Tyson-Faulkner.com
The online home of Tyson Faulkner

Now that you have a website and your autoresponder, it's time to create a product of real value that you can give away. There are a couple types of products that you can give away, but I would highly recommend information so that's what I'm going to talk about.

Information is quick and cheap to produce, all you have to do is know a bit about your prospects, which shouldn't be a problem since you did Step #2 right?

Since you know what your market is trying to achieve by searching the internet, all you have to do is give it to them. Brainstorm a bit and figure out what their number 1 goal is. If you can get them 1 step closer to reaching that goal with your information, you've got a winner.

For example, if you're in the dog training niche, what is the biggest, most pressing concern a new dog owner has? Probably potty training right? A dog that jumps up on people or doesn't come right when you call him is much more bearable than a dog that always soils your carpet.

If you can write just a few pages about something that your prospect can take action on and achieve, you'll have gained their trust. Remember, this is your first impression so you want to make it as good as possible. If you just give them a crappy ebook about dog history or something, they won't care if you send them another email. But if you taught them how to potty train their pup and it worked, they'll be excited to hear from you to learn more, this is what you're after!

Here's a list of questions you can ask about your prospects to come up with a killer lead magnet…

1. What is the #1 goal they could achieve, and how can you get them 1 step closer to that goal?
2. What keeps them up at night?
3. What do they desire most?
4. What are they afraid of?
5. What other products have they bought/been sold?
6. What frustrates them every day?

Delivery

There are a variety of ways to deliver your information, I have experience with two of them so I will suggest you use those.

First is an ebook. Ebooks are simple to make and pretty much everyone that has an internet connection can read them. All you have to do is type up your info into a Word document or OpenOffice doc, and hit the "convert to pdf" button. It couldn't really get any simpler.

Then you zip the file and deliver it to your new prospect's with a download page and your autoresponder.

The second delivery method I learned from my fellow marketer, Igor Kheifets. It's a great way to instantly deliver your information and move your new subscriber down a line of steps. Note: this won't work if you have 30 pages of information to give away. In fact it works best with about 3 pages, or a couple videos.

Basically what you do is spread your lead magnet out across several web pages. So if you have a Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3. Direct them to step 1 right after they subscribe. Then at the bottom of step 1 put a link that says "Go on to Step #2" and so on.

When they hit the last step, you can put a link at the bottom that leads them to one of your products, an affiliate product, or anything else that you want them to see and may help them learn more about the topic.

This delivery system makes sure that they see your content immediately and move down the path that you want them to.

Using WordPress to do this can save you a lot of time since it's so user friendly. However, I wouldn't suggest you use normal blog posts or pages because of the high number of links that could distract your new subscribers and send them elsewhere. If you're not an HTML geek like me you can pick up my WordPress landing page templates, they work perfect for this sort of thing.

After you have your lead magnet all ready to go, you've got to hook it up to your autoresponder so your new subscribers will be instantly taken to it after they sign up.

To do this just log in to Aweber and create a new list. Follow the simple instructions to get it all set up. When you create your web form during step #2 there is an area that you can customize where new signups are directed. In that box, choose "custom URL" and put in the URL of your download page (if you chose ebook) or your step #1 web page (if you chose the second option).

That's it! You're one step closer to gathering subscribers and building your list.

ACTION STEPS: Create Your Lead Magnet

Step #1: Brainstorm your ideal prospect's biggest, most urgent problem and how you can fix it.

Step #2: Write a short information product that contains actionable content to help your new subscriber reach his/her goal.

Step #3: Decide on a delivery method; ebook or web pages.

Step #4: Create your pdf with openoffice (what I use), or create your web pages that will deliver your content. Pick up these WordPress templates if you'd like an easy way to do it.

Step #5: Hook your new subscriber magnet to your autoresponder. (It's the URL that your web form redirects to if you're using single opt-in)

There you have it! In just a few hours you could have a hot lead magnet that will build trust with your subscribers and have them asking for more!

So now that we know that we have to get in the right mindset, that we need to focus on building a business slowly, not just trying to make money online. It's time to dig in and get started with our marketing plan. If you missed step #1, read about the internet marketing mindset here.

And like I said I'll be tagging everything with [LBCC] since it's the List Building Crash Course…so it's easy to find. =)

Choosing Your Market

It's really important that you do this step and put a lot of thought into it. If you just go with the first thing that sounds good, it will be really hard to build a sustainable business, especially if it's not something that you enjoy. That said, think about what you like to do and how you could sell information to people who like the same things.

There are a ton of markets out there so it's not necessary to go into one or the other just because "it seems like there's money in it." If you're passionate about something, you'll find the money in your market. If you go into a market that seems like there's money in, but you have no passion or drive to continue, you'll never succeed with your business because it will just be too hard to keep going.

Getting To Know Your Market

Choosing the market you're going to dive into is not quite enough. If you want to be effective in your niche you need to have intimate knowledge about the people you will be marketing to. Remember, in order to build a business in your market, you must provide value. In order to provide value, you must know what your market deems as valuable (seems simple right?)

Truthfully this can be one of the harder things to figure out, at least it was (and is) for me. I tend to focus too much on myself and how I see things in my market, instead of focusing entirely on what OTHER people think/feel/need. To figure out what your market needs you must become one of them. Start frequenting the forums, start conversations with people and learn what kind of questions they have. Once you figure out what they are looking for, then you can give them what they need.

ACTION STEPS:

I decided that I need to include action steps on each one of these posts. After all, theory is good but what do you do with it?

#1: Brainstorm some ideas about some markets that you would LIKE to get into. Not that you think would be good money makers. What do you want to do? What areas would you like to become an expert in? You don't have to be an expert in your desired field yet, but you should want to become one. Reaching expert status will help you make more sales and build a bigger audience faster.

#2: Once you have your business ideas, you better see if there is money in it. I know I said that you'll find the money, which is true to a point. But if it's something obscure then you may have trouble finding the people in your market. To do this, visit some sites like Clickbank.com and Amazon.com and do some keyword searches for your niche. See if there are products already being sold to those people. If so, then you've got a green light to go forward.

#3: Now that you know what market you'll be diving into, start getting to know those people. Visit forums and Yahoo answers and do Google searches to figure out what kinds of questions they have. Where do they need help and what goals do they have? Once you know who your prospects are, what they need, and what goals they are trying to achieve, then you'll be set to give them exactly what they want.

Write all this stuff down! It's very important to keep a log of what you're doing. That way in the future if you start to lose focus you can 'reset' and see what your business plan was in the beginning.

As always if you have any questions or comments please leave them below, I'd be happy to help in anyway I can!