Posted by Sean Cohen

The future of customer service is here. Technology has made seeking out support faster and easier than ever. But, has your digital age company sacrificed true service in the name of automation?

Today, finding customer support is as simple as writing an e-mail or picking up the phone. But, even though you’re not face-to-face with your customers, you still leave a lasting impression. Do you come across as caring and competent, or menacing and mechanical?

Offering stand-out service on the Internet isn’t as hard as it is rare. Take these simple steps towards old-style service in the digital age:

1. Be Clear, But Sincere
2. Offer Live Customer Support
3. Make Sure Your Support Reps Have All the Answers

Give Each Customer a Personal Response

 When a customer sits down to e-mail your company, it’s because he needs help. He chooses e-mail because it’s quick, but his request still warrants a satisfying and personal response!

Companies eager to save time and money often take automation too far in their customer support. Each customer has a unique question, and deserves a unique answer. Even if you save time by copying and pasting stock replies, change the opening and closing to make the message sound less robotic.

Be Clear, But Sincere

When responding to customers’ e-mail, be sincere and to the point. Before sending a message, try turning the tables. Ask yourself, “Would this answer satisfy me if I were the customer?”

Take that extra moment to give your customer the help he deserves. It might mean the difference between a satisfied customer and a credit card chargeback!

Offer Live Customer Support

E-mail has become an acceptable form of communication. But, live customer support is still necessary. The plethora of information available online can be overwhelming to customers, especially those new to the Internet!

Single your company out from the crowd by providing customers with a real person to talk to. Live phone support is an invaluable way to foster trust. When your customer has reached the end of his Internet rope, and just needs help, your toll free number is the answer he’s looking for.

Make Sure Your Support Reps Have All The Answers

The presence of phone support will do no good if your staff doesn’t know your product! Customer support reps should be warm and friendly, and willing to help with any aspect of your product.

What a good feeling it is to talk to someone who feels confident in his product. It’s even better if he’s knowledgeable enough to solve your problem without transferring you all around the company!

Provide Stand-Out Service; Gain Lifelong Customers

Too many e-businesses skimp on customer service, hiding behind web sites and message boards. Customer support is an integral part of every company, even those operating solely online. Be one of the few to offer stellar service, and gain customers for life! To give your business the edge in top quality customer support check out this great tool now!

Popularity: 57% [?]

There has been a lot of controversy about how well safe lists work, but you’ll find that they are very effective in bringing traffic.

What are safe lists?

Basically safe lists are groups of people who agree to receive messages from one another. Similar to optin lists but more advanced, safe lists are operated from a website. So lets say you want to send a message to other members on the list. You will need to go to the website and post your message, after which it is personally sent to the members to ensure there is no junk being sent indiscriminately. Those managing the safe list take adequate care to ensure that bouncing emails and overfull inboxes are dealt with appropriately. Since the members on the safe list are double opt in, all the email ids are authentic.

You can join as many safe lists as you like and there are both free and paid ones. So what is the best way to use safe lists so that you don’t devote more time and effort than is necessary? Here are some tips:

• You must be wary about safe lists whose site is not professionally designed. Beware of websites that have too many ads, banners, overloaded with graphics and dollar signs. You must have enough information about the safe list. If no contact information or support link is forthcoming, forget it. If the safe list has no affiliate program or does not disclose the number of members on the list, don’t even consider it.
• Safe list users tend to look at ads when they clear out their safe list email folders. Often a catchy subject line appears tempting them to click and read the ad, resulting in making them sign up for a newsletter, an ebook, a bonus or even buy something. The point of the matter is - you must make sure your subject line is catchy.
• It is also worthwhile to write appealing ads. Your safe list advertising must be excellent to ensure that your affiliate marketing business is a success.
• Make sure you track your safe list ads. You will find a majority of the better safe lists have built in tracking tools.

There is a reason why safe list users don’t feel very comfortable using safe lists to bring traffic and in list building. This is simply because they lack the tools to deal with the huge email volume being received. One of the first things to do is get a large capacity mailbox. If you are looking for a paid email account, ensure that you get email filtering, web based email, POP3 and free affiliate programs. You can also get automatic email deletion.

To get more tips and strategies on how to use safe lists, and get access to several other effective ways to profit from affiliate marketing, get your complete list-building blueprint to success at 15Kin7days right now.

Popularity: 41% [?]

Among list building methods for affiliate success, ezines are one of the most preferred. Simply put, ezines are online newsletters. Affiliate marketers use these to communicate and stay in touch with their subscribers. Through ezines, marketers share news, promotions, updates etc. Ezines can be used effectively to attract focussed traffic to your site.

Almost every ezine is ready to accept advertising from other marketers. The revenue from these ads can nicely offset operational costs associated with running the ezine apart from becoming a source of income in itself.

The best ezines to place your ads in are those that are very closely related to your own niche market to maximize the returns on the ad you put in. Different ezines have different rates depending on the number of subscribers they have and the specific niche. Rates are also based on the position of your ad.

Solo ads are found to work best in ezines even though they cost more because this means readers will see only your ad. In order to create a good solo ad, find an ezine that is directed at the exact target market you want. You can find other websites that run ezines related to your niche market. Searching on Google using your keyword or phrase followed by the word ezine or newsletter easily does this.

After you shortlist the most targeted ezines and newsletters to advertise in, find out the cost and number of subscribers each one has. We recommend actually subscribing to an ezine to see a few issues before advertising in it to get a good sense of the ezine. This will ensure that it speaks your language and reaches your message to your niche.

It is worthwhile spending time on designing your ad. What you say must be geared to getting your readers respond by doing what you expect them to.

Every activity in affiliate marketing must be tracked to monitor effectiveness. By tracking your ads you can know which ezines are bringing you the best response and which ones are not as effective as you expected. You can rephrase your ads to see which words work better so that you don’t waste money.

Some tips to ensure the success of your ezine advertising

• As you might have realized by now, choosing the right ezines to advertise in is the most important aspect of ezine advertising. Suppose the ezine you choose is crowded with ads, you hardly want your ad lost in it.
• When you offer something for free, as a sign up bonus in your ad, chances are quite good that the visitor would want to see what it is.
• Here’s something to check - if the ezine publisher has a policy of not running two ads for similar products within the same issue then you have a better chance of having your ad read by the ezine readers.
• Repeat your ads 2-3 times. The ezine publisher will probably offer you a bulk discount rate.

These are just a few of the many ways in which you can use ezine advertising successfully.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Now, we see a variety of ways in which we can make some kind of money online, but what we need to do is find a way that actually catapults you to online success, one that is not only feasible, but legitimate and a big money-earner.

You have not one, but two ways to do this. Lets say you have a product that you created - this could be an ebook. You can publish this ebook attractively, promote it and sell it to make money. The crucial thing here is to get the right topic, and you could be making a lot of money quickly. But this sort of thing can take up a lot of time, energy and investment since you will have product development, setting up a website, stocking inventory and handling customer support. All this involves a lot of work.

Alternately you can sign up for an affiliate program. Affiliate programs are the easiest way to profit online - and they are very popular. You choose products made by someone else, and promote it for a commission. Advantages are:

• No product development
• No office
• No stock
• No customer hassles
• No capital

While you could actually do it all without a website, it is advisable to build one so that you can attract traffic.

But wait! What if the affiliate programs you sign up with didn’t bring in the commission you expected? Worse still, what if you were unable to sell your affiliate products because there’s no demand? Don’t despair! There’s a way out.

You must become what is called a ’super affiliate’. And believe me, it is the smartest way to work. Compare the advantages with simple affiliate marketing - as a super affiliate you don’t get involved in product development. You don’t even need a website. How simple is that? What you will do as a super affiliate is generate your earnings by identifying hungry markets and established profitable products that are already being marketed. The next step is generating traffic - not with your marketing efforts but through easy to set up advertising campaigns like Google AdWords.

To summarize - the best and the easiest way to profit online is

• Become a super affiliate
• Capitalize on existing resources in the form of established products and marketing models
• Combine them
• Enjoy profits

Popularity: 48% [?]

Much of your marketing efforts rely on email marketing. So you want to make sure that the emails you send your subscribers reach their inbox and are read by them. To be successful with your email marketing efforts, you need to develop your own lists. Why? Because if you rent a list and email them, no matter how legit, its very short term. With your own list, you can build a customer relationship and communicate with them again and again. You build your list as a result of your subscribers opting in to receive your messages and avoid the risk of being reported as spam.

In spite of a well-planned marketing strategy and designing an effective series of emails, sometimes these emails end up in cyberspace, thanks to automatic spam-filters. To avoid this happening, you will need to be conversant with the words, phrases and characters that can kill your email before it reaches your recipient.

There are a lot of unscrupulous marketers out there who send unsolicited messages and give the legitimate ones a bad name, causing people to be doubly wary about which websites they subscribe to and which emails they receive.

The first step, then, is to do some quick research on the kind of words and phrases that can activate these filters and avoid using them completely. Filters especially look for certain symbols and words and by knowing what they are you can avoid them. So make sure your emails comply with the CAN SPAM Act.

You must put specific information in the title and from fields of your emails. Include your name and state your purpose. Don’t write so much in your email that your recipient has to keep scrolling till eternity to get to the point of the message. Rather than use superlative words, present the topic and content of your email so that your recipient is keen to know what it contains and how it will benefit them. Sign off with a call to action.

Many affiliate marketers invest in a reliable email service provider who also makes sure about email deliverability, hosting, customizing content and compliance with the CAN SPAM Act.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Before I answer why you need a squeeze page, lets talk about what a squeeze page is. It is a really interesting list-building tool. In fact, squeeze pages have brought about an amazing change in the way Internet marketing is done. They play a vital role in increasing traffic on your website. If you design your squeeze page well, you will directly benefit in multiple ways.

A squeeze page is like a prelude to your website and is used to attract your visitor to sign up and make them want to be on your list. The main elements of a squeeze page are

• A web form that your autoresponder will use to sign you visitors up automatically so that more information can be sent to them as promised.
• An attention grabbing headline
• Interesting content that is very relevant to your main website with brief info helping your visitor to sign up quickly.

Your squeeze page must be as simple as possible so that you can get your visitors to respond right away. It is okay to offer something for free, like a report or an ebook for signing up with their email address and name, so that you can send them the download link via email with their consent.

Here’s what you do:

Squeeze page title (what will the sign up do for me)

• What info will I get
• How it will help me
• How will it benefit me

SIGN UP form

That’s it. With a squeeze page, you can get your visitor’s email address so that you can build your optin list - which is your goldmine. It is a must have strategy for every Internet marketer because it helps you get your visitor’s permission to send them email so that you are not treated as spam. Of course, you also allow them to opt out of your list whenever they want.

You can use your autoresponder for double optin subscribing. After your visitor subscribes on the squeeze page and goes to the confirmation page - it redirects them to the information they wanted or alternately, onward to the free report you offered. For each website you own, a squeeze page is essential if you are serious about building unlimited optin lists.

But let me share a secret here with you. Sometimes, your visitors are clever enough to see the html source code of your squeeze pages and find the URL of the web page that will follow. Rather than wait to sign up and be led to the information they are eager to see, they try and directly access the URL. You can avoid this by encrypting the URL for the information page.

In fact, an even better way to send the information for which your visitors signed up is by email. By this, you ensure that your visitor signs up with an authentic email id. If it is an invalid email id then you simply don’t send the info to them! If they try to bypass the squeeze page, then they don’t get the promised information. You can be pretty sure that someone who is keen on the information and really interested will not find signing up a big ordeal.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Expert internet marketers know that lists are the foundation of their online marketing business. I have put together some critical tips to cost effectively build your email lists - use this as a checklist to enable you collect focused email addresses at every opportunity. 

• Make sure that each and every one of your web forms includes an email list opt in box, whether it is to do with registration, information requests or ordering products.
• Ensure that your website URL appears on all official stationery, promotional material, newsletters etc. You’d be surprised at how many people will immediately visit your link to know more and be ready to optin for email communication.
• While browsing your website your visitor must be able to optin from any page of your website.
• If you use direct mailing methods or paper forms offline, make sure your customers are requested to give their email addresses. At offline events it is standard practice to have a “Visitors book”. Have your visitors write down their email in it so that you can be in touch with them.
• Each and every paper that goes out to your customers and contacts must include an email request. Use every possible way to get hold of email addresses to build your lists - when you respond to customer questions, your invoice, etc.
• An effective way to build your list is to look at your current list. When you mail them request them to tell a friend or refer you to someone. Since these people receive the message from someone they know already, they are receptive to signing up with you! In turn, these people can refer you to others. Not only do you get an authentic list but also an endorsement. Provide a link that your optin list can forward to their contacts and grow your list.
• Be honest about the frequency of mailers you intend to send your optin list before they sign up so they know what to expect. If you send too many mailers too often, you’ll just get blocked.
• Solicit feedback from your subscribers so that you can design your messages according to what they want. If not, they will simply use the ‘unsubscribe’ option and that’s the end of the relationship.
• Your optin list is looking for value when they sign up with you - so make good use of your autoresponder to keep in touch with them with useful stuff.
• Remember that every interaction with a prospective customer is your chance to grow your list. Use ethical ways to build your list.

As you experiment with different methods you will learn different ways to succeed. List building is an activity that never stops as long as you are in business!

Popularity: 36% [?]

Here’s a compilation of all the things you must be wary about in your on-going list building process:

• You’ve got to remember that when a visitor signs up on your list, he or she is doing the same with your competition - and there is nothing you can do about it. Your list will receive email messages from both you and the competition. Over time, they may decide to use the ‘unsubscribe’ option and there’s a good chance it could be with you. Is there anything you can do about that? Yes - one way to stop this from happening is to design your emails so that they are distinctive. Don’t make the mistake of sending the same email twice. It’s also important to be alert about what the competition is doing - and BE different.
• You are probably signed up with several affiliation programs that are good money-earners. You are selling someone else’s products here, and you will obviously be sending traffic to a squeeze page. This is where the traffic will register with the original seller whose products you are promoting. But hey, granted you will earn commission on sales through you; however, what about the contact information of the customer who bought the product? It is the original seller who gets to be in touch with the customers - what about you? Perhaps you have other products you’d like to offer them! So what you do is - send these customers to your own squeeze page first! Let them sign up here for something in return - maybe an ebook or information related to the product. From here, they can move to your affiliate’s squeeze page through your free download or even your autoresponder. When you do this you will also be able to build your lists - and a targeted one at that!
• WOW! So you have a free ebook to give away. There are plenty of free ebooks that you can distribute even if you didn’t write them. But wait - did you notice that this ebook has the name and URL of its author with an optin form where the visitor must register to get actual access to the ebook? What this means is your subscribers will head there directly. What do you do then? You can counter this by getting your potential customers to first opt in to YOUR list before receiving the ebook download link. You can even bundle two or more ebooks that relate to the same topic as a gift for signing up. In fact, better still; get the resale rights of the book, rebrand it with your own opt in form so that everyone is happy.

The important thing is to use list-building methods in such a way that you get the contact info of the visitor and keep them!

Popularity: 32% [?]

You are probably wondering how a well-written article could possibly bring people to your website. But it’s the simplicity of this method that is the most charming. It is based on the fact that most people set out looking for information on the web

You can build huge lists by writing keyword rich articles relevant to your business. These articles can be featured on your website, submitted to article directories and other websites that are continuously looking for good content for their readers.

Articles are a great way to generate high quality focused traffic since they establish you as an expert in your area based on the info you provide. They are also useful for building trust, which is very important in the online marketing world. It is important to write them and use them in the right manner.

Here are tips to ensure that your articles bring in the kind of visitors you can convert to customers:

• At the end of your article provide a resource box with a link to your website. Include a brief message with your optin URL, telling the visitor very briefly about how they will benefit. The reader will be encouraged to visit your website to know more and will be in a receptive mood to sign up. Provide a full link to your website.
• Articles must be original content. You can either write them yourself or have them outsourced. They must stimulate the reader so that they will bookmark you and keep coming back.
• The title of your article must be catchy and include the keywords that your visitors use to find you, making them eager to read on. Something like “One secret strategy that will change the way you make money online” if make money online is your main keyword.
• Here’s a no-brainer, nevertheless very important as it is often overlooked. Check your content for spelling errors and make sure it makes for continuous reading.
• Remember to link the articles on your website to your blog, your ezine, your newsletter, the forums you frequent - as all these will bring focused traffic.
• We’ve already said this - but don’t forget to optimize your articles. This is how search engines will find them and help you get traffic.
• Allow your articles to be republished with the resource box intact - this in turn will bring in traffic from various sources. There are many newsletter and blog publishers who keep looking for good content to reprint.

The beauty of article marketing is that you can use the same article to bring in traffic from different sources.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Thriving in the internet marketing world means building a list that is growing all the time and you can do with every possible method you can lay your hands on, provided it is effective. Converting every visitor into a customer is every online marketer’s dream.

The Internet has evolved so much, that there are Internet gurus getting closer and closer to that dream. So what is the best way to attract traffic to your site and more important - how do you keep them active?

You know your product is terrific and there’s every possibility that your visitors will buy it today. But - what if they don’t? You probably have several other products they could be interested in - so how to get hold of their email address and name before they leave your site so that you can keep in touch with them?

Hold on! There’s yet another question you must answer before we find the answer to the earlier ones. Do you have the system in place to manage your growing list? Do you have an autoresponder? It’s the first thing you must set up.

An autoresponder is every Internet marketer’s best friend because it saves a massive amount of time that would otherwise be spent on routine follow-ups with hundreds of thousands of subscribers! An autoresponder allows you to automate the whole process of communicating with your list, so that even when you are sleeping or - away on vacation, it takes care of everything once you set it up properly.

But why go in for an autoresponder? Emailing is no big deal - and it is free. Is that what you think? The truth is, if you mail out promotional messages from your ISP, before you know what hit you, you’ll be labeled a spammer and be forced to shut down. That is bad publicity that you definitely don’t need.

Most online businesses use an autoresponder to do the following:

• Recognizing how you perceive yourself
• Taking responsibility for who you are
• Making a list of the things you want to change
• Making the decision to improve
• Setting goals to achieve
• Seeking the methods that will help achieve self-improvement
• Following these methods consistently

But in addition to these, did you know you could also use your autoresponder for these:

Build your credibility: Publish a newsletter and keep in touch with your visitors to let them know about new products, while sharing useful information with them

Article marketing: It is an acknowledged fact that article marketing works very effectively. Use your autoresponder to distribute your keyword rich articles and watch the focused traffic rush to your site! Add an author’s bio with a link to your autoresponder URL and you are ready to count the money.

Repeat your advertisement, automate the sales process: the more people see your ad, the more likely are they to remember you. Word it appropriately and tempt them with a ‘to know more” link - not only will you build your list, but also stand a very good chance of converting your visitors to customers.

Attract customers: Offer your visitors a trial version of your product - give them a sign-up bonus in the form of an ebook, software, membership to your site etc. this gives your visitors the feeling that you are serious about your business and also tempts them to sign up for the trial. Your autoresponder can do the job of send out messages that carry instructions on receiving the free trial, following up on it and closing the sale.

A word of caution here, though - make sure the person who signs up gives you permission to email them because you don’t want to get into the hassle of spamming.

It is necessary to know exactly how to use these methods effectively to get the maximum advantage from them. Different methods work for different people, obviously since every individual is unique. But it all comes back to “self help is the best help” because unless you take action, nothing else will follow.

Popularity: 27% [?]