As an internet entrepreneur we constantly face new challenges each and everyday.

Google changing their algorithms… fighting to stay focused on our goals… or some other challenge in front of us…

With this in mind, despite all the challenges we face daily, there is perhaps no bigger distraction or production time stealer than that of email.

Yup… You read that right. Email!

Email is the number one distraction for most internet marketers today. We have alerts going off in the background while trying to get something done.

Everybody is looking to get our attention. However, even though there is nothing wrong with getting email, it can severely hamper your business productivity if you don’t get it under control.

Without having your email under control you can get to the end of the day and realize that you haven’t gotten a thing done in your business.

With every alert you get, that is a temptation to go and check your email!

I just read a recent article that said with every distraction you have during production time, it can take several minutes to get your mind back on track. If for every 1 minute you spend checking emails, takes you 2 to get refocused on what you should be doing, you have just wasted 3 minutes.

Think about this for a minute, how often have you been trying to accomplish something, and you get an email alert? What do you do?

As soon as you get that alert your off to go check it. After you read it, you read another and another, and soon you find you have wasted 10-15 minutes.

Now it will take you time to get back into your groove and get going again. Once you get going in your groove… BAM… another alert!

This really is a vicious cycle that most get lured into every day, including myself at times. Before you know it, you have wasted several hours a day checking email.

Now I don’t know about you, but I have had that feeling at the end of the day that I didn’t accomplish anything and was all over the place. Email is usually the culprit.

Now there are some emails that we do need to be alerted to very fast. This is the beauty of a system like ViralinBox, as it lets you sort and be notified of only the emails that are essential to read right away.

So what I want to do is give you some tips on how you can be more productive in your business day in, and day out specifically with email.

Set specific times during the day to check email. – This is very critical to your success. Each and every day online there is a war going on for your attention. You have to decide when you will give them that time. Set a schedule for yourself, turn off your email during your productivity times, and avoid any temptations to go check it while working.

If checking email throughout the day is essential for your business, than do it deliberately during down non-production time. – So basically what I am saying here is, maybe you need to be in contact regularly and you need to check email consistently throughout the day. This is still a matter of scheduling the time to do it. You can take 5-10 minutes per hour and still make this happen. I recently started using a free software program called “The cool timer” and it allows you set times and when an alarm will go off. You can go for 45-50 minute bursts of productivity and when the alarm goes off, check your email. This works great, and will increase your overall productivity also. You can find the cool timer by just doing a Google search, and its free.

With each email make a decision what to do with it. – If an email will take less than 2 minutes to respond, do it! If it will take longer than that, move it to the “do-later” folder and get to it later. This is essential also, because when your inbox is all cluttered regularly you will constantly be scatter-brained. Its the equivalent to having a messy desk, just in your email box. In other wards, keep it nice an tidy in your inbox, and you will get more done, with less confusion in your brain.

Keep your email program closed during productive time. – It is essential to your success that you practice this discipline if you want to get control of your success and time. If its essential to respond to emails right away, than only set up those that you need to respond to right away in a special “do-now” box.

Use ViralinBox to get organized with your email. – Ok I know, this is a shameless plug… lol, but I know for me personally, this has been the best tool ever for joining lists and staying organized with those lists. With the ability at the Diamond level membership to have unlimited emails, this tool has proven for me to be essential in my business. You can even benefit from a free account, so I suggest you head on over and get it set up today.

There are many other distractions that are pure time and productions stealers, like the phone, internet surfing, Skype and slew of other things, but getting on top of email is by far the biggest.

If you focus on getting yourself organized and focus on good solid productive time, you will see an increase in your business and your profits.

Remember, you are a business owner, your business will succeed or fail based on your leadership and skills. Your ability to take the initiative will make all the difference in the world, and will contribute greatly to your overall success.

Lack of production is a killer for any business including an internet business. Make the decision today that lack of productivity is done in your business, and you will do something to change it, and it starts with getting your email under control.

To your success,

Mark Harbert
viralurl & Viralinbox Team Member
markharbert.com/

So you have heard this probably a thousand times right… The money is in the list!

While it is essential to build a list in internet marketing, what if you are new and you don’t have a list?

What about some basic ways to increase your knowledge and build a list while you learn?

These are a lot of the troubles that I see with people in the online marketing world.

I remember when I first started in internet marketing and I got my first subscriber I was jumping off the ceiling excited. But as soon as I got that subscriber, I realized the work that it took to get them.

Now it wasn’t that it was that difficult, but I thought to myself, how can I get to where I am getting more subscribers each day and do it consistently. I also was thinking of ways that I could get big bursts of email subscribers quickly.

This blog post is dedicated to the ones that need a little extra training on how to build an email list and to give you some ideas on how to do that quickly. Maybe you have considered some of these before, maybe you haven’t, but I am sure you will find something you can implement here to help you build a list fast.

List building strategies #1 – List builders

Without question this is by far what I believe to be the best, most efficient, and cheapest way to build a personal list. List builders allow you to have access to a shared email list of subscribers and allow you to send offers regularly usually every couple of days. There really is some major advantages to this because starting from day one you can have a list to email your offers too.

Some email list builders are better than others, but the truth is, they are all great to join. The cost is usually very low to join for a year, and the benefits are enormous because they work.

The thing I love about list builders is the ability to test my email copy every couple of days. There is benefit to this, because email is all about testing, testing, testing. Some emails get better open rates than others, but being able to test your subject lines and email body copy regularly is essential to email marketing success.

Just getting a 1% increase in your open to conversion rate can make a big difference in your list building. If you would like to learn more about copy writing and how you can improve, I put together a great training for ViralURL called “Copy writing 101” and this training is chalked full of great gold nuggets that will help you in your business. It is free to watch and I am sure you will get something from it.

If you are looking for some great list builders to join, here are what I feel are the best (and maybe I am biased… lol) ViralURL, ViralHosts, and Viralinbox. Without question in my humble but biased (lol) opinion our list builders are the most responsive and I have consistently generated subscribers on almost every email I send.

As a matter of fact, every time I send an email via these list builders and I don’t get an opt in, I make tweaks to my copy and the optins start flowing again. I love them, and I am sure you will too, so go on over and sign up, you won’t regret it.

List Building Strategies #2 – Joint Ventures

This is also a very powerful and underused strategy by most internet marketers today. I literally once watched a woman do joint ventures and build an email list of over 50,000 subscribers in less than 2 months. She worked her butt off, and had some great valuable stuff to offer her joint venture partners so its not surprising. But, my jaw literally dropped as that was an average of about 833 new subscribers everyday.

The essence of joint ventures is having something of value to offer in return for the ability to send an email blast to someone else’s list. In other words you help each other and leverage each others work to build your own. This can be a very powerful and a great list building strategy but the key is having something to offer the other for access to their list or following.

There are some great list sharing sites on the internet and you can pull some up with Google. But just make sure that if you go down this route that you have something of value to offer in return.

List Building Strategies #3 – Solo Ads

This is a very powerful strategy that can literally put hundreds if not thousands of subscribers on your list daily. The only draw back to this strategy is that solo ads typically have a cost associated with them and its typically on a per solo ad basis, and if your on a tight budget, this might not be an option.

A great resource to find solo ad opportunities is “The Directory Of Ezines”. I have personally been a member of this for many years now and have been able to find excellent opportunities for ezines because of it. There is a one time membership cost associated with it but well worth the investment in your business if you plan on looking at solo ads as a lead generation source.

Solo ads typically range from $20 up to $150 and more for a single email blast. Obviously the less expensive ones will have more ads taken out due to the fact that they are cheaper, but some of the more expensive ones tend to weed out people who are just looking to blast non valuable ads to lists. Because of this, the quality and response tends to be better. However, you can still have success with the lesser as well.

I know a gentleman in this industry that does solo ads and usually gets about 2000-4000 subscribers per email solo ad he sends. Of course the lists he buys these ads with are expensive, but the pay off is big because he now has an asset email list that he can build a relationship with and market to regularly.

The marketing takeaway…

These three ways to build an email list can really help you come out of the gate running with your internet marketing business. If you take the time to learn and apply some of these strategies, you can have a list in now time at all.

I would love to read your comments below. Please feel free to post some of your successes or ideas.

To your success,

Mark Harbert
viralurl Team Member
markharbert.com/

In taking some time to reflect and think about what causes me to pull out my credit card and buy a product, I started to really focus on what was the main ingredient to getting your list and subscribers to purchase from you especially in this day where more and more skepticism is taking place online than ever before.

In today’s internet based world, its sometimes easy to forget that we are humans that like the human touch at times. I actually like to feel like I know someone when I purchase from them. Now this isn’t always the case, but for the most part, if I am going to pay big bucks for a product, I want to know who that person is that is selling it and have some type of connection.

I am a lot less hesitant to spend money when I have seen videos of the person, or interacted with them in some way. For me, it makes a difference because I want to know that if there is a problem or some type of support I can get it if I need it.

Lets consider this for a minute. All the top successful internet marketers preach that “The money is in the list” and while I believe that is true, I also believe that is only half the story.

It’s not just having a list that will make you successful. Its the relationship you build with your list that will get you sales. Its your personal touch that will really help you be successful.

With high touch marketing you don’t have to have a big list to convert sales, by constantly providing value and communicating with your list regularly not just with sales pitch emails.

So we are going to compare what high touch marketing is vs. low touch marketing. We will also look at some of the ways that you can implement strategies that will help your list get to know, like, and trust you, so they will be willing to pull out their credit cards and purchase.

First lets look at low touch marketing…

Low touch marketing is also what I consider to be low value marketing.

It is simply where you blast emails off with the hope of a purchase. You don’t really show to much of your human side, and do very little to connect with the recipient of your emails.

Low touch marketing only has one thing in mind and its to get a sale. It is not focused on what the problems are of the person who is reading, but only on the fact that getting a sale will satisfy your craving to make money.

Low touch marketing really is where I believe spam and other forms of unwanted, un-asked for advertisements come from. I personally don’t really get upset anymore when I get spam because I always try to look at it like an opportunity for me to stand out from the crowd. To stand out from the low touch, low value marketing that really plagues our industry.

Low value marketing is when you take the opportunity to send an email to someone that didn’t ask to receive it from you, and have gotten no value from you at all.

Now, let me just say that you can build a list and blast to them this way, but the responsiveness will be low, and that means you will need to grow a much bigger list than those that spend the time to update regularly and connect.

I believe people now days are seeking more high touch when they purchase. Why do I believe this? Because that what I am looking for also?

For instance, even when I am out and about in town, in the stores I am looking for good friendly, and quick service. That doesn’t change for me when I come online, as a matter of fact, I carry that same attitude online.

High touch, great attitude and high value motivational based selling gets me to buy almost every time.

I always look at what motivates me to buy, and then turn right around and implement that into my strategy because if I have thought about, more than likely my subscribers have too.

People have been there done that and pitched over and over again and they want something different.

The good news is, there are several things you can do to connect with your list on a regular basis. There are several ways that they can connect with you.

Now if your don’t have a list, the best place for you to start of course would be listbuilders like ViralURL, ViralinBox, and ViralHosts. From these list builders you can begin to use a shared list and build your personal list.

Some ways to practice high touch marketing…

Send out an email survey to your list and ask them what their biggest struggles are in their business or in whatever niche you are in some questions that pertain to that niche. With the answers they provide you can tailor your message and products to what they need. A good place for surveys is: www.surveymonkey.com/

In an attempt to connect with your subscribers on a personal level, you can also implement video emails into your marketing. Their are several video email providers nowadays that a simple search on Google will bring up a few for you. If you don’t want to invest in a video email system, a simple YouTube video will work just fine as well.

By making a video and talking directly to your subscribers you can make a big touch impact on the them where they will feel like they actually know you on personal level sometimes. I personally make myself available to my list via Skype, and via Facebook.

I just recently sent out an email blast on ViralURL with my Elite membership and got two people that connected with me on Skype. I can now chat with them, find out what they need, and give them a product or service that meets that need.

That is another great way for you to connect with your list is on Facebook. At the time of this blog post, there is currently over 800 million users on Facebook alone and growing daily. More than likely your subscribers are on Facebook which means you can connect and interact. Send out a blast and tell them to request your friendship as you would love to connect with them.

If you have a Facebook fan page, invite your subscribers over to the page “like” it and ask questions or to interact with you so you can help them.

Facebook also has a video update feature that you can use to post video status updates on your wall. You simply have your webcam connected, turn it on, and start talking. This is a great way to get your face in front of your friends and followers. The human touch goes a long way in marketing.

Through this strategy, you will begin to build value and trust with your prospects so that when you send out those offers via email they will be more apt to purchase from your recommendation.

Remember, connect with your list, and I believe you will be surprised with the results you get. Push yourself to go implement one thing on this and then blast it to your list and see what happens, I think you will surprised.

To your success,

Mark Harbert
viralurl & Viralinbox Team Member
markharbert.com/

In the past few years that I have been involved with internet marketing, I have come to realize that there really are only a few key skills that contribute to the success of someone when it comes to succeeding in email marketing.

With that being said, I am convinced that the number one skill aside from a few others that is key in email marketing is… COPY WRITING!

What is copy writing? In short, it is salesmanship in written form. When you are driving down the street and you see a billboard that catches your attention and it gets you to look into a certain product or service, that is copy writing that is designed to grab your attention.

Here is an example off the top of my head:

Car need maintenance? At Jiffy Lube, get your $19.95 oil change now. Free 15 point inspection included. All in 30 minutes or less or its FREE. Only through March 31st, Stop in NOW!

This is kind of a silly example, but you get the point. The idea of copy writing is to get the reader to take action on what you are wanting them to do.

In this case what do they want them to do? The answer is simple, get into Jiffy Lube and get there oil changed at a low price so they can then try to up-sell you on more services. Don’t we do that same thing in internet marketing?

Some of your best places to study the art of advertising is just to look around at the advertisement signs on the street. The big corporations that advertise everywhere you go have literally invested millions upon millions of dollars into advertising campaigns and know what works.

Take their best stuff and mesh it with your product of service.

If you have attended some of my webinars lately on copy writing you will see that I refer to the “5 point formula for persuasion”… What is the “5 point formula for persuasion”?

Identify the big problem – This is were you hit hot buttons. This is literally where you hit right at the heart of what the overwhelming statistics show. For instance, if you are in network marketing you would see that the statistics show that a majority of people struggle with lead generation. This is a hot button that will get people to take action on what you are asking them to do as long as you can provide the solution.

Unique benefit or promise – So going inline with identifying the big problem in point one, how is it that your product or service will fix the problem they are facing? For example: “If you lack leads, join our system and learn how to generate 10-20 laser targeted leads everyday for your business”. You see? This shows them what is capable with your system or product. This is where they can picture themselves attaining the results you’re referring too.

Provide factual proof – This is your opportunity to show results from people or yourself where you have gotten results with your product or service. This can be very powerful and very persuasive to the reader. There is one thing that I caution you against though, and that is making up fake testimonials. DON’T DO IT! It’s important to be truthful with your message, and not break the law. But providing proof of results is very, very persuasive and can convert optins and sales.

Risk free offer – This is where you basically take away their apprehension in taking action. For instance, someone might hesitate to take action because the don’t want to be on another email list. This is where you assure them that you will only send them value based information that will help them in their business. It can also include things such as a “30 day money back guarantee” if you’re selling a product or “7 day free trial for $1?” or something of that sort. This is designed to remove the apprehension from the reader, and help them to make a fear free decision to take action.

The take away – Ahh yeah, this is my favorite… lol. The good old move now or forever hold your peace call to action… lol. This works so well because the greatest thing most people fear is not getting a good deal. Or missing out on that awesome training program that will take their business to the next level. You can use language such as “Limited time only” or “Only available to the next 20 buyers”. The key here also, is don’t say it unless you MEAN IT! Don’t make it up. If you are only making it available to 20 people, make it 20 people and be done. Don’t just say that to get people to move. You loose credibility when you do that and you hurt your reputation, so be honest in your take away.

By integrating this into your email marketing, you will get much better results, and it will cause you to have more fun in your business.

I don’t know about you, but I like to have fun and get results with what I do. If I am not getting results, I stop, re-evaluate and then make a change. Good copy writing will get you results all the time.

There are two things I want to recommend to you if you want to improve your copy writing skills.

Copy Writing 101 webinar – I just recently did a webinar training for viralurl solely on this topic alone. It is 78 minutes long and is jammed packed with good information that is really going to help you get results. This webinar is full on content rich value for your business. You can attend this webinar free of charge and take advantage of the training.

Copy writers guild course – This is for those that really want to take their business to a whole new level. This is for the person that is not messing around with their business and really wants to step up their game in not only their email writing skills, but their copy writing skills in general. This course is not free, but in my opinion the best information never is free. If you want to invest in yourself and your business, go pick up this course right now as you will not regret it one bit. Once I went through this course and applied what I learned I saw an immediate response in my marketing, so much so that I would venture to say it was the best money that ever spent. Remember, the best investment you can ever make is in yourself. I recently did a blog post about this, and you can check that out here…

Why Investing In Your Skills Will Make You Money

Focus on your skills, and your copy writing for emails, and you will see results.

To your success,

Mark Harbert
viralurl & Viralinbox Team Member
markharbert.com/