The IM Free Help Group

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In this section you will find the items I have written on Top Tips for beginners in Internet Marketing.

Tips for beginners are certainly in there many, but I have simplified the long list as I think that at a time when a marketer is already in a position of looking at information overload, why add to it with something that is supposed to make what they’re going through, easier.
So I start off by giving everyone that joins my ‘Free Help Group‘, a report called ‘Successful Professional Series – Stage 1‘, which I wrote to answer common questions from new marketers.
This is the first of a 6 part series that looks at everything an Internet Marketer needs from when they start from scratch right through to where they can be earning a full time living. The information is very much up to date, so much so that the second stage isn’t released yet as other more urgent products have needed to be created in response to readership demand.
However, the ‘Stage 1′ report gets things off to a great start, covering key tips for beginners in detail and once someone becomes a member of my group or subscriber to my newsletter, I am always accessible to email and Skype enquiries.

Why You need a domain of your own.

Ok, so when you join an affiliate program, you get what is called an affiliate link, which will be something like www.yourusername.theopportunityname.com or www.theproduct.com/yourusername. Which is all good and well, or is it.

Click here to grab your domain – right now.

[Disclosure: compensated affiliate]

Email marketing is incredibly effective and also very cost effective.

Is your email Free ? Then Bin it and here’s why.

Here we have a perfect example of when Free isn’t the best option to take. This is one of my favourite changes for the students to make when I coach them.

People that have free email addresses like – well, I can’t mention any due to legislations etc – but you know the ones I mean, they just don’t look that great and again they are amateur, so go buy yourself a domain, a catchy and relevant one, then attach an email address to it and where possible include your name in that email address as this will help you to brand yourself and people will recognize the email is from you when they see it in their inbox and often that recognition can mean the difference between the email getting opened instead of being dumped in the Trash.

The difference in how you will appear to your prospects will be subtle but effectively impacting I assure you. This is a tried and tested improvement that my students have been implementing for years now and it still amazes me that people struggle with why this is so important.

Think for a moment on how you view the emails that you receive. Do you consider the ones that are free email addresses to be as serious business-wise as the obviously paid for email addresses ?

I bet I know the answer.

So act on this tip and get yourself an email address if you don’t already have one and if you do, well done for taking the initiative.

Email Marketing Rocks ! It’s cheap too.

You have to get up to speed with this one, email marketing is another huge part of the overall marketing plan and is so cost effective it’s crazy to miss out on it. Plus it’s incredibly effective for getting relationships built and sales made automatically, while you are off doing something else to develop your business or maybe just something to relax.

The thing to do is to select an email marketing service provider, the biggest 2 are Aweber and iContact, my personal preference is iContact, but both are extremely popular.

Using a service like these will allow you to create an email list, send emails, track who opens them and take advantage of auto responders and surveys too.

You also get to benefit from having your emails ranked on the search engines for additional SEO.

Email marketing works so well because it.

• allows targeted communication

• promotes direct sales

• further builds relationships, loyalty and trust between you and your subscribers

• gives you fast feedback and sends out actionable information

Email promotions and offers can often generate immediate action in the form of sales, downloads, inquiries & registrations. Informative email newsletters and other emails can prepare the way for launches, build awareness, contribute to branding, strengthen relationships and encourage trust in you, the sender.

Overall, email marketing is an excellent way to build your business.

So how easy is it to set up ? Real easy – here’s how to do it.

Here we will cover and you will learn how to create a list, add messages to that list’s autoresponder, create sign up forms and other useful email marketing actions.

There are plenty of providers of this type of service and after extensive research, I have chosen to use only one - icontact.

Their service and products are excellent and their customer support is highly responsive which is an important factor in any service provider. They also have a series of lessons that help explain their system which many find very easy to follow.

Let’s get started then.

First you need to Create Your Free Trial account which will last for 15 days and this will enable you to try out their service and decide if you like it or not. So far I haven’t had anyone come back to me and tell me they didn’t like the service they received from icontact.

Now click the ‘my contacts’ tab on the login screen and then select ‘create a list’.

You then get to name the list, give it a brief description and either use the system generated welcome message that new subscribers receive straight after joining your list, or create your own. You also get to make setting on how you want to be notified when new subscribers join and how they can join, ie via a sign up form and one by one manually added by you.

Then hit save.

Your first list at icontact is now created.

Next – how to create the sign up form for your list.

Go to the ‘sign up forms’ tab on the right of the screen that you get when you select ‘my contacts’ tab and follow the prompts there. You get to assign the form to a list and state whether or not you require confirmation after someone fills in your form. So they will fill in the form and then have to check their inbox for a confirmation email and then click confirm.

It is worth noting that the more fields you have on your form, the more information you ask your visitor for, the less likely they are to join your list. So you’ll get more people joining your list if you ask for less information.

I suggest asking for their email and first name.

Sometimes this will lose you subscribers as people often cannot be bothered to go to all that trouble, so this may be something to remember when setting up your sign up form.

Hit ‘save’ and your form’s html code will be displayed for you to copy and paste into your capture page.

This will link your capture page to your list.

Now it’s onto the autoresponder.

Click on the ‘Create’ tab on the home page and then select ‘create an autoresponder’.

Then you name your autoresponder, select the list that it will be linked to and the name and address that people receiving your messages will see on that message.

You then get to either save the autoresponder or save it and then add messages to the autorepsonder.

Once messages have been added your autoresponder can be activated and you have a everything in place.

Now you need to get the url of your capture page in front of your prospects. Which is covered in our ‘Free Lessons’ email series.

Here’s the link again - go to icontact here.

[Disclosure: compensated affiliate]