How To Create A Swipe File

If you are new to writing, you may be full of ideas. You may be able to post on your blog every day without a problem. You may be constantly finding new ideas for content on your website. Unfortunately, there will be a day when writer’s block hits. A day will come when you just “get stuck” and cannot seem to think of anything.

When this day comes, a swipe file can be a real lifesaver. A “swipe file” is a collection of writings that you can go to for inspiration. Please note it is not a collection of work that you copy or plagiarize. There is a big difference! A swipe file is there just to help out in case you get stuck in the creative process.

A big part of the learning process is to mimic what others have already done. As you are reading magazines, newspapers, email, blogs, and web copy, start making mental notes of what catches your attention. What are the things about the writer’s style? Take notice of the fonts, colors, and graphics that were used. You can clip the tangible pieces and save them in a manila folder. And you can create a virtual folder on your computer desktop for the digital items you liked. This is your swipe file.

It does not matter what business these clippings are for. The only thing that matters is that you are in some way inspired by them. If you have a business targeted to mothers with children and you see an ad for basketball jerseys that you like, save it. You can take the things you liked about the ad, article, blog post, etc., and adapt it to fit your business.

Creating your swipe file may be the hardest part because using it is quite easy. For example, let’s say that you recently created an information product that explains how to make homemade gifts. If you find yourself sitting at the computer and trying to come up with an idea for the sales letter, take a look at your swipe file.

Perhaps you had saved an ad for a men’s watch company. Maybe the headline read something like, “It’s Time To Make A Statement.” And perhaps the ad had a graphic centered just below the heading in a way that you found very attractive.

You can adapt those things for your own product. Since the above example is for an information product about homemade gifts, perhaps you can use a heading such as “Avoid The Mall Rush – It’s Time To Get Started Now”, and you can place a graphic of a present or other holiday symbol in the same way that the graphic in the ad was placed.

As you can see, you are not plagiarizing anything that the original author wrote. You are simply taking something you liked and adding your own spin to it. A swipe file is something every writer should have, as they can save you lots of time and frustration.

How to Profit from Your Mailing List

Before you start reading this quick how to guide, I’ve got something special to tell you…

For the first time, ever, Jimmy D. Brown is sharing his simple, yet powerful 6-step system that will show you how to grow your list, provide your readers with the content they crave and start making more money than you ever expected from your list. Do I have your attention yet? Then visit EasyListProfitsSystem.com to get your copy of the List Profit System today.

Okay, let’s get on with this quick how to guide…

As you may know, the size of your mailing list can reflect the size of your profits. Your “mailing list” is the group of people that have signed up to receive your mailings, which can be a newsletter, e-course, or any other email.

You can set up a mailing list through an autoresponder service, such as Aweber. Once you register for the service, you can set up a mailing list and preload various emails that will be sent to the people that sign up to receive them. Your autoresponder service will give you a bit of HTML that you can add to your website or blog. When people click the link, they will be added to your list. As soon as they are added, they will start to receive your mailings.

To maximize your profits, you will want to have several different lists, and you will want to stay in touch with the people on your lists regularly. For instance, you may have a general newsletter list for your website, as well as lists set up for the specific sections of your website.

If your website focuses on children, you may have a section devoted to toddlers, a separate section devoted to early elementary age children, and another section devoted to older children. Set up a mailing list for each separate section. You don’t need to have a separate newsletter for each age bracket; however, having these separate mailing lists will allow you to send news and advertisements that each list would be interested in.

For example, if you are an affiliate for various products relating to children, you can send an email with some information about toddlers directly to your toddler list. Include your affiliate link for a product that they may be interested in. You may notice that your conversions go up, as you are no longer sending parents of older children links to products focused on toddlers. You will be able to send each specific group links to products that they will find most helpful.

The time frame that you use to stay in contact with each list may vary. If someone signs up for your general newsletter list, they may expect to receive a newsletter each week or month. However, if someone only signs up to receive updates for a specific section on your website, they may get irritated if you send them an email every single day.

Use your best judgment when setting up your emails. You will want to stay in contact with them regularly enough so that they do not forget you, but you don’t want them to feel harassed, either.

If you are sending your mailing list regular updates about your site, and including helpful information, you will see that your profits will increase…

Liz’s Getting Started Online Interview

The following interview was an interview I did on getting started online. I wanted to post it here, to help those of you just getting started online.

Let me know what you think….

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself (background, how you got started online, etc — and here you can also include any site(s) you own)

I started online in 1994 at the age of 15. I built websites for friends and family at first and then started building them for money when I was about 17. At age 19, I started my own direct mail business. I offered advertising services and how to products to the “opportunity seeker” crowd. It took me two years to really start making money with it. I turned it into a full time business.

In November of 2004, I saw that I could do the same thing online that I was already successfully doing offline. I trained my husband to run my direct mail business, and started my own Internet marketing business. I used everything I had learned from my offline business, and within one year had double my income.

Presently I am focusing on creating products and services for Internet marketers and creating other streams of income like, Adsense, and small niche products.

My main Internet marketing site is at www.TomeyBingMarketing.com

2. Some Internet marketing beginners forget that we were ALL newbies at one
point. How did you learn about marketing to get you to the point of making
your first few dollars online? (e.g., did you learn by trial and error? Did you learn by reading forums? Did you buy a particular product that made everything click? Did you have amentor? Etc…

This is a really good question. I’ll give you my exact system I used to learn all I know about Internet marketing.

I started by creating Internet marketing categories on my hard drive (using folders). I had probably 20 different categories like Affiliate Marketing, List Building, Blogging, RSS Feeds, Viral Marketing, Creating Information Products, and so on.

I’d then start searching the Internet for free products, and articles to put into these categories. It took me a couple of months (and a few of those massive give away sites like the 117ChristmasGifts.com promotion), and I had tons of information in all of my category folders.

I started with the first folder and read everything in that category. I took notes and pulled out everything I felt like was good information. I then took what I had learned and wrote kind of like a “book report” on it. After finishing the “book report”, I had refreshed my mind and really learned about that category.

I did this for each and every category. It did take me a couple of months, but I learned so much. Now that I have a great understanding of many things related to Internet marketing, I can make good decisions about products I buy to further my learning.

When I buy the product, I immediately read it and then file it away in an appropriate category on my hard drive.

Now here’s what I did, and it’s where so many newbies fail… I took action!!

All those book reports I bought, I took and added information to, polished them all up, had graphics made for them, wrote sales letters for them, and started selling them. All that free information I had read, I turned into money, and it only took me a few months. I haven’t looked back since then.

Knowledge is power, and if you don’t believe that, you’ll lose money in this business.

The key is to learn and take action. Learn and take action. Learn and take action. Just keep doing it over and over again!

3. What assumption(s) did you make as a beginner that perhaps hindered your
progress?

I assumed that it would be easy to make money in the Internet marketing niche. Don’t assume this, or you will assume yourself right out of business. It takes A LOT of work to get started making money online.

I tell my clients:

1. You must be willing to spend some money on your business.

2. You must have the desire to educate yourself. This means you will have to research both free and paid information.

3. You must have the ability to learn and then to take action. Taking action is very important to your success. If you don’t take action you will not have any success.

4. You must have the discipline to be consistent. If you don’t you will fail. Plain and simple.

5. You must have the patience to keep going after what you want no matter what. Giving up is NOT an option.

6. You MUST have a plan.

4. We all have “Ah ha!” moments where suddenly things start to fall into
place and can actually change our course for the better. Please describe an
“ah ha” moment / revelation that positively impacted your business.
(for example: you realized the importance of a list…or you realized the
importance of back-end selling…or…???)

I was lucky because my “Ah ha!” moment came very early in my online career.

Creating products and selling them is the easiest and quickest money out there. I realized this when I created my first ebook on affiliate marketing. I simply read everything I could about affiliate marketing. I tested everything I had learned. The things that worked I wrote my ebook on and showed people how they could do the same thing. I still make money hand over fist each and every time I create a product. Offering resale rights to your products also makes them hot sellers.

Since I learned this early on, I started make money early on in my career. Many people goes years trying this and that. If you simply create a product and put it out there using proven marketing methods (writing articles, setting up an affiliate program, link in your signature lines, etc.) you WILL make money. As you get better at it, you will make even more money. The key is taking action and doing it.

5. What advice would you give someone who’s made a few bucks online, but
wants to take it to the next level of making their living online?
Hands down the number one way to take your business to the next level is to start your own affiliate program. There are several options in starting your own affiliate program, but I wont go into that here. I have a product called Easy Affiliate Profits that really goes in depth on the technical part of starting your own affiliate program.

Once you get your affiliate program set up, there are a few things you need to do.

First you need to have an autoresponder that all your affiliates are automatically signed up to. You should create several messages that introduce your affiliates to your products. Tell them how their customers will benefit, how much they will be paid, and any sales stats that you have on the product. Make sure that you put your personality into your emails so your affiliates become comfortable with you. You basically have to build a relationship with them automatically through your autoresponder.

Second you need to create 3-5 (or more) products that your affiliates can give away to their subscribers and website visitors that promote one or more of your products or services.

For instance if I have a few products on blogging. I would write a short ebook about it. Within my ebook I would make reference to the blogging products that I offer. Once I finish my ebook, I would make it brandable so that my affiliates can give it away and get paid when their customers by through their affiliate links.

Not only does this make your affiliate and you money, but it also gives you more exposure. It puts your name out there more and more, and getting you and your business the most exposure is really the only way to take your business to the next level.