It’s ironic, isn’t it?
Bootstrapping, tech-savvy entrepreneurs use blogs as ultra-low-cost tools for free promotion in lieu of an advertising budget, often with great success.
Meanwhile, existing businesses are carefully looking into this “whole blogging thing” trying to determine if it’s a worthwhile return on investment that supplements their current marketing.
If only—like chocolate and peanut butter—we could get these two groups together, eh?
A smart blogging strategy can hugely boost the fortunes of an established small business, and even allow for the elimination of many traditional advertising methods.
And the smart entrepreneur who gets a start with inexpensive online promotion would be well advised to reinvest initial revenue into high ROI methods that spur rapid growth.
The key to effective online advertising is to make an offer and establish a relationship at the same time. You may be surprised to learn that some products are created and some services performed just to break even on the cost of subscriber acquisition.
Why? Because the money’s in the list.
Or in other words, a subscriber relationship is way more important than a one-off sale.
My next two posts will be a quick primer on a couple of ways that you can benefit by focusing on both subscriber acquisition and sales. First, we’ll take a look at pay per click advertising that works, followed by a subscriber acquisition technique called co-registration that you may not be familiar with.
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I really enjoy your posts. I started reading them because of Char, and I really find them very interesting. I’m looking forward to trying to make blogging a good source of revenue sometime in the future, be it by consulting services or add revenue.
“Why? Because the money’s in the list.”
Brian, I agree with that statement. However, I am confused on how you would do it since you state in your own e-mail policy “I personally promise that I will never share, trade, sell, deliver, reveal, publicize, or market your email address in any way, shape, or form.”
How do you do it without marketing in any way shape or form?
Thanks Range!
Brad, “the money’s in the list” can also mean that you eventually extract value by marketing to the list. If you are confused because I am not currently marketing to the Copyblogger list, well, don’t you worry about me.
Odds are I have a plan.
Luckily, I’m not one of these people who feels they need to barrage people left and right with stuff trying to make a couple of bucks. I have other sources of income, or I wouldn’t be qualified to write this blog.
A smart marketer truly builds a fan club, not just a list, before selling. Which is exactly the point that I hope everyone takes away from this series.