com
Laura Betterly is the CEO of In Touch Media Group, (OTC:ITOU) and has successfully launched many ebusinesses for herself and others
More information is available at http://www.intouchmediagroup.com
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Combine Your Bulk Email Marketing With An Online Degree Project
Here’s an excellent idea for every bulk email marketing online entrepreneur.
Why not do some online learning on the side even as you continue with your business?
I recommend that you check out Capella University. Founded in 1993, Capella University is an accredited online university that offers graduate degree programs in business, information technology, education, human services, and psychology, and bachelors degree programs in business and information technology
Why not do some online learning on the side even as you continue with your business?
I recommend that you check out Capella University. Founded in 1993, Capella University is an accredited online university that offers graduate degree programs in business, information technology, education, human services, and psychology, and bachelors degree programs in business and information technology
It Does NOT Pay to SPAM: It Doesn't Matter What You’ve Heard
Why not use your resources and time to go legal and build an opt-in list?
This is a perfectly acceptable and highly successful method that will keep you from being labeled bad business. With an opt-in list, people ask to be added to your subscriber database because they're interested in your topic. Opt-in subscribers should always be given the option to opt out.
But you will be shocked at how many people don't bother clicking the unsubscribe link, and eventually make their way to your site to investigate your product further.
This is a perfectly acceptable and highly successful method that will keep you from being labeled bad business. With an opt-in list, people ask to be added to your subscriber database because they're interested in your topic. Opt-in subscribers should always be given the option to opt out.
But you will be shocked at how many people don't bother clicking the unsubscribe link, and eventually make their way to your site to investigate your product further.
