Introduction
Creating an email newsletter is one of the best ways to get long-term traffic to your website and make money online. Any guru will tell you this.
Unfortunately what they don’t tell you is the exact process to use. It’s not as simple as “go make an email list”.
There are many steps involved in correctly setting up an email newsletter. Below I have outlined the steps I’ve used to set one up.
To start with I want to show you a simple flowchart:
This simple flowchart gives you a high-level view of what goes on when someone signs up for your email list.
Now let’s jump into the nitty-gritty details.
1. Need an autoresponder
You are going to need an autoresponder. I highly recommend Aweber. It’s what I use and it’s affordable.
Whatever autoresponder you choose make sure you use double optin for your email list. When you use double optin someone will sign up for your email list and then they are sent an email asking them to confirm their subscription to your email list. This ensures that you have fewer spam complaints.
2. Use an email address that you check
Whenever you send out a message to your email list there is a “reply to” email address that is sent along with the message. This way if any of your subscribers have a question they can simply hit the reply button and send a message to you.
You must make sure that this reply to email address is one that you check on a regular basis.
There been a few times when I sent out a message with a link to my website that didn’t work. I didn’t know about it until one of my subscribers hit the reply button and notified me of this. If I didn’t check the email address on a regular basis I would’ve never known.
3. Create a free short report
Identify a common problem that your readers have and write a report showing people how to fix this problem. The report doesn’t have to be very long; three to five pages should do the trick.
Just make sure that it solves a specific problem that your readers have.
Once you have it written you need to save it in PDF format. If you’re not sure how to do this are a lot of free tutorials on the Internet that will show you exactly how.
4. Packaging your report
If you link to the report in pdf format then when people click on the link to the pdf it will automatically load the pdf in the browser.
If instead you link to a zipped file (which contains the pdf) they will be forced to download it to their computer, making it easier for them to read anytime.
In the zip file also include a file that links to your website.
To do this open a new file in NotePad and save it.
An example filename might be Traffic_Tricks_Blog.htm
Be sure that the filename contains no spaces, is something that gets the viewers attention, and ends with .htm
Inside the file type the following:
<HTML><HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="0;URL=http://www.nickstraffictricks.com">
<TITLE></TITLE></HEAD><BODY></BODY></HTML>
What this chunk of HTML code does is tell the browser to immediately redirect to:
http://www.nickstraffictricks.com
Simply replace http://www.nickstraffictricks.com with your own url and then save.
Be sure to test your redirect!
Now everyone unzipping the file will see a the htm file and when they open it they will be sent to your site.
You can do this for affiliates stuff too.
In fact you could have two of these files inside the zip. One would redirect to your website and another would be an affiliate offer. This is a great way to make a little extra money on the backend.
Just don’t abuse it.
5. Create a “thank you” page
After a person enters their name and email to subscribe to your list they will be sent to a thank you page.
The purpose of this page is to thank the person for signing up and inform them that they need to check their email and click on the confirmation link that has been sent to them.
You may also put an advertisement on this page.
The form of this page is relatively simple and if you want you can just copy one that I have used in the past:
http://free–web-traffic.com/thank_you.php
6. Create a “sign-up is complete” page
After a person has confirmed their email address their sign-up is complete and they are sent to a “sign-up is complete” page.
In addition to page tells them that their free report has been emailed to them.
I recommend putting an advertisement on this page.
If you would like you can copy the one I use:
http://free–web-traffic.com/thank_you_after_email.php
7. Create the first message
After someone confirms their email the first follow-up message will automatically be sent to them. In this message you need to have a link to the free report for them to download.
In a message you can also introduce yourself to the reader and invite them to follow you on twitter or subscribe to your RSS feed.
8. Get an ecover
Your free report is not really complete until it has some sort of ecover which is just a graphic cover for your report.
Here’s an example of the cover that I frequently use for my Nick’s Traffic Tricks ebook:
There are some ways the you can create them for free and you can find free tutorials on the Internet. But if you have a little extra cash and time is short then I recommend finding someone to create one for you.
Simply go to Google and search for: ecover design
9. Place the signup immediately after content on your website
You want to place your sign-up form in a prominent location where people can see it.
For me this works best by placing my sign-up form immediately after my main content block all my blog.
10. Experiment with popups and lightboxes available with Aweber
One way to increase the conversion rate and get more people to sign up is to experiment with different types of pop-ups and light boxes.
Some website owners have reported a fivefold increase in the number sign ups.
With Aweber trying different types is easy.
11. Whenever you post to blog or website you send an email to you email list and get guaranteed traffic
To get instant traffic simply send a message out to your email list every time you post new content on your blog. This will be dramatically more effective if the content that you post is always high quality. Read 6 Reasons Quality Content Receives More Traffic And Makes More Money
12. Don’t forget to test
Lastly you need to make sure that you test this entire process. There are a lot of steps and you want to make sure that each piece is set up correctly.
I recommend going through the following checklist to ensure that everything is set up.
- Go to the page with the sign-up form and sign up with your name and email.
- Were you taken to the “thank you” page and asked to confirm your email?
- Did you receive the email asking you to confirm it?
- Now click on the confirmation link.
- Were you taken to the “signup is complete” page?
- Did your advertisement display correctly on that page?
- Do you receive the email with the link to your download?
- If you hit reply to the email does it send to you?
- Does the link to the download actually work?
- Can you unzip the file and open up the PDF?
- Do the other files that you may have included work correctly?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Another timely read. I’m actually looking at MailChimp at the moment for my emails. They’re free for a list with < 500 email, make makes it easy to try, but probably quick to outgrow…
One more great post. I am wondering which email auto responder to sing up with. Auto responders are good but in my opinion they take away the ‘personal’ touch that your email could have. But with thousands of people signing up it’s extremely difficult to personalize emails. Auto responders are specially handy when you are not going to be at your computer for a while like going on a vacation or something.
Thanks, Nick
Cheers!
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