Critical Steps to Online Success- Auto-responders- What's the best one?

We want an auto-responder to deliver our emails
automatically in the sequence we design and to subscribe
the respondents at our web page to a list we designate on
the auto-responders database.

So the first thing we want to be sure of is that our auto-
responder company is stable enough to be around for
awhile…it pays to stick with the big ones if you don't want
your business to be dislocated.

From my experience and everything I read AWeber is the
most popular of the Auto-responder services and is highly
endorsed by many users.

But all auto-responders are not born equal so first let's
examine some of the things an auto-responder can do for us
and what makes one better than the other.

This is a good cross-section of popular auto-responders on
the web at the moment:

AWeber http://aweber.com/

EmailAces http://emailaces.com/

GetResponse http://getresponse.com/

IntelliContact http://icontact.com/

RobotReply http://robotreply.us/

Before subscribing to any of these you'll want to know a
few things about them.

How well do they deliver your emails?

Independent testing suggests that the first 4 all deliver
above 80% of your emails but Robot Reply seems to fall way
behind at 50-60% delivery of your emails.
In these days of spam where AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail etc. have
such vicious spam filters I would think that these numbers
are bit high.

How do their Features compare?

Aweber, GetResponse and IntelliContact all have great
features so there's not a lot between them in this area.
Email Aces has OK features and Robot Reply trails the field.

How quickly do they respond to your email queries?

Get Response and AWeber are reported to respond to
"Trouble Tickets" in 4 to 6 hours while the rest take 20
hours and over.

How much do they cost?

Pricing is an important consideration and for some people
over-rides every thing else.

The following prices are not totally current so you should
check for yourself. Pricing is time sensitive but this will
give you a ball park idea of what to expect.

GetResponse: $17.95 per month ($17.95/mo for 10,000
subscribers + $4.50/mo for extra 5,000)

Aweber: $19.95 per month ($19.95/mo for 10,000
subscribers, plus $9.95/mo for extra 10,000)

RobotReply: $34.95 per month

EmailAces: $37.90 the month you sign up, then $29.95 per
month thereafter.

IntelliContact: $109.00 per month. Ouch! (but it does
allow up to 15,000 subscribers)

Pretty obvious here…GetResponse is the lowest cost
followed closely by AWeber while IntelliContact is way more
expensive.

It would seem to me that AWeber and GetResponse come out
ahead of the field.

I personally use AWeber most of the time and find them
very good.

Sometimes when I want to upload a purchased list in bulk I
will rely on other services. AWeber is totally restrictive
as far as double opt-in is concerned and insists on the
verification email. This protects both them and you, but if
you have purchased a double opt-in list it can be a pain.

The way I handle this is to upload my bulk list to another
service and have my "web-form" send the respondents to
AWeber for my long term list needs.

Keep on Winning

Regards

Jim

Critical Steps to Online Success-How to put your business on Auto-pilot

You must have an Auto-responder! This is Critical.

Why?

What will an Auto-responder do for you and why do you need one for your online business?

Here's why you need one!

You need to duplicate your efforts. You won't have time to do all of the work yourself!

How much will it cost?

All good questions and I asked them all myself. It seems that getting started in this business we are continually dipping into our pockets. And as we expand it gets more and more.

But look at this…where else can you start a business with nothing down except an idea, a computer and an internet connection? which most of us already have anyway.

When James Watt invented the steam engine he began a movement that was (in my opinion) the prime mover in the abolition of slavery. For centuries people in civilized countries were appalled at the whole institution of slavery but such is the greed and self interest of the race of man that we weren't willing to give it up until we had replaced the function with something that works better. In America's South it took a Civil War. And it was all about economics. Not much of an endorsement of the true nature of man. The steam engine allowed us to multiple our efforts. The machines could be working while we were sleeping and they were much faster and more accurate than manual input.

And that's exactly what an auto-responder will do for you.

It will be there taking care of business while you are
sleeping, working at something else or off having fun. When
someone accepts your offer and subscribes to your list the
auto-responder will take care of them.

You absolutely must have one!

AWeber is the most popular of the Auto-responder services
and is highly endorsed by all the pros…so why fight city
hall.

To find out exactly how to do it, see my articles:

Critical Steps to Online Success- Auto-responders- What’s the best one?

Critical Steps to Online Success-Auto-responders-How to
Subscribe to AWeber!

By Jim Keayes

Just copy and paste the URL into Google and you'll find it
no problem.

Keep on Winning

Regards

Jim

Online Success: How to be really successful Online-use Article Writing to build your list

The great underground secret the pros don't tell you about
article writing is this…you have to be prolific. That's a
big word for so early in the day…so let's say it another
way: write lots of articles!

How many articles is lots?

Let me tell you a story about a young man who has had what
I consider amazing success online.

Why is his success amazing?

I'll tell you. Because it's BELIEVABLE!

He didn't just wake up one morning, join a program he
stumbled across on Traffic Swarm and become wealthy
overnight without lifting a finger. These programs really
offend me if you don't mind me having a rant here for a
moment. A very small number of people get wealthy by luck,
some get wealthy by inheritance (probably the biggest
number)…but most of us have to work at it. And that's why
not many people actually get rich. It's a part of the human
condition to be lazy. So if you're lazy you probably will
never be wealthy.

Just a quick word on laziness. Sometimes laziness is just
a symptom of not knowing exactly what we want.

See my article:

"Motivation That Inspires - How Your Goals Will Put You On
Auto-Pilot To Success" By Jim Keayes

So what did my friend do?

He chose a niche and started to write articles…not just
one or two articles either. Some days he wrote 10 or 20.
And he submitted his articles to only 5 or 6 of the big
Article Directories. In his first month he had over 200
leads come in and he earned a little over $100…and it grew
from there.

Today, a year into his program he has written over 1000
articles and is earning over $10,000 per month and growing.
He has over 10 personally written "how-to" products that he
is marketing and his ideas are expanding every day.

This is exponential growth and I am impressed!

Why am I impressed? Because I can believe that we can do
it too. It's realistic. It's steady growth…the payoff for
focused commitment to his goal. He's just an ordinary guy
like you and me who has decided to do extraordinary things.

Now…it's not as hard as it seems. My friend wanted to get
off to a fast start when he was writing 10 or 20 articles a
day because he knew that quantity was important. But you
don't need to do this many.

If you combine your article writing with Pay-per-click you
could probably get away with one article per day.

Three articles per day will get you to the level of over a
thousand articles published by the end of one year. If you
publish in 6 article directories that's over 6000 web pages
devoted to "your articles".

But that's not all. Your articles will begin to be picked
up by Ezines and Newsletters and published by them because
they are always in need of content. And their readers will
publish your articles in their publications and attribute
them to you.

And it just grows and grows! The growth becomes
exponential. The online industry calls it "going viral".

Today when you Google my friends name you get over 150,000
hits. A year ago he was unknown!

As you get more practiced you will find you are writing
your articles faster and can complete each article in 15 to
30 minutes. Let's say it takes you 2 hours for the 3
articles to be fair and another hour to post them to the
directories.

That's still only 3 hours per day!

Would you be willing to do that for a shot at $100,000 per
year within 12 months from now?

Keep on Winning
Regards
Jim

Critical Steps to Online Success-Your first "For Sale" item will most likely be an affiliate product

It's easiest to start your online campaign with an
affiliate product.

You just sign up, put the link in an email and everything
else is taken care of for you--particularly if you work
through an Affiliate Directory. You don't need to create
the product, make it professional, get it on your website,
set up a "shopping cart" to collect payments etc. etc.

To find out "Step by Step" how to get set up as an
affiliate, see my article:

"Critical Steps to Online Success--Step by Step Plan--How
to Find and Register for Affiliate Programs By Jim Keayes"

Just Google the title and you'll find it no problem.

When you first start online you will be confused if you're
anything like I was. All that new terminology: SEO ranking,
webpage optimization, click through rate, conversion ratio
and on and on. So you have a lot of planning to do.

Finding an affiliate program to market will get you
started faster.

Here's a real life example. You can market this program too.

In the interests of total disclosure I want you to know
upfront that I am an affiliate for this product, but that's
what this is all about after all. Have a look…it will give
you an idea of how this affiliate thing all works.

Your offering email might go like this:
________________________________________________

Here's a superb "How To" manual on Affiliate Marketing:

Rosalind Gardner's "Super Affiliate Handbook"

http://www.super-affiliate-plan.com

Just copy and paste the link above into your browser and
it will take you to the Super Affiliate Information Page.
_______________________________________________________

As you can see, setting up to market a product as an
affiliate is really pretty simple.

Keep on Winning

Regards

Jim

Critical Steps to Online Success - Here's an action plan to Monetize your list!

You need to write an Email Series for your Auto-responder.

What's the point of this step?

You can't make money without subscribers!

You have to be ready for your visitors when they show up
at your webpage. You've promised them a "Free eBook" and a
free subscription to your Newsletter and now you have to
deliver. The best way to do this is via an email series at
your auto-responder that automatically sends the same
series of emails to every respondent.

But unless you are a 100% philanthropist, you want to make
some money from this venture. The best way to do this is
with integrity. You need to provide value as well as make a
sale. So make sure you are giving a lot of free relevant
content in your emails between your sales messages.

Here's a series of emails that works well:
______________________________________________

Email #1: Day 1

This email simply says: "Thank you for requesting my free
book - if you have trouble downloading please send me an
email to your-name@your-email.com. I have another free gift
for you which I'll be forwarding very soon"

Email #2: Day 3-give them a chance to absorb the first book

Send another free eBook or gift to generate good will -
maybe some free website building software.

This can be a simple email that just says: "Hi John,
here's a free gift for you."

Email #3: Day 5-give them time to absorb the second gift

Send Content - an article you have written is good if it's
relevant.

Email #4: Day 6

Make your first sales offer. At this stage you probably
won't have a product you have created yourself so your
first product will probably be an affiliate product you
have registered for.

Briefly describe your Affiliate Product and provide a link
to the sales page. You might also include a free gift or
content as a bonus.

Email #5: Day 8

Provide some more free content or another free gift and
make your sales offer again.
When people buy from you will need to send an email
acknowledging this
_______________________________________________

That's the end of the first series of emails for now.
Remember this series goes out to everyone who joins your
list, so everyone is receiving the same set of gifts and
offers.

You can extend this to a 20 email series if you wish by
repeating emails 2 through 5 with varying content and
products. Choose a length that works for you.

After that you can begin sending individual emails to your
entire list following the same format. These are not on
auto-pilot. You time the release and content of these each
time you send.

If you have your own "first product" finished then this is
a good time for you to begin to market that.

Keep on Winning
Regards

Jim