In today’s blog, I’m going to share with you how to get good response from safelist advertising.

Many gurus will tell you that safelist is a complete waste of time and to certain extend, I agree. But if you know the tricks, it can be a good source of traffic for you.

Without further ado, here are the tricks to get good response from safelist advertising.

1) Don’t sell. Build list!

Safelist traffic seldom buy stuff on the spot. Don’t advertise your business opportunity directly or sell your product upfront. It won’t work.

Instead, your main job is to give. Give away free gifts, free info and/or arouse their curiosity so that they opt-in to your list.

After they opt-in to your list, you can lead them to a one-time offer using the strategy I shared with you earlier on. If the offer is good, they will bite.

To illustrate, when I advertise LeadsLeap program, the sales page I use is this. (You can use the same page to build your leadsleap team by simply adding your referid at the end of the url).

As you can see, I’m giving away more than 1000 minutes of internet marketing videos. The opt-in conversion is good. After prospects opt-in, they will see my one-time offer. About 5% will take up the offer, but bear in mind that it’s not the end.

Safelist traffic are usually newbies of the newbies. Once they opt-in to your list, if you can feed them with great information and show them the way to make money online, they can be your best long term customers.

2) It all started with a catchy email subject.

Safelist members receive tons of emails a day. Wanting them to read your email is very tough and that’s why most people fail to get much traffic.

(Usually, when you join an individual safelist program, the response is so low that it can be a waste of your time. For better response, it is wiser to use a safelist submitter that allows you to submit your ad to thousands of safelists at one time.)

As I’ve said, safelist members receive tons of emails everyday. When they browse through their list of emails, the only thing they see is your email subject. Therefore the only way to capture their attention is through your email subject.

There are 2 important tips on writing email subject:

i) When writing your email subject, focus on giving and don’t try to sell or hype.

Email subjects such as “Make $3000 A Month On Autopilot” will not work because people know you are trying to sell something.

Instead, email subject like “Free Report: How I Make $3000 A Month On Autopilot” will get some traffic to your squeeze page.

ii) To further increase the response, you MUST make your subject stand out VISUALLY.

This is the main secret, so pay special attention to this.

What I’m saying is you should add some special characters that can make your ad quickly recognizable from the list of email subjects.

To illustrate what I mean, look at the list of email subjects below and tell me which one captures your attention.

Still Reading Commercial Emails For Free?
Start to Increase Your ClickBank Sales Today!
The Gas Alternatives Report : Up To $2000 Monthly!
### Free Report ### How I Make $3000 A Month On Autopilot
You won’t believe this is free
THE LIGHTNING RESULT SAFELIST - FREE TO JOIN - FREE TO EARN!!
3 Reasons You Should Consider

If you browse through the subjects above, you should see that “### Free Report ### How I Make $3000 A Month On Autopilot” stands out from the rest.

The trick is to use some special characters to increase your chance of having your email subject being read.

Some tricks you can use include:

### Free Report ###
**** Urgent !!! ****
[Unadvertised Bonus]
FW:
RE:

I’ve also seen people starting an email subject with characters like these:

(¯`*
L@@K HERE >>

Be creative and think out of the box when using characters to capture attention.

But remember, this trick can ONLY capture people’s attention. Eventually, it’s the words that determine if they want to read your ad. Remember to give rather than to sell or hype in your email subject.

Email subjects like this

**** Urgent !!! **** Start to Increase Your ClickBank Sales Today!

will not get you much traffic, but email subjects like this

**** Urgent !!! **** 6000 Free Leads For You At $0 Cost

will.

To sum up, effective safelist advertising begins with 1) a VISUALLY powerful email subject, 2) an irresistible email subject that offers something that one would be crazy to reject and 3) a squeeze page that can get people to opt-in to get the offer, and finally 4) a good follow-up system that lives on the principle of “give and thou shall receive”.

Last but not least, remember that the success of any advertising campaign does not lie in the source of your traffic (so long as the traffic is targeted). More importantly, it lies in the amount of charcoal you have set up.

Helping you to increase your web site traffic has always been my top priority and today, I’m going to share with you my best kept secrets to increase web site traffic from scratch.

Like many of you, I started my career in internet marketing with little knowledge, no JV partner, no internet marketing friend and I didn’t pay thousands of dollars to attend any seminar on internet marketing. I started from scratch, learning the ropes by reading tons of ebooks and email newsletters (blog wasn’t popular when I started online).

So I believe whatever web site traffic strategy that works for me will work for you.

My Most Important Web Site Traffic Strategy

My most important web site traffic strategy is viral marketing.

Viral marketing is a huge topic by itself and it encompasses many different strategies, including viral ebook, viral software, affiliate program, tell-a-friend system and even list building.

Before I even start thinking about the details of any new web site, the first question I will ask myself is “How can I multiply my initial traffic into more traffic?” If I can’t get a good answer to this question, I will not build the web site at all. (Clarification: I’m referring to mega web sites like LeadsLeap, not those little Adsense or affiliate web sites that rely on search engine traffic.)

The whole idea of viral marketing is that you want people to tell other people about your website.

You may think all you need is an affiliate program. If you do, you are dead wrong! Just because you are having an affiliate program doesn’t mean that people will start spreading the words. In most cases, they won’t!

The key in viral marketing is to create a buzz in the community. You need to position your new web site in such a way that there is some novelty in it, something that will make people say “Hey, it sounds interesting” or “Hey, this is something new”. If you can do that, together with a good supporting system such as an affiliate program, your web site will spread like wild fire.

Next, You Need Web Site Traffic Starter

I derive the term Traffic Starter from Fire Starter. When you set up a fire, you need fire starters. Similarly, if you want  your website to spread like wild fire, you need a traffic starter, which is the initial traffic to your website.

Can you imagine what will happen if you burn lots of fire starters but you fail to put some charcoal around them? Yes, you get some initial fire but it soon dies.

In the case of web site traffic, the charcoal is the viral marketing components. That’s why I say viral marketing is the most important web site traffic strategy. You MUST have that in place before even thinking about where to get your initial traffic.

Am I clear on this point?

Ok next, where do you get the initial traffic?

Frankly, it really doesn’t matter where you get the initial traffic, as long as the traffic you receive are targeted.

When finding the initial web site traffic, an important question to ask yourself is “Where can I find people who are interested in my web site?” Whatever answer you get, go there and find ways to channel the traffic to your website.

It could mean you have to pay some money to advertise. It could also mean you have to write to some website owners and strike out some JV deals.

When I first started, I had no JV contact and I got all my initial traffic from advertising. I spent quite a bit on advertising (5 figures to be exact), but I soon earned back the money because I put a lot of “charcoal” around my traffic starter. Get the idea?

That’s really my main secret to increase web site traffic and I hope you get the gist of it.

Recently, Ewen Chia advertised with us again in one of our advertising channels. He was trying to promote one of his offline seminars in Singapore.

Whenever Ewen advertises, there is something we can learn.

In Singapore, most seminar organizers sell their seminars via free previews. I believe this method of selling was copied from the US. The idea is to give you a 1-2 hour free seminar which will then upsell you with a $1000+ full seminar. This method works.

Of all the seminar organizers who advertise with us, almost all of them advertise their free seminars directly. That means they advertise a sales page that tells you about their free seminar, how you can benefit and how you can register for free.

This method of advertising is direct and you get attendance to your free seminar immediately. But it’s a short term strategy.

Guess what’s the long term strategy?

It is to put list building as the first priority.

Here is what Ewen did - Instead of advertising a free seminar, he advertised to give away an ebook that he is currently selling in the market for $19.90. It’s a no brainer, even I opt-in to download the ebook!

And here is the smart trick - As a ‘bonus’, those who opt-in are entitled to attend a free seminar by him!

Can you see how powerful this strategy is?

If you simply promote a free seminar, people will check their schedule and if they can’t make it on that day, they will not sign up. On the contrary, if you give away an ebook that you are currently selling in the market, many people will opt in to your list to download the ebook. At the same time, they know that they have the privilege to attend your seminar for free. If they can’t make it this time, you can always follow up with them for your next seminar.

Building a list is no longer a secret. But when it comes to paid advertising, most people still tend to sell the actual product directly instead of giving away something of value to build a list. I believe that’s because most people have the mentality of “if I pay to advertise, I want to make sure that I earn back the fee.”

This mentality is not wrong. But there are smarter ways to do it.

Like what Ewen has done, instead of selling the product directly, you can give an irresistible offer to entice people to opt-in. Once they opt-in, I rephrase, immediately after they opt-in, you can show them whatever offer that you want to sell to them. This way, you can build a list and make sales at the same time.

An important thing to note in this strategy is that you must present your offer immediately after your prospects opt-in, not via autoresponder or after a day or two. This is because if people bother to opt-in, you have already gotten their full attention. You want to continue showing them your offer when they are still with you. Once they divert their attention to some other things, it will be harder to sell to them again.

To make sure that you grab the concept behind this strategy, here’s the flowchart:

Give an irresistible offer > Opt-in > Once prospects opt-in, show them your offer (it can be an affiliate product you’re selling, a network marketing opportunity, a seminar you’re promoting or your own product) > Follow up

If you put list building as your first priority whenever you advertise, your list will eventually grow and when that happens, you can do traffic exchange with other list owners and grow your list even bigger.

Look at your advertising campaigns today and ask yourself if you are putting list building as the first priority. If you are not, you may want to re-think your strategy.

I’m in the midst of doing some touch up for LeadsLeap sales letter. While writing the sales letter, I recalled some powerful tips Ewen Chia has shared with me (personally, over a cup of coffee).

Remember I told you that Ewen likes to compose and test different kinds of sales letters? Talking about writing powerful sales letters, I truly believe that he’s the MAN, not because he is famous but because a number of my successful clients (those who advertise with me) use his strategies.

In today’s blog post, I’m going to share with you 3 powerful tips that chances are, no one has told you before.

I’ll use one of his actual sales letters to illustrate to you how to use these 3 strategies.

1) Convert every testimonial into a headline

We all know that adding testimonials is a powerful way to increase the conversion rate. What most advanced marketers do when it comes to adding testimonials is to add a photograph, add an audio testimonial and highlight some of the important quotes.

One thing that Ewen did differently is that he will take one phrase from each of his testimonial and turn it into a headline for that particular testimonial.

Take a look at these testimonials to see what I mean.

Do you see that every testimonial has a red color headline?

Fact is, most people are not going to read every testimonial. These outstanding headlines allow the prospects to quickly grasp the gist of every testimonial. The idea is to quickly increase the confidence of the prospects in you and your product without having to go through every testimonial.

Brilliant strategy I am using now without fail.

2) Create a summary break down of the value of each offer and let the audience know what is the total value

Many marketers like to throw in lots of bonuses to increase the perceived value of their offer. This has been a known strategy to increase the conversion rate.

But when this ideas was popularized, what most marketers did was to overwhelm the prospects with so many bonuses that the prospects lost focus.

The idea of adding bonuses is to increase the overall value of your offer. To achieve this ultimate objective, Ewen created a table that lists down every offer that he’s made and attach a monetary value to each offer. He then summed up all the values and gave a grand total value of say $2,345.00. (But for a limited time, you can get everything at just $47. tha na…..)

Click here and SCROLL UP two pages to see what I mean.

You may think this is hype. It is. But it works!

I’ve been in the advertising industry for more than 2 years now. Everyone says they don’t like hype. But the truth is they do. A hyped up sales letter sells better than a no-hype sales letter, especially in an advertising environment, i.e. strangers selling to strangers.

3) Re-emphasize the main benefits of your product before asking your prospects to buy

After reading a long sales letter, it is indeed possible for someone to lose focus on what’s your main offer.

Also, have you ever come across a long sales letter with everything under the sun but the only thing that you fail to find is the price? This is not a joke. I ever read a sales letter in which I had to use the search function to search for the ‘$’ sign so as to find out how much the product cost!

What Ewen likes to do is to put everything into a box, just before asking the prospects to buy.

Take a look at how he did it here.

First he reiterated the main product offer. Then he re-affirmed the main benefits that the prospect will receive, the price of the product and the money back guarantee.

I like his style, both as a marketer and as a potential buyer. With this summary, I know exactly what I’m going to get and what I can expect.

One last thing to note is that his call for action is never “Buy Now”. His calls for action are usually reiteration of the benefit of his product, for example, “Yes, I Want To Become A Super Affiliate Now” or to create a sense of urgency, for example, “Get in now before the price shoots up soon without warning!”.

Do you have more tips and experience to share? Add your comments below……

Learning how to write effective headlines that can capture your prospects’ attention is vitally important in advertising.

Why? Because in advertising, you don’t have the luxury to presell the prospects, like in the case of email marketing.

The only place where your prospects can grab a brief idea of your offer is from your headline. If your headline doesn’t resonate with them, you lose them. It’s as simple as that!

In this article, I’m going to share with you a simple method that you can use to write effective headlines that make people wanting to read on and respond. I hope this article can shed some light and give you some inspiration for your next headline.

Ready? Here we go……

When writing a headline, one question you should be asking yourself is “what is so unique about my offer that people must read it and take action now?”

If you can pinpoint the answer to this question, all you have to do is convey this uniqueness to your prospects in your headline. That’s how you write an effective headline.

A unique idea sells better than a product

I’ve seen many advertisers trying to capture leads by giving away free gift. Giving free gift works, especially if you give away videos and software (see my previous post on What Kind Of Internet Marketing Free Gift Will Entice People To Opt-in To Your List?). But if you want to boost the response further, you need to “package your free gift into a unique idea“.

For example, tell me which headline will pull better response:

Free Video Shows You How To Make Money Online

Free Video Shows You How To Make $3646 In The First Month Online

It could be the same video but by adding an extra uniqueness to the headline, in this case is $3646 In The First Month, it gives your prospects one more reason why they should respond to your ad.

But wait, how about this headline?

Free Video Shows You Step By Step How To Make $3646 In The First Month Online

I’ve added one more uniqueness that further differentiates your offer from other offers out there.

How else can you make it more unique? How about this headline?

52 Minutes Full-Length FREE Video Shows You Step By Step How To Make $3646 In The First Month Online

What you are telling your audience is that it’s not just a normal video, it’s

1) a full-length video, not some kind of preview;
2) a step-by-step video, not some kind of introductory course;
3) capable of helping them to make $3646 in the first month.

Any one of these uniqueness may just hit the hot button of your prospects and as a result, they will read on to find out more about your offer.

Some gurus say long headline pulls better response than short headline. This is only true provided you are adding more uniqueness to your headline and not writing a bunch of nonsense!

I hope through this simple illustration, you can see how you can start off with a simple headline and slowly turn it into an effective headline that works.

Remember, the idea is to ask yourself this question, “what is so unique about my offer that people must read it and take action now?”