You don’t have to look far in the IM world to see people touting how powerful email marketing is. How “growing subscribers” is a crucial aspect of building a sustainable internet business. I’ve talked about it myself on countless blog posts. Smart bloggers are catching on to the idea that their sites can act as an effective funnel for building their email lists.

Yet even though everyone wants to grow their audience, few people are prioritising that conversion from visitor to subscriber. In October 2011 I wrote out the specifications for a WordPress plugin that would let bloggers of any skill level add attractive opt-in forms and social share boxes to their blog, in seconds. There’s more…

A few weeks ago I asked on the ViperChill Facebook page whether people would be interested in a blog post on how I’ve developed various web software and plugins. The question was the most ‘liked’ status update I’ve ever made, making it clear that I should definitely write about this topic. Instead of just covering the development of my tools that already exist, I also have an announcement to make about an app I’ve been working on for months, which is making its world debut this week on Monday the 27th.

Not only that, I’ve interviewed WordPress Rockstar Joost de Valk, author of plugins which have been downloaded millions of times, to see what advice he has for people looking to create plugins — both free and premium. Finally, I’m also sharing some amazing development advice from one of my best friends, who also happens to be an integral part of my big announcement, which is…

As many of you will know, last week I stuck to my promise of launching a Podcast in the new year and released the first episode, ‘How I Would Make Money Online If I Was Starting from Scratch‘. I had hoped that a lot of people would get some value from the recording and be able to start 2012 in style, but I didn’t anticipate what happened next. Within 24 hours the podcast made it to #1 in Marketing and #2 in Business on iTunes which totally blew me away – sandwiched in between 9 podcasts by the BBC and the Financial Times.

In just 6 days (I don’t have stats for the last 24 hours yet) the first show has been downloaded over 18,000 times. Keep in mind that I didn’t even write a blog post about the launch, so the majority of my audience are only hearing about the episodes now. Episodes was not a typo. I’m adding another recording in the next 24 hours.

When I was working in a clothes shop, dreaming of making a living from the internet, I remember one thing that really kept me motivated was reading success stories from other people. Just knowing that someone, somewhere was doing exactly what I wanted to do was enough to keep me putting in the hours.

Earlier in the year I shared an example of two moms making over $5k/m online. Today I want to share another case study with you and reveal how one guy in New Zealand is making up to $10,000 every single month in the Forex industry, one of the most profitable but competitive industries online.

In my post on how to become a niche rockstar I said that in order to be at the top of your industry (in a lot of cases online) it’s important to know as much about it as possible. What your competitors are doing, how they’re making money and how they’re getting traffic are just a few things that you can discover with some in-depth niche research.

In that particular post I looked at the green industry from the perspective of a blogger and shared some of my findings. Based on some of the comments and emails I received at the time, a few of you were interested in how I collected the stats I did and how you could go about investigating your own niche further. I’m going to expand on that topic today, in the way I always do.

Though the title of this blog is ‘viral marketing’, regular readers will know that it’s far from being the only thing I talk about. Sometimes I’ll share a case study to inspire you. Sometimes I’ll offer insights to educate you, and sometimes I’ll give you step-by-step advice so you can take action.

This post is, purely and simply, for those who want more from their lives. If you’re happy with the position you’re in or at least like how you spend your days, then skip this post and come back next week (I have $7K/m case study on the way). Today I’m simply sharing what I wish someone else had written a few months ago when I was once again at the busiest point in my life and questioning the direction I found myself heading.

There’s more documentation on ‘how to make money online’ than most subjects out there, yet I can safely say that 99% of people who try to replace their offline income fail to do so. Many of you have seen the case studies of marketers – who clearly already know what they’re doing – building another successful website. Inspiring? Without a doubt. But obviously there’s still something missing.

For a long time I wondered what it would take to fill that gap. What would increase the number of people who follow advice in this space and actually achieve some form of success. Then the answer came to me. Or rather, she did.

A common desire for humans, once we’ve surpassed our basic requirements for survival, is to be part of something bigger than ourselves, while making a contribution to the world. The huge growth of online sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, which have the potential to give anyone a large audience are a great example of this in action. This same desire is why there are over 100 million active blogs out there, each with authors trying to connect to the bigger whole.

Even though there are thousands upon thousands of micro-niches and active communities discussing the most peculiar topics, there’s still only room for a handful of ‘rockstars’ to emerge from each of them. There are always going to be fewer influencers than there are people to be influenced. That’s common sense, not helped by the fact that gaining a following isn’t some paint-by-numbers process, and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.