Biz Tips Blog: Online Marketing, Visibility and Business Blogging Tips

How to Build an Email List FAST

If you want to grow your email list fast, have a contest.  There's nothing like a contest and giving away lots of valuable prizes to inspire action. This goes for blog subscribers as well as ezine subscribers.

Darren Rowse at Problogger.net has done this numerous times very successfully. A quick glance at Darren's blog and you'll see frequent posts about how to win stuff. Generally you must take some sort of action: comment on the blog post, subscribe to email list, etc. Rowse has over 50,000 blog subscribers; I don't know the numbers on his email subscribers, but I bet it's not too shabby.

Currently there are two email subscribe contests going on that I'm personally aware of.

1. Big Jason at BigMarketingOnline blog is giving away over $40,000 in prizes if you subscribe to his list. And they are not crappy prizes. Some are worth thousands of dollars. Hey, I subscribed when my good friend and colleague Mari Smith let me know about the contest.

I'd be happy to win Ray Edwards' $4,000 website copy critique, or a $500 AMEX gift card, or a one hour private consult with Jack Humphrey. Or a Facebook profile makeover with Mari Smith!

2. Chris Garrett is having a birthday give-away, but you're only eligible if you subscribe to his email list. Chris is a fantastic writer and he's not telling what his subscribers may win, (my mistake, prizes are listed here, and they are GOOD!) and when you do subscribe to his list you automatically get his ebook about writing killer flagship content. That's worth it right there. Read his post to learn WHY he recommends having an email list in addition to RSS subscribers.

As with all ethical people doing business on the web, they provide a way for you to  unsubscribe from their lists if you feel the information is not serving you. But wait until the contest is over... :-)

T. Boone Pickens Uses Web 2.0 to Spread His Message

I knew T. Boone Pickens was using TV to get his message out about using wind energy and weaning the US off foreign oil, but I wasn't aware he was using a sophisticated web strategy as well.

Thanks to Bill Branson for the link to an interview about how Pickens is using Web 2.0 to spread his message via grassroots.  He's got a video channel on YouTube, a Twitter account, Facebook profile, and a social networking community on Ning. OK, he's also got a gazillion dollars, but everything he's doing, you can too for very little investment.

Check out the interview with T. Boone Pickens on SiliconValley.com

TypePad makes it easy for Professionals

You're reading this blog, but do you have a blog for your business?

If you're having trouble attracting people to your website, or you're not selling enough products and services, maybe not enough people can find you online.

This is a huge problem for many service professionals, authors, speakers and consultants. Usually, we find they're missing a piece of the marketing puzzle.

They are not using the powerful tools available to build buzz, drive traffic and convert prospects to clients.

What's the solution? You probably know what we're going to say...

That's right. A business blog.  Why?

Knol: Google's Answer to Wikipedia

Have you heard of Knol yet? I've seen the word floating around the blogosphere, the twitsphere and in various Internet marketing ezines. Today I finally checked out Knol after reading a brief post by John Jantch.

Knol appears to be Google's version of Wikipedia or an article directory on steroids may be another way to look at it. Google defines a Knol as "an authoritative articles on a specific topic."

Essentially Knol is a platform for sharing your content. AND, other authors can comment, review, and contribute to your content, like Wikipedia.  But you control the contributions if you wish. You can set up your articles so any contributions are moderated.

Will there be any advantage to posting your content on Google's Knol?

InstantTeleseminar vs. Audio Acrobat

One of the things I love about teaching marketing programs is the great questions we get from participants. On the discussion forum for our Law of Action program that wrapped up today, there was a great question that bears posting here.

What would be the advantage of InstantTeleseminar over Audio Acrobat? If we are able to access free bridgelines at places like FreeConferenceCall.com, why would someone pay $47/month instead of $19.95?

Good questions. We use both InstantTeleseminar and AudioAcrobat for totally different purposes.

In my view, they are apples and oranges. Yes, there is some overlap in features but for the most part they offer different functions.

InstantTeleseminar (IT) is about setting up and delivering teleseminars with the option of streaming live on the web for up to 2000 people. AudioAcrobat (AA) doesn't do this at all. You also get a 200 person bridge line with IT. Again, you don't get a bridge line with AA, but you can record though you have do three-way calling. We also love the IT feature of giving your audience the ability to submit questions that you manage behind the scenes. Keeps the lines quiet and you can control what gets asked and answered.