I am actually on a plane to California from Texas this morning. I am on my way to a conference to speak on Design For Manufacturability in the Semiconductor Industry. But that is not what is on my mind this morning. In today's article, I am going to BLOW THE LID off of Aaron Abber's BARELY LEGAL Super-Secret "Free" Mentoring Program. His program is not free at all. I'll expose the HIDDEN COST.

I'll also be offering a BIG TIP (you heard it here first) about keeping your email list subscribers.

And I'll tell you about an ALMOST SNEAKY way to further reduce your UNSUBSCRIPTIONS (unsubs).

Keep Your Email Subscribers With Content

Here is the BIG TIP - and it is a revolutionary idea.

Content is King. (OK, maybe not revolutionary, but true).

If you send useful information to your list between promotions, AND the promotions you send are for things that are also useful, you will keep the subscribers (subs) that matter. Let's face it, some of your subs are "freebie people" -- they subscribed just to get a freebie, and they will unsubcribe (just as they planned) right away. That's OK. Keep them if you can, but let them go if they want to leave. If you have great content, it will be their loss. Don't sweat it. The biggest mistake I see people make is that they promote to their list too often and too much. You need trust before you sell. Treat them with respect. Underpromise and Overdeliver. Promote selectively.

Aaron Abber EXPOSED

I have been talking a lot about how much I am getting out of Aaron Abber's Free Mentoring Program. All that is completely true. Aaron is a great guy and it's really a great program. But let me tell you something -- Abber is FULL OF CRAP when it comes to the "FREE" part. You cannot get ANYTHING IN LIFE for free. To get things in life, you have to take action. For example, if you want to learn from Aaron, you need to get over there and subscribe to his program.

Now, here is the other part that is not free. If you want to stay in his program, you have to take action and do the work that will help you make money online. What are you waiting for? (See what I mean?) People fail on line because they fail to take action. Don't do that. Don't be that person. Do something. Now.

One of the advantages of being partnered up with Aaron is having his permission to reprint some of his content. This is also encouraged as a way to help him grow his mentoring program (see, you need to take actions -- nothing in life is free).

Barely Legal Email Subscriber Tip

The following is a reprint of a post from FullTiltBlogging.com, posted with Aaron Abber's permission (he is a fool for telling you this information, so pay attention).

“I Am Tempted to Not Share This Tip”

At least, not publicly.

I don’t mind my subscribers having it–after all, they see it all the time and some have even started copy-catting me already.

But I don’t want my competitors to start using it. If they do, they will be putting to work one of the most powerful email marketing strategies I have come up with.

“Imagine If No One Ever Unsubscribed”

You work hard to get people on your subscriber list. You work hard to put together sexy content. You craft your promotional emails carefully, doing all you can to convince your subs to visit the sales page with an open, positive mindset.

You hit “send” and your carefully crafted, compelling email goes out to your loyal subscribers.

When you check with Aweber the next day you discover you have made some sales–Whoopie! But they you notice something else–3% of your subscribers hit the UNSUBSCRIBE link.

You just lost 283 subscribers. That sucks. Those people will never buy from you again–even if you recommend the perfect product for them.

You’re about to discover a simple way to change all that.

In the next two minutes you can take the unsubscribe rate for your next promotion to just a fraction of what it was on your last promotion.

“Unsubscribing is NOT a Thought Out Process”

The vast majority of unsubscribing is done almost unconsciously. You do it; I do it; we all do it. You are going through your emails, see a bulk email you aren’t interested in, scroll down to the bottom and hit the unsub link.

It’s almost automatic.

And that’s the problem. Your subscribers aren’t thinking of you. They aren’t remembering that great article you sent them last week. They don’t remember that you are pro-kitten (unlike kitten hating Darren Rowse). They just automatically unsubscribe.

“You Have to Jump In There and Say STOP”

The key to stopping them from automatically unsubscribing is to interrupt their automatic brain function and get them to think.

One way to accomplish this is to hire The Amazing Kreskin to send out powerful brain interrupting neural thought waves each time you send out a mailer, telling your subscribers not to use the link.

Of course, that might get a little cost prohibitive.

An easier way is to create a

WARNING MESSAGE

just above the unsubscribe link. (Man, I think that friggin’ flashing is going to send me into a seizure.)

“Warnings Are Poweful”

You only have to overcome the slight automatic response in order to keep those subscribers. Just create a brief message urging caution. Make them think: “Wait, do I really want to do this?”

Just making them pause for a moment will eliminate most of them from clicking on the good-bye link.

“But Wait, There’s More…”

Not only do you want them to not click the link, you want them to think about the past and potential future value of their subscription. That makes them more likely to open, read and respond to the next email you send them.

So, now that I have whet your appetite, here is my personal anti-unsubscribe message:

*CAUTION*

Using the unsubscribe below will
PERMANTELY block your email address in
our system. Use with caution.

Now, go put this at the bottom of all your emails. It will make you money.

I just put up a new report you will want to pick up.

“101 Ways to Grab New Subscribers”
84 GREAT Ideas,
11 CRAZY Ideas,
5 ILLEGAL Ideas and
ONE MARKETING BABE

http://www.FullTiltBlogging.com/101ways

Just a quick recap on the week to let you know what I have been working on. Man, has it been a crazy week.

• Attended Aaron Abber's mentoring class. Still getting a lot out of that at very low cost. This is a great value if you want to learn about list building and lead blogging from a pro.
• Logged some time at the Member site over at Coaching With Josh.
• Published a guest post over at Garry Conn's Make Money Online blog on Article Marketing.
• Started work on a super-secret link building experiment (don't tell anyone). I am really not sure about this one. More on this later if it works.
• Worked on integrating Yahoo Pipes, WordPress and phpBay. No luck yet.
• Worked on www.historyofelvis.com. That project needs to be restarted, and I am trying to get it going again.
• Attended the killer Jason Van Orden Podcasting Teleseminar. Will definitely be blogging about that. It was great.
• Started working on an updated MasonWorld Roadmap.  Man, I have be doing this Internet Marketing thing for over six months now, and I am really starting to get an idea about what I want to be when I grow up.  More on that in another post.

There is more to tell, but I am out of time (still doing that day job thing).

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Regards,
Mark

Earlier this week, I talked about Lead Blogging and I proclaimed that "Lead Blogging is the Answer." In that post, I introduced you to Aaron Abber over at the make money blogging site FullTiltBlogging, and promised a reprint of one of his posts on Lead Blogging. In this post, Aaron show you a screen shot of his 60,000 subscriber list over at Aweber.

Lead Blogging: Turning Opportunity into Leads

Luck and leadblogging favor the prepared.

Last week I noticed a new blog post over at Aweber.com. Nothing earth shattering, but it dealt with a topic I am intimately acquainted with—getting people to subscribe to email lists then confirm their subscription. In fact, before I sold my online business last year I had captured almost 60,000 double opt-in subscribers (click here for screen shot of my account.)

So I went over and left a comment about how I get over 15% of first time visitors to subscribe and over 90% of those people to confirm their subscription.

I figured making that comment would generate some visitors and subscribers.

But then I had a brainstorm—why not put the actual codes into an eBook and offer it for download? I figured I could capture more subscribers.

So that’s what I did. I created this “subscriber trap” to capture email address from my visitors:

http://www.FullTiltBlogging.com/submagic

All in all it took about two hours to set up and has resulted in 183
email submissions (so far) on 312 visits—for a whopping 58.7%
conversion rate from visitor to subscriber.

That’s pretty cool.

In next week’s leadblogging
post I will tell you about how I got a 95.2% confirmation rate from
those visitors, and how I will turn those into $4,209.00 in cash. That
means it it paid me about $2,104.50 an hour. Stay tuned.

This post is by Aaron Abber. Aaron is the owner of http://www.FullTiltBlogging.com where he teaches bloggers just like you how to make money blogging. Go there now to pick up his latest book “How to Retire on 200 Blog Visitors a Day” free.

So, if Lead Blogging is the answer, what is the question?

The question today (for the duration of this post, at least), is what is the best way to monetize a blog?

Answer: Lead Blogging

Of course, this answer itself opens more questions than it answers (like many good questions).

I have recently been learning a lot about lead blogging from Aaron Abber at FullTiltBlogging.com. Tomorrow, I'll be reposting one of his lead blogging pieces here. (If you just cannot wait for tomorrow, you can see it here.) For now, what follows is a summary of just some of what I have learned over the last few months.

What is lead blogging?

I've got my own "white hat" definition of lead blogging. Lead blogging is the act of developing blog content that is so valuable and compelling that it motivates readers to subscribe to your mailing list -- creating a qualified sales lead. A more sinister view of lead blogging would have to do with blogging with the intent of luring bloggers to your list for the purpose of exploitation. That is not what I am interested in. Blogging, like all things in life (including direct response marketing), is best done with integrity. Integrity is what you do when no one is watching.

Why blog for leads?

Blogging for dollars

If you are in the blogging game as part of an internet marketing business plan, you are blogging for money. If you are blogging for money, the best way to monetize your blog is through your list. This is a truth of direct response marketing that predates blogging and can be found in marketing textbooks across the globe. The value of an marketing business is in the list. Your list is a collection of interested customers (or potential customers) who have given you permission to talk to them. They have told you ahead of time that they are interested in what you have to say.

Blogging for fun (or a cause)

But I'm not in it for the money, you say. Well, why are you in it? Are you trying to promote a cause? Do you need to call people to action to save the whales (or something similar). If that is your mission, your list can be even more important to you than the traditional "capitalist pigs" mentioned above. Your list gives you permission to contact people directly and persuade them, help them, or educate them. Your list is how you get their attention on demand.

Integrity and Trust is the Key

So, once you have a list, what do you do with it. From my perspective, you deliver value and content. You do things that make people glad that they signed up. When you promote products, you should only promote things that you really believe will benefit your readers. You have to act with integrity, and protect your readers. Don't make the mistake that Darren Rowse made a few weeks ago and promote a product without looking at the sales copy. Treat your list well.

Even Yaro Starak, in my view the ultimate in honest bloggers, is turning his attention to his list. If it's good enough for Yaro, it's good enough for me.

photo credit: .....dotted.....