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How to Put Your Site on AutoPilot
Do you dream of AutoPilot income? Do you wonder how some of these
people do it?
One of the keys is to automate your site as much as possible. If
you aren't automated, you will drown in a sea of email and outlook
folders.
Autoresponders
I've searched the web for automation solutions, and spent money
on quite a few. Here's the best:
I've changed my recommendations about autoresponders based
on how the market has shifted this past year.
It's got to do with deliverability. This is becoming a
paramount issue for anyone using email for marketing.
As I now see it, there are two ways to go.
1) Run
Autoresponse Plus on a dedicated server. (This is
only a good option for people already doing enough business
to afford a dedicated server.) A dedicated server costs
about $200/month.
2) Use
Aweber. Aweber is a service that handles the entire
spectrum of email management. They are the best solution
for internet marketers in terms of features, support and
most importantly, deliverability.
I have spoken with Aweber owner Tom Kulzer at length. I
have also talked with many experts in the business that use
Aweber. (Personally, since I have a dedicated server, I do
not use Aweber for delivery, but I do use their monitoring
service to check the deliverability of CBmall emails.)
I learned that Aweber spends tremendous time and resources
making sure your emails get delivered.
Many other services are missing the boat here, and huge
percentages of their emails never reach the intended
recipient. This is the dirty little secret of many email
services.
Deliverability is especially important for the major ISPs
like AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo. Many email services end up
banned entirely from these ISPs. So none of your email
will get there. Of course, those services forget to
mention that in their sales letters. What good is saving
money if your email is getting blocked?
I have tried a couple of these others as experiments and
have seen this happen to my own emails. They don't get
through.
Aweber has full time people managing deliverability. They
have personal contacts at AOL, Yahoo and the rest. They
have the expertise to make sure your email is delivered
properly.
Key points: If you don't have any autoresponder solution
yet, use Aweber.
If you do, make sure your email is actually getting
delivered. Aweber has a new service where they monitor your
emails from 100+ different email accounts at all the major
ISPs and let you know what is getting through. I use this
for all my businesses.
Delivery Monitor Service
Beware: Using the "Spam filter detection" tools is fine. I
use them too. But the only way you know for sure is to
check delivery into accounts to see if it is getting
blocked, filtered into the bulk folder, or getting on your
prospect's desktop. Delivery Monitor is the only service I
have seen that does a good job of this.
I hope this helps you avoid mistakes when it comes to
choosing this important part of your business.
Shopping Cart and Payment Processing
As far as payment systems and affiliate software, I have two
recommendations:
If you are selling purely digital download products like eBooks
and software, use ClickBank.
ClickBank is a trusted, secure payment processor that has the
enormous benefit of also managing an affiliate system. Just by
being in the ClickBank system you can automatically recruit
affiliates who can deliver huge traffic and sales to your site.
For my speeding ticket book, affiliate sales are now responsible for
over 3/4 of my revenue.
Sign up for a ClickBank account here.
It only costs $49.95 for a one time fee, plus a per transaction
fee. Remember that ClickBank keeps track of and pays all your
affiliates for you. This reduces your own work burden tremendously.
If you are selling physical products in addition to digital
products, ClickBank won't work for you.
In that case,
1shoppingcart is the clear winner.
When I needed a system to handle my Protege course, I asked a lot of
my internet marketing friends who I know from going to seminars.
Virtually every one of them uses 1shoppingcart because of its power
and reliability. It includes processing, tracking, an affiliate
program, autoresponders, protection for digital products, and lots
more.
My advice: Don't mess around with anything else. Choose one or
both of these and avoid the problems of inferior support or
switching costs down the road.
Merchant Account
If you use 1shoppingcart, you will also need your own merchant
account. I started with Wells Fargo, but then I moved to
Powerpay after
hearing some horror stories about how big merchant account companies
don't understand internet businesses and how we can have such big
sales spikes. Many people in this business have had their
accounts turned off, costing them tons of money, because the
merchant account provider got nervous.
Powerpay
understands this business and the spikes it can generate. I
highly recommend them.
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