Can you wait 5 days?

Sure, some quick cash would be nice, but wouldn’t a steadily increasing paycheck be even better?

How about writing a small report, and setting up a short ecourse to promote it?

This post will tell you how so listen up! (This post is also full of free goodies, FYI.)

This method is easy. Yeah, I said easy. It requires work and some of your time, but it doesn’t require a degree to get it right.

This method will also generate as much income as you want it to. The more you promote it, test it and tweak it, the more money it will make. The more you repeat this method, the more your income will grow.

So let’s begin.

Summary:

1. Write a short report
2. Promote that short report with an ecourse (If you think ecourses are old school and overdone, think again!)
3. Build your list

So three steps.

Let’s dive into step 1 – Writing a short report.

If you already have a website in a certain niche, then chances are you already have an idea or two for a short report topic. If not, it’s brainstorming time! Here are a few ways you can drum up some ideas:

• Dig through your website statistics and find out what people are searching for to reach your site. Any “how to” key phrases should provide some ideas. Pay attention to this information because it tells you EXACTLY what your readers are looking for.
• Poll or survey your readers. You can set up a form on your website or send out a request to your email list. Preferably both. If you don’t already have a list, get one!
• Hang around in related forums and find out what people are talking about. This works every time.

Now that you have an idea, you need to make sure it’s a profitable one. The “how to” and “tips” reports are usually winners. People are always wanting to know how to do stuff. They want tips to help them become more successful at whatever they’re doing.

For example:

“How To Create a Profitable Ecourse in 3 Hours”

or

“Copywriting Tips That Will Double Your Sales”

or

“7 Things You Must Do to Save Hundreds On Your Next Vehicle Purchase”

Just make sure that the title of your short report isn’t so far fetched that it’s unbelievable. It has to be compelling, but not ridiculously over the top.

Now write the report!

You can write it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. If you can’t hire someone and you can’t write worth a shit, trade services with someone who can.

Writing a short report doesn’t have to be a huge deal. I can sometimes sit down with my ancient laptop and whip one up in an hour. If what I’m writing about requires a lot of research, it can take days. There are also a crapload of short reports sitting on my hard drive that were started but never finished.

Don’t be like me.

Finish what you start!

Create an outline then fill in the blank spots. And read this book. It’s free and it’s good. If your head isn’t spewing out awesome ideas by the time you’re done it, I will eat my own shorts.

When your report is finished, you need to figure out a price. Each market is different, and you may be surprised at what price point works best, so this is definitely something to test. If it’s fairly short – 5 to 10 pages – start out with $7 and test from there.

Ok, on to step 2 – Writing an ecourse.

Typically, ecourses – or email mini-courses – are about 7 days long. Or 7 issues. They don’t HAVE to be though. They can be as long or short as you want. There is no “right” answer, but you have to take your readers into consideration.

If you send out an ecourse about gardening, your readers may want some longer, more detailed messages. If you’re targeting internet marketers who are already inundated with emails, you may want to keep them short and sweet, and no more than 7 in a row.

Decide on your topic for each email, then write about it! It doesn’t have to take a lot of time and it doesn’t have to be an award-winning masterpiece. But you do need to make it really good. Make it informative, useful, interesting, entertaining. Make it worth the time it took for your readers to sign up and read it.

If you already have a lot of content for your topic, consider re-purposing it for your ecourse. Break up some articles into smaller lessons for each email, or rewrite them and add a few more exclusive tips or info. You can even add some interviews, worksheets, resource lists, videos, audio, etc. to add to the value of your ecourse.

(I wrote up a more detailed report about creating profitable ecourses for my subscribers. Signup with the form to the right at the top and you’ll have instant access after you confirm your subscription.)

Throw your newly created ecourse into an autoresponder and send the test emails to yourself to read over. Better yet, send them to someone who will proofread them for you. When everything is looking good, it’s on to….

Step 3 – Building your list.

Now this is a gigantic topic and I could write about it for days, but instead, I’m going to point you to some awesome resources that talk about building lists much better than I could.

List Marketing Tips – This is a free 20 page report that is chock full of tips that will not only help you promote your list, but profit from it as you build it.

Triple Opt-In Requests – Another free 20 page report with tips that will help you increase your optins without increasing traffic. (One thing that I did to increase my own optins was to add an arrow with the optin form. Something bright and eye-catching will do the trick.)

Basically, create a really great ecourse that people will want to sign up for, then promote the frick outta that there link!

• twitter it
• put it on every page of your site
• put it in forum signatures
• blog about it frequently
• include it in your email signature
• submit articles to article directories with the link in your author bio
• create a free report to entice people and make it viral
• contact other site owners and offer them a large cut of your profits if they help you promote it
• etc.

If it takes you 2 days to write the report itself, another 2 days to create the ecourse, and 1 day to set it all up (autoresponder, optin page, etc.) then you can start profiting from it in 5 days from now.

Rinse and repeat once a month (or whenever you have the energy for it) and you’ll be creating a profitable little empire for yourself.

And don’t just sit there thinking about doing it, just friggin’ DO IT! I know you can!

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There’s some great info in that report, but what really made me stop and think was Tip #13 which was Sign Up With A Good Autoresponder Company. I come across a lot of websites who either don’t have any opt-in form at all or else they’re using a free or really cheap autoresponder.

I can completely understand what it’s like not to have the money to invest with a good company (I was in that boat for 2 years before I signed up with Aweber – and let me tell you, it was worth every penny!) but the important thing to realize is that it IS an investment.

Building a relationship with your readers through regular contact like a newsletter is one of the best ways to generate income online. Sometimes you have to spend a little money to make a little money, right?

A commercial printer has to invest in a press to print flyers and brochures for his customers, but he soon makes that investment back and starts to make a profit from it.

Same idea here.

Why should you have a “list”?

Here are just a few examples of how you can use a subscriber list to make your autoresonder investment worth it:

• If you write and sell small reports you’ll want to get your customers on your list. Each time you come out with a new report, notify your existing customers. You can also survey them to see what kind of information they’d like to learn more about which gives you some great ideas for more small report ideas in the future.
• If you maintain an information website that has advertising on it, you’ll want to have an opt-in form on each page of that site. Offering a free bonus (or even better, multiple bonuses) is a great way to get people to sign up, then send them regular newsletters filled with tips, news, newly posted content, etc. Make sure each newsletter contains relevant links back to your website where you have advertising like Google Adsense or affiliate products or products of your own.
• If you sell a product or products of your own, you need to have your own sales army to help you spread the word and sell your products. You’ll want to get your affiliates on a list so you can keep them informed of new products for sale, update them with new promotional content, hold affiliate contests, etc.
• If you run a direct sales business, you’ll want to get your customers on a list so you can notify them of any sales, open houses, parties, etc. I’m sure my Mary Kay lady makes a killing from her list, and I’m also pretty sure it’s a small one. Keep in mind – you don’t need a huge list to generate an income from it.
• If you have a blog, you may want to create an email mini-course that complements your site. Along with offering great content, you can recommend related affiliate products or promote products of your own. Once the mini-course is over, continue to keep in contact (make sure you’re always complying with the CAN-SPAM Act and respecting your subscriber’s privacy) and keep building trust while reminding them to keep visiting your blog.

This only scratches the surface but I hope it’s given you some ideas.

Ultimately, my point here is that a lot of money can be made by building a relationship with subscribers. That’s not something you want to mess with by relying on an unreliable autoresponder. I heart Aweber but it’s important to do your research and find the one that fits your needs. You can take a free test drive with Aweber right now:

I wrote a review about Aweber Communications two years ago which was a few months after I had first signed up. I had heard tons of great things about them and was so happy when I could finally afford to start my own Aweber newsletter.

Now it’s two years later, and I’m just as happy – if not more happy – with my Aweber membership.

It’s obvious that they strive to bring their company to new heights so that it continues being a great experience and valuable business asset for their customers. One such change they’ve done recently is to redesign their interface and organize their menu a bit.

New drop down menu

I have to admit that the way it was before left me feeling a little frustrated at times, but with the new drop down menu I am a happy camper. The old menu was a hover menu and it managed to piss me off every time I logged in. Now it’s a nice, clean, drop-down menu that works!

Setup Wizard floats at the bottom

Another thing that annoyed me about the old control panel was how much space the Aweber Setup Wizard took up. It was obnoxious and right in your face every time you logged in, but now it’s tucked away neatly at the bottom so you know it’s there but not in your way. I did finally use the wizard today to finish setting up a few of my lists and it really does come in handy. There are quite a few features in Aweber but the wizard navigates you to exactly where you need to go which is a big time saver.

I’m excited about all the new changes Aweber has implemented, and I’ve been spending a lot more time on their site as a result. That’s good news for me since it means I’m paying more attention to my email marketing.

Final verdict

In my Aweber review, I gave them 4 1/2 stars out of 5. Now, I give them 4 4/5 stars out of 5. I just cut the tip off the last star, so whatever that is!

A lot of people may not understand this and they might be wary to click on it.

You may find that your clickthrough rates increase by adding a brief note in each newsletter about why your links look like that.

Here’s an example you’re free to use:

“You may notice that the links in this newsletter look a little funny. They look like that so I can see which links get clicked on more than others, and this helps me understand how to make each newsletter even better. These links will still take you to where you want to go, so no worries.”

It’s kind of corny, and I’m sure you can write one better, but you get the idea.

If you send a regular newsletter with the latest ‘knitting patterns’, then your demographic may not know a lot about how click tracking works. It’s better to be safe and help them understand so they don’t perceive these links as a risk.

Think about it this way, when you send a friend or family member an email, how do you write it? Plain text, right?

On the other hand, HTML can be more eye catching.

From a technical perspective, text emails are better because they have less chance of getting caught in spam filters.

From an aesthetic perspective, HTML emails are better because you can include graphics, change your font and colors and make it look the same as your own webpage. In Aweber, you can also track open rates with HTML messages.

The answer is: there is no right answer. It’s all up to you and your personal preferences. It’s also worthwhile to do some testing to see which version your subscribers prefer.

If you already have a subscriber base, try sending half of your subscribers an HTML message, and the other half the same message in plain text. Track your clickthrough rates and conversion to see which works better for you.

One thing that should never be tolerated however (regardless of how ‘new’ you are in the business) is SPAM.

In a nutshell, SPAM is unsolicited bulk email.

Spam is sent through many different ways. Some people use their own email software like Outlook, and others use more sophisticated software that can handle thousands of email addresses.

It really doesn’t matter how you send it, if its unsolicited and its bulk, then its spam. No exceptions.

Here’s an example of spam which I’m sure many subscriber list owners are tired of.

Jane has a list of 200 subscribers for her interior decorating website. Out of these 200 subscribers, 17 of them are using her email address to send her emails as well. Those 17 people are spamming Jane. They signed up for Jane’s newsletter, not the other way around.

It doesn’t matter if their emails are related to Jane’s website, its still regarded as spam because she never opted in to their lists.

If you’re one of the people who do this, please stop now.

You lose your credibility by doing this. Instead, build your list with a reputable service like Aweber (you can read my Aweber Review here) and ALWAYS comply with the CAN-SPAM act.

I wish I had made the decision to sign up long ago. I really feel like it took my business one step further. I feel secure in knowing my subscribers information is safe and that my messages are being sent out.

There are tons of features with Aweber, but I’ll list a few of my favorites:

Once you’ve signed up for Aweber, you have an unlimited amount of autoresponders. You could have 3000 different lists if you wanted.

Tracking features include HTML open rates and click-through rates on both HTML and text only messages. This is extremely important information to have, and a lot of autoresponders don’t offer this.

You can send out broadcasts to your subscribers, or load messages into the autoresponder where you would set the intervals at which they get sent out. I do a combination of both.

Information from your subscribers is all carefully stored and you can use that information to help you determine their demographic. You can view which URL they signed up at, date and time they were added, and their country, region and even what city they live in. Some people might not need all this information, but if you’re targeting a very specific group of people, this can be extremely handy.

The web form generator is really easy to use. You can create an in-line form, pop-up, pop-under, exit pop-up or pop-over/hover forms. If you’re not sure which type of form to use, you can use the split-testing feature Aweber provides to see which works better.

Aweber also provides lots of detailed reports that include all the information you need for your email marketing campaign. If you’re not testing and tracking anything, then you’re missing out on sales and traffic.

The Aweber blog is updated regularly with really useful tips on how to make the most of your autoresponder and your list. Even if you don’t use Aweber, I would still recommend you check it out.

What I think is really important is the help section. I’ve yet to have a question that couldn’t be answered within their documentation, but if you do happen to have a question that isn’t answered, they provide live help desk support during business hours.

The downside to Aweber:

There is a bit of a learning curve when you first get started, but it should only take an hour or two of messing around before you get the hang of it.