Since very long time I have dreamed of an e-commerce website powered by WordPress. I have tried various WordPress plugins throughout my journey. However none of them did not satisfy me. I decided to postpone my dream to future.

One day while I was surfing the web, I discovered ShopperPress by luck. Basically it is a premium WordPress plugin (with various theme options) that lets you setup your own shopping cart / online store quickly and easily in 10 minutes. It turns a standard WordPress blog into a feature rich shopping cart website used by thousands of people worldwide for many purposes.

Well, I was excited with the idea of having my first e-commerce website with ShopperPress that I immediately downloaded the free version. The theme was performing very well, thus I decided to purchase the VIP version.

Bearing in mind that the Christmas shopping rush was so close, I decided to launch my website at the beginning of December. Even though there wasn’t enough time to compete with other websites, I thought it was one of the best periods of the year in terms of testing a shopping website.

Having spent a few hours in Google Adwords Keyword tool, I came out with a nice name for a shopping website: Web Shopping Bag. I checked name.com and found out that the domain was free.  Bull’s eye! I grabbed the domain, installed WordPress via cpanel, and then installed the ShopperPress plugin. It took 3-4 hours in total to decide the domain name, grab it,  install WordPress&ShopperPress.  Finally my dream came true: Web Shopping Bag

It’s been only three weeks since I launched the website, but the number of visitors increase day by day. This can be expected from a WordPress driven website. All search engines like WordPress blogs. ShopperPress themes are also SEO ready. That is why it performs better than a standard WordPress blog.

If you are looking for an easy and flexible WordPress shopping cart plugin, ShopperPress could be the best solution.

In order to help these people, my blogging buddy Alex Sysoef has put together a series of 15 detailed videos that will show you how to use Aweber effectively. Let’s check the contents:

• creating a list with Aweber
• creating a web form with Aweber
• verified opt-ins
• how to broadcast an email with Aweber
• how automate your follow up messages
• how to organize your lists
• list automation
• sending an email to multiple lists
• click tracking – measure your e-newsletters
• split tracking – which mail delivered the best results?
• what is blog broadcasting?
• campaign sharing
• Aweber tips and tricks

What Can You Do With Aweber?

• Send engaging email newsletters using built-in newsletter templates
• Publish a sign-up form to your blog (like I did for my blog, take a look at my blog’s header and sidebar)
• Welcome or educate your subscribers by setting up sequential auto-responder messages.
• Create your own blog mentoring course.
• Manage unlimited mail campaigns.
• Send blog newsletters.
• Evaluate the outcome of your email campaigns with Aweber’s tracking functionality.
• Integrate your shopping cart into your mail campaigns.

Watch Aweber Unleashed video series and learn how to use Aweber effectively.

If you are using Aweber for your email marketing campaigns, it is just a piece of cake to add an opt-in form to your Facebook page (do not confuse it with your profile page though!).  All you need is to add an application to your page that lets you insert HTML. Then you can paste in sign-up form HTML just like you would on any other blog or web page.

There is a nice tutorial where you can find a step by step guide on how to add an opt-in form to your Facebook page. You may check out the tutorial.

Things To Avoid For Writing a Hot Newsletter

• Make sure your newsletters don’t have typos, grammar mistakes, and spelling errors. This is vital for having a professional looking newsletter.
• Don’t write long sentences. Keep your sentences short. Short sentences are  easy to scan and understand. Your subscribers are busy. They don’t have enough time to read two pages long newsletters. Make your newsletter so well that they can easily scan it in a few seconds.
• Do not list email addresses in the TO field. Your subscribers will not be happy when they see  that you are sharing their email addresses with others.
• Do not provide broken links. Check each one of them carefully before you send.
• Do not try to fool your subscribers. They know that you are trying to sell something to them. But don’t overdo this. The fewer, the better.

Things To Do For Writing a Hot Newsletter

• Content is the key element of a hot newsletter. Be creative when writing content for your newsletter.
• Your open and response rate will increase if you add value to your subscribers businesses with every newsletter.
• Spend most of your time thinking about how to create a subject line and content that is going to be the most attractive one for your audience.

In the next part we will take a look at the subject lines, body, and style of a hot newsletter.

• Find target subscribers: Generate a list of subscribers who are interested in your products or services. If you try to add every email address in your mail list, you will end up with lots of subscribers to whom you will never ever have any chance of selling your products or services.
• Never ever use a free auto-responder: Your success in email marketing depends on your ability to deliver your newsletters and emails to your subscribers. If you use a free auto-responder, chances are your emails will end up in spam folders. Aweber and GetResponse are paid and premium auto-responder services, because they deliver your emails and newsletters to your potential customers.
• Personalize your messages: Starting your newsletters with the subscriber’s name will help you build a rapport with that subscriber. Set your email auto-responder to send personalized messages.
• Proofread your newsletters:Would you buy from an Internet marketer who regularly makes spelling errors, and can’t even get an affiliate link right?
• Don’t send too many email newsletters (or  too few!) : The quickest way to get people unsubscribe to your email list is to bombard them regularly with your email newsletters. Send one email a week at least. If you send once in a month, probably most of your subscribers won’t even recognize who you are. They might even think you are a spammer.
• Don’t sell your email list: Don’t sell your email list to others no matter how much money they pay. Once you lose your subscriber’s confidence, you will never ever have any chance of selling a product in the online world.
• Include a call to action: If you want your subscribers to click on a link, tell them to click on it. You should not assume they will do it by themselves. It is much better to give them a reason to click on the link.
• Give tips and advice: It will take some time for your email list to become responsive. You should first give before you expect them to buy something from you. Send regular tips and advices, and get personal with them. You should make them feel valued. Your efforts will pay off in the long run.

In Part 3 we will take a look at things to do, and thing to avoid when writing a hot newsletter.

Start With Learning Basic Concepts:

You need to learn fundamentals of internet marketing and email marketing list building. Here are a few good articles you should read if you are fairly new to the concept:

• Email Marketing List Building Tips
• Internet Marketing Academy
• Getting People to Subscribe To Your EMail List
• Aweber Email Autoresponder

In the next part, I will tell you about ‘things to do’ and ‘things to avoid’ in order to write a hot newsletter. Until then, read above mentioned posts carefully, and leave your questions to this post.

If you don’t tell your visitors why they should subscribe to your mail list, honestly your email list won’t grow so quickly. You need to show the real value to your readers first before expecting them to subscribe to your list. There are thousands of mail lists on the Internet, why should they prefer yours?

Frankly speaking If you are willing to grow your email list just for the sake of selling more affiliate products to them, believe me you are on the wrong direction. You need to give them something first, before expecting them to buy your products. You need to build good relationship with your readers before making any sales to them. Build trust, and never cheat your mail list. You will be rewarded sooner or later.

What Can You Give Them?

I am not talking about giving or donating money here. Understand your subscribers problems first, and then provide easy solutions with your email newsletters. One easy way to do this is to note every problem you face during your daily blogging, and try to find out solutions to them. Once you find a proven solution, do not spend a second to share it with your mail list.

Lets take a look at other key things you can do regularly in order to get people subscribe to your mail list:

• Tell them about your list: Don’t expect them to find your sign up form. Put it on a place close to your header or RSS button where they can easily notice when they visit your blog.  Remember we are living in a crazy world. Most probably you have less than 5 seconds to attract your first time visitors. This is a “live or die” situation for your online success. Don’t just say “sign up here”, try to explain what they should expect.
• Tell them about the benefits:Why should they sign up to your mail list? Make it crystal clear for the people. Don’t tell about the features, they won’t care. Focus on reader benefits.
• Make it easy for your readers: No need to ask your readers to fill a quite long sign up form. In most cases name/surname, email, and website/blog URL are more than enough.
• Tell them you are not a spammer: We are all sick of spammers. You need to guarantee your potential subscribers that you will never ever spam them with your emails.
• Invite them using your signature: Show up in the forums like Sitepoint and Digital Points, and check the ongoing discussions. If you find a topic where you can contribute with your experience, reply it. Do not forget to invite people to your email list with your signature. You can find my own signature below. You may write a similar one for yourself.

Weekly Blogging News via E-Mail!
Join my blog tips newsletter and be the first to know!
www.searchforblogging.com

In Part 5  I will show you a video on how to do a blog broadcast with Aweber email auto-responder. This is important, because it has potential to boost your email list immediately. You may also read previous posts if you haven’t done already: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Search For Blogging Weekly Blog Tips Video – Aweber from Mert Erkal on Vimeo.

In Part 1 I stressed the importance of building an email list, and using an email auto-responder for your email marketing campaigns. Now it is time to talk about which email auto-responder to choose.

Which Email Auto-Responder?

There are currently two major auto-responders in the market which are Aweber and GetResponse. You can use both of them for your email marketing campaigns. They have more or less the same features. However, Aweber is quickly growing to be the standard. Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak, Chris Garret, Caroline Middlebrook prefer Aweber for their email marketing. Even though Aweber seems on the high side in terms of pricing, believe me it is worth spending every penny.

Why Aweber?

Both Aweber and GetResponse have similar features, and there is no big difference in pricing. Aweber charges $19 per month up to 500 subscribes, whereas GetResponse bills $17.95 per month. So how can you decide which one to choose? You may also ask me why all these pro-bloggers are working with Aweber while GetResponse can also serve as a good email auto-responder. Let me tell you some of the benefits of Aweber, and then you will understand clearly why GetResponse can not beat Aweber at the moment.

• There is a one small deal that Aweber struck with FeedBurner, more specifically they report count of email subscribers to your blog feed! If you are trying to build your RSS subscribers, this means having your email subscribers shown as your RSS subscribers by Feedburner.
• Aweber recently added a new feature where you can make email segmentation. You can track your subscribers reaction to your emails. Imagine you are a pro-blogger, and you know which readers always interested in your sales emails. Why should you bother other readers?
• Aweber lets you Twitter your email newsletters.
• You can build your list faster with lightbox style web forms prepared by Aweber. Some of your readers might be upset, but your mail list will steadily grow.

What Can You Do With Aweber?

• You can send engaging email newsletters using built-in newsletter templates
• Publish a sign-up form to your blog (like I did for my blog, take a look at my blog’s header and sidebar)
• Welcome or educate your subscribers by setting up sequential auto-responder messages. Create your own blog mentoring course.
• You can manage unlimited mail campaigns.
• Send blog newsletters.
• Evaluate the outcome of your email campaigns with Aweber’s tracking functionality.
• Integrate your shopping cart into your mail campaigns.

In Part 3 you will find a how to video guide on Aweber captured by me. Until then please subscribe to my RSS feeds so that you don’t miss any article.

If you build a good subscriber base to your email list, you can monetize it in similar ways as your blog. You can promote products as an affiliate, sell advertising, promote your own products, or use it to deliver more content to your readers. This post focuses on the importance of email lists and how to get people to subscribe to them.

Why Should You Have An Email List?

If you are a blogger who is willing to make regular income from his blog, you should commit to build your email list via your blog. Within the next 6-12 months you will be happy you did it, because you will have two assets at the same time. Imagine doubling your blog income from the next 6 months. Wouldn’t it be too great?

Lets take a look at the other advantages of email marketing:

• Speed:Get your messages to your mail list very fast with an email
• Low cost: Even though you need to pay some money for email auto-responder services, compared to traditional mail, it costs you less.
• Ease:Sending an email newsletter is not a rocket science. You may use your previous posts, or share something valuable for your readers (like videos, discount offers, freebies, etc.)
• Viral: If you send valuable content to your readers, they will be eager to forward your mail to their friends.
• Tracking:Autoresponders let you track how many subscribers open your mail, or whether they click on your links or not. You can even segment your subscribers to get the best results from your affiliate marketing campaigns.
• Complimentary: Email marketing compliments your other marketing efforts extremely well.

What is an Email Autoresponder?

An email autoresponder is a software which helps you send emails to people automatically. With an autoresponder you set up a sequence of prewritten emails which are sent out to prospects on your email list at regular intervals.

You can use it to essentially send emails to your target list, even when you are offline. Lets imagine you created an eight part blogging course. Then you setup the intervals for the emails to, say, once a week and send them one part of the course each week.

This is simply amazing! You write the emails one time and then whoever joining the list will automatically receive those emails once a week for eight weeks.

Most Internet marketing gurus tell that the majority of people need to be told about a product seven times before they buy it. So if you are telling your visitors about your product less than seven, no way out! You need an auto-responder to remind people about your product.

In Part 2 I will be telling you more about the auto-responder services. By the way, until I launch Part 2, why don’t you sign up for my email list to get weekly blog tips newsletter?

Related Posts

• How To Write Effective Welcome Emails
• Aweber Review – Email Autoresponder – Part 1
• Aweber Review – Email Autoresponder – Part 2

Table of contents for Getting People to Subscribe To Your EMail List

• Getting People to Subscribe To Your EMail List – Part 2
• Getting People to Subscribe To Your EMail List – Part 3
• Getting People to Subscribe To Your EMail List – Part 4
  

Make money blogging is not all about affiliate marketing, Google Adsense, paid reviews or selling your links. The ultimate target should be selling and promoting your own products using your blog, and evolve as an Internet entrepreneur throughout the time. I have taken the necessary steps to become an Internet entrepreneur with the Bloghology Blogging Magazine and Social Network for bloggers. I would like to share some of the experiences I learned so far, thus I opened another category in my blog entitled “Startup”. Beginning from this week I will be sharing my experiences with Internet entrepreneurs who are struggling for their Internet start-up projects.

Change The World With Your Project

One thing common in all successful online projects is that they change the world from upside down. Take a look at Google. They brought a new meaning to Internet search, and surpassed their competitors in a few years time.

Lesson to be learned from Google: If you make meaning, you will make good money. So as an entrepreneur you should test your own project before you fall in love with it.

Ask this simple question to yourself  “Does my project make a meaning to a targeted group of people?”

The Key Ingredients for Internet Success

• Make meaning
• Get going (even if there is a financial crisis)
• Think different from your competitors
• Find a few soul mates, become partners with them, understand that its not a one man show
• Clearly define your business model, be specific
• Put milestones for the project
• Understand your potential customers needs
• Make a short presentation preferably with 10-12 slides maximum
• Work with the people who may voluntarily work with you, influenced by your project
• Have some test drivers at the beginning
• Don’t let negative people change your mind or direction

I will go into details of these later. But first, I would like to check with you, if there is anything you would like to add my list?

I certainly agree with this : an email list is one of the most powerful marketing tools you can have on the Internet. Your blog and your email list are the perfect combination for a successful online business.You may use your email list to develop relationships, to deliver value added content and to communicate with your audience. If you aim to make money through advertising and affiliate marketing, you should definitely use your email list.

Rome wasn’t built in one day. You need to take baby steps everyday to build your email list. First you should consider buying an email auto-responder. Read my previous post Aweber Review – Email Auto-responder – Part 2 in order to learn what is an email auto-responder.

Let’s suppose that you already have an email auto-responder. You inserted a form on your blog/website to collect name/email details. If you don’t welcome your readers with an effective message when they sign up, believe me you are missing a lot.

In case you have a welcome mail, have you checked it lately? Does it…

• thank your readers for joining?
• point them to your most popular posts?
• ask them to subscribe your RSS feeds?
• tell them how to contact you via services like Twitter, Facebook, etc.?

Things to Mention in Your Welcome Mail

• Your online contact details
• Your RSS feed
• Introduction of your blog
• Your short biography
• You may also introduce your services or products

I would like to share my welcome mail with you as an effective welcome mail example:

Hello XXXXXX,

Thank you for signing up for my blog tips newsletter. Every week, I’ll send you the latest news on blogging, along with the highlights from blogging related offers. My aim at Search For Blogging is to provide you with information that will be helpful to you in your everyday blogging and business activity. If you find the information helpful, you may want to take a minute and subscribe to My RSS so you do not miss any great articles.

RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Searchforbloggingcom

Who Am I?

My name is Mert Erkal. I am 34 years old, and from Istanbul, Turkey. I worked for Maersk Line Turkey as Marketing Analyst between 1998-2008. I started blogging professionally in 2006. As of August 2008 I left my full time job after 10 years of hardworking and dedication to earn my living from blogging and Internet projects. I am chief editor of the Bloghology Blogging Magazine.

Time for Your Own Prison Break!

This blog is dedicated to people who wants to break their own prison. If I can make it, you can also make it. Life is too short, do what you really want. Join my journey, and be inspired!

Find me online : (Please feel free to add me as your friend)

*Facebook : Mert Erkal

*LinkedIn: Mert Erkal

I truly value my readers/commentators, and look forward to receiving new comments/feedback.

Here’s to add value to your blogging,

Mert Erkal