Email marketing - as its name says is marketing using email (not so fancy huh?).

The basic mechanics behind it is that you collect the emails from your website visitors and email them your offer or anything related to your niche.

For example, if you are blogging or have a website about “breeding arowana fish”, you put a subscription box where your website visitors can leave their name and email in exchange for some kind of information that you offer. This information could be in the form of an e-course about arowana, an e-book or just simply a kind of permission for you to send out more information on the website whenever you update it.

People who are interested about arowana will definitely like to be updated about anything related to this fish and they will allow you to send more emails to them. Of course, you want to also include a note saying that by filling up the webform that you put on your website, they allow you to send more emails in the future.

Then, when you get their names and emails, it becomes your goldmine.

You can send out the product that you promised immediately (e-course or e-book) or update them with current activities you have on your website. From here, you can also send out advertisements on the products related to arowana, and since these groups of people are really arowana lovers, there is a high chance that they’ll buy the products that you recommend (or advertise).

If you are the product owner or an affiliate for the products that you recommend to this mailing list, you will generate an income from sending out your emails. This is because, in the eyes of the people in your mailing list, you are an expert in arowana or at least a person that they can trust enough to buy your product recommendation.

So, that is basically how it works.

And the next question will be how to create a webform to collect names and emails of your website visitors? I’ll make it easy for you.

Subscribe to GetResponse or AWeber auto responder service and they’ll be able to provide a service where you can build a database of subscribers of customers for you. These services are not free and they charge you on a monthly basis but if you can quickly build a mailing list that churns out money for you, your income will cover the cost of your auto responder services already.

As for how to build a webform to be added inside your website, you can log in to GetResponse or AWeber members area and follow a few easy instructions on how to set it up.

But bear in mind that I highly encourage you to start using a paid auto responder service right away because if you are in the business that involves email marketing, you want to start using the “right tool” right on the spot. Yes, it will be an added cost to your business but it will be worth investing for your future.

Have fun!

Search the net and find whatever tips you need at TheWiseTips.com

Acknowledgment: This article was published in IMC’s Internet Marketing Chronicles in 1998. While the original web site is no longer available, the advice is still 100% spot on!

After 10 years, it’s sad that people are still making these simple mistakes. What are the 10 Top Internet Marketing Blunders?

Blunder #1: Using free or cheapo web hosting services.

Let’s get one thing straight, you absolutely can not run a business web site using a free web hosting service. No matter what you may think, it just isn’t going to work. As they say you get what you pay for.

There is no bigger turnoff than visiting a web site that is hosted on an obviously overloaded web server. We won’t mention any names, but a few of the free services are just terrible. Your web site is the most important asset you have, and it must give a good first impression.

Besides, nothing is really free anyway. When you get “free” web space you are normally required to show the hosting company’s banners and advertisements in prime locations on your web site. This is absolutely insane if you really think about it from a business standpoint.

These days you can find a good web hosting company that will provide what you need for as little as $7 a month. Let’s be real, if you aren’t willing to spend $7 a month on a good web host how serious can you be? Many good prospects are immediately turned off by this blunder.

And while we’re on the subject of web hosting, be sure to get your own domain name. Again, if you aren’t willing to spend $10 to claim your stake on the web…what are your potential customers going to think? Take your business seriously, or you will ultimately fail.

Blunder #2: Destroying your site with graphics, java, music, etc.

This has got to be the 2nd most offensive Internet marketing blunder. If you are running a business online, your web site’s most important job is to sell your products and services. Anything that detracts from this should be avoided like the plague. And we mean it, literally!

Unless you are a graphic designer, graphics that take forever to load are not going to sell anything. And neither is java that crashes your visitor’s browser. Same thing for any but the most popular plug-ins. Sound or music clips on your web site? Heck no!

Unless you are selling CDs, sound does not belong on a web site - not yet anyway. Sure you can argue this, but the bottom line is that it can cause your visitors problems. Fancy graphics, java, flash, sound files, etc. do nothing but make your pages take forever to load.

Don’t take it from us, just look at any of the top 100 sites on the web. Heck, look at Google which is undeniably the most popular web site on the Internet. When was the last time you saw anything coming from there that would slow you down?

Blunder #3: Not asking for, and acting on, visitor feedback.

This is another big one, and we can personally attest to the value of asking for and acting on feedback. One thing that many people seem to forget is that it’s the prospect who has to like what they see - and not much else matters. Here’s a real-world example.

A while ago we launched a web site, and initially used a special layout. We were aware of the potential problems, and spent lots of time tweaking it to be as browser-friendly as possible. But after asking for feedback we discovered that many visitors hated it.

And the scary thing is that unless we asked for feedback we probably never would have realized this. Everything looked and worked well for us, but a significant number of our visitors had problems with it. We redesigned the entire site and immediately our sales increased.

You will be literally amazed at the valuable feedback you will receive if you just ask for it. Remember that your prospects are the ones buying your products and services, and despite what you may think, the way they perceive your site and your business is what counts.

Search the net and find whatever tips you need at TheWiseTips.com

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Because affiliate marketing works so well and seems to genuinely benefit both the website that is advertising as well as the website that is hosting, people tend to look for problems that just don’t exist. One of the “problems” that has dogged affiliate marketing for years is the idea that is a multi-level marketing scheme.

What is multi-level marketing? It’s much better known as a pyramid scheme. In most traditional cases, pyramid schemes are illegal. They work by constantly signing up new people to sell a product that doesn’t actually exist. The people at the top of the pyramid make money be collecting a commission off of all the sales that happen below them in the pyramid structure.

In recent years, pyramid schemes have tried to gain a bit of respectability by offering legitimate products like phone cards that made the whole operation legal. But, in essence, pyramid schemes are still tainted by the perception that they are inherently dishonest and, unless you start a pyramid scheme and are at the top of the pyramid, you’re earning money for someone else.

Affiliate marketing is, in no conceivable way, multi-level marketing. In most cases, a site that wants to advertise pays another site to direct traffic to them. There are multi-level affiliate marketing set ups that have one site direct traffic to another site and then that site directs people to the site that pays both previous sites, but even in this case, the customer isn’t tricked or misled and there isn’t any sort of financial transaction that takes place, either. Multi-tiered affiliate marketing is simply another way for web pages to create traffic and revenue.

The way earnings work for multi-level affiliate marketing is different than a pyramid scheme, as well. Is it true that in the end, the site that is being linked to makes the most money? Sure, but that’s because they are the ones offering the product or service. The other sites are simply steering customers to them. With multi-level affiliate marketing, everyone makes money and assuming a legitimate good or service is being sold at the end of the path, the consumer ends up happy, too.

It can be a little confusing for those new to multi-level affiliate marketing to tell the difference between it and a pyramid scheme. But rest assured the two have very little in common, most importantly the facts that almost all pyramid schemes are illegal while multi-level affiliate marketing is quite legal and has a very effective tool in internet advertising.

If you are looking for a great affiliate program which is easy to understand, have excellent products to promote, nice incentives and payouts for affiliates, and excellent affiliate support, then you’ll get one. Be part of MoreNiche.

I recommend Gobala’s Wordpress AdSense System

You will have to be patient. You should not expect to achieve success overnight. Blogging does not make anybody overnight millionaires.

Remember building a blog is an investment and the most crucial factor in an investment is the time factor. You can increase your effort, but you cannot do anything about time. So relax, and be patient.

Building slowly, steadily and surely also means being consistent in writing blog posts. Building slowly, steadily and surely also means not rushing to get too many back links because if you do this, Google might suspect that you’re buying links and doing evil stuff to manipulate your page rank and will most likely pull down your page rank.

Most self-claimed internet gurus will tell you that it will take some time before you would start earning the big bucks. Some say that it will take a year before your blog really starts to kick off.

During this time just be patient. Your efforts will soon pay off.

I recommend SiteGround web hosting