Day 17

New Sign-ups Today: 7
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 5

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 107
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 61
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

Ok, I'm back from vacation and a visit to Ted Nicholas' and Joel
Christopher's Double Birthday Bash in San Antonio. I'll resume Craig's
List Profit Secrets course tomorrow.

Day 16

New Sign-ups Today: 5
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 3

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 100
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 56
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I'm on vacation this week but will continue to post results while I'm away.

Day 15

New Sign-ups Today: 7
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 3

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 95
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 53
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I'm on vacation this week but will continue to post results while I'm away.

Day 14

New Sign-ups Today: 5
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 4

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 88
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 50
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I'm on vacation this week but will continue to post results while I'm away.

Day 13

New Sign-ups Today: 6
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 5

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 83
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 46
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I'm on vacation this week but will continue to post results while I'm away.

Day 12

New Sign-ups Today: 10
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 3

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 77
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 41
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I'm on vacation this week but will continue to post results while I'm away.

Day 11

New Sign-ups Today: 7
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 4

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 67
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 38
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I'm on vacation this week but will continue to post results
while I'm away.

Day 10: The Cost of Using Double Opt In

New Sign-ups Today: 12
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 4

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 60
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 34
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I want to point out the cost of using double opt-in with your list. In 10 days, I've added 60 new sign-ups to this list but only 34, so far, have confirmed their subscriptions.

In some cases, this might be people surfing that don't check their email regularly. Given the amount of hotmail, yahoo and gmail addresses I see, that's not surprising.

I give very clear instructions on my post-sign up page on what to expect when you sign up. I tell them the subject line on the email they'll get and who it will be from. Yet, I realize that some people won't read this. I could also assume that they might not read the ezine either so they're not a big loss.

Also, inevitably, some of those opt-in confirm emails will end up in their junk folder and they'll never see them.

Unfortunately, this is the nature of email marketing these days. The risks of not using confirmed opt-in are too high. Plus, as Craig points out in List Profit Secrets, "double opt in subscribers are, as a rule, a lot more profitable and a lot less trouble."

As you can see from my results above, I'm getting just over 50% of signups to confirm their subscription. For this list, I'm not offering any type of free report or ebook for signing up. If I did, my confirm rates would be higher.

If you offer a freebie to get subscribers, don't setup your sign up page so they're automatically redirected to a download page. If you do, you'll see people putting in bogus names and addresses.

Instead of a download page, set up your autoresponder to send them the download link in an email as soon as they confirm their subscription. On the signup page, explain that you'll be emailing the freebie to them. That way, they'll enter a legitimate email address.

All the best,

Bill Hibbler

Day 9: Increased Sales to My Lists

New Sign-ups Today: 5
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 1

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 48
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 30
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

Didn't get to do any work on Craig's List Profit Secrets course today. However, I want to mention that adopting some of Craig's methods have led to significant increases in sales through my lists this week bringing in an average of 22 cents per subscriber.

All the best,

Bill

Day 8: Using Sublists

New Sign-ups Today: 8
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 6

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 43
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 29
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

Tonight I finished up the three-segment interview Craig did with Paul Myers. The focus was sub-lists. Before I get into this I want to mention that the running totals you see up top are a bit unfair to Craig.

I doubt you'll want to spend $1,000 for a course that only adds 43 subscribers in a week. The reality is if you're trying to make a decision by the time this course is released on the 15th, you shouldn't use those numbers.

Without going out and buying 100,000 names, there's no way you're going to add a significant number of subscribers 7 days into this course. The tactics just take longer than that to absorb and apply.

Can you generate huge numbers overnight? Yes, absolutely. In fact, I expect to do so on April 5th. I've written an ebook that's going to be included in a huge promotion Joe Vitale is doing. It'll be a bonus but a rather unique one.

It's a brand-new book on an extremely hot topic. It will only be offered for sale after Joe's promotion. In order to get it, all Joe's customers will have to do is subscribe to one of my mailing lists and then confirm their subscription. I've seen the results of campaigns like this before and I will easily get 3,000-5,000 or more subscribers from that promotion.

And since they'll all be reading my book, the foundations for a relationship will be there. This won't be like buying a list.

Think about that. A list of that size, totally targeted to my topic and expecting to hear from me. And it won't cost me a penny. Where did I get the idea to do this? Craig Perrine.

OK, on with the show...

I'm very familiar with the concept of sub-lists. When I saw what the topic was, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to hear. I've been around, I know the sub-list drill.

At least I thought I did until I heard Paul Myers. Wow! He introduced some information that I've never heard anyone else talk about. In fact, in talking with Craig, he spontaneously came up with an idea that could easily be the next big hit product in the internet marketing world.

I was tempted to immediately go hire a programmer to start building it. I don't have the time but I hope somebody builds it because I'll be first in line to buy it.

Anyway, the gist of Paul's talk is tailoring content for different segments of your list. What if you published an ezine on say, classic cars.

In your ezine, you mentioned a new kind of car wax that only takes 10 minutes to use and you're an affiliate for the product. Now let's say you've got subscribers that are only interested in engines, they don't care about car wax. If you go back and mention car wax two or three more times, those subscribers may get annoyed and unsubscribe.

On the other hand, what if you knew which subscribers clicked on a link to find out more about the wax the first time you mentioned it. So those subscribers are definitely interested in car care products. Do you think their going to mind when you mention the wax again? Of course, not. In fact, they're likely to buy when you repeat the message.

What if you could tailor your emails for your customers? What if you could only send car care articles and offers to those on your list that are interested in them? And offers on engine repair and parts to those that have taken some kind of action whether clicking on a link or making a purchase?

Well, there's a way to track those kinds of things without having to put people on separate lists. I had no idea this was possible. I often use tracking links in my emails. But those just tell me how many people clicked. But Paul shows you how to know which people clicked.

So you can send content and offers tailor made for different segments of your list. Imagine how much that would improve your sales? Imagine how much that would cut down on subscribers ignoring your emails or unsubscribing?

I can't wait to start implementing this stuff. It'll take some time to do and I may not see results immediately. However, I will have a very responsive list.

And that's the key. I was talking to Marlon Sanders one day about different people's lists. Another marketers name, that I won't mention, came up along with Joe Vitale's name. Marlon said, "[That guy] has a huge list but Joe has a responsive list. If Joe tells his list to do something, they do it. I'd much rather have a list like Joe's."

If you can give your subscribers exactly what they want, they'll respond. Craig's interview with Paul will show you a great way to start doing that.

And, by the way, if you haven't already done so, head over to Paul Myers' TalkBiz.com and sign up for his ezine. Not only is Paul a genius, he's got a damn good sense of humor, too.


All the best,

Bill Hibbler
http://www.EcommerceConfidential.com
Tips, Tricks & Brutally Honest Product & Service Reviews

Day 7: A Day of Rest?

New Sign-ups Today: 4
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 2

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 35
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 23
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I didn't have time to get to any of Craig's List Profit Secrets course today. I did manage to finish an ebook I've been writing for a while, though. I'll be back on the case tomorrow.

All the best,

Bill Hibbler
http://www.ecommerceconfidential.com/
Tips, Tricks & Brutally Honest Product & Service Reviews

Day 6: The right way to do coregistration lists

New Sign-ups Today: 3
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 2

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 31
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 16
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

Today I reviewed more of Craig's three part interview with
Paul Myers. They got into how to properly handle
co-registration lists.

They talked about building a relationship before making any
offers. And the things you need to do to avoid getting spam
complaints including what sites you should and shouldn't
direct your co-reg list to. And they covered how to handle
that list in terms of what autoresponder to use, what domain
to use initially and how to tag the lists to make sure
you're covered if you do get a complaint.

So, I took no actual list building action but this helped me
make some decisions on how to handle my new
pay-per-subscriber lists.

By the way, have you been following the numbers up top? If
so, you've probably noticed that about only half my new
subscribers are confirming their subscriptions. You might
think that's pretty costly.

Well, I do hate to lose half the new subscribers. But look
at it another way. If they aren't going to open an email
from me five minutes after they subscribe and click on a
link to confirm, they're probably would never have read my
ezine anyway.

The good news is that I end up with a list of subscribers
that really wants to be there. And I'm covered if I get any
spam complaints.

If you try double opt-in yourself, keep in mind that your
mileage may vary. After all, I'm not giving away any
freebies when people sign up. I may test that in the future
but right now I'm not giving away a freebie.

That's all for today...

All the best,

Bill Hibbler
http://www.EcommerceConfidential.com
Tips, Tricks & Brutally Honest Product & Service Reviews

Day 5: Forget the Spam Filters & Write

New Sign-ups Today: 7
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 3

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 28
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 14
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

Today's lesson with Craig involved email message content rather than list building. Due to the whole spam filter issue, ezine publishers and marketers have taken to misspelling or avoiding the use of words like "free" and "search engines".

So you see things like "no-cost" and "fr-ee" instead of "free". Craig points out, using a rather extreme example, that by doing this, you look like a spammer. I've never been happy with doing this but like others, I want my email to go through.

Craig mentions something I wasn't aware of. May of the spam filters are relaxing their rules regarding words like "free". So early this morning, I sent out an email with a product review for a new search engine research tool called Search Automator.

I composed the email as I would a piece of copy without worrying about the filters.

Tuesday is not ordinarily the best day for me to send email. Yet my list responded with nearly double the usual amount of sales for a mailing.

Granted, the email reviewed an extremely useful product but I believe following Craig's advice also played a big part in the results.

By the way, if you'd like to see what was included in the email, go here.

Day 4: Pay-Per-Subscriber Service

New Sign-ups Today: 8
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 3

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 21
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 11
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

Today I spent listening to part 1 of Craig's discussion with Paul Myers on co-registration. I've always respected Paul's opinion and I highly recommend his ezine. While I may try co-registration in the future, for now I decided to test a 'pay-per-subscriber' service .

As Craig and Paul point out, many people confuse pay-per-subscriber with co-registration. Co-reg are leads gathered via sign-up forms where people aren't specifically signing up to be on your list. They're leads where people have agreed to receive information on a specific topic. And those leads are often sold to multiple buyers.

With pay-per-subscriber, visitors to certain websites will see a box, often an exit pop-up, with a list of 6-10 ezines. They check the box next to the ezines they wish to receive. These leads are generally more expensive but more targeted.

Lead Factory, the service I'm testing, is run by Marty Foley. His service offers flexible pricing and you can buy leads on a one-time basis or sign up for a monthly service.

The one time service is priced from $175 to $2,000 dollars. Prices start at 38 cents per lead and drop as low as 25 cents with a purchase of $1500 or more.

On a monthly basis, you can get started for as little as $25. Leads start at 50 cents and drop as low as 30 cents with a $300 or higher budget.

These prices include leads from all over the world. If you with to restrict your purchase to English speaking countries or a group of specified countries, you pay an extra 15 cents per lead.

I decided to try $100 per month, which should bring me 222 new subscribers per month. That's not a huge quantity but I want to see what kind of results I get before spending more.

Since I'll be using double-opt in, I'll probably lose quite a few of that 222 but with the Can-Spam laws, I think double opt-in is a necessity these days.

It takes 3 days to get the account setup so I won't start to see results from this one until the end of the week.

Day 3: Implementing Google Adwords Campaign

New Sign-ups Today: 1
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 1

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 13
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 8
*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

I spent the day today doing keyword research and setting up new Google AdWords campaigns. When you do it correctly and setup tracking, it's very tedious work.

I did manage to discover a number of keywords and phrases that had little or no competition so I picked them up for the minimum bid of 5 cents per click. The downside is that these are phrases that don't get a lot of searches.

Using Google AdWords estimates, I'll probably yield only a dozen new visitors per day with these new campaigns. However, those dozen daily visitors will be highly targeted and likely to not only opt-in but also buy something.

At first glance, it'll look like I wasted a perfectly good Sunday afternoon. Over the long run, my efforts can pay off handsomely.

I generally convert 3% (or more) of visitors to customers via AdWords on the website I setup this campaign for. OK, this campaign generates 12 daily visitors or 360 per month. That means 10.8 sales at $9.97 or $107.68. About half the customers on that site, opt for an up-sell to a $27 purchase. So the total monthly sales from this campaign should actually be $199.48 or $2,393.76 per year.

And that's just immediate sales. This particular website generates a nice back-end income as well. The total income from those dozen new daily visitors is liable to be $5,000 per year.
Do you still think I wasted my afternoon? And remember, I'm getting most of those visitors for only 5 cents per click.

In terms of subscribers, I've been averaging 5.7% of visitors signing up to my newsletter. That should increase with the new pop-up.

It's been a slow day in terms of sign-ups. I'll get into another lesson from Craig's List Profit Secrets course tomorrow.

Day 2: Choosing Keywords for Pay-Per-Click

New Sign-ups Today: 8
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 5

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 20
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 11
*have confirmed their subscription via double opt-in

At last week's mastermind meeting, I asked Craig to point me to the fastest, most effective list building tactics in his course. His first suggestion was to listen to his interview with Dearl Miller from Trafficology.

I was in a hurry so I decided to read the transcripts instead. Dearl begins by giving a brief explanation of pay-per-click (PPC). When Craig asks if PPC is a good idea for everyone trying to build a list, Dearl said, "Everyone, yes."

He gives three reasons. "One, it's quick, two, it's targeted; and three, it's cheap." I'd like to show Dearl my monthly Google AdWords bill and ask him to explain that one.

Dearl suggests starting with Google. I agree. He says that if PPC isn't profitable for you, then you need to take a good hard look at what you're selling. Again, I agree. And although I spend six to seven hundred dollars a month on AdWords, it's still profitable for me.

I began by using AdWords Analyzer to scope out good PPC keywords. You can use the free GoodKeywords software (add link) to do this but Adword Analyzer shows you how many competing campaigns there are in Google and Overture.

To give you an idea of the value of that, in searching keywords, I discovered that an ebook I recently bought resale rights for had zero bidders on Google. So I have the top spot for 5 cents per click. I also discovered an affiliate product I like that had zero bidders in AdWords.

Google recently introduced a new policy that only allows one affiliate to bid for each keyword. That came as bad news to a lot of affiliates. However, there are ways around that but many affiliates either don't know or don't use this tactic. In any case, I snagged the lone affiliate spot with no competitors. A nice fringe benefit of doing this keyword search.

I still have more keyword research to do but will try to launch a few campaigns tomorrow. I added the new pop-up (see yesterday's entry) to several more of my websites today. That's led to 8 new sign-ups today. Not exactly overwhelming numbers but I'm just getting started.

More tomorrow...

Day 1: Quick Start Guide

New Sign-ups Today: 12
New Confirmed Subscribers*: 7

Total New Sign-ups Overall: 12
Total New Confirmed Subscribers*: 7

*confirmed their subscription via double opt-in


Today begins with the Quick Start guide, a 26 page book with 29 steps to "getting off to a fast start and building a list in as little as a weekend." Craig suggests doing each step and then coming back to review the entire course in detail for more advanced training.

I was surprised to see this is far more than a list building course. The first ten steps are about finding a topic (or niche market) and exploring its potential. The steps are accompanied by a series of videos that show you exactly what to do.

I agree with Craig's methods. They're the same things I do when seeking a new niche. In a list building course, Craig could have gotten away with leaving that out, referring you to ebooks on niche building. Instead, you learn a very detailed process.

The first CD is from a teleseminar Craig held for his clients. He covers a lot of the basics. He does so in a way so that if you're a complete newbie you can do this. If you've been online for a while, it's a good review of the fundamentals. Even if you know some of this material, chances are, you're not applying all the tactics.

Step 11 is "How will you reach out for subscribers?" Since I already have a niche, this is where I began today. When checking out one of Craig's recommended resources in List Profit Secrets, I discovered a new type of popup for getting subscribers or special offers. And it's not affected by popup blockers.

It's not another flying pop-up and it's simple to create. The popup looks like a handwritten note or post-it note on your website. Visitors can click to go to a sign-up page. I signed up for the service and added a subscribe pop-up on half a dozen of my sites. It only took about 15 minutes and I'm already seeing results.

Although this wasn't a technique included in the course, I discovered it using one of the resources Craig listed.

You can see my video review and demonstration of the popup here: http://www.ecommerceconfidential.com/IA.html

That's it for today.

Getting Started

"List Profit Secrets"

Getting Started Action Plan

That's what the headline is on the page I'm looking at right now. I've just received an advance copy of Craig Perrine's "List Profit Secrets". How'd I get so lucky? Well, for one thing, Craig's a friend of mine and he's in my Mastermind group. And second, I'm bigger than he is. :)

Actually, I'm one of the speakers on this package. I'll let you know right up front, I'm an affiliate for this one and, as I've mentioned, Craig is a friend. When Craig called me last week to promote List Profit Secrets, I was more than willing to help. But you know me, I'm not going to start sending out the cookie-cutter email templates we always get. (I'm guessing you've already hade one of those 'personalized' messages show up in your in-box. )

What's In It For You

Here's what I suggested to Craig. I said, "Look, you know me, I don't do promotions. I do reviews. And everyone is going to assume that since you're my friend, I'll go easy on you. But I've already heard quite a bit of your course (Craig let me listen in on several of the interviews). I know how good it is.

I also know how hard he worked on it. He hasn't shown up at our weekly Mastermind meetings for a month because he's been working so hard on wrapping it up. Well today he finally resurfaced and he came in clutching the completed List Profit Secrets. The official release date is March 15th.

A Boatload of CD's (or What's Included)

First of all, there are three boxes each containing 10 CD's. The first 6 are all Craig talking about his list building tactics. The next four contain Craig with:

• Tom Parish on using Blogs and RSS to build responsive lists.
• Dearl Miller on using pay-per-click to get targeted subscribers.
• Randy Gilbert on Amazing Amazon List Building Strategies.
• Your truly on how to build a list of buyers using eBay.

In the second set of CD's is on managing and mailing your list. Craig gives you his own tactics on the first three CD's and the final CD contains video tutorials. Six more CD's contain Craig interviewing:

• 1shopping Cart's Marin Wales on autoresponders.
• Frank Deardurff on finding out what your list wants.
• Paul Myers on Co-Registration lists and Sub-lists. Paul is an absolute genius and Craig interviews him over 3 CD's.
• Mark Joyner on The Simplified Internet Profit Model.

In the third set of CD's, Craig talks about maximizing the profits from your list. The first three CD's are all Craig and then he interviews:

• Alex Mandossian on proven teleseminar tactics to milk profits from your list.
• Joshua Shafran on bonding with your list and finding your hook.
• Frank Garon with the $5,000 email case study.
• Dr. Joe Vitale on powerful email JV secrets.
• InstantAudio.com's Rick Raddatz on multimedia email secrets.
• Randy Charach on proven list profit systems.
• Mike Stewart on Podcasting Profits.

In addition to all these audios and videos, there are four huge manuals. Manual #1 contains the step-by-step exercises designed to be used along with the audios to help absorb the material quickly. And I know from experience this works. If you ever took notes in school, you do to. You're far more likely to remember something when you write things down as you hear them.

Manuals #2 & #3 are the printed transcripts to all the audios. Some people prefer reading to listening. The manuals allow you to go either way. Manual #4 is a huge swipe file of emails that you can model. These are from Craig's own archives as well as other examples. He walks you through these in the video tutorials.

Finally, there is the getting started action plan I mentioned up top. This is a three page PDF that lists what's included and tells you what to do first, second, third and so on.

I Made a Costly Mistake

So here's what I'm going to do to help both of us out. I have a number of mailing lists. Ecommerce Confidential is one of them. I published the first issue 15 months ago. I've never gone out of my way to promote it. Believe it or not, including you, there are currently only 810 subscribers.

Now I could kick myself for not being more aggressive about list building. But that's about to change. Starting today, I'm going on the Craig Perrine diet. Step one is to read the quick start guide. I've done that.

Step 2 is to listen to one disc each day for eleven days. Coincidently, the product launch is 11 days from now. Let's see how many subscribers I can add to my list between now and the 15th. I'll post my results each day here so you can follow along. And I'll continue the program after the 15th, too. But this way you'll have a bit more to go on to determine if you want to buy it than you'll get from all the guys sending you the cookie cutter emails.

How About a Win-Win Proposition?

But let me ask you a favor. Click on this link: http://www.ecommerceconfidential.com/Craig/ and sign up for Craig's free webcast. It won't cost you a thing. Then follow this blog. You can get the RSS feed or just bookmark it. And by the time that webcast happens, you'll already have a pretty good idea of how effective Craig's course is.

If you decide to buy it and do so through my link, Nitro Marketing is going to send me a check for $250. But I don't want to keep the $250. Instead, I'm going to turn around and send you a certificate that you can use to order any of my products and services over the next year. You can use it to get a site review, coaching or any of my products. The only requirement is that you must order through my link and I need to verify that with Nitro. Fair enough?

Ok so tune in on Saturday to see my next post. I'll see you then...

All the best,
Bill Hibbler
http://www.EcommerceConfidential.com
Tips, Tricks & Brutally Honest Product & Service Reviews