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Update: According to Alexa, this post is the 14th most popular page on the entire internet at the moment! This graph is starting to look impressive. Thank you all for sharing and commenting!
This guide is going to reveal the concept of Email Blogging, a strategy which I personally think is one of the easiest and most profitable ways to make money online. The idea behind Email Blogging actually came to me by mistake. A total accident.
It was email marketing (or, a friend of mine who uses email marketing) that led to my accidental discovery. The friend – who just gotten into internet marketing 12 months earlier – came to stay with me for a couple of weeks. He was previously self-employed, though the reason is unrelated, and wanted to get into the industry.
Let me add that this person is one of the smartest people I know, and when I heard he was going to give internet marketing a try, something inside me just knew he was going to make a lot of money. That doesn’t mean to say that you have to be crazy-smart in order to learn and implement this strategy though.
My instinct wasn’t wrong, and it didn’t take my friend long to start having success. In fact, he’s made close to $100,000 in his first year. His strategy is something I personally don’t use, and nor do I plan to. It is, however, a common method followed by some of the world’s wealthiest internet marketers.
The concept is quite straight forward. You create a simple product page on the topic of your choice, buy traffic from the likes of Google and Facebook, and then continually tweak your landing pages to get the most sales you can from the money that you’re spending.
If you can produce a high converting sales page and a decent product, you can make a lot of money very quickly.
I don’t relate to this method, since I prefer to give value in the form of content before I would ever try to sell to somebody. It may not be a good business move, but I guess it just feels better to me. That being said, I don’t have anything against people who turn to this method of making money online.
After speaking with him a few months earlier, I was inspired to create my own squeeze page (a page with the sole aim of collecting an email address), which can be found at cloudniche.com. The back story is that I come up with niche and website ideas every single day, but just don’t have the time to follow through with the majority of them.
Since I’m not using the ideas, I thought a great “service” would be to send these ideas out to my audience. I didn’t know if the idea would be popular, or whether my site ideas would seem as good to other people, but I decided to run with it anyways.
The results absolutely blew me away. It didn’t take long to get over 1,700 people opting in for updates, and I receive thank you emails on a daily basis. People are also implementing my ideas, which is great to see. Especially in an industry where people are known to buy products or stumble across ideas, and do nothing with them.
The thing that really surprised me was the open rate I was getting on those emails. Typically, an average open rate for any marketer is about 20% – 30%. If you’re really good you might hit 60%. This means that for every hundred emails you send, it’s respectable to get 20-30 people to open them.
The second email I sent to cloud niche subscribers received an open rate of 83%. Something pretty much unheard of in our industry. I will say that the idea in the email is one I’m proud of, and personally think is very valuable. However, people didn’t know that until they had opened the actual mail.
I didn’t let myself get too carried away with these figures, as the list was “fresh” and it’s possible that future emails may not be opened as much. Two weeks later – which is considered a huge (read: too long) delay – I emailed the list again, with profitable niche idea number three.
Over 91% of people opened that email. I was floored.
Just a few weeks earlier I had never really focused that much on list building and squeeze pages at all. I did have them, but I considered them an “extra” to other work I was doing, and definitely not my main focus. Yet, here I was breaking personal and colleague open-rate records, while having 100+ people sending thank you emails for the information I was sharing.
In a few weeks I was achieving what would have taken me months with regular blogging, and I was saving a lot more money, a lot more time, and building my audience easily. Based on this, I came to the conclusion that…
Blogging Sucks
It seems strange that I would be saying this, since I’m a huge advocate of blogging, in a number of ways. First of all (as many of you know), I built a very successful blog in the personal development niche called PluginID. I no longer own the site, after selling it for a mid five-figure fee, but did manage to grow it to over 7,000 subscribers in just 18 months.
After the sale, I decided to resurrect ViperChill, where I cover unique topics and ideas like the one you’re finding here. I even teach people how to become better bloggers, and make more money from blogging.
As a final nail in the coffin, I’m also creating a product on blogging, and have involved A-list bloggers from a number of different niches to help make it amazing.
I’m putting all of this out there to acknowledge how strange it will be for people to hear me say that blogging sucks. It don’t even like that I’m saying it myself. I’m just finding it more and more to be true.
Let’s look at a typical blog, and the process you have to go through in order to set it up. I’ll excuse the steps which are involved in setting up pretty much any kind of website.
Step One: You spend hours, days or even weeks deciding on the blog topic that you’re going to write about.
Step Two: You hunt for a blog design which has something to do with your industry. Struggling to find a nice free option, you head to a paid themes site like WooThemes or ThemeForest, and purchase one there.
It isn’t exactly what you want, but you say “It’ll do”. Down the line you may hire someone to tweak it for you, or take hours out of your own schedule to do it yourself.
Step Three: You’ll start writing articles on your topic. You put hours into each piece only to see that nobody is really visiting your blog and even if they are, they’re just not leaving comments.
Step Four: Because of the disappointment in step three, you start reading blogs like ViperChill, Problogger and Copyblogger in order to learn how to grow your audience and encourage more discussions.
You learn about Twitter, Facebook, blog commenting and article marketing.
Step Five: You start to put some of the strategies into place, while continually writing content for your site.
Step Six: Eventually, a few months down the line, your hard work starts to pay off. People are giving you feedback on your writing. Other bloggers are linking to posts of yours they enjoyed. You’ve even got a few hundred fans on Facebook and dozens of followers on Twitter.
Step Seven: You keep doing this for about a year, and then decide to release your own product. It might be a hit with the audience or you may have gotten the angle wrong, but you did it anyway.
After all, the big bloggers are telling you to “release your own product”. Right?
Now, I know the story I’ve posted above is quite a sad and depressing example. I’m really a huge fan of blogging, and think it works well as both a CMS and a platform for you to share your voice. I’ve been fortunate to make a lot of money thanks to blogging, and it has allowed me to have an audience I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Yet, for every successful blog out there, there’s 100+ failures to go with it. A simple fact is that most bloggers simply don’t build a large audience or make a lot of money from their websites. The course I’m making will hopefully change this, but that’s still the current reality.
Based on all of the above, we can say that the benefits of blogging are:
- You can build an audience of people who care about what you have to say
- You can connect with your readers
- You can promote products to your audience
Besides a few rare exceptions, your blogging journey is either going to go one of two ways.
1. You start the blog and stick with it for long enough to reap the benefits above.
2. You start a blog, get frustrated through lack of results or passion, and let it wither away.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve preached blogging to others because of the benefits above. But, the work involved can often be a big drawback, and something that constantly demotivates people to keep working through the dips.
I’ve discovered something which allows me to reap the benefits of blogging, and not have the drawbacks present. That’s where Email Blogging comes in.
Before I get into the finer details of Email Blogging, let me tell you a little more about what it is from a base level. In essence, email blogging is simply providing the same content you would on a blog, but instead to an audience of people who only receive emails from you. It comes with two downsides over regular blogging:
- You won’t get traffic from search engines
- People are unlikely to direct others to your website
But comes with the following advantages:
- You can build an audience much easier
- It’s much cheaper to implement
- It takes up far less of your time
And in comparison to regular blogging, it can be just as profitable, if not more so.
It is said that nobody knows the world’s best SEO’s (search engine optimisers). The argument is that if somebody is really good at ranking in search engines, they wouldn’t be teaching others how to do it, but instead ranking in profitable industries, and making a lot of money with their own private tactics.
The same, in a sense, could be said for the best marketers in general. They don’t have to share everything in public (yes, I’m insulting myself here) to know what they’re talking about. As I’ve found in my own research into email marketing, many internet millionaires are made behind the scenes on big email lists.
If all of the biggest players in the internet marketing niche took their email lists and converted them to blogs, I have no doubt they would be bigger than any of the top marketing blogs today. On some launches I see, the marketer has such a big and responsive email list that his site reaches the top 100 sites on Alexa for that day.
It should be clear now that there’s obviously some benefits to solely focus on building email lists. Even if you build a blog and let people subscribe via email (which 4,000+ ViperChill subscribers do anyway) then what difference does it make if you blog publicly?
Email lists, quite simply, can make a lot more money than regular blogs, which is why so many marketers focus on them. Having permission to repeatedly email someone – something you shouldn’t take for granted – will often result in them buying the products you promote.
If they’re liking the content you’re sending them regularly, then there’s a good chance they’re going to like the products you create. Email subscribers are more likely to buy your products than any other type of audience.
In saying this, there is another important point I have to make…
Email Blogging Is Not Email Marketing
When I gave a basic outline of the email blogging structure to cloud niche subscribers, a couple of people replied to me saying “isn’t this just email marketing?”. I had highlighted in the mail the differences between this and say….running a newsletter, but they wanted further clarification.
For those of you who are familiar with email marketing, the benefits and idea behind email blogging can definitely seem similar at first. However, based on my knowledge of the process that 99% of email marketers follow, I can safely say the two are actually very different.
Email blogging is different to operating a newsletter, first of all, because a newsletter is generally created in addition to a normal site. Whether it is a service or a blog with a newsletter on top. Generally these newsletters just share some personal ideas, every few weeks, and occasionally link back to the website the newsletter is attached to.
Email blogging, on the other hand, is something you focus on entirely, and it isn’t something to be seen as an “addition” to your regular blogging or marketing activities. It is a full money making ecosystem, and should be seen as a flagship project. Not something you do on the side.
It’s different to regular email marketing and typical list building strategies in a number of ways. Most email marketers use email as a direct selling process. They’ll typically tempt you on to your email list with some free or cheap product, send you a couple of valuable emails, and then continually pitch you with more expensive products, as time goes on. Each mail offering a product which increases in price.
Email blogging follows the typical blogging process, but instead of constantly pitching to your subscribers, you actually offer all of the value you would in a typical blog, and promote products when and how you would on a typical blog.
So, it’s different to a newsletter, it gives more value than typical email marketing, and it’s actually a lot simpler and (potentially) more profitable than regular blogging.
As a final comparison of regular blogging and email blogging, I’ve listed some caveats of each, with the differences between them:
| Regular Blogging | Email Blogging |
| You set-up WordPress and install various plugins | You create a one page website |
| Subscribers only see new content you post | Subscribers see everything you’ve written (using a follow-up sequence) |
| You write tons of content, and people subscribe if they like it | People see your enticing squeeze page, and join your list |
Now that you can see just how profitable and simple the idea behind email blogging can be, it’s time to look at exactly how you can put it into action.
Side note: Some people may argue that since it isn’t really a blog, and just uses blog style content, that I shouldn’t call it email blogging. If you’re one of those people, feel free to call it whatever you like 
Email Blogging: Implementation
I’m not just going to give you one of the best methods to make money online, without telling you how to utilise it.
Decide on a Niche
The great thing about email blogging including all of the benefits that regular blogging brings, is that many of the same principles applied to blogging, apply here. This means that deciding on a niche for your email blog is really no different to deciding on a niche for a regular blog.
Since you’re still going to be writing content, it’s best to focus on a topic where you do have some expertise, and you can offer advice to people. With this in mind, I recommend that you take a few minutes to list some of the topics that you’re most passionate about. Topics where you feel you can provide information which is valuable to others.
- Are you good at fixing computers?
- Do you know how to drive traffic to websites?
- Are you an avid gardener?
- Can you play the guitar?
- Are you a productivity guru?
Any of the above examples could make for excellent email blogs, if you know the subject well. So many people out there are looking for ways to produce their own food, get rid of computer viruses, learn how to play an instrument or get more done each day.
Personally, I’m interested in the marketing, personal development, and fitness. I could easily start an email blog on any of these topics, as there’s a ton of people interested in the same things.
If you’re really struggling with this, then let me ask you another question. What topics do you like to read about? Usually there’s an answer in there which would help you build a much needed email blog.
As I say to people who struggle to come up with a slogan for their regular blogs, don’t worry too much about trying to define the topics you want to talk about. If you want to give people advice on self-improvement, don’t stress about coming up with a catchy sub-heading which perfectly describes what you offer.
Just keep a general niche in mind at this point. Let your readers define what you cover if they really want to.
Choose a Domain
I don’t think of myself as someone who is great at naming websites, so I really don’t think you have to worry about this section too much. For example, the two successful blogs I ran, ViperChill & PluginID, have names which don’t really mean anything. The important thing is that they’re memorable.
I have even created a brand around the word “cloud” with sites like Cloud Living, Cloud Niche and Cloud Flood, even though the names individually don’t make it entirely clear what each website is about. When choosing the domain for your email blog, I would advise that you focus on something which is relevant to your niche, where possible, but focus more on making sure your domain is both brandable and memorable.
Since squeeze pages by nature can give off the vibe that they’re spammy, don’t’ make life harder for yourself by getting a domain filled with hyphens or something that isn’t a .com or .net.
Create a Squeeze Page
Creating a squeeze page is probably the most technically challenging part of this guide, but it’s really not that difficult. As a quick reminder, the aim of a squeeze page is to get people to give you their email address, so you can build your list (your audience).
There are quite a few options available to you when it comes to putting the page together. If you use WordPress, you could simply design your own on a separate page, like I did for my 10K Subscribers eBook. If you would struggle to do that manually, then Optimize Press is probably your best solution which will make the process ridiculously simple.
You don’t have to use WordPress, of course. On cloud niche, for example, I actually used a static HTML template (this one, to be exact). I then just customised the header to include my own graphic and call to action.
Alternatively, you could also use my own software, affiliateSkin, to get the job done with ease.
Since the sole purpose of your homepage (squeeze page) is to convert visitors into subscribers, it’s important to offer something very enticing. It’s crucial to know your audience here, so you know what is valuable to them. For headline ideas, I recommend you read my article on headline suggestions here.
The key point is that you create an attractive header to get them to subscribe. For your consideration: “Jump 22% Higher in One Week” (Basketball), “7 Little Known Fat Loss Tips, Revealed” (Health), “Sound as Good as Zeppelin Today!” (Guitar Tutor).
You could also go as far as to create a short eBook that they can instantly receive as an incentive for people to subscribe.
For your email broadcast provider, I would recommend either Aweber or MailChimp. I personally use Aweber, and love the service, so they get my first recommendation. MailChimp is a good alternative, though I haven’t used it that much, and they have a free package that you can use if you want to try this strategy without spending a penny.
Note that MailChimp are a little protective of what you send out; they don’t allow affiliate links in mails, for example, but it is free, so you can’t really complain.
Create a list in either one of these, and then get your opt-in box which they provide for you. Just paste the box code anywhere on your website, and you’re ready to collect emails. Well, right after you do this…
Set-Up Your Follow-Up Sequence
As highlighted in the table above, one downside of blogging is that users who subscribe to your blog a few months in have missed all of the great content you posted earlier. Unless you continue to internally link to it, your readers are missing out on your value.
With the likes of Aweber though, you can create a follow-up sequence (a series of content), and they’ll see all articles no matter when they subscribed to your list. I recommend you create about 10 articles to start with, and then add them all to the sequence. All subscribers will then see messages 1-10 on a weekly basis, and never miss anything you post.
The contents of the messages is entirely up to you, and does really depend on the industry you’re operating in. If I was starting an email blog in the health niche, for instance, I may have created a quick eBook on building muscle, put it on my squeeze page, and then started emailing people about ways to build muscle.
I could send some quick tips. I could send interviews with bodybuilders. I could send a story on my own personal involvement in the industry, and so on. Since the name of this strategy is email blogging, it’s safe for you to assume that the types of articles you would put on your blog are suitable for your follow-up sequence.
Just make sure you know how to write viral content.
Create a Product
Unless you’re happy to continually provide free content to your list, you’re going to need a product in order to make some money. You could promote a product from the likes of Clickbank, but I think you’ll find your conversion rate to be much higher if the product has your name on. After all, it’s your content that they want to read.
Your product can really be anything, but I recommend promoting something good enough for a $17 product. This will allow you to introduce your audience to buying things from you ($17 provokes impulse purchases) and get a feel for the types of things they’ll buy, before creating a fully-fledged product.
One benefit of setting up a 10-week follow up sequence from day one is that you have 10 weeks before you have to create any new content. That means you have 10 weeks available to create a product and promote it as message number 11.
eBooks, Podcasts and Videos are the most popular type of information product. Work on the one you’ll be most comfortable creating.
A good ratio of content to product promotion is around 80:20 or 90:10 in favour of content. I would personally go as far as 95:5, but mail more frequently (once every two, three days) on some weeks. The reason I don’t like product promotions to take up a big ratio of emails is because I want to make the product so good, and the copy so enticing, that people will buy it first time around.
Promote Your Squeeze Page
Once your squeeze page is up, it’s time to promote it and get subscribers. Note that while many of the recommended traffic sources are similar to those you would focus on for a regular blog, bear in mind that certain precautions (outlined below) apply.
It’s far easier to get people to subscribe to a squeeze page than it is for a regular blog, but it is more difficult to get traffic to a squeeze page, in some ways. When I first pitched the idea of email blogging to cloud niche subscribers, the main concern they seemed to have was that they wouldn’t be able to get search engine traffic anymore.
What a squeeze page lacks in traffic options, is made up for by its conversion rates.
Solo Ads
Solo advertising is used by a lot of marketers to build their email lists. Solo ads are basically ads that you buy in the email list of another marketer. For example, I could pay $150 for a guaranteed 500 clicks to my website, from another persons list (in the same industry). If what I offer on that squeeze page is enticing enough, they’ll join my list as well.
A good place to start is Safe-Swaps (affiliate link as I use the service heavily) or the joint venture section of WarriorForum. Make sure you request to see the landing page they built their list with, so you judge its “quality” for yourself.
Cloud:Flood
Cloud flood was designed exactly for this type of dilemma. How do you get traffic to a squeeze page? Over 700 people are now using Cloud flood on their websites, with many emailing me about “record traffic days”.
To explain how it works, picture this scenario. You have built a list of 1,000 people. You create a 10 page report on something relevant to your list topic. You want to give it to your list for free, but in return they must Tweet or Facebook share a link to your website (your squeeze page). It worked very well in promoting Cloud niche:
Cloud flood enables you to put up a “barrier” between content, and only gives access to people who Tweet or Facebook share a link. Because all of their social media followers see the message, they head on over to your site, and repeat the process. This can result in exponentially increasing traffic.
Article Marketing
So much has been said about this online that I don’t really have to go into it. Simply write articles around popular, relevant search terms and link to your squeeze page in the author bio. I’ve put together a list of the top article directories for you.
Blog Commenting
Blog commenting, done properly, can drive a lot of traffic to your website. I’ve seen links in the comments of ViperChill get over 800 clicks, so I know far more people read the comments here than leave them. And the people that read, click. If you’re going to do this, then leave comments which really add to the discussion of a post, and get people thinking.
If your reply is insightful, they’ll click on your link. Keep in mind that a number of bloggers may not like seeing these squeeze pages linked to in their comments. I personally don’t mind. The only thing I care about regarding commenting etiquette is that comments don’t use some keyphrase as the persons name.
Blog Banners
I’ve purchased quite a few blog banners for my sites over the years, to varying degrees of success. The easiest solution for these ad buys at the moment is to use Buy Sell Ads. They work with over 2,000 bloggers to automate the buying of ads on blogs and you can enter keywords to find blogs that match your industry.
Another option is to manually go out and find popular blogs in your niche. They’ll make it clear on their site whether they accept advertisers. Plus, you may be able to get them cheaper if you go direct.
Split Test
Now that you have your niche chosen, your page up, and you’re sending traffic to your site, it’s time to split test your traffic. Split testing basically means that you compare one version of your website to another, and see which one results in more people subscribing to your email list.
This is one of the most overlooked aspects of internet marketing, yet the one that is usually needed the most. Anyone can build a website and get some traffic to it, but it takes patience and determination to build a squeeze page with a very high conversation rate.
For split testing I personally like to use Visual Website Optimizer. I have previously tested Google Website Optimizer (Free), but find it to be slow to update and the support is minimal. Visual Website Optimizer comes with a free trial if you just want to test it out, then it has a monthly fee after that.
In a test I’m going to be blogging about soon, I discovered my squeeze page had a 27% conversion rate. That means for every 100 people I sent to my site, 27 would give me their email address. After tweaking just the headline, and nothing else, I increased that opt-in rate to 57%.
Over time this can make a big difference. If I end up sending 1,000 people to the page, I would get 570 opt-ins, rather than just 270. Split testing is so simple and so beneficial, that you would be crazy to miss out this step in the process. If you find any of it technically challenging (it’s actually very simple to set up) I guarantee that the VWO guys will help you out one-on-one.
I hoped I would have a great punch line to end the longest post I’ve ever written here, but instead it seems like I’m totally out of words. Writing this mammoth post must give me some plug privileges, so I’ll say that if you still haven’t subscribed to ViperChill (crazy, I know) then you can redeem yourself here.
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Wow! This is really awesome Glen and this is the best post I’ve read this month.
This post is really what makes Viperchill Viperchill.
I so much love the concept of email blogging and how you explained it and I’ll be going that route soon. I will also implement some of your tips to help increase my mailing list.
It is also really cool to see your open rate (90% is really mind blowing) and I’m also surprised to hear that only a tweak in your headline helped increased your squeeze page conversion to 57% – I think I need to start focusing on website optimization and split testing now.
Thanks so much for the awesome post and have a great day,
-Onibalusi
I’m going to do it in a couple of niches now. It’s pretty easy work since you just write all of the content once, and everyone gets it in a follow-up sequence.
Simple.
Thanks for the awesome comment, Oni!
Amazing unique stuff as always. It was long but I didn’t want the info to end!
Early you mention FB ads and Adwords but in the promote section you didn’t mention it. Still viable worthwhile options?
And this is something id love to try out
Do it!
I dare you…
I haven’t used them enough to give a good enough write up of them.
I think I’ll do a case study after I’ve launched my next product. Give me a niche idea
Glad you liked the post Benny!
I have had some good experiences with Facebook ads. Didn’t pay a lot and got some good return on it. I wrote a post on it on my own site…
Crazy Glen! You put so much into this one that the cup of tea I made at the start has gone cold. Well worth the wasted bag though, email blogging looks interesting and I’m sure I’ll look into it when my site has matured.
Hah, it was well over 5,000 words before I trimmed it down, so it could have cost two cups
Thanks for the comment
I’ve recently seen some bloggers that aren’t as heavy on traffic building such as design and technology blogs start email newsletters recently. While they run their blogs on the side they often add updates to their newsletters that are only on the newsletter and not on the blog. Apparently it has helped them connect with their audience a bit more due to the fact that people have to give over their private information.
Also letter.ly is an interesting site, more and more entrepreneurs have abandoned their blog for an email blog, but making people buy into the information. I think people underestimate the power of email. While we all use facebook and twitter we often forget that while not everyone uses these services everyone has an email address. It’s an interesting topic and I’m glad Glenn covered it in this much detail!
Good point towards the end their Ollie.
I said in a post recently how any time my blog posts go out to email subscribers, I always get a huge influx of comments. Far more than the initial burst.
P.S. Cool initials.
Very nice, this could definitely be something I try in future. I’m used to using SEO to get my traffic, but this would be a reason to try other methods as SEO wouldn’t really get your site ranked in this case. Thanks for the info.
Awesome,
Seems like it’s something that you would be good at. Thanks for the comment Shaun!
Oh, and I’m a total SEO geek as well, but I’m having a ton of fun with this.
Great post, as always.
Funny how everything that is old comes back around.
Back in the old days, this was an ezine, then they mostly died off when everyone moved to blogs. Now they are coming back again.
Haha totally agree with you. Ezine…that’s a word I was looking for at times.
Thanks Joel
Dear Glenn, awesome post, really great!
Back in the mists of time (around 1999 – 2000, can you believe it?) I had a little five page website and I started sending out a text only ezine to my friends and family, sharing what I was learning. I found 1shoppingcart and added a signup box on my site, but knew nothing of RSS feeds and all that. People passed my ezine on and folks either subscribed from the link in the ezine or came to the site to sign up. My mailing list grew.
I then archived each ezine on a new page on my site, linking to those pages from an archive page, and linking to that archive from my main navigation. An early form of blogging, I now realise. My traffic and backlinks grew and grew.
Then I started a typepad blog, and every week, I still sent out my ezine but just containing a couple of paragraphs and a link to the blog. My following grew and my list also grew. I must have had an RSS feed because I remember setting up Feedburner.
Then I found out about WordPress, set it up, exported all my typepad blog posts and imported them to my new WP blog – losing my 4/10 pagerank in the process – booo!
But never mind, because I was getting the benefit of all that unique content now, and my mailing list still grew. And I still send out my ezine, linking back to the blog. I promote my own stuff and other people’s and do very well with that.
I can’t imagine not sending a regular ezine, but I really like your idea of archiving great blog content in your autoresponder – that’s just brilliant!
Thanks for a truly GREAT blog post!
Nicola
(who has subscribed to your blog / list AND rss feed – I’m not missing any of these babies!)
“How to leave a comment and get traffic for years because the article was so good.”
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to ViperChill.
Amazing work Glen. You are really helping people with this stuff. I’m now at the point where this is the only blog I read having recently decided to just work on my projects and shut out other ideas. Still reading VC though.
Tyrant.
Thanks BT,
Awesome to see your blog taking off. Seems like “shutting out” was a good plan
Nice work once again Big Boy.
Keep it up
Darren
Thanks Darren
This is seriously crazy idea Glen.
I never though about it. Since the idea of my making money online is through blog, this is a really fresh idea for me. Plus based on the observation and how you said, I believe this is going to work very well.
The reality is, it is the same as blogging, but we are using email to publish new post for subscribers. Just like you do through Cloud Niche. Am I right?
Thank you Glen.
You got it
I hope this answers your email
Reading this post, I am doubtful about the concept. I think it will fail, if it doesn’t go hand in hand with a blog, for the couple of reasons:
1. You need to prove firstly that you are an authority in the niche. That’s exactly what you did with viperchill and your cloud-websites. WIthout an authority status I don’t imagine people subscribing.
Having a blog is THE tool to build your authority status
2. It is more difficult to go viral. I don’t see people easy Like or Digg a squeeze page. So if you wrote a epic email, you miss out on the possible viral effect.
I don’t think people would fwd these kind of emails easy to all their friends.
3. You already mentioned the fact that searchengine don’t like to rank squeeze pages
So, I am not saying that it’s not a good concept, but I think the blog should be your foundation. Instead of writing articles twice a week, you could have one article on your blog, and the other one send by email.
If emailblogging is a new concept, than one could also say that you can do the same with a Fbook fanpage instead of a squeeze page. You can follow exactly the same steps, but now are more likely to produce viral content…….what do you think Glenn?
I was waiting for someone to leave this comment, so I could pounce!
Haha
1. The majority of subscribers were not originally ViperChill readers. I know because I had a list of 700 people before I even mentioned it on this blog.
2. That’s a given, and mentioned in the post.
3. Same as above.
No you couldn’t do the same with a Facebook fan page. First of all, they’re not optimised for conversions (the biggest benefit of a squeeze page) and it’s known that people are more receptive to emails they like opening. How many times did you buy a product after seeing it on your Facebook news feed?
I think either you’re missing the point, or I didn’t express it clearly. There are already people making a lot of money with this, so it’s not a question of the concept failing. It’s a question of how well you put it into action
Thanks Glen,
No, i don’t think I missed your point(s).
WIth a fbook fanpage, you can also send emails, and even integrate aweber. And you thought us how to optimize the conversion rate on our welcome tab…
What my point was, is that before jumping in to this, I just wonder whether there are other variables that make this profitable for other people. I agree that this will work with already established authorities (with a blog).
could get optins like this.
I just find it difficult to believe that a nobody (like me
Hey Remco,
Firstly, the conversion rate of a welcome tab is never going to be even close to what you can get if you have full control of a website. You’re saying we could just use Facebook instead of Aweber, but then saying that to solve my problems with Facebook, use Aweber…
To be honest, I just can’t “relate” to your comment, so maybe other people can jump in. I see squeeze pages on a daily basis, which I know have converted thousands of people. I know that they work well, and I’m trying to share that with others in this post. If you don’t trust me or believe in the concept, then that’s totally fine.
Just don’t doubt that you can do it personally. Because it’s bullshit. You’re in no worse position now than I was a couple of years ago
Have faith.
Remco has a point.
I’m as new to this as new can get but I can tell you my experience.
When I come across a squeeze page, I’ve never signed up for one unless it was by someone that I already trusted. And that trust was always made through their blog.
A hybrid would work on me. Like the ViperChill blog with the CloudNiche squeeze page. Because I trust you.
There is nothing being offered by a mysterious squeeze page that’s not offered by one of the blogs I read and trust.
So for me it wouldn’t work. But I do see a lot of advertisements for products that will grow your penis 12 inches longer in 1 week so there are suckers out there. I always wonder who in the hell is buying that stuff.
I respect your opinion, just trust me when I say don’t get caught up in what you would do, compared to what you think others would do.
You’re probably very web savvy, which is more than 99% of internet users.
He already covered these too.
1. Solo Ads, Cloud Flood, Solo Ads, Blog Commenting, Blog Banners
2. Cloud Flood is great here, the first time when they are on your page you can offer a free eBook or something but only after they “Pay” it with a tweet or FB share your link. You can also offer another guide or something after a while but make it a PDF file and put another page on your website where they can download it from, as with the first one, they would have to tweet about your link to get it. So you get viral.
3.The other two points show that you don’t have to rank in search engines for this.
You used to write long posts, 1,000-1,500 words long, much more than others, but now this one was quite something, almost 5,000 words long. I think that after a few posts like yours, you can sell anything
) I’m 100% sure that if you ask for $17 for your next post, even if its only 2 pages of content you will still make a few thousand dollars.
Of course you would not do that but I know you agree.
Anyway, GREAT POST! Thank you!
I think I’m going to use it for an idea I had for a blog.
Hey Alin,
Hah. I was tempted to turn this into a small product, but i’m not a smart busines man sometimes
Interesting comment
Thanks!
Oh Glen, I do appreciate your humble attitude, but you know, and we know, you are a very smart, and very savvy businessman
Thats why you have the sky-high open rate I would guess.
As for me, I’ll read anything you write, and listen to any of your podcasts.
Keep On Keeping On !
Wow Glen,
You really are leading the pack mate and it is clear to see why. Great info, I still can’t believe how much you share at times, but then I guess the challenge for everyone else is to get out there and do it!
Thanks again, it really is a never miss blog!
Hey Shaun,
Thanks a lot for the comment. I’m really glad you enjoyed the post.
keep well!
Appreciate the insight Glen. I started a niche social network for virtual assistants way back in 2008 and have yet to really dig in and make big money.
The site was built on Ning, which requires an email address to become a member. We’ve collected over 1,200 emails and think it is time to kick it into gear!
I market training and ways for virtual assistants to develop their skill sets as well as tools that will help them brand themselves.
The issue we’ve had is that we only get about 40 people to visit the site daily. And from surveying members, we now know that it is because we do not remind that we exist!
Chalk it up to lousy marketing savvy on my end and to a lot of noise in the marketplace I spose. Bottom line, we started using email to reach out to members.
Previously, I was weary of using email and did not want to seem SPAMMY to my members. But when you follow a consistent schedule and deliver solid content things are different.
What I like about this approach is the content.
Email marketing usually consists of promoting, rather than sharing something. Your insight has verified this and has motivated me to start sharing more content and passively introducing products and services within the content we deliver.
My only issue now will be the automation of all of this. We have a decent list but it’s all in Ning – importing to Aweber will require me to get everyone to opt-in again.
Thoughts on how to get around this issue are welcome!
Awesome comment, Jason. Totally agree with you on the above.
You have a great outlook and I was curious: I tried to find a way to contact you through your website, but are you interested in joint ventures? I have a startup in the IM/PR world that could benefit from a few of your capabilities, as I’m sure we could benefit you.
Let me know if you’re interested!
Started a blog is stressful when your looking to make money, but we all most know things that time. getting setup is the easiest , but being consistent is the hardest part..
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
Man. You just ruined it, didn’t you? I was already patting myself on the back for my ‘original idea’, till you came up with this post.
And I thought I had the damn thing figured out!
Now that you have shared all there is to share, I am going to share here what I am planning to do:
Have a restricted blog access. The ‘read more’ will be link to a sign up page. WP integrated with Aweber. Only members of the blog will get to read what is online. But that will not how content will be digested by the audience (it will be done purely through email – with hardly any ‘links back to the site’). Content can also be read online, but only if you are signed in. The ‘truncated content’ will be used as ‘content marketing’, ‘bait’ or whatever they are calling it these days.
Did I make this clear?
And most importantly, I am trying this for my blog at http://blog.momekh.com/ … do you think this will work better than ‘a single sign up page’?
Again, thanks for explaining it in detail.
I’m such a dick
Sounds like a very interesting strategy. You (nor I) don’t know until you try it.
Good luck!
Thanks Glen.
One thing though: the ad-swap website seems promising. But my list has like 7 people on it. Is that website for people like me, or for people with relatively larger lists? I went through their website but didn’t find much information. As you use them (hence recommend them), I wonder if you could fill in?
Rock on…
I don’t use them for Ad swaps, I use them to buy solo ads.
This is awesome. Thank you very, very much. My head is spinning with ideas now. Thank you!
Great to hear, Leonid!
This could have been a stand-alone eBook or mini-course itself. Glen, you get so much in return because you give so much to all of us. Thank you.
Over the weekend I was looking at Optimize Press (David Risley swears by it) and have been toying with the idea of a landing page with eBook/video offer. Mainly because I want to drive some paid traffic to it and then share my results with my readers. Your recommendation is enough for me to feel comfortable about using it now.
Email blogging…I’ll have to chew on this one for a bit, thanks for challenging me to think outside the box this morning!
Jon
Thanks Jon,
The Optimize Press guys did a great job with their product, so i can definitely recommend it. Some of my best friends use it almost exclusively on their websites.
You’re very welcome.
A great, thorough post…. thanks Glen! This is something I have to try and implement… been neglecting email lists for too long.
You’re welcome Sunny
Hi Glenn,
I only started trying email marketing a few months ago, and you certainly pointed out a few things that I had not thought of. So thank you for that!
Oh, and the fact that you gave some advice on implementation is really great. All too often people (me included) seem to focus on idea generation, and that is the easy part.
Really, you don’t need a new idea if you have a better way to market something. Look at the video-rental business (in the US anyway). First there were small mom and pop stores with a thousand copies of movies. Then there were stores like blockbuster which marketed something a little more like McDonalds.
With mom and pops, you could easily get there too late on Friday to pick up the movie you wanted. With Blockbuster, there were so many more movies, and many locations, new types of memberships, and more reliablity. Then came Netflix who killed them all (which is great as I always hated Blockbuster).
Anyway, the point is that the idea to rent videos to people was not new. The new ideas used to market videos for rent are what caused the changes.
Thanks for this & have a great day!
Hey Mark,
That’s awesome. Sometimes I’ve stopped at the idea mark (no pun intended
) only to have people ask me how they go ahead and put that idea into action, so I try to include as much as I can.
Excellent example there at the end. Thanks!
Hey. Saw your email where you mentioned about a blogging guide that you were going to release. When is it coming out?
is this post what you were talking about?
Hey Mani,
No this post is about the concept from the email, but not the guide I was referring to. Launch date is April 6th, as long as we don’t come across and hurdles
This is actually a really good idea for those bankrupt on ideas and it works very well if you know how to cater to people’s needs AND tie products into the equation as well (which is a learned talent).
I actually have something similar that I run (but it is private and referral only) that shows about the same kind of numbers that you have given. I can personally verify that the open rates are way much better than the typical open rates. For instance, the last thing I sent out the open rate was 61% and the CTR was 44%.
It is perhaps one of the best methods to use without sinking a bunch of time into the equation.
Hey Leo,
Great stats, and thanks for the comment.
Totally agree
Interesting tactic, and even more interesting on the angle you tackle the difficulties behind the whole email blogging concept! Definitely a strategy that’s worth looking at
Glad you think so.
Thanks Kelvin
Hey Glen,
brilliant post. The info you share everytime you post a new article is really incomparable and generous.
After I read your email talking about this idea I had a lot of questions and doubts around my head. I actually made a list.
Well, this post has replied to all my questions. I think this is just a brilliant idea, a good alternative for many bloggers and they way you explain every detail is certainly inspiring.
Thanks again!
Cristina
Thanks Cristina,
Always appreciate your support
Hi Glenn,
Thanks for this email/report/ebook. It’s definitely worth the read.
When I first got your email, I was still wondering how it can be implemented. I read it a few time to fully understand the model. And yes, you’re right. There are many marketers using this method to make money already! Without you saying all out here, I was still wondering why some marketers … like what you said… make a 6-figure blog without anyone knowing.
I have also tweeted some qns about this model when you asked for it on Twitter, and I’m glad I got your answer here
Just a few more qns to clarify further.
1. After you set your first 10 follow-up email posts, and let say 11th being a product promotion, do you continue to add in follow-up email posts from the 12th email onwards?
2. Would you only set all your email posts to ‘follow-up’ mode (1st – 10th….etc) ? If that’s the case, all your email posts will be published through the autoresponder sequence, and not through a ‘send mass email’ approach (create a email and send)?
Hey Ding,
Thanks for the comment.
1. Yep. You could re-email about the product though, by sharing the awesome feedback you’ve gotten from buyers or announcing it is going off-sale soon (if applicable). Then continue with the messaging sequence as usual.
2. That is correct. You’ve got it!
Jeeez, Glen… Way to show everyone up and cover an *entire business model* in one post
Bookmarking this to come back to later – wayyyyyy too much info to process in one sitting!
Heh, fair enough.
Thanks for the comment.
Glen,
This is an awesome post. I was just talking to another blogger today about some of the concepts you bring up here…but the whole email blogging concept is a unique twist. I’ll have to checkout the optimizer software you mention in the article.
Talk soon,
Brandon
This baby needs RT’ed!
Thanks Brandon,
Yeah the tweets are flooding in, just the Twitter counter is really delayed on this site for some reason. All tweets from today will show up tomorrow. Maybe it helps the sympathy vote though
Great content as usual Glen. I didn’t mind the “long” post, in fact, I’ve already read it twice. But my mind is racing…and i have a couple of questions about email blogging. If I decide to use email blogging instead of traditional blogging for my investment blog (coming soon), should I be concerned that a subscriber could take the high quality original content in the emails and post them on his or her blog? I mean, wont the content seem original to the search engines since I never posted it online? Would it make sense to also post the email content on my blog as well? For example if my optin page for my email blogging is domain.com , should I also place the content on my blog – blog.domain.com or domain.com/blog ?
The reason I can’t figure this out on my own is because it would seem that by posting the same content on my blog, I would take away the value of my emails and/or blog posts.
Unless, providing an additional paragraph of content on the blog would help. Any thoughts? Sorry for the long question…I was inspired by the pleasantly lengthy post.
Hi Ray,
As far as question one goes. Yes it will likely seem original to them, but I wouldn’t worry about it. Just pasting the content online alone wont be enough for it to really hurt you. Plus, it’s likely that you’re talking in a very personal manner in this emails – as you should be – so you’ll probably reference the list and your subscribers on multiple occasions. It would sound very strange if anyone were to publish this on a blog.
I recommend, if this is a big concern for you, then just do what someone recommended earlier. Post the first few paragraphs of each article, and then tell people they can subscribe via your list to read the rest.
– Glen
WOW! Definitely the longest post I ever read, but damn… I’m sure glad I did! Not only a tremendous amount of info but extremely thorough… I am definitely following up on some of this… my head is reeling with ideas now and yes, I did “redeem myself”… you have my attention and I don’t intend to miss a word you say from now on!
Linda =}
Redemption granted
Welcome aboard, Linda. Thanks for the comment.
Excellent and intriguing post. I must say I have been inspired and spent the morning setting up an email based blogging site. Time to get those first 10 or so articles written. *Excited squeal*.
I take from your post that the key to visitors, due to the lack of organic traffic, comes mainly from networking in your niche. Do you have any tips or links to other articles on best practices for doing so?
Once again Glen, truly inspiring, and I thank you for the value you give your readers.
Thanks Martin,
That’s awesome. Keep up the productivity
Networking yes, but if you have money to spend, I personally prefer to do that to kick things off, then use Cloud Flood to help it grow virally.
Very Nice Glen!
I have a few blog ideas that I think are potential gold mines, and yet I just don’t have the time to go at them with the traditional blog idea. This method will work wonderfully!
Do you set it up as a huge auto-responder sequence that just gets longer and longer as you add new content and people all start at the beginning? And you also add products slowly as you add more and more content?
Thanks!
Yep, generally.
I will also split test some messages to see the headlines that my audience respond to best, then send out the best headline to the rest of the list.
Glen you are a shredder – TMNT style. I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog posts. I’m taking a u-turn on my infidelity related website – I’m creating a squeeze page instead. I was originally think of creating a pop up squeeze, but I might give this a try. I’m afraid that with the nature of my audience, they are looking for answers immediately… and setting them up with a sequence of emails might not entice their purchase. What do you think?
Hey Yanni,
Good to hear! I don’t know what your audience is looking for, so I can’t really say. Maybe the instant solution they need could be the first email in your sequence?
Glen,
What a great post! Thanks! I’m thinking of incorporating this strategy into my business. My company produces stunning interactive animations on Iphone for kids and families. How I’m thinking about implementing is – our free apps will drive traffic to our website, which in turn be focused on people opting-in for our e-mails.
I haven’t thought about e-mail strategy before your post, but now I can see, that if I turn this list to some sort of e-mail blogging tool, this can be very successful.
P.S. your mailchimp link in the post is pointing to mailchip.com.
Good luck,
Pavel
Thanks Pavel,
Glad you liked it. I’ll fix that link now.
Glen
AWESEOME post. My site isn’t getting many people at all sign up, so what I can take from this post regarding a squeeze page is definitely something I will consider.
Thanks again
James
Good to hear, James!
Phew , that was long…..
Interesting concept. Changing the whole fundamentals of the industry. I like. I mainly deal with semi warez sites so implementing these state of art concept is really hard. But I could always improvise and implement.
Who won that last contest ?
Thanks SWW,
I announced the winners on that post
Great post. You always move me forward for succes. Thanks for your great contribution to Internet Marketing.
Great to hear Vishal,
Thank you!
Quick Tip: when people from your initial email list purchase your product move them to a new buyers list. This way you won’t be sending the same promotion to people who have already purchased. Also, you can then sell this list something else at a higher price and get a higher conversion rate since people who have bought something from you are significantly more likely to buy something else.
Thanks for this great post. You provide so much valuable info for free. People can easily sell it for thousands of dollars. You rock Glen.
Thanks Costy,
I try my best
I love this! This kind of strategy allows you to focus all your effort on finding customers, and keeping a relationship with them, instead not managing the overhead of a website.
Brendon Burchard shared the same “no site” strategy. He called it a “1 page membership site”. The twist on his strategy is that people pay to join the list but the content they receive is not behind a pay wall.
This is a great strategy. So often I think we segment content from marketing but they should be one. Though I haven’t commented all the time, I’ve been a long time follower of yours and it has been a great experience to see your site grow to where it is at today.
Thanks Mike, I appreciate it when you do leave comments!
Hi Glen, I remembered you were tired writing an article yesterday but you forced yourself to produce this brilliant content. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing.
Yep. Very tired. I wrote the whole thing in about 6 hours, so it was non-stop
Hi Glen,
I had a small query. So rather than spammin u on mail I am asking it here as suggested on your Contact me page…
Incase if you are building niche sites… is a long URL something to be prevented? Ex I got my niche in say – viperchill luxury cars
Now I have an option of Viperchillluxurycarsreviews.com and viperchillluxurycarsHQ.com … Which one should be considered. Not many target audience understand whats HQ… Whats your take shorter URL or better recall?
Appreciate your views.
Reviews does seem a bit too long. I would shorten it if you can.
You’ve said…
“Email subscribers are more likely to buy your products than any other type of audience.” I can easily debunk this myth. Just last week 5 sales were generated by people who found me on Google (free search engine traffic) and I didn’t have to use my list.
Personal experience? Yep. Debunked? Not quite.
I struggled to make money with Facebook ads, does that make it a bad tactic? No, a lot of people are making good money from Facebook.
Also, too many other factors come into play. Your site may be converting well, but your list may be poorly written. And I’m guessing whatever you’re selling via Google is more prominent than your list. I didn’t say you can’t make money with anything else…I make a lot of money from SEO as well
Whatup dude!
I like this idea, and everything else you’ve been pumping out lately.
One interesting aspect of it, related to your denouncement of blogs.
Haha.
I think one of the big reasons you also got a lot of opt-ins for the cloud niche email list is due to your reputation on viperchill, and how, because you don’t promote products on your blog, just offering great free value, people assumed there would be just as much value in the newsletter without spamming.
So the blog was valuable in creating the initial credibility, and a super potent leverage point to offer new side projects.
At least that’s the approach I’m taking with my blog, building credibility with loads of free value, then implementing some of these ideas in the future.
Or it’s all a complete waste of time. ;P
Hey Brad,
How’s Vegas?
As mentioned above, most of the early subscribers had no idea who I was, but some later on definitely do.
Just looking at a new take on how we all do things
Keep well
Vegas is off the chain as usual. You should get out here at some point… I could probably sneak you in to the Summit in August.
I didn’t see this in the post, but how did you get the early traffic to the opt in site if not via the blog?
I figure the later traffic was through the cloud flood app, which is genious btw, but was the early traffic adwords?
Also, I wonder how this could be implemented for people who already have established blogs, there has to be some application, maybe for specific products… specific subniches…
Cheers,
Brad
Hey Glen, thanks for another quality piece as always! This has certainly got me thinking at a time when I am just starting out with blogging and launching my first few sites… The only thing that puts me off about this email blogging thing, is that it doesn’t satisfy my desire to build something valuable that everyone can see and I can be proud of… Must be an ego problem…
But what you say certainly makes sense from a monetizing point of view.
BTW: Thanks for all the great ideas from CloudNiche. I have already implemented some of your ideas in one way or another…
Thanks Brendon,
Definitely an ego problem
Hey Glen,
Great post and an interesting strategy. I was pleasantly surprised to see Cloud flood which I’ll definitely integrate into one of my sites.
Just a quick correction, in regard to Mailchimp if you read their legal terms carefully you’ll find it doesn’t say you can’t use affiliate links, they just prohibit you selling affiliiate marketing, I’m assuming that means you can’t use it as a list to promote you affiliate program.
Anyway, I’ve never had a problem with using affiliate links in my emails through them but I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has!
Seems pretty confusing to me. I don’t even know what “selling affiliate marketing” means, so they should definitely make that clearer IMO.
I didn’t actually know about it, until a few people told me I can’t recommend MailChimp for the reasons I mentioned in the post.
Glen,
What I’ve noticed, since beginning blogging, is that it all comes down to adding a small hurdle in the way of the people you want to connect with.
Let me explain…
Having a blog that’s fully accessible to everyone on the web removes all barriers of entry for people to dig into your content. This is certainly a good thing since it gives you the exposure you need to build a brand but then it’s so simply to interact with a blog that people rarely take action.
Having a ‘hurdle’ in the way such as having people opt-in to an email list will put off people in a good way – you naturally remove people that are unlikely to take action from your information.
By creating this barrier to your information, you’re cultivating the correct community right from the get-go.
This is nearly opposite of how blogging works and one of the biggest reasons why a list can be infinitely more profitable (and valuable for the member) than a blog alone, in my mind.
Very good points here Murray,
Thanks for sharing.
Hey Glen,
This article is so cool because I’m already e-mail blogging, but I had no idea it had a name. It was just an instinctual evolution of using my autoresponder in the most effective way. Very cool!
P.S. Really enjoying your Cloud Living content.
Awesome Marlee,
Thanks!
Hey Glen, like everyone else I thought this was exceptional, but there is something else here that is a big pull and I wanted to comment on that. This might not consciously register with everyone, but they are drawn to it regardless. You are a free agent in a world of replays. We don’t get the same old ideas repackaged from you and that is so refreshing. One of the main reasons I read your stuff is because I know it will kick open a new idea door leading to unique creative possibilities. Thanks!
Thanks Jonathan,
I appreciate that a lot. Hopefully I can keep it coming. No pressure, eh?
Every single time you nail it. And you kept me attention the whole way through. I never really considered this and now I think, damn, of course.
I do wonder how good I’d be at this though… Ah my stupid brain gettin in the way again…
Each day you’ll be better, so don’t worry how good you are at it right now.
Thank you David
Thanks for such an amazing post Glen. Although, quite honestly, I’m daunted with what it takes to implement this. That’s probably, the comfortable me hesitating to step out into the unknown.
What do you have to lose
Thank you!
Did I miss an email or something?
CloudFlood??? Going to check it out!
Also, really like your ViperFeed plugin, easy but looks I don’t know.. cool
Anyway, this post gives me a lot of reading… Awesome!
Ralph
Hey Ralph,
I blogged about it a few posts ago. And there I was thinking you are a hardcore reader
Hi Glen,
Why not publish the email articles on your blog anyway? That way you’ll get SEO juice for your hard work… You could ‘hide’ the articles so their not so easy for users to navigate on your website, and of course your home page would remain being the squeeze page.
Also, how many subscribers do you think one needs before you can make US$5k a month (outside of the Internet marketing industry where the stats would be heavily skewed)?
Will
I’ve answered the first question above
I can’t answer the second, as there are just too many factors which come into play. I’ve seen people do it with a few hundred.
Wow Glen!
Long, but awesome and valuable content.
thanks for sharing this awesome concept of Email blogging. At first, this might seem as an overwhelming process. However, once you have all the content and the systems in place and continue to do some split testing, you are on your way. Definitely worth a shot!
Once again, thx for sharing this awesome post.
Giber
Hey Giber,
No problem, and thanks for the comment!
Nice theory Glen, but practically useless…if you don’t have a name in the blogging world and a big blog like viperchill.com/rss feeds/social network assets that will flood tons of pre-cualified traffic to your own squeeze pages…or you will waste tons of money in ads until you learn how to work cleaver with PPC ads platforms
The main key point in there is to know your audience better than anybody, and to offer the tailor-made service they are expecting. If you don’t have a blog, you could have 1000 tries before having a winner. You’ ve launch an affiliate mkt product at viperchill.com and then a niche email blogging, what a casuality…
That say I agree with most of the tactics you are mentioning in that post (to sump it up don’t lose too much time with your blog, focus on growing & providing value to the list), except that when you claim that you can skip the 2/3 years of inicial investment of your project (lots of work, low money for most people). You need to build your networking and consolidate your reputation online first. You need to walk along the path to find your way. There’s no way to skip that.
Shortcuts and magic plans just don’t exist.
If you are a normal reader (= not a profesional blogger, not a profesional PPC consultant (your friend surely is), not a profesional Internet Marketer), you have absolutly no chance to earn quicker bucks, because you have no previsous knowledge, tools nor assets to shorten the path to income generation.
You’re a great person which offers excepcionally valuable content. I love your blog, and i’am a buyer of your product. Please don’t go that way, no hype needed.
Ah, the probalby first critical comment here from Frank
Because I was not sure if I understood everything (my native language is not english), because I was wondering how to get all those e-mail subscribers. If I understood it correclty, your very successful friend bought PPC ads on Google and Facebook to gain e-mail adresses, to which he later sold his products?
Obviously, this is the more expensive way than with just starting a blog, but it can save you plenty of time.
I probably won’t give this a try. But thanks to this article, I discovered your cloudflood tool, which I’ve already implemented. Hopefully, this will be more of a success than the Facebook landing page (up to now, I’ve only gained 3 FB fans on a financial advisory site with 100+ uniques/day in about 6 weeks). Thumbs up and thank you for sharing couldflood!
My friend did, yes. But if you read the post, I say that I don’t use that tactic, and nor do I plan to.
The majority of initial Cloud flood subscribers were built from free traffic sources.
Hey Glen:
Just curious, why didn’t you plan to execute this plan? too many projects, eh?
CY
Google (Adwords) pretty much banned all the advertisers and most likely will NOT allow the Squeeze Page/Affiliate kind of things anymore. Anyways, I also prefer free traffic (Social Media, organic SEO listings, etc) because it will last a lot longer and well – it’s free. Problem with paid ads – You stop paying, you stop making money. Free traffic will keep on coming;)
This post finally gave me the kick up the a*se to relaunch my blog about WordPress into an email-only community.
I think the email blogging thing is a great business model and one that could easily be replicated in other areas. It is going to help my offering standout within the WordPress niche where there is so much lower value content out there in the form of theme galleries and blogs which are just trying to turn a few pence with AdSense or as an affiliate for themes.
I want to create a list of VIP subscribers (it’s free and anyone can join) so that I can concentrate on developing the best content. I already have a good followup series primed and ready to unleash on new subscribers so I am pretty excited about the whole thing.
I hope more people take action based on what Glen is angling at in this post!
James
Hey Glen, Good post
This method works really well for me.
Even in micro-niches with 300-400 subscribers you can make a good bunch of money.
And most importantly you can promote other people’s products through affiliate links.
Affiliate Marketing becomes even more powerful through this method because your subscribers trust you and or more likely to buy / go to the vendor’s salespage than by an anonymous site somewhere in the internet.
Cheers,
Nisch
Thank you! I enjoyed reading this post. I’ve been battling with the new direction I want to take my website and content. I plan to visit the reference links provided.
Firstly, wow that took a long time to read; and even though I knew relatively early on in the article that this would not be something I would be trying in the immediate future, I carried on reading because the the subject matter is so refreshingly original. I’ve only been reading about making money online for a fairly short time, but it does sometimes seem as though there is quite a small pool of topics that continue to get re-hashed-out (e.g. SEO, social media etc), so it was good to learn about something completely new. It took me two sittings to read it, so I don’t even want to think about how long it took to write – but great post!
Wow, what a post!
I have been doing 12-18″work” days lately, working on my online businesses so I really appreciate posts like this one. It allows me to take a break yet learn something really cool at the same time:)
I have been into list building until I recently lost 7,000 subscribers (long story, with juicy details on my blog) however this time I am planning on doing something similar to “email blogging” – more content, better content, free content!
Blogging has been something that I’ve been putting off for a while – mainly due the time and effort it requires to get up.
Having read this im seriously thinking about giving it a shot.
Thanks again – Keep it up
Fantastic post, and an incredible blog that I discovered upon recommendations from the Warrior Forum this week.
I’ve been building email lists using squeeze pages for the past 4-5 years and even written one or two eBooks about it and I’d be delighted if I were to get email open rates consistently above 50% like you are.
I have got one message in my autoresponder sequence that has a 107% open rate and an 82% click-thru rate which is pretty incredible. And the reason it has such high rates is because it’s incredibly TARGETED to what my subscriber opted in for.
It’s important to keep your email messages closely targeted to the interests of your subscribers if you want to get big results.
Thanks for a great blog. I’ll be around more!
James
Thanks for the tips Glen.
I’ve been playing around with an idea like this and adding a premium newsletter. I’ve been working in the traffic, since the page can’t have traffic from the search engines. It’s good to know that more people is thinking the same way I’m.
Glen,
Okay I admit I usually only leave comments to “blog comment” even though I leave very relevant replies, but this is golden information. Thank you.
I am wondering if you couldn’t still get a squeeze page ranked by writing an article of 1000-1500 words, get it ranked, and then add squeeze page elements and opt-in form above the fold.
Or a 4-5 page minisite, get it ranked, and put the opt-in form on all the pages. Would this not work well for some reason?
It could work, it just kind of defies the ease of the tactic
great post as always
Hi Glen,
Any thoughts on ImnicaMail?
Also, this reminds me of Ebden Pagans business around all his dating products. Are there any differences or I am missing something?
That cloud flood is a really clever addition btw. I have been using FB to drive traffic to landing pages for products under $5. BUT building niche sites and driving traffic to an autoresponder sequence is a killer idea BUT a lot of work.
I have a friend that leverages this tactic. The beautiful part is you can also test and tweek your autoresponder sequence to fully optimize it on top of optimizing the traffic generation and landing page.
Awesome article. The $17 for your first product is a great idea. I’m thinking to go with that price point instead of $47 for my first product, and then release better more expensive products later after they’re used to paying me for a solid product. Thanks for the eye opening post, Cheers.
Fantastic post! I’m not much of a blogger (more of a site-builder), but there are still a lot of great general marketing tips that I found applicable for my line of work, too. Thanks again!
I have to say that this was a stunning post, very well written, and it almost convinced me to set something up and start collecting email addresses for a list.
Almost, that is. It’s a great idea and definitely is legitimate. I like your giving the ratios between 80:20 and 95:5 because the last thing anyone wants to see is consistent bombarding of “buy this from me” posts; that’s what usually gets me unsubscribing from most email newsletters.
The creation of products works as well, and I’m glad you asked people to create quality products because frankly most of the stuff I used to get was written poorly and added almost no value to my life at all. I’m glad your friend figured it out, and I’m glad you’ve learned it as well. But this post… well, I Tweeted it, which shows how much I enjoyed it.
Woah! That is some awesome stuff Glen! I appreciate this lenghty post and congrats on the achievement!
Glen – must compliment in how you have managed to simplify this for those individuals who may have been on the fence and looking to get in.
Thanks,
Ricky Ahuja
Interesting,
gives me an idea to use the viperbar to collect emails on my e-commerce site and use google alerts to find offers and discounts and send out emails to customers looking for discounts. With some affiliate links of course
Why not combine the old blogging and e-mail blogging. For example I can notice that most top bloggers use their blog to post content to drive traffic from search engines and other sources, and somewhere on the page they have a box to type your e-mail to receive newsletter. It is the same basic content from the blog, but you can read it in chronological order and you can build up your list with ease.
Glen, I really hope this isn’t like Montessori school where they force you to use a tool or toy for what it was intended. Because I took apart your posting and came up with two good ideas for me! I have a big mailing list for my jewelry business and obviously I’m an authority there because they stick around, so why not write that ebook I’ve been putting off writing and have ‘em come and get it, paying with a tweet? Secondly, I already have an AWeber account but I don’t use the autoresponders much. You inspired me to come up with a Fiverr product (more I dare not say) that would be full of value and easy to fulfill. Thanks!
Learned way too much from this article, and now my head’s spinning with possibility. Thanks!
Also, I looked for another place to send this, but didn’t want to add to your over-stuffed inbox: Any plans to integrate Mad Mimi to Viper Bar at some point? Designing emails for Aweber put a twitch in my eye, and I’ve been recommending MadMimi to my clients instead. I’d LOVE to use the VB on those blogs, and would gladly pay fo the option.
::fingers crossed::
Man, I’m impressed. As a new blogger, I really needed this. And yes, maybe blogging sucks, but everyone who wants to become like you, unfortunately needs to go through the blogging world, because blogging is the school where all the best internet entrepreneurs have learned from.
That is really awesome idea, however I see one huge problem here. Its easy to make ppl subscribe if you already run a bunch of well known projects and have a good reputation – its double kill – you get ppl subscribe because of you being well-known and you also get huge traffic from your other projects. This will not work for some start-up. (to have one example, Ive started new project and just linking from my other 3 projects raised the nuber of visitors by 400%)
Maybe a hybrid daily + email blogging could work, I see more potential in it then in paid membership sites. You can have typical funnel structure like blog + free eBook + paid advanced eBook and run it together with some more in-depth stuff in the email-blogging way. And make huge money on affils.
Pure email marketing is just some advanced kind of spamming in my opinion – just vomiting tons of emails on your “subscribers” telling them buy this or that – well, Im deleteing such emails immediately and unsubscribing. Im also not going to subscribe on some single page websites if I dont know that it is really valuable offer. Email blogging could get me hooked and I could also click on some affil links but making me subscribe will be the hard part!
I’ve answered a few of your concerns in the comments above.
Thanks for the detailed comment though
Magnificent post on email blogging. I can’t ask any question regarding your analysis, I can’t deny anything said in this post and I can’t contribute anything to make this page be a better page
So I’m just saying hello.
Glen,
Thank you for a wonderful post.
I have been using this method for a little while but not as a niche marketing tool. I own a gym and I’ve been publishing blog-like weekly emails to our members and other subscribers for well over a year. The open rate is higher than the industry average and we actually find quite a few new members through the emails we send. We’ve even had people from other countries refer friends who are local to our gym. So, there is power in this concept even for industries outside the internet.
I also tested a 28-day business and productivity email blog “course” this was very well received. Of the 120 subscribers (it was a limited membership), the daily open rate was up to 90%. This proved to me that in capturing interested subscribers you can communicate more clearly and effective and late you can sell more easily.
The squeeze page method is something I’ve yet to try but I will be testing it this month. Coupling this method of capturing interest with high quality, high value content via an auto responder sounds like a great method.
Lastly, thank you to all those who have commented and added to this post.
Sincerely, Adam.
Wow Email Blogging is a cool idea to
Thanks for the coll idea of Email Blogging It is a good share
Appreciate this well constructed post about the new idea of email blogging. Glenn you rock man
quick note to say, at the time of writing, the mailchimp link is incorrect – it links to mailchip!
cheers.
I wrote a blog post and mentioned CloudFlood (and ViperChill) – well, wouldn’t you know, I am getting traffic for “Share To Get” as keyword phrase, hahahaha
Hah. Nice!
Holy cow. There’s nothing I can add to the avalanche of kudos you’ve already received, Glen, except WOW. You’re my hero. Talk about providing value to your readers! Thank you so much.
-j.
Hi Glen,
This is one of your best blog postings ever! But please please tell us the name of your million dollar baby
Love the post. I’ve been thinking of “blogging” to my email list.
I certainly enjoy content that I receive from experts rather than “hey just posted this” or “only 3 days left before ______ closes it’s doors forever.”
The emails I really pay attention to, and the blog posts for that matter too, are the ones that deliver incredible content. The content doesn’t have to be long, it just needs to resonate because it’s relevant.
Thanks for your ideas. Keep ‘em coming!
-Thomas
Hi Glen,
What do you think of the potential/probability of building a forum. I have a niche in mind, but saw that building a forum is more technical, than other IM type sites. Is that why most IM people stay away from them. From what I have read so far, it seems if I start a forum and it starts getting popular most of my time will be spend on the tech part instead of the business/ promotion part.
what do you think?
Personal development blogger Steve Pavlina recently closed his highly popular forum (archives still available for reading, but no new postings), not because of any technical aspect (managing databases and so forth), but because the user base sort of mushroomed out of control after some time. He officially shut it down on 26 Dec ’11:
stevepavlina.org/2011/03/forums-removed
Points to at least consider, IMHO.
Really enjoyed this post. Will need to reread a third to digest the valuable content.
I think this email blogging process is definitely something I’m going to implement. As I was reading through your post I realized that for myself, if your not in my Google Reader, I’m not reading your content. I hardly ever click through to the actual site except to post an occasional comment.
I enjoy your long post style of writing. Keep up the hard work!
Found your blog on Technorati and I like it already! This post has some great ideas. I’m just starting to build up my own blog and the idea of archiving my best content to resend to my list sounds great. I market traffic building techniques in TE’s and safelists to build my own email list.
Although my list is growing I don’t get many visitors to my blog yet so sending my subscribers a little taste sounds great!
Thanks,
Randy
Just found your blog and this is the first post I read. All I can say is WOW !!!!! This post is better than most of the $17 info products I have ever purchased. I just subscribed, and I am promising myself to start “email blogging”!
Thanks Again,
Brad
I just found your website and I can say it is the best resource I have found on the internet. Your concept of email blogging is seriously something I’ve never heard of. But it makes a lot of sense. I reading your case study and statistics I was floored to see how successful it was.
This is great! I somehow stumbled onto this article and have been enthralled over the past 30 minutes reading through it. This is definitely something I am adding to my to-do list, although I’m kind of skeptical.
In the long run, does it have the potential to outweigh the amount of profit you could make with a regular blog? I put a lot of weight into the value of getting a keyword to the top of google. If I only have one squeeze page to work with, how do I ensure that I am getting all the traffic I want?
I’m going to throw what I can at this and see where it gets me. Definitely something to think about!
Thanks!
Dallas – HP Pavilion Guy
I had read a few of your posts before and saw that you were successful for a reason, but this post is amazing (as is the cloud:flood concept). Besides the great tips you provided, I’m looking at the response you’re getting for providing such great and “secret” content. In general I try to look at what successful bloggers do more than what they say if that makes sense.
So the other thing I’m taking from this post is not to withhold content to try to maintain a competitive advantage in the blogosphere. My favorite bloggers have been the ones that seem to be the most open with sharing their success. You seem to be the most open of them all! My blog is only a month old, but I want to do this the right way the first time.
Thanks Glen!
I am new this Blog thing, but i ran across your article and read the whole thing, my question is where do you make money? only by selling a product? my blog is about small biz ownership and turning around a business that is failing. What can I sell? I have a book in the making on management that is 66 chapters so far. But if I sell that then what do I sell next? and is there any other way to make money on ad’s if you go email vs. regular blogging?
There really are no stupid questions , Right?
Bob Eaton
you article is so interesting! and informative! lol
Funny, when reading your articles I realized that this is what I was doing! I had built an email list from all my customers but never really used it – I know – silly me.
When sales slumped after the holidays I remembered that list and thought about what to write to my customers. I definitely did not want to turn them off with some sales pitch, so what I came up with, was to write about a picture of a tie-dyed motorcycle I had found somewhere.
It was pure content without any sales man behavior – which I dislike – so why would I then do it myself, right?
Since then I have managed to send out an email every week and it has blog-style information. Writing in the snotty Frank-Kern style I get comments like “I enjoy you mail” etc.
It is a reminder that I am still here with my products without cheap pitching. And I actually converted some years-old “join our mailing list” list members in actual paying customers – all without pitching.
So, thanks for making clear to me what I was actually doing
Testing Comment Redirect
Ha, another test of the redirect when commenting. What can I say, I just read about it in your cloud blogging article and I had to test it out.
Thanks for the great blog!
Jeff
this is genius. Seth Godin wrote and extensive post about this “permission marketing ” http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/permission-mark.html
For making money there really is no better way than email marketing, people get emails sent to them automatically to their email and they can decide whether to open it or not. Furthermore a good advantage over normal blogging is an enticing email headline only has to compete with the follower’s other emails, when if done on the internet has to compete with everyone.
I haven’t tried any of this yet, but In my opinion the best way would be to have a good squeeze page than have every email you send link back to the post already on a website. That way you can exploit both email and SEO marketing, as well as accrue subscribers via word of mouth, interest in your blog, and your squeeze page.
There’s nothing more I can say that will add praise to this post so I’ll leave it at that. Amazing stuff, Glen. I was just wondering though … how frequently do you have to update Email Blogging or does it not require frequent updates at all? I think I’m a lil’ confused here. You say I should create a sequence of 10 posts that will be sent out on a weekly basis. The 11th post is a product-pitch. What happens after that? Do I prepare another 10 posts before the second product pitch? Can I also pitch other products via affiliate marketing or stuff off Amazon?
Thanks, Glen. Again, fantastic stuff!
It really depends on how people are responding to your content…it’s totally up to you. But yes, that seems like a solid plan
I’ve been an avid follower of your blog for quite a while, but this is one of your best!
I’m definitely going to implement this model as I have woeful opt-in rates on my blog and yet managed to get an avid following on FB almost organically.
However, I have a quick question and it’s an extension of Derrek’s one above ~
You create a sequence of 10 to put into your autoresponder.
So someone, let’s call her Anne, signs up and starts at #1.
If you send another post out to the list that week, does Anne get TWO emails from you ~ item #1 AND the new post?
Or does she just cycle through the sequence of 10 that’s in your AR, after which she just gets the new stuff?
Does that mean she misses out on everything that came before she signed up?
(If she cycled through EVERYTHING in the AR in chronological order, and you’d been doing this for a while, one assumes she would get time-sensitive offers or announcements way too late to be useful…)
Hope you can clarify this one sticking point for me.
Besides this, I’m ecstatic to begin funneling FB activity to an utterly Fahbulous squeeze page!!
Many thanks for oodles of content and value.
When we’re next in CT visiting my parents in Somerset West, I’d love to buy you a beer/coffee/tea/lunch!
Bliss-ings
the goddess known as Jacqui
Yes. If you want to change the order or add new content, just add more things to the sequence.
So, you can either send out broadcasts (which everyone will get, no matter how far along they are in the process) or just edit the AR sequence…
I plan to implement this strategy
Building an email list thru social media (twitter,facebook etc) could be cost effective than the paid traffic
Ultimately the success of this method depends on the quality of the emails we intent to send and the trust/relationship created by the sender with the subscriber..Just as Glen Allsop and cloud niche subscribers !!
Can we expect any course implementing this strategy in future from u?
I am looking for a new carer route and seems like this might be it.
Thx for all this inspiring info.
I love music and the music business…….but i’ve been stuck on what idea i could use to implement your strategies.
Any suggestions?!
thx
I was hoping you could quickly give me your advice on two things. First, :
1) Do you think that the strategies you mention in your this post and your new Cloud Blogging course would be relevant to offering services, such as Internet Marketing Consulting. Specifically offering services to local business owners? My dilemma is that this is a demographic that doesn’t quite spend their time online on facebook/twitter like other groups of people, so I’m wondering whether strategies like cloud flood would work.
And
2) I’m thinking about purchasing cloud blogging because I do want to start a successful blog/brand and become a recognized and helpful authority in this niche. You say in your Email Blogging course that it seems like a faster/better way to get started with blogging, getting a list, selling products, etc. But then your Cloud Blogging course looks like its structured like a regular blog (with your specific strategies). How are these two things different, and again, do you think it would work for selling services as opposed eventually selling an information product?
I just don’t want to invest a bunch of time and/or money into developing a website for local business owners to find me at when something like a simple Email Blogging type site, or a regular type blog in your cloud blogging course with consulting/coaching on the blog would work better.
Any info you could give would be great. Thanks.
Given that I just started blogging 6 weeks ago (niche: humorous commentary on Indian news and politics), I’m not sure if I’m ready to quit already. I’m also not sure if email blogging would work for my niche or not. But I will certainly bookmark this post and think about it for the next few weeks. Thank you very much, Viperchill, for writing such a long informative useful article. Incrediblogger’s tweet brought me here.
Thanks for this wonderful information. I am about to semi-retire and just started looking for how to put all my years’ experience to work in a new way.
Question: Since I am a psychotherapist in a particular speciality, I was considering writing an ebook or videotaping some lectures to sell. But it seems to me it would be too easy for people to just copy these after purchasing one and then distributing them free to friends and colleagues. Is there a way to prevent this? Or perhaps this is something I need not worry about?
Thanks for all your help.
Glen
Very good post mate – One of the most important things you mention (there was a lot!) is within the last section – Split Test Everything.
This is universal – what ever type of online marketing you do. As well as squeeze pages, split test affiliate offers, where you place your affiliate links, the types of themes you use, you name it, you can test response by changing / tweaking small elements of your pages.
Keep it coming Glen – there is a wealth of information here.
Definitely my favorite post on ViperChill so far. I’m currently in the process of implementing this strategy, seems like a fantastic little segue back into internet marketing for me.(I have been absent for a while)
And…oh man did I stumble onto a good niche; they are out there believe me! I’ll keep you posted.
Oh and Glen, I sent you a Facebook message along with a friend request a while back, I must say I did have doubts about the acceptance of my proposal but I figured you might at least write back. No such luck aye…. Well, hit me up if you get a chance my email is bcwade@gmail.com, I can understand you may be busy but I’m not one to give up. Expect to hear more from me.
Catch ya.
Simply brilliant………..
I personally say thanks to glen for such a nice post to share with all. This post helps me lot to develop my blogging career.
Thanks Glen, it’s worth to read this post even do it very long & take my time. I recommended this post to some of my friends. I thinks the quality from email marketing is very important if you want to sustain the six-figure income. (well.. I don’t have any idea yet how to start it.)
Another great article. I can’t stop my self from re-reading this blog. It is full of great ideas.
I just started blogging and would like you to take a look at my blog. I blog about topics that solve small business problems. Problem like connecting securely to company network, network speed, website design, online marketing and so forth. I would like to get some feedback about this blog.
Thanks
nice share, glen! but i think i will need to invest some cash to promote squeeze page. am i right?
Good day to you Sir!
You are a true inspiration. Thanks~
Thank you so much for this e-mail. It made a great start of my day. I’ve been playing with the idea of starting to really do something online again myself and this just pushd me off the procrastination-cliff. I’m getting so many ideas and I’m super excited
omfg. This is literally the best post in the blogging niche I’ve ever read in my life so far. I have nothing to say but great job!
waooooo Glen i love d post on how to make good money without anyone knowing.
great content dude.
Thanx for this enormous post!
U made my day!
Hah that’s awesome, thanks!
Glen, this is great. I am way behind on reading your articles here! Time to play catch up. I will let you know how things are going. Will put massive time in tonight to get this launched asap.
Cheers,
Zach
Thanks so much for this information. I only discovered you a couple of weeks ago, but truly appreciate the information you share. Being new to blogging and internet business, this article is truly full of useful ideas and tools. Thanks for all you do for your followers.
Extreme value dude! Thanks a lot.
I’m going to give this E-Mail blogging a shot. The only thing I’m a bit uncomfortable with is creating my own products, but I guess that’s a process that I have to go through as well
This is absolutely genius stuff. I’ve been email blogging and I hadn’t even realized it. Although I’m not necessarily selling anything, or even using a typical landing page, from A to Z this is pretty much exactly what I’m doing, and it IS very profitable.
Hi Glen,
What a freakin great post… I just read it twice. It’s funny I have been trying to focus on something similar of late, but brain cells have been a little too foggy and this has just blown the mist away.
Is hard to tell yourself this is the way to go, when you are going against what is being said by the so called experts.
When I clear up my ongoing projects this is where I am going.
Many thanks for the clarity you have brought to my thought process.
Glen,
Very interesting !!!
My question is, do you only create text-based content for this kind of blog?
I’m providing text, video and audio for my blog – does this kind of content work on email blogs too? Or for example, do you host the videos separately on YouTube?
Cheers,
Timo
Glen,
I had some other thoughts regarding this …
Have you tried guest blogging to drive traffic to your landing page?
Also, what about guest e-mail blogging? Like, I would write guest post to someone’s auto-responder while that other person would write the one for my auto-responder.
That way, two e-mail bloggers would be able to drive traffic to each other’s landing pages and lists …
Lastly, what is the optimum length of the blog post when writing for e-mail? My blog posts are always something between 1000 – 2000 words long, sometimes with infographics.
Do you think that content that long is too much for e-mail, or would it be better to deliver the article in PDF format?
Cheers,
Timo
Hi again …
My last question and then I’m gone
How well do you think this model works for building authority in your niche (and offering services like coaching or consulting through e-mail blogging)?
Cheers,
Timo
Never thought of pointing our email auto responders to squeeze pages. Still somewhat confused as to how it all works. We have a mailing list already and those people receive emails from us, then we blast a case study every month or so, but instead of pointing them back to our site we would point them to a squeeze page? They are already signed up though? Or is he squeeze page just for the product? Sorry for all the questions. Will re-read article again.
Glen, thank you for yet another awesome piece.
M
Hey Glen I just started reading your blog and im really impressed. Thanks for posting such great content. Being a designer for many years I haven’t had much time to focus on marketing tactics.
Hey Glen…
Thanks for all the great content and ideas…I have put up over 200 pages on my website and can see it may be worthwhile to build an email list and repackage the content I have on site to my email list subscribers…
Merry Christmas from Arizona.
Hey Glen,
Really like the post, great idea to make the difference between email marketing & email blogging. But the biggest issue remains the open rate! For my personal experience, I first see an open rate of 80% for the first email, then 50%, then 30%, etc, even if I Only Produce Value content to my subscribers (0% affiliate links or ads).
Which advices would you give to reach those high open rates of yours?
Cheers,
As a non-blogging/ non-SEO thingamajig (my scientific classification for unknown “thingys”)
confused by acronyms like IMO, PPC, AR, KFC and T.G.I.F,
I have to say I found your site from another site. When I first
read it, words like “niche” and “forex” and SEO went wooosh! right over my head.
But! I caught that you were my age and had had experience in what you were saying.
You broke down the process to its essential layers for creating a successful blog
( plus it helped that you mentioned your failures along the way,
which helps remind me that everything starts small and requires reiteration).
I then decided to read your free ebook.
I didn’t even know that I was trying to “viral market” (I don’t think that’s the right term).
That’s how you caught me.
I made at least $1000 the first month, so now I am going to J.Crew to buy me some yellow pants.
Another insightful and valuable post – just wish I could give up my day job and spend all my time putting this into practice.
What another great post. It’s long and detailed.
You should get award for long and detailed posts
Sheyi
This tactic you described Glen isn’t really new
I remember subscribing to David Deangelo’s email list in attractionexplained.com and the emails he sent was full of content about dating with hardly any links to products until very later down the line.
But thinking about how the top marketers get paid. It makes a lot of sense now since very few of them actually have blogs. The majority of them simply have squeeze pages asking for your email address. And their traffic is generated through Joint Ventures with other people in their mastermind.
I think this whole Blogging fascination is designed to stop other people from capitalising on the internet. There is a far easier way of making money online and building a long term business.
If we are to go the blogging route. Based on the above logic, it would be far easier to build your list first, develop a relationship then introduce them to your blog. The traffic surge will be huge simply due to your following going straight to the site instead of having to rely on SEO to build the traffic at a snail’s pace.
This blog post was written 9 months ago
Cool
So here’s a question. Why are so many marketers advocating beginners to start a blog in order to a build a business when it can be as simple as doing what you described above?
I think it makes much more logical sense, because writing a blog can easily put off a potential subscriber from joining your list.
Because most marketers just recommend what most marketers already recommend…
You must be new here
Welcome to ViperChill!
I am
I’m very inspired by what you’ve achieved at your age mate (I’m 27 and from London). I wish i found about about Internet marketing when i was younger. Would have lead a far different life by now.
Great post as usual Glen. I read this from the blog which you used as a sample to what you wrote here and I guess it’s great like that. Just 10-15 ready made contents and the subscribers will continue to come in.
Just wondering, why don’t you have the date marked on your blog posts ever?
Minimalist nerd
Date of the post being published = date of the first comment
Thanks for your “top article directories” page. I recently started up my article marketing activity again and find your information very timely for me to review and to add to my list of article directories to submit to.
great post Glen, glad that you got deep research about email blogging, planning to start for myself, lets see how would it work for me..
I once read this article but did not get the real picture. I stumbled again today and I fully understand what it means. I am going to use it – I WILL USE IT in my new PD niche and I am pretty sure it will work!
Sheyi
Hi Glen,
I find your posts interesting. It got me inspired because you have done it while you’re still in 20′s. I’m now 27 and thinking hard a lot on how to make internet marketing work for me. If you recommend email blogging rather than actual blogging, then how do I start?
Jen ( not Love Hewitt though)
I know I am late but this is greatest post of all time!!! Thanks for the wisdom and insight!
The main thing is to have great idea about your blog that will make you better and different than others and you have to bee good at marketing to make it happen. If you can deliver good content it won’t be enough as you don’t have a readers and people who can spread a word about your content.
but yeah it would be nice to have this kind of income just from blogging. ehh..
Great post and really useful, I think that beginners and experienced bloggers can use this very easy.
Until Next Time
I am so totally addicted to your site. I find myself reading and re-reading your posts. I’ve found so many things that are useful for marketing, seo, blogging and the like. Some of the tips I was already doing – other tips and information that you provide would take most individuals a while to discover. You really are a true Rock Star for giving this information away for free.
Thanks for this, Glen, and for the emails you’ve been sending me. Your advice is solid and I will be using your tactics to build a new blog from scratch.
Ok..so I subscribed, got a couple of emails on niche etc…and read them all.(interesting material)..In your last email Glen, you “Bold Print” (gotta love that) the effort going into building a conventional blog, and you push quite hard towards email-blogging..but all is fine and dandy…but what do you do with limited funds, and not even 5 subscribers?? Correct me if I am wrong, and don’t get me wrong (I would not have subscribed if there was not something in it for me) but the assumption on these are that you already have a base to work with?
Man alive that was an awesome post, it has got my mind thinking of all things that are possible.
I love blogging and also do a newsletter for members only material which is like the email blogging of non published ideas etc, I love the fact that people sign up from the blog because they are curious as to what we share that not everyone gets to see and they also feel left out.
I guess I am doing both bloggings simultaneously.
Cheers
Andi
As always, a practical-well thought out post. Personally, I don’t like receiving email blogs or marketing so this one’s not for me!
Honestly, this one of the longest post i have ever read at viperchill, but i couuld’nt mind it but read every bit of it, Glen indeed you are worth more than a mentor.
Glen
Your blog continues to amaze and your honest insights are really appreciated.
Have you ever tried your strategy in other markets where English is not the lingua franca?
Am based in Tokyo and am starting a blog in Englush with a goal of having a translated Japanese site?
What are the chances of success in your opinion?
BB
Hey thanks again for another great idea.
Personally it feels a little spammy. Doesn’t it get you some bad traffic your way?
After saying that, the comments here seem to be positive, so I shall thing more about this area.
cheers
Nigel
What’s spammy about it?
Great job Glen,
I still don,t have nothing to work on, but wanna try something and the fist thing to do that was an idea to creat a regular blog but after read this mammoth post, emailblog seems pretty awesome e cheap to do it.
Let’s see how thing go and try to implement this here.
See ya,
Brazilian reader here o/
I’ve written short stories successfully for the last few years and have been published in magazines and fluffy literature like stuff, but have never made much $ from it. I’m thinking of applying this e-mail blogging principal to to my short story blog to convert readers into e-book buyers…
*considering*
Enjoying the insights here @ Viperchill, wish I’d found you years ago.
-Ama
Hi Glen,
First of all, thank you for your honesty throughout the site and on the podcasts, I would expect that from a Geordie so I have no problem buying in to what you have to offer. I came by VC via Smart Passive Income and I am so glad I did.
I have tried domaining, affiliate programs and blogging with limited but important success, as a part time hobby the money has never been an issue for me, that said I could always do with more. What has been important is learning the craft and to be frank your willingness to share has saved me probably hundreds of hours of reading crap and no doubt the same amount of pounds!
I am working on a project at the moment ( blog) which I am really excited about and I have had another domain name which I have long had a yearning to do something with and as if by magic I land on this post about email blogging (when the students ready the teacher will appear). The idea, explanation and resources you have made available have blown me away and have sent my head into the stratosphere with excitement as I now have a plan for my lonely little domain name.
I would like to reiterate that you probably will never know how your willingness to share has helped me, the effort you put into your explanations and obviously the products you are developing will without doubt help me and countless others bypass the usual crap out there.
PS: you will note I haven’t added a website because I wanted to thank you not gain a link.
Best Wishes
Rob
Glen, I’ve been following you for a while now, and just came across this post today…again. lol
I added it to my favorites to read later…I guess this is later!
Thank you so much for your insights here, and I have to say that I’m excited to put this into practice for a new domain/idea that I have. It’s the right info at the right time.
Blow my mind Glen. I can see why it is very popular on the Internet. Read 3 times to soak it all in! lol
Great stuff – in the (somewhat altered) words of Victor Kiam: I liked the idea so much that I built my own mailer! (Also coz I’m too cheap to pay aweber)
For anyone looking for a quick way to to rotate page variations for split testing here is (assuming this comment function allows it) a very simple bit of php code..
Just save it as index.php or whatever you want and send traffic there.
Oops.. the code didn’t quite make it through the filter. Here’s a link to it in a text file instead..
http://www.ezinezone.com/split.txt
Thanks, for the wonderful post. I am truly inspired by your article so I am posting a comment for the first time. Viper Chill – You are a Rock Star Man ! Well I am a novice blogger who is trying to learn the art of effective blogging. I would like a favor if you could visit my Blog given below and give some suggestions to make it more effective and beautiful. !
Please give it a glance and suggest your views about it.
Thanks in advance Viper chill.
Glen, your work is really inspiring to me and brings me ever closer to the realization of my study of these subjects you write about. This post breaths particular focus to my entrepreneurship.
I’m deeply grateful.