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CLASSIFIED UPDATE Volume 1 Issue 9 Oct 7, 1999 This newsletter is available on line here: http://www.classifiedclub.com/archives.html   This announcement list is opt-in only. These update announcements are intended for those individuals who have willfully subscribed to this newsletter. If you no longer wish to receive these updates, you may *click on the remove link* at the bottom of this newsletter or remove your name at any time here: http://www.classifiedclub.com/subscribe.html   *************** C O N T E N T S ***************   1. MAKING MONEY: How I make an extra $1000 a month with this newsletter. 2. ADVERTISING SECRETS: Fee or FREE? 3. Net monitoring, watching your back--and your competition! 4 WHAT'S NEW?: New Software Automates Press Release Distribution 5. The Classifieds   PRELUDE: This months issue is a bit "fatter" than usual. I wrote three articles to make up for last months non-existent issue (sorry...). In addition, this months newsletter is coming to you via a new automated emailing program I just installed on our server. I can't rave enough about it. The features are amazing! I can now track click-thru's (directly from the newsletter), view the entire list online, additions and removals are completely automated, and It can even maintain hundreds of separate mailing lists. Whether you maintain a mailing list, or not, I think you're going to like the article below on "How I make an extra $1000 a month--automatically" I'm going to go into detail about setting up and maintaining a mailing list, the tools you'll need, and the $rewards$ which come. I hope you enjoy...   ----------------------------------------------------------------- MAKING MONEY: How I make an extra $1000 a month with this newsletter. By Joe Bellshaw ----------------------------------------------------------------- There's been a lot of articles about mailing lists circulating recently, but I hope this one will spell it out and encourage you to take advantage of the true marketing power behind them. First, let me walk you through what I'm doing, and how I make an extra $1000 a month working just one day a month. While that last statement may sound unrealistic to you at first, once you get through the initial set up, what follows can be bliss. The first thing you should realize (if you haven't already) is that you have the skills to be a writer.... yes, YOU do! It's not science, or brain surgery. If you write about what you love, what you enjoy--it will come most naturally. Anything you do, you sell, or however you earn your income, can be written about. The neat part about it is, if someone subscribes to your mailing list, they're interested too! So don't be afraid to write about whatever you want, because staying in touch with the people who like what you're about is what it's all about! STAYING IN TOUCH... The ability to remind your visitors about what you're doing, what you've done, or what you're going to do is key. Maintaining a mailing list is like having a salesperson drive over to everyone's house, knocking on the door, and saying " Hi! Remember me?" HOW TO GET STARTED...   There are so many options, it's absolutely overwhelming. So, what I'll focus on is what *I* do, and the tools *I* use to maintain MY list. Mind you, there are simpler ways for newer users, and I'll cover these briefly. If I had to do it all over again, I'd simply start with what I use today and save myself the time and agony of trying to maintain a list manually. I use a CGI script called "Subscribe Me Pro", it allows complete unattended control over my mailing lists where people can subscribe or unsubscribe at will. The script works for me 24 hours a day, adding and (rarely.. ;) ) deleting email addresses. It allows me to send my mailings directly from my ISP's server (freeing up my own PC), and even tracks and monitors how many people have "clicked-thru" on a link contained within the newsletter itself! I started out with the FREE version, but as I maintain several mailing lists, and liked the concept of watching how many people actually click on the links contained in my newsletter, I opted for the Pro version. Both available here: http://www.cgiscriptcenter.com/cgi-bin/cgiscsoft/redeem.pl?cgisc271 If you've never installed a CGI script, first ask your ISP if they allow CGI scripts to run on their server. If you need assistance in setting up the script the folks at the cgi script center do offer installation as well. If you're just getting started, or your not so "technically inclined", that's OK. There are several free mailing-list services which you can take advantage of. If you're not a control freak, and don't mind having an ad or two placed within your newsletter, http://www.listbot.com just may be your answer. Whether you use listbot or run your own CGI script, you'll need to add a small amount of HTML code to your web page so people can sign up and add their email address to your list. You can view a sample of what a typical form looks like on my site at http://www.classifiedclub.com/subscribe.html This may take you a few days to get setup and working, but once it's done, it's done, and the financial rewards can be very impressive.   GETTING PEOPLE TO SUBSCRIBE... The first step in making money with your newsletter is to build your subscriber base. If you want people to join your mailing list, you better give them a darn good reason to subscribe. These days, most people won't give up their email address so easily, so saying something on your website like "Subscribe to our Mailing List for Updates" probably won't bring you many subscribers. You'll need to reward people in exchange for joining. If you sell hard goods, try something like "Subscribe to our Mailing List and get $10.00 off your first order!". If you're an online marketer, your site is content rich, informative, and you look like you know what you're talking about, you'll have a much greater success in capturing subscribers. Most people are hungry for information, just be sure you give them what they subscribed for or you'll wind up loosing them. It may take 6 months before you're somewhat satisfied with your subscriber base, but remember, you're not shooting for quantity, you're shooting for targeted quality contacts of people who are interested in what you have to say or offer. A targeted mailing list of 500 subscribers will far outweigh a general mailing list of 10,000 non-targeted subscribers any day!   HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH YOUR NEWSLETTER.... There are several ways to realize profits from your targeted mailing list. Priority one should be driving these people back to YOUR site for a second look at what YOU sell. Far too often I see newsletters with one article (which has been floating around the internet for months), and a list of 25 ads. That's not a newsletter, that's someone who is too lazy to spend 30 minutes to write on their own, and is only concerned with selling some ad space--they simply won't last. A newsletter will only thrive on quality content that is "fresh" and geared to the subscriber. There must be value, knowledge, or something that compels the reader to read your email and stay with you. 1. SELL YOURSELF before you start accepting ads, establish yourself. Let others see you for who you are, what you write about, how special are your "special deals"? If people want to unsubscribe, be sure to remove them prior to your next mailing. 2. WEAVE-IN OFFERS or products that are similar to what you write about. For example, this month I added a new emailing script to my server that I really liked. I wrote about it (above). The hyperlink is tied to the company's reseller plan where I earn a commission on each sale of the emailing software should you wish to purchase it. Am I a salesman for the company? No... Do I only write about stuff I make a commission on? No... I write about marketing tools, techniques, and resources I like and share them with my readers. It's a soft sell, and it works! I'm targeting my product to my target audience. By the end of today, at least 10 people of the 18,433 subscribers on my list will purchase the "Subscribe Me Pro" mailing list program. 3. AD SPACE is something you can easily start accepting once you've got yourself just a few hundred subscribers. I didn't accept any ads for the first six months after I started my newsletter. I wanted my subscribers to realize that what I had to say was genuine, that my content was informative, and my subscriber base was stable before I started taking on other peoples ads. Now I feel confident in charging $60 an ad. I take 10 ads a month, and I ALWAYS sell out. How's that for an easy $600 a month.   4. INCREASED DISTRIBUTION of your newsletter is achieved when someone likes what you're writing about and passes it on to others. You'd be amazed how having a subscriber base of say 1000, in reality translates into 1300. That's a 30% increase in actual readership just from others passing on your newsletter to friends and associates. 5. EXTENDING YOUR READERSHIP is easy and profitable. You can make it happen by submitting your article to other newsletters with a similar topic. The editor of the newsletter gets great content, and you get to put your URL at the bottom of your article. To summarize, this entire newsletter takes all of a day and a half to create. The subscribe and unsubscribe features are all automated. I can track click-thru's from the newsletter to determine "high interest" links, and follow up with more "high interest" stories in the next issue. The classified ad advertising pulls in $600. The Top Spot ad pulls in another $200. The revenue from reseller links adds another $400. - $600. All in, it's good for another $1000.00+ issue. That's how I make an extra $1000 a month with this newsletter. When will you start yours?   ----------------------------------------------------------------- A WORD FORM OUR SPONSOR.... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Get the ULTIMATE PROMOTION For Your Web site! If you'd like to Increase traffic to your site, reach your Target audience and make your web site Profitable, check out this site that is sponsored by WIRED magazine and start getting some real results! http://www.ultimate-promotion.com You can even earn up to 30% commission as an UP affiliate! ----------------------------------------------------------------- ADVERTISING SECRETS: Fee or FREE? By Joe Bellshaw -----------------------------------------------------------------   Do you have any idea how expensive it is to advertise in a major newsletter or email digest? Well, I'll tell ya...it costs several thousand dollars to sponsor a single issue in some of the major one's. Dollars like this puts it well out-of-reach for you and I--or does it? Let's take the link-exchange digest http://digest.linkexchange.com , a moderated discussion list which boasts over 150,000 subscribers and has been online for several years. A digest is different than a newsletter, in that the content is made up from subscribers asking and submitting questions, advice, and solutions to the other members of the list. It's actually quite informative, and great way to learn from others' experiences. But how can you get free advertising in a list that charges $5000 for an ad? Aside from the standard paid ads you'll see at the top of the digest, members of the list may ask questions, or post answers to anything the list is talking about. All you need to do is jump in! If you're a marketing guru, answer a question that someone has posted. If you just got on the net yesterday, ask a question. The key to getting free advertising on these lists is your "signature file". So whether you ask a question, or answer one, be sure to add a few lines of text below your posting. Here's an example of a question I would post:   >Does anyone know where I can find a list of web developers in my area? THEN I AD MY SIGNATURE FILE below my question: Joe Bellshaw - The Online Classified Club ========================================================== Thousands of Sites to place your Free Classified Ad... The Complete Solution to your Classified Ad Marketing plan http://www.classifiedclub.com ==========================================================   That's it! That's all you have to do. Hopefully your question will be better than my sample question. If you post an interesting question, or answer one, the lists moderator will include your post in the mailing to over 150,000 people. That's 150,000 people who will see your "signature file"! So I ask you...Do you really have to spend $5000 for effective advertising? I don't.   ----------------------------------------------------------------- Net monitoring, watching your back--and your competition! By Joe Bellshaw -----------------------------------------------------------------   What in the world is net monitoring? Are you paranoid if your name appears somewhere on the web, or in a newsgroup? Would you like to know if someone else is talking about you, your products, or your website? Wouldn't you like to know what your competition is up to, without hiring an investigator or spending countless hours trying to track down the gossip? I found a cool new tool that does all this for you, and it's totally free! TracerLock can monitor search engines and newsgroups for you and notify you by e-mail when a new instance of a search term is found. For example, if you tell TracerLock to monitor search engines for the word "YOUR COMPETITORS NAME", TracerLock will e-mail you when new pages appear on the web containing the word "YOUR COMPETITORS NAME". It works for words, names, trademarks, etc.... vERY cOOL! http://www.peacefire.org/tracerlock/     ----------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT'S NEW? ----------------------------------------------------------------- There's a new marketing tool online, and yours truly just finished creating it. PressBlaster version 2.0 is now available. For those of you who are familiar with my old version, it was rather complex for the newer computer user. This new version is amazing and very simple to use, yet is still extremely powerful! PressBlaster can distribute your press release to over 7000 media contacts and press associates bringing a huge amount of publicity to your business or website. Basically, it does what the large scale PR firms and press release mailing services do--but without the high fee's. The news industry is hungry for stories about small business web sites. A small write up about your site could generate massive traffic! Now you can email your own press release directly to each editors desk or even start your own Press release mailing service! The self-installing software is easy-to-use, and will definitely get you noticed. What a PR service would charge : $350.00 per press release Press Blaster Version 2.0 Retail   : $149.95 Press Blaster Version 2.0 Web Site : $99.95 Unlimited Use! To take a tour of the software visit: http://www.pressblaster.net To download a free trial copy visit http://www.pressblaster.net/tryit.html     ----------------------------------------------------------------- M E M B E R S S I T E A D D I T I O N S ----------------------------------------------------------------- Search engine sites seem to pop up and close down almost as often as Free For All link pages. For those of you using our TOP 50 search engine submitter (in the members site) about 30% of these search engines are no longer there, or are no longer accepting automated submissions. 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This eagerly awaited newsletter goes out once a month to over 17,000 ad placing, web promoting, internet marketers and small businesses. http://www.classifiedclub.com/adorder.html ---------------------------------------------------- YOUR AD IN 1,000,000 Newspapers! One call, One Click! http://www.classifiedclub.com/gonationwide.html ---------------------------------------------------- SELLING, RENTING, OR LEASING OUT A PROPERTY? List your real estate FREE! on our High Traffic Classifieds. Get a free Listing - At No Charge! http://www.americashomes.com ----------------------------------------------------       We'll folks, that's it for this issue. As always... I truly appreciate your support. Sincerely, Joe Bellshaw, Director The Online Classified Club --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thousands of Sites to place your Free Classified Ad... The Complete Solution to your Classified Ad Marketing plan http://www.classifiedclub.com NOTE: *Not all* receivers of this newsletter are members. Please understand that even though you may have subscribed to this newsletter and be on our newsletter list, you MAY NOT be a paid member of the Classified Club and entitled to all of the members benefits mentioned in this newsletter. We welcome new members to sign up anytime, we've got a slew of great web site promotional products available to our members. You can sign up for instant access, 24 hours a day at: http://www.classifiedclub.com © 1999 The Online Classified Club All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, without the express written consent of the publisher.