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/

What can you do to become a pro-blogger?

Well, you need to get a lot of traffic to your blog.

And now you thinking….’I already know that, but HOW am I going to do it? I have some trade secrets to let you in on. By using these trade secrets, you too, can become a pro blogger.

Today, you are going to learn some great tricks of the trade to grab the attention of StumbleUpon, and use their platform to set your blog on fire. These tips and tricks will get you anywhere from the hundreds up to the thousands of StumbleUpon visitors each day.

StumbleUpon does lean toward some niches more than others, and you need to use this to work for your advantage. You will find that StumbleUpon can be one of the greatest viral marketing tool out there. So here are some tips:

• If you do have a niche that is lacking in the mass appeal, StumbleUpon will be a great boost for you where the others won’t. Digg uses a broad forum which keeps their power from weakening in traffic. StumbleUpon works a bit differently by creating more specific categories, providing a more targeted audience.

• Write posts that appeal to the particular social media, if you go for the general appeal, you are going to lose your followers. For instance, Del.icio.us likes anything that their users prefer, Digg likes the appeal of the masses. You have to have content that is going to get thousands of hits, or you won’t become a pro-blogger.

• When you are writing for StumbleUpon, you don’t need to worry about pleasing the masses, matter of fact, you benefit more by sticking with your niche, yes, even your small ones, and this will bring you some highly targeted traffic.

• So, write your content for your niche, not for the general public. By doing this, you will increase your chances to your post will be submitted to receive more traffic in a more specific category.

In another blog, I will go into the types of posts you should and should not be making. I will go into the types of content and the things you can do to make your blog more appealing to StumbleUpon.

Today I want to talk about online newsletters and how these can bring in even more business for you. This is a very cost-effective way to market and will not eat up all of your time.

Whether you are mailing your newsletters out through the post office, or sending them out via email, this is a great way to increase the recognition of your brand, bringing in repeat business and sharing your experience and story and success with your readers.

1. You are going to first put your list together of your current customers along with any potential customers. Any names that you have collected from inquiries, direct mail response cards, etc…that you have from the beginning of your marketing endeavors, will be the start of your list. If you don’t have a list, and you have some money set aside, you can purchase a list, giving you names of the best potential customers.
2. If you are doing an online newsletter, it is best to include a content manager system. This will make your editing much easier with a newsletter template, your graphics and giving it your own style. You will have a little bit to learn, but you will have a lot of fun doing it. If you need help through the process, call a college student, they will be a great resource. Another option would be to hire somebody at Guru.com at great cheap prices.
3. Next you want to have a feature that allows you to track bounce back emails to help you manage. your list, deleting these names from your list. It is really important to keep your list up to date. Now, your goal is to increase sales, but you need to make this an easy process for your readers because they all have very busy schedules, so you need to show off your products in the very best manner. Below are some tips to help you do this and achieve greater financial success from your email marketing.

• Include pictures all throughout
• Show details in these pictures
• The pictures need to be bright and cheery
• Make the picture a link to the sales page or product information page.
• Be sure to add a text link which is associated with your product picture which links to the online product page
• Include the ability to order directly from your newsletter with purchase buttons
• When you have a new product, make sure you have direct links in the website, making it easy for them to get there without any extra navigating.

If you still have concerns about your new online newsletter, …just know you can do it… I will go over tomorrow some of your biggest questions… such as “What do I say?”, or “How much time will this take?”, or “How do I set up the links?”. Well, we will answer these questions in our next blog post. Stay tuned…

Affiliate Programs and How They Can Boost Your Income

What Do You Know About Affiliate Marketing?

As you already know, Internet marketing uses the Internet to market products as well as their promotion. You can be using this method to promote your own products or the products of others.

This is where we get into the affiliate programs and how they can benefit you financially by earning commission on the quality products you are promoting for others.

There are several avenues of marketing that you can use such as your website and web pages, personal blogs and Email Opt-in lists. You are going to promote the product with a squeeze page or promotional letter, In your letter, you will include an affiliate link which will contain the affiliate identifier.

With your affiliate identifier link, your visitors will click on the link, be sent to the product sales page or website, and with their purchase, you will be given a percentage of the sales price. This is very similar to sales in brick and mortar stores, however with an affiliate program, your part is very simple and self running. All you need to do is do the initial set up and optimize the traffic.

You need to realize though that Not All Affiliate Programs are the same, so choose wisely.

What you need to know and look for in choosing the right affiliate program:

1) Training and Support

Affiliate programs will usually provide training and support, which is crucial for those just starting out on Internet Marketing. This is so important as it will be the only way for you to become effective as well as profitable. You need to look for affiliate which offers sufficient training and the know how in selling their product. There are however, Internet marketers who have experienced great success in affiliates without the training and support, but wouldn’t it be nice to have that training and support?

2) Look for High Commissions

You are going to put in the effort to bring in the traffic to the affiliate product with your sales pitch, then directing the customers to the affiliate sales page, and for your well earned efforts, you will receive a percentage of the sale in form of commissions. As you look at the different Affiliate programs to market, look at the amount of commission they offer, some are hardly worth your effort.

The most popular site to promote affiliate programs is Clickbank. You will soon see that Clickbank is the largest online marketplace on the Internet. Clickbank places hundreds of thousands of products which are sold on a daily basis. There are some that pay up to 75% of the purchase price.

3) Affiliate Referral Programs

There are a few programs that will offer you a chance to recommend their affiliate programs yourself. This sill ultimately award you with a greater percentage of all the sales generated for the program you recommend. This is where your viral marketing techniques will come in effect, the more you recommend, the more money you will make.

4) Triple Combination; Affiliate Training and Support, Referral Commission and Product Commission

You will be happy to know that there are some programs out there that offer the best of all three worlds of affiliate marketing. You can have all of these with training to help you in your marketing efforts. A wonderful example of this is the Internet Marketing Center’s Affiliate program. With this combination, you can reap huge commission benefits.

You can make some good money with Internet marketing bringing you closer and closer to your goal of financial freedom. But remember, you need to be willing to put in the time and effort.

Building a List? Build Trust First!

You want to build a great opt in list, well the first thing you are going to do is build up the trust of your readers. You are going to want to do this quickly so you can get the word out about your site. When you have a broader opt-in list, the more traffic you will bring to your site, therefore, providing greater profits.

So how are you going to do this?

Let’s take a look at a few points of interest.

1. You first do this by having a legitimate business or product, one in which you have some expertise. Your customers are relying on your knowledge and expertise in your niche to answer their questions and help them to improve in that area.
2. Let your readers know that you know your stuff, that you know what you are selling them. They love to get helpful hints and how-to lists, bring up new and fresh ideas and guidelines that relate to the product you are selling. If you have a site selling hand tools, give some ideas and instructions on making a doll house, or maybe birdhouses. You may want to have instructions to making a nice new workbench for their new hand-tools. If you are proving your value and your knowledge in your product area, they will grow to trust you.
3. Be honest and true! If you are going to promote your products and services with the utmost hype and performance, then make sure you provide a guarantee to back up what you say. If you have a satisfied customer, then you will get recommendations and your viral marketing will spread. When someone recommends you to their friends and family, they are more likely to also trust you and visit your site on the referral alone.
4. Be consistent! If someone is given a recommendation for your great service, continue providing that great service.
5. Give them an escape if needed. You do not want your customers to ever feel trapped, you want to keep your list clean, enabling your readers to unsubscribe at any time. On you web form, provide information needed to unsubscribe from your list. Also let them know that they can do this anytime they want, and that their name is not sold to anyone else. No one likes spam, and by letting them know that you don’t like it either and that you will only be sending them letters as long as they want it.