An email list should be energized by buyers, and to achieve that, I recommend using any of the following methods: (they are listed by degree of importance, number 1 being the most effective)

1- Build your list from your buyers.
2- JVs (Joint Ventures)
3- Ad Swaps.

You may wonder why Ad Swaps comes last, well, you got to know 1 important fact in the internet marketing business; the more any method gets saturated, the less effective it becomes. People keep saying that Ad Swaps will build your list best; well it might be true to a certain extent but, what about the quality of your list? This might result in people joining your list (again, mostly not using their primary emails) in order to get the freebie.

Joint Ventures are good but to an extent as well. I would build two separate list groups with any JV deal. I’ll fill up the first one with all the free opt-ins (in case you have an opt-in page before your sales funnel – which I recommend you should) and a paid buyer list group; here JVs lead to feed your list mentioned in point number 1 which contains information about the actual buyers of your own products.
Obviously, your buyers’ information being on a list is the actual treasure. It’s the crème de la crème where it is a list full of buyers who actually bought from you. So, not only did they pull out their credit cards to “Pay Online” but it is YOU who is getting paid and they’re more likely to buy from YOU over and over again. They will also follow your lead when you recommend any other products to them in the future.

Finally, my personal impression of an energized list is the list of YOUR products’ BUYERS.

But that just as well may only be me?!

Another highly effective strategy is hiring workers to post comments, using the signature line section of the entry as a place to input a hyperlink back to the company. It’s critical that these comments sound natural and not bot-like. The writer appears to be a friend, but in reality is a seasoned salesperson. The writer’s believability draws attention instead of disdain for obvious sales tactics. The blog or messageboard post shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to type, so businesses don’t need to worry about it slowing down their campaign. The majority of comments on the web are on average no more than two sentences.

Companies can directly inquire participation from popular blog writers by having them post reviews on their websites. Having to write personal inquiries to bloggers is a more time consuming option, but is proven to be a powerful tool. The blogger acts like a news reporter, delivering the scoop on a product or service. Instead of posting company articles, bloggers can also insert a company hyperlink into the body of their pre-written material in the form of a keyword. Other than this, internet marketers can use the format of major social media sites as a format to develop their own blogs where past and future customers can visit and view product updates.

Social level marketing is also extremely instrumental in the new wiki universe. Wikis are user-editable pages of information on a particular subject. This is not limited to products. Companies should seek venues where they can basically provide an encyclopedia type entry on their company, products, or services which will aid customers in understanding who they are and what they can offer.

The most important aspect of incorporating social media into one’s online marketing strategy is building buzz. Marketers need to constantly be aware of newer social media networks and use them as new means of distribution. Always remember, social media should sound personal, friendly and human. The benefit of this type of venue offers web surfers a personal encounter with your product, service, or company. Make the most of the experience.

There are a few keys in developing a healthy mindset. First, one has to set the right environment. This begins with good time management. Good time management not only maintains the flow of the marketing campaign and helps all marketers meet deadlines, but also helps alleviate any stress in the environment. Internet marketers who feel rushed will make up to 50% more mistakes than those who feel relaxed. Also, pleasant relations between all parts of the marketing campaign help reduce strain and ensure that each person respects the overall campaign and is doing their best to meet expectations. Break schedule should be plotted out before work begins. Some workers may opt for a 5 minute break every hour. Others might want a 15-20 minute break every 3 hours. Everyone works differently. Sometimes work is going so well that the scheduled break must be delayed. In this case, workers can take a longer break later on. The important factor is to make sure that at the end of the day, the amount of work time equals what the worker originally planned. Stretch often and always have drinking water handy to hydrate and make sure to eat healthy but not too heavy lunches, as the latter often makes workers sleepy and slows down the work.

Sometimes internet marketers will hit a mental block. They should step away from the computer and refresh themselves with thoughts of reaching the bottom line. It helps to envision all the sales one can make after their tasks are completed. Keeping an eye on the prize is enough motivation for driving internet marketers onward to reach their goals.

Time management is a simple list or chart that lays out how much time will be and has already been allotted to performing any of the above internet marketing activities. Before a product goes into development, a pre-production meeting takes place and tasks are delegated to various branches of the marketing body. Marketing managers then hire article and copy writers, coders, bloggers, and more to perform tasks within a time limit. This deadline helps synchronize the overall workflow so that when the product is ready for purchase, all the marketing is already in place and ready for upload. Simultaneous upload of lots of data concerning the product generates a buzz.

It’s important for each person involved to avoid overload and last minute rushing by setting aside certain chunks of time per day in which to work. The actual time of day one begins to work may change, due to variances in an individual’s schedule, but the length of time should remain consistent. This helps one develop a smooth flowing work environment which produces unhurried results. Marketing managers should work closely with their hires on the specifics of tasks to avoid a barrage of last minute corrections which may prolong the release of the marketing campaign. Marketing managers need to be aware of the time zone in which their hires are working and be able to check in from time to time while they work. All parties should set up a mutual time for settling conflicts, asking questions, checking quality of work, and delegating new tasks. This is why business relationships are so important. They can make or break a marketing campaign.

Order of work during work hours should be split into categories according to priority. There are two major categories: money makers and time wasters. Everyone who has ever used the internet is familiar with time wasters such as checking personal mail, playing Solitaire, taking phone calls instead of promising to call back later, and web surfing for pleasure. These are obvious no-no’s. One no-no which may not be so obvious but still slows down the online marketing campaign’s efforts is the wasting time by developing useless website applets that look cool and fun but don’t bring in customers. Is it important to add a weather or news applet to a video software website? No. Other time wasters include technical difficulties with the website and customer support issues. Get a good IT guy, and get it taken care of fast. Internet marketers need to focus on money making activities such as creating new articles and blog posts, networking, and researching user statistics to draw more paying customers to the website.

Businesses who tap into the power of the human resource are far more successful than those that rely solely on SEO. Search engine optimization is vital, but users are getting smarter. Surveys have shown that the average Google user will click through up to three pages of search results in order to find the most relevant match. This means that high ranking pages may not get the most paying customers and will eventually lose their place to websites who are getting the most traffic. Customers do not want to be insulted by websites loaded with keywords and no content. What they do want is to feel as if they are dealing with real companies made out of real people—and not spambots. By getting real, companies are putting themselves in the place of their customers. Would Mr. Marketing Manager click on this link if he were the average customer? Would he believe the sales copy? Naturalism is back, automatism is out.

So-called real companies deal with teams of people delegated with a variety of tasks. One team takes care of article writing while another manages the technical SEO segment. These teams may contain members from all parts of the globe, thanks to developments in global communication. It’s important to maintain real-time synchronization between each team, as immediate updates to products need to reflect in the online marketing as well. Any sales copy, article, or blog post used as part of a holistic internet marketing approach needs to be written or rewritten by a human in a language in which they are comfortable in. Fluency is important in terms of sales copy and article writing, though less formal common vernacular works best with viral and social media.

The biggest secret to internet marketing is more of an underrated phenomenon which many companies are too idle to employ. The human experience takes time and hard work on the part of real beings looking to connect to other real beings with money. Unfortunately time is of the essence while hard work comes with a price. Companies hone in on the time and money spent on outsourced work going to a team of real people—instead of their bottom lines—and get overwhelmed. Frustrated, they turn to a series of bots and software. While this may work in a few situations, most buyers want to be wooed by quality content spoken in human, not spamese. The most helpful aspect of the human to human experience is the testimonial. Testimonials are a list of comments from existing customers who have bought the product or service and are giving a personal account of their satisfaction. These can be real testimonies or comments drummed up by a team of writers. If going with the latter, the language must seem realistic. Testimonials should not be overworked miniature sales copies. Instead, they should highlight one or two good aspects about the product in a natural, human tone.

White hat marketing refers to the branch of internet marketing most widely accepted by standard search engines while black hat marketing uses methods not approved by SEO authorities. White hat marketing involves practices which sit well with search engines, such as Google, Bing, and AOL. By using white hat marketing, businesses promise that the content they submit to be indexed by web pages is indeed the same content the internet user will see. Weblinks are 100% genuine and lead visitors to the pages they were looking for. Keywords are not overused in the body of the webpage text and the content appears authentic. When it comes to article marketing using white hat techniques, articles are written by humans and not derived from pre-written material processed and altered by software.

Techniques designated as black hat marketing include all sorts of sneaky ways for businesses and their websites to achieve immediate high ranks in search engine results. There are two types of black hat marketing: benign and malignant. Benign black hat marketing uses simple techniques which never harm their customers. Some websites will have extra keywords hidden on the page which has been added after its creation to pull more rank. The keywords are often typed in a font color the same as the background so it appears invisible. There are also iframes or invisible frames and tables which pass under the radar, but still try to grab customers. Other methods include cloaking, spamdexing and other forms of search engine manipulation which lure search engine users by using keywords that have nothing to do with the business’s actual content. Malignant black hat marketing leeches off other websites through hacking, appropriating hyperlinks, and other manipulations which hurt other businesses in order to redirect their customers to the black hat marketing business. Some businesses use iframes to download malignant software to a user’s computer. Any company that uses black hat marketing in any way can immediately be penalized. They will be stripped from their high web search rank and may even be banned from search engines altogether.

Grey hat marketing is a combination of both, but mostly tends toward white hat marketing with benign black hat marketing. Businesses that do both are desperate for rank, but are also carefully trying to avoid penalization. Some businesses will have two or more websites, one for white hat SEO and another for black hat SEO.

No company should ever use malignant black hat SEO. They will be penalized immediately and customers will never buy a product from a spam warehouse. Many black hat marketers lose all credibility.

When watching videos, we’ve all seen those pop-up ads near the bottom of the player. You might even see a few highlighted keywords which, usually, have some relevance to the streaming video content. The keywords themselves are SEO hyperlinks which direct viewers to an outside website—a business. One strategy used by companies when placing an ad on Youtube or other sites is to acquire rights to advertise on extremely popular videos. This may, however, be costly—like an expensive classified ad—and perhaps very few of those viewers would be even remotely interested in buying your product. There’s no need to separate customers into demographics. If a product is really going to make money it should already be suited to people of all demographics. Instead, customers should be targeted by interest. Find content relevant to the video or products used in the video. This way, you’ve got your niche market all in one place and your chances of sales increase.

A more effective—though more time consuming—strategy is in-house production of viral video. More and more companies are shooting their own videos and uploading them. A Youtube user account is free of charge and account holders may post as many video as they want within reasonable internet storage limits. It’s like making a commercial, but one which reaches a specific audience. The videos don’t have to be big budget works of cinematic genius. To maintain a presentable company image, the videos should be high resolution and recorded with a sound mixer. You want viewers to clearly see and hear all the good things about your product, you don’t want to appear cheap. You also want to capture your viewers by incorporating b-roll—cutaway video clips of the interesting subjects relevant to the product—and emotive sound design. Any company can hire a low budget production crew of less than 5 people to bring their video to life.

The average and most popular Youtube video is no more than 2:30 minutes (that’s five times longer than the average television commercial). With more time, companies can do more to persuade viewers into becoming buyers. Some companies shoot short how-to-videos which feature their product but do not overtly sell it to the customer. This gives the audience the feeling that the company is professional and knowledgeable in their overall craft, is a reliable source of information on all things involving their product, and is trustworthy.

The Small Business Association did a recent survey concerning the websites of various online businesses. Those websites which prominently displayed a bit of information on the company and their goods directly on the front page received more traffic and, as web click tracking applications have shown, more visits to other parts of their pages. A useful sales copy should be, most importantly, prominently displayed on the website. It should be noted that the average online user in this day and age has a short attention span—giving less than 30 seconds for websites to wow them—and most readers don’t bother to scroll the entire page. So keep it to a healthy minimum.

Titles or headlines are key when it comes to writing a successful sales copy. Not to be confused with the title of an article, the sales copy headline can be a short phrase, a sentence, or even two short sentences. Many businesses turn off customers with overused and weak sounding headlines such as “Do You Want More Money,” “Make Money with Our Product,” or “Once in a Lifetime Opportunity.” It is okay to write these into the sales copy, but a headline has to immediately grab readers and stand out in the sea of sales copies of other businesses. To do this the sales copy must concisely say something unique regarding the product—or something unique regarding the customer’s need for it. When addressing a customer’s need you immediately hit a nerve. You connect. The headline has to draw readers into the body of the sales copy and, ultimately, to the shopping cart.

Another important strategy in writing a sales copy that works is to create a sense of urgency. Some websites of online businesses will state “limited time offer” all over the webpage. This may, however, hurt the business. It is too obvious to the prospective customer that the business is trying to rush them into buying something. Many customers will pass up a “limited time offer” because they feel that if the product is really that good, they’ll shell out the extra dollars for it later on once they’ve got a better handle on what the product is—and they may never come back. Instead of writing “limited time offer” into the sales copy and telling customers how little time they have to buy a product, companies should highlight how much time customers are losing by not buying it. Companies must convey an earnest and mild warning to customers by telling them the negative aspects of not having a product like theirs, what they fail to gain, and what, even at this moment, it is they are losing.

A good sales copy should be left to the pros. This isn’t the same thing as writing an article. This is your company’s calling card. One can hire professional copywriters to do the work, though some copywriters or their agencies may charge exorbitant rates. Companies should always ask to see a sample of the copywriter’s previous work in order to ensure they’re getting their money’s worth.

One of the ways to drum up more traffic with article marketing is with SEO, or search engine optimization. This is the well-known process of writing articles with a certain number of specific keywords typed into the body of the article. When these articles are uploaded to the web, search engines such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, Bing and others rate content according to a variety of factors—one of them being subject relevancy. A reader will type in a word—any subject at all—and the articles most relevant, containing keywords which correspond to the reader’s search, will be among the top sites returned. There are, however a few important factors that decide whether or not a website gets front page posting—or is even posted at all.

To be considered relevant, an article should present a single keyword or keyphrase per every 30-40 words of content. Important keywords should appear somewhere in the title of the article. This sends off a bright flare detectable by high traffic search engines, telling them which sites are immediately most important. One shouldn’t litter an article with keywords, however. Besides appearing like a poorly and hastily written ad which frustrates customers, most search engines will bounce them. Penalization for overusing keywords results in either low placement or no placement at all. It also helps to include a few variations on the main keyword, as readers may enter different queries.

When looking for more traffic, companies should note that the more articles they send out, the better. It’s a dream come true for a company manager to not have to spell check every piece of content or have it rewritten by another writer. However, well written material takes more time to write. Internet marketing managers need to maintain an even balance between proper time management and putting out good content. Remember, no one’s looking for Shakespeare. Potential customers want simple content that’s quick and easy to read. Companies are better off having ten good articles than one superb article.

One important tool in distributing articles to blogs and websites is getting software to do it for you. Manual distribution is the most direct way for a company to control who sees their content and verify that they’re reaching a niche audience. However, it’s not exactly a time efficient strategy. Automated article distribution is a new way for companies to influence the online community, and it’s less expensive than hiring someone to do it for you. Automated article distribution software takes a certain amount of articles and uploads them directly to blogs and other online communities. It’s quick and it’s effective.

Companies who spend time and money having articles written and distributed should also try to protect their content as best as possible. It’s important to make sure the content written is original in the first place. Also, companies should avoid repeatedly sending out the same article to a variety of different directories to avoid penalization from search engines. Duplication of content is not immediately punishable, but it risks the company’s credibility and greatly reduces traffic.

Companies use article marketing to take advantage of free press space. They may publish articles on their own products and services, but the most common subject matter of article marketing contains general knowledge about the industry. For example, a company that produces and sells software will most likely commission articles to be written on the general subject that concern that software. Usually there will be what is called a resource box at the end of the article which includes an active hyperlink back to the company’s website or simple written text crediting the company. By publishing general articles, companies highlight their expertise and knowledge while imparting valuable information to help consumers make decisions.

These articles are usually written by professionals in the industry who work in-house with the company or are hired via any of the reputable telecommuter agencies. Writers carefully research their topics to ensure credibility and a high degree of professionalism. The completed articles are sent out in batches to be distributed to various media publications all over the web including social networking sites, blogs, messageboards, and a variety of websites. Of course, the smart business owner will already have a company or product website set up with e-commerce capabilities where shoppers can purchase goods and these are prime spaces for articles. However, distributing articles to external sites doesn’t require the company to seek out readers. Instead, readers find the company by simply reading content off the websites they visit daily. At the end of the article, readers can click on the hyperlink in the resource box. Once again, the content must be intriguing and well written—otherwise there won’t be any further clicking.

Blog posting is one of the most recent and lucrative means of article marketing because it gives readers the assurance that the information is coming from a live human being who has first-hand experience with the product, service or subject. It’s like getting the scoop from a good friend. Research shows that readers trust bloggers and are compelled to check out the goods they write about. However, companies don’t have to spend time designing and writing a blog, although if they have the manpower they certainly can. Companies should tap into bloggers’ built-in audiences—already established niches of readers with a high rate of return.

Companies can also turn to customer approved product review websites which generate high volume traffic, if they want to distribute articles about their specific products. Product reviews, however, still only reach customers who are already looking for that type of product. Article marketing works best when companies spend time distributing general batches of articles which can be credited back to the company, blanketing a variety of websites with content.