This is part two of my series on Advanced Email Marketing for Bloggers. This time I’m going to show you how to geo-target your email list. The ability to geo-target is one of the most powerful features of Aweber.
Many affiliate offers are geographically limited to certain countries or regions. It would be huge waste of resources and bad form to email offers to readers that can’t use them because they don’t live in the country where the offer is available. By geo-targeting your list, you can make sure that only readers in the countries where the offers is available receives the offer. Readers outside the geo-target won’t receive the mailing. This increases conversions and reduces unsubscribes.
Another use of list geo-targeting is for holiday emails. During Thanksgiving, I received a ton of “Happy Thanksgiving!” emails. Only problem was, I live in Canada and Thanksgiving happens in October, not November. By geo-targeting your email, you can ensure that your holiday emails goes out to the right group at the right time. Here’s how to do it.
Segment Your List By Countries
Log into your Aweber account and choose “Search” from the “Subscribers” tab. From there, you’ll see a long list of options to choose from. The one you’re looking for is Country (from IP). If you really want to dig deep, you can segment by region, city, postal code, latitude, longitude, etc. For this example, we’re just going to create a list of US subscribers.
Depending on how big your list is, the search can take anywhere from a second to a few minutes to generate. Give the new segmented list a name and save it. Now you can email the segmented list with your geo-targeted offer.
If your blog doesn’t have an email list, you are leaving a ton of money on the table. My mailing list is the number one reason my blog makes income that it does. Aweber is the best email service I have ever used. Their feature set is beyond anything else in the industry and the geo-targeting tool is another reason they’re the best.
Aweber offers a $1 trial account for all new customers. The account is just like a normal Aweber account and includes unlimited email campaigns, newsletter, broadcasts and follow ups. It’s a great way to test drive Aweber to see what it can do for your blog. Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If you find that having an email list is not for you, contact Aweber within 30 days and they’ll give you the $1 back.
Backup and disaster protection is something that most bloggers don’t do enough of it. They think it will never happen to them. However, we all know better. Disaster happens and it’s something you should prepare for. This is especially true if your blog makes money. There are many ways to backup and protect your WordPress blog and I’ve tried most of them. Out of all of them, the best solution by far is VaultPress.
Made By The Makers of WordPress
Why is VaultPress the ultimate WordPress protection tool? For one, it’s made by the makers of WordPress. Who better understand the needs of WordPress than WordPress itself? VaultPress does more than just backup a copy of your WordPress database. It backs up your entire blog. This means your plugins, dashboard, themes, comments, and post revisions are all safeguarded and ready to be restored. Backups are saved to the Automattic grid (over 1,200 servers in three data centers) that serves over 16 million WordPress.com blogs and 270 million monthly visitors.
As you would expect from WordPress, setting up VaultPress is super easy. Simply install the VaultPress plugin and you’re pretty much ready to go. VaultPress works in the background and will give you peace of mind knowing that your blog has the best protection available. Unlike other backup tools that use a schedule backup, VaultPress is always working. Whenever I write a new blog post or a reader writes a new comment, VaultPress will back it up on the fly. There is a real-time status display that shows what VaultPress is doing at all times.
The Bad News – It’s Not Free
VaultPress is a WordPress premium service. Currently, there are two plans available: Basic and Premium. They cost $15 a month and $40 a month respectively. The only difference between the plans is the premium plan has security monitoring, which scans your files every night for potential threats or exploits.
If your blog makes no money, playing for a backup service, no matter how good, can be hard to justify. However, if you have a money-making blog, paying $15 or $40 a month is cheap insurance. The price includes a concierge service. The concierge can assist you with initial setup, restoring your files, and any needs in between.
More Bad News – Even If You Want To Pay, You Still May Not Get It
VaultPress is in beta right now and open only to approved beta testers. Even if you want to pay for the service, you can’t. You need to apply for a “Golden Ticket.” If VaultPress thinks you are worthy, they will give you the privilege to pay them. If they deem you not worthy, then you’ll have to wait until VaultPress comes out of beta, at which time, the price will go up to $20 and $50 per month. Only WordPress and Apple can get away with this kind of pricing scheme!
I’m not going to get into a debate over charging bloggers to be beta testers (if you want to get into it in the comments, go for it). If VaultPress can get away with it, I say more power to them. What I can tell you is VaultPress is an extremely powerful backup solution, the best I’ve used. If you really care about protecting your WordPress blog from disaster, then good luck getting your Golden Ticket.
Subscribers Magnet is a WordPress plugin that helps to build your mailing list subscriptions. The best part is that you don’t need to get any additional traffic; this plugin works wonders at the current level of your traffic. Obviously, if you’re only getting one or two visitors a day to your blog, the program won’t work for you; but if you’re getting 10, 50 or more visits a day, you should see a double or triple increase in subscribers.
Using the plugin is extremely easy. Just copy-paste some text into your widget, or the part of your blog template where you want Subscribers Magnet to appear, and you’re done. You’ll have professionally-looking subscription windows “instantly” appearing either on your sidebar, at the top, in the footer, in the blog post itself, or a combination of these.
Unlike the “old style” opt-in forms, with Subscribers Magnet, your visitor’s name and email address will be automatically filled in the form. All they need to do is click the submit button. This will dramatically increase the number of subscribers. You can check out all the features at the Subscribers Magnet sales page.
Get Subscribers Magnet for 30% Off
Subscribers Magnet normally sells for $147. However, if you order before midnight Friday, you can buy it for only $97. Subscribers Magnet is covered by a 60-days “double your email subscription rate, or your money back!” guarantee and if you’re not fully satisfied with my purchase, MaxBlogPress will issue you a full refund, no questions asked.
My friends over at LinkTrackr are holding a contest to give away an Apple iPad 64GB with 3G + WiFi. The cool thing is this contest is open to anyone, anywhere in the world and it’s very easy to enter. You don’t have to be the number one affiliate. No need to have a big list or be famous. Anyone can win this. All you have to do is write an honest review of LinkTrackr on your blog.
If you already have a LinkTrackr account then you can go ahead and enter. If you don’t have a LinkTrackr account yet, then go sign up for a free account. You can’t review the service if you haven’t used it.
How Winners Are Selected and Notified
The best 3 reviews will be the winners
The main winner will be paid via an Amazon Gift Card worth $839.00.
Two consolation prize winners will each receive a $30 LinkTrackr account credit
Contest ends on 24th February, and winners will be announced om the LinkTrackr blog and via email
Full contest rules are available on the LinkTrackr blog. This is my review of LinkTrackr but I am not entering the contest (I won too many iPads already). I look forward to reading your LinkTrackr reviews.
A TV first happened last night when Watson, an IBM supercomputer, took on two of the world’s best Jeopardy! players. And it did extremely well. Currently, Watson is tied for the lead in the first of three rounds. Double Jeopardy! and Final Jeopardy! airs tonight and tomorrow. Will Watson beat the Ken “74 wins in a row” Jennings or Brad “Biggest Money Winner” Rutter? You’ll have to tune in to find out.
Did you watch Jeopardy! last night? What do you think? Is this a sign that the computer is about to take over the world and humans will be used as a battery for the Matrix? I do find the engineering behind Watson to be beyond amazing. Making a computer that can understand human language well enough to play Jeopardy! is so beyond anything that IBM Deep Blue ever did.
While it would be cool to see Watson win Jeopardy!, I’m cheering for the human players. If Watson wins, I have a feeling that Skynet will be coming online and you know what that means!
List segmentation is a very powerful feature of Aweber but most bloggers don’t take advantage of it. If you are pushing your new email signups through any kind of auto responder sales funnel, then segmenting a list is something I recommend highly.
What is List Segmentation?
Segmenting a list means breaking it down into little pieces. Instead of emailing the entire list, you only email a segment of it. Lists can be segmented in many ways. For example, you can segment a list into US or Canada only subscribers if those are the people you want to target. For a blogger with an auto responder sales funnel, the most useful segment feature is the date added.
When you’re pushing new signups through the funnel, you don’t want to send them anything else. The problem happens when you’re doing a promotion and want to email your list about it. Chances are, the people who just signed up are not going to respond well to a promotional email from you. They just signed up and may have just received your welcome email. Now you’re trying to sell them something before you’ve establish a relationship with them.
Your auto responder funnel is meant to build your relationship with the reader and establish trust. You want to let the reader go through it (or a good ways through it) before sending them any outside promotions. Here’s how to segment your list so people going through the funnel doesn’t get any other emails.
Search for The Subscribers You Want To Segment
Log into your Aweber account and choose “Search” from the “Subscribers” tab. From there, you’ll be able to search your list using a ton of different parameters. The one we’re interested in is the “Date Added.”
let’s assume that your auto responder sequence is one month long and you don’t want people in the funnel getting any other emails. What you would do is use the Aweber Segment feature to find all the subscriber who signed up to your list 30 days or longer ago. The list generated would only contain subscribers that have been through the sales funnel.
Depending on how big your list is, the search can take anywhere from a second to a few minutes to generate. Give the new segmented list a name and save it.
Email The Segment Instead of The Full List
Now that you’ve created a segmented list containing only subscriber who have been through your sales funnel, you just email the segmented list instead of your full list. In Aweber, choose “Broadcast” from the “Message” tab and create a new broadcast message. Write your email like normal. Directly below your Schedule option will be a drop down menu call Send to Segment.
Clicking the menu will bring up the segments available. Select the segment you created and save the message. Now you’re ready to email your promotional offer to all the 30+ day old subscribers while your auto responder funnel continues to build that relationship with your new subscribers.
Try Aweber for Only $1.00
If your blog doesn’t have an email list, you are leaving a ton of money on the table. My mailing list is the number one reason my blog makes income that it does. Aweber is the best email service I have ever used. Their feature set is beyond anything else in the industry and the list segmentation tool is another reason they’re the best.
Aweber offers a $1 trial account for all new customers. The account is just like a normal Aweber account and includes unlimited email campaigns, newsletter, broadcasts and follow ups. It’s a great way to test drive Aweber to see what it can do for your blog. Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If you find that having an email list is not for you, contact Aweber within 30 days and they’ll give you the $1 back.
This is my personal invitation to all my readers to join me for Affiliate Meetup 2011. This is going to be an awesome event and I want to see you there! Here are the details.
When: March 18, 2011 from 12:00PM Where: RevenueAds Building 2304 South Post Road, Midwest City, Oklahoma
Sponsored by RevenueAds, Affiliate Meetup 2011 allows you to connect face to face with fellow affiliates as well as interested publishers and agencies. Enjoy an eventful day of interacting with other publishers, meeting the RevenueAds team, and learning about new marketing strategies. There’s also free food, refreshments, and even door prizes.
I will be doing a presentation on industry trends and offer some very useful information that all affiliates will benefit from. There will be a catered lunch and you’ll get to enjoy drinks from RevenueAds’ well stocked bar.
After the presentations, lunch, and prizes, we will head out to the Ford Center in Bricktown OKC. All in attendance has early access to the Oklahoma Thunder game to watch the players practice, do autographs and so forth. Then we’ll watch the game in the comfort of the RevenueAds suite. The suite will also have an open bar and there will be hors d’oeuvres served.
The Best Part Is The Price: FREE!
The best thing about Affiliate Meetup 2011 is the price. It’s zero! That’s right. You get to come to Affiliate Meetup 2011, network with fellow affiliates, enjoy lunch, open bar and watch the OKC Thunder play the Charlotte Bobcats at the RevenueAds VIP suite, and it won’t cost you one cent!
All you have to do is RSVP to Affiliate Meetup 2011 and you are in. If you live in Oklahoma, you would be crazy not to attend this event. Even if you’re out of town, you should seriously consider going. This is going to be a great time and I promise you will have a blast. I’ll see you at Affiliate Meetup 2011!
The Dot Com Pho in Seattle is picking up. This week we had eight people showed up to Pho Thanh Vi in the International District (Seattle’s name for their Chinatown). hopefully, this is a sign of things to come for Dot Com Pho Seattle. Anyone is welcome to attend our meetups. Follow me on Twitter to find the time and location of the next one.
For this edition of Dot Com Pho, we have absolutely no respect for no parking signs, the life of a dot com community manager, the last few seconds of a bug’s life, the decagon pho bowl, two gadgets of the week and a whole lot more. Enjoy!
A few years ago, I was on an Internet reality show call the Top Affiliate Challenge. This was a suppose to be a contest to find the best affiliate marketer on the Web but it turned out more of a crash grab for the producers than anything else.
Over the years, I have kept in touch with some of the orignal challenge members. One of them was Jani Ghaffor, who was a member of my team. Since the challenge, Jani has done quite well for himself. He’s become a very large Clickbank affiliate and recently teamed up with Alex Malave and Devin Chapman to do a huge Clickbank launch next month.
Jani and company are looking for some JV affiliates to help them with their launch. If you guys want to get in on the ground floor of a big product launch, then you’ll want to sign up as a Get FB Ads Free affiliate. In addition to earning a big commission, there are some great affilate prizes up for grabs. Check out the top prize.
Now before you get too excited, I have to tell you that you don’t get to keep the car. You get the car and a VIP chauffeur to drive you around for five days. In addition to the Phantom, there are three other contests that will let you win up to $10,000 in cash, a $1,000 daily cash contest and secret bonus contest. I generally love these type of product launches because I usually walk away with a few thousand dollars worth of stuff before I even sell a single item.
Speaking of sales, the funnel that Get FB Ads Free set up can make you up to $435.65 for each sale. Of course, this is on top of any prizes that you might win. The launch starts on Thursday, March 3rd at 2PM EST. Sign up as an affiliate and go make some money.
BTW – should I win the Phantom, I’m going to give it away to one of you guys. But you have to be a Get FB Ads Free affiliate to win. Fair enough? Go sign up then.
I’ve decided to add to my step by step guide on how to install WordPress with a step by step video. Why? Because many people don’t like reading 1000 word long guides and would rather just sit in a nice comfy chair and watch a video on how it’s done.
The video shows the steps I go through when someone orders my free WordPress installation service. After watching the video, I feel that you should be able to install WordPress all by yourself. However, if you’re still feeling a little intimidated by process, feel free to order my free WordPress installation service and I’ll do it for you.
Now would actually be a great time to use my service and start your WordPress blog since HostGator is having a 20% off sale. You can get a hosting plan for as low as $3.95 a month right now. And if you use the coupon code JohnChowRocks, they’ll give you the first month for just 1 cent! I’m not sure how long HostGator is running this special but if you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, now would be a great time to do it. Enjoy the video and let me know what you think.
