The word spam, itself, in terms of electronic interfacing, refers to bulk or excessive stuff. In video gaming, the word spam is used to refer to performing repetitive actions, i.e. “I spammed my heavy attacks on the boss until it was dead.” While this has virtually little to do with Internet Marketing, perhaps it will serve to illustrate that in the world of interactive electronics in general, spam is not just a four-letter word.

Is Spam Electronic Messaging Junk Mail?

Typically, most people see spam as being essentially the electronic messaging equivalent of junk mail. It’s unsolicited, it’s unwanted, and nowadays can sometimes be malicious and dangerous. Most people are familiar with the e-mail version, but there are many other types of media that you can get spammed (or do the spamming) in. These include mobile phones where you have text message advertisements; forum spam where advertisements are posted on an Internet forum; spamdexing where you manipulate a search engine to make your webpage look more popular; blog spamming where advice and links to other websites are placed in comments; newsgroup spams; and IM spamming.

Looking at this list, and ask yourself how many of these things do you actually do? As it turns out, many of us in Internet Marketing spam without quite realizing it. The real trick to this situation is not so much what is ethical spam, but what is effective spam?

Ineffective Spam Lands in the Bulk Mail Boxes

Ineffective spam is, obviously, the stuff that makes it to people’s bulk mail boxes and the websites that cram as many keywords into them as they possibly can, raising a red flag with the search engines. Also, those blog accounts that are configured badly enough that the blog community administrators kick them off for pretty much the same reason that search engines block out some web sites. The point is that no one responds to it.

Effective Spam is Your Mailing List—What People Want

Effective spam is well crafted, and it’s what people on your mailing list are expecting. Far more likely than the ineffective type, there is usually a human behind it instead of some robot that can hardly generate a coherent sentence. It’s also the helpful or insightful person on a forum or blog who just so happens to have a website in his or her signature line or suggests a website for a solution.

In a nutshell, some spam is junk mail.  It’s not wanted and is very imposing.  This is what you should avoid doing.  The spam you want to put out is just the kind people ask for.  My final word of advice is don’t buy mailing lists!

Building a List Opens the Door for Repeat Customers

The great benefit of building a list is that it makes having repeat customers easier.  When a client has bought the product that you’re promoting and opted into your list, it means that they’re interested in what else you have to offer.  By all means, you should let them know when and if you have other products to offer.

Having them in your mailing list is the easiest way to do this.  It also saves you a ton of sweat in attracting new traffic to your websites.  Naturally, you will want to keep drawing traffic, but at least you don’t have to rely as much on new clients.  This will save you a great deal of nail-biting when you check your traffic reports.

Mailing Your List Shouldn’t Be “Just” Marketing

With it said that mailing your list should involve updates on new products and services, that shouldn’t be all you’re mailing them.  One of the key elements in keeping your list vibrant and growing is to not always be a marketer.  People will think that you’re a spammer if that’s all you’re doing, and they’ll drop you like a hot rock.

Instead, you should mix in some informative messages with the new product alerts.  Send them the latest news in your niche.  Crack a joke or two.  Give them tips on improving the traffic to their sites.  Do things like that, and you’ll keep your list interested.

Another Important Thing:  Don’t Spam Mail Your List

One of the quickest ways to get people tired of you is to spam mail them.  They don’t need to hear from you every day, and they don’t want to.  Most people don’t even talk to their extended family and real life friends that frequently.  Don’t intrude too much in their lives.

Besides that, it’s expensive and time-consuming for you to stay on top of your list like that.  You don’t want to tell them the same things over and over again, and it would be all too easy to run out of stuff to say, even if you’re outsourcing, if you’re mailing them daily.

A good rule to observe is that people don’t mind hearing from their marketers once or twice a month.  You’re still in their lives enough that they don’t forget who you are.  On the flip side, you’re not the unwelcome guest.

That perhaps brings up a different way of thinking about listbuilding.  Instead of thinking of it as the clients being members of your list, think of yourself as a guest in their lives.  This one change of perspective can change the tone of your messages and make them more receptive to what you have to say.

I’m Talking about Niche Research Here

If you aren’t doing niche research, you’re really not going to get very far in a campaign. This has to be done before page building, before marketing, before anything. You have to be able to point out what people need. If you don’t, you’re just wasting time and money.

Think of it this way. It’s around December 10. You know that people are shopping for Christmas presents at this time. You decide to affiliate with a Christmas-based product or made a special Christmas sale. You realize that there are people on the Net with this need and money to spend. You point to the needed item and make money. That’s the essence of how to go about finding a need.

Getting the Targeted Traffic on Your List and Link

It’s all about targeted traffic. As I’ve said before, you have people trafficking the Net and “just browsing,” and then you have people that are actually shopping. Obviously, you want the ones who are spending money. Finding a need is the first part of targeting your traffic. Obviously, you don’t care about the guy sitting at his kitchen table drinking his coffee, just browsing for the sake of it.

Of course, the process of finding a need is a bit more complicated than just knowing that Christmas is coming up, so you should develop a Christmas line. It takes a bit of market analysis. Let’s say that you have this brilliant idea for a launch. Let’s say that it’s a line of instruction manuals on how to do underwater basket weaving.

Draw Them in With Keyword Research

The first thing you do in finding a need is condense this whole idea into as few words as possible and do some keyword research. Now you can take this to Wordtracker or some similar program. Plug your words into the keyword search tool, and let’s see what happens. Wordtracker will kick out every current permutation of your keyword and how often it got hit.

Based on this analysis, can you say that by doing this search you’re finding a need? If you’re not, perhaps there’s some variation on your keywords that will actually hit higher than your original version. It can be quite a boring process, but sticking through with it will pay off in the end.

For instance, let’s say with this example that you plugged in “underwater basket weaving Alaska.”  Let’s say that in this example, you see that there’s actually more interest in underwater basket weaving in Outer Mongolia than in Alaska. I know, you had your heart set on Alaskan techniques of underwater basket weaving, but there was more demand for Outer Mongolian methods. Finding a need doesn’t always mean that you get your way.

Now that you’ve found a need, you can begin making your instruction manuals for underwater basket weaving in Outer Mongolia. You can then move on to pricing and marketing and everything else. But this is where it starts.

You’re Outsourcing the Wrong Stuff to a Foreign Country

Outsourcing to countries like India and Pakistan is okay for some tasks in affiliate marketing, but you CANNOT do it with everything.  They can effectively upload videos, bookmark, and many other elements of marketing for pennies on the dollar.  It’s when they’re in a position of being your voice that things can get problematic.

I’m not one to disparage outsourcing your written content in general.  Many people do it and it works well.  The thing of it is that you will want to outsource your written content to people who speak your language as their first one.

You Haven’t Done Your Niche Research Correctly

Doing proper niche research is the very first rule of launching a successful marketing campaign.  If your niche isn’t going to take off, you’re not going to be successful, and there’s nothing you can do about it but get out.  It doesn’t matter if the niche looks interesting to you; you have to research it.

Let’s say that you see that there’s a lot of money being made in a niche for robotics.  You’re a fan of robotics, so you think this niche would be perfect to start in.  Did you take into account that there are a lot of marketers working the niche already?  How about if these marketers have been working the niche a long time?  Starting off in a marketer-saturated niche is never a good way to start.

You Didn’t Get Your Keyword Research Right

Okay, while it’s true that most vendors will supply you with keywords, you still have to do keyword research.  What you’re missing out on if you just use their keywords is getting an edge over every other affiliate marketer they gave keywords to.  You’ll have to fight harder to rank over the other affiliates if you miss this step.

Think of it this way, especially if you’re new in the business.  Other, more experienced marketers have already started working with this vendor.  They’re already miles ahead of you when it comes to the keyword list you were given.  If you find other keywords, not only will you have a side angle at competing, you may find better keywords than you were given.

You’re not getting Your Listbuilding Right

Listbuilding is a super important part of an affiliate marketer’s career.  Your first few affiliate campaigns may not make you much money, but they can definitely get you a list, which you can use to make more money later.  Your list consists of people that are already interested in your stuff, so they’re the ones most likely to buy from you.  Take them from one campaign to another and the money WILL come.

These are just a few of the problems you might encounter in affiliate marketing.  There are many more, but these are the major ones.

Ashton Kutcher’s List is a Fan List

The only common factor in Ashton Kutcher’s list is that it’s a fan list.  The thing they all have in common is that they like him.  Now, if you’re marketing products related to him, great!  However, there’s a good chance that you’re not.

The rules of effective active listbuilding like “friending” or “following” on social networks stay pretty much the same no matter what the network.  What are the chances that anyone on a movie star’s list cares about your niche?  You don’t need movie buffs if you’re promoting toasters.

When Listbuilding on Twitter, You Need a Targeted List

As always in affiliate marketing, you need a targeted list.  The thing about recruiting on a celebrity’s list is that at first, you may have a gazillion confirmations.  Your popularity may well explode, but there’s a catch.

Once everyone figures out that you’re a marketer, they have a choice.  Either they leave or they stay.  Given that the list of followers on Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter is a broad one, chances are that the overwhelming majority will quit following you, or they’ll simply ignore you.  Either way, you’re not actually making money.

Building Your List on Twitter By the Niche

Twitter follows pretty much the same rules as other social networks, and you should use that for building your list.  Have your keywords on hand when you research the top Twitter users.  Search by the keywords, and you will have your targeted list.

So, is this to say that it’s back to the old drawing board if you’ve already farmed celebrity lists on Twitter?  Not really.  You may very well have already experienced the rise and fall of your popularity on Twitter and your list became targeted.  This advice is still relevant to you, since you need to keep building your list.

Twitter Apps are Still Your Friend

There are still Twitter apps that you can use to keep building your list.  You can even build customized ones.  What you ultimately need in a long term app arsenal is where you can enter a keyword, get a list of people interested in that keyword, and be able to add them to your list.

Approaching your listbuilding on Twitter this way will save you a rollercoaster ride in your list population and steadily build your list based on targeted interests.  This is far more worth your time than spamming Ashton Kutcher’s list.

Meetup.com is Good for Advertising Your Company

If you have a company, or if you have the conception of one, Meetup.com is a means of advertising your company. It can also serve as a sort of human resources department, or it can serve as a corporate networking site. You can expect all these and more from Meetup.com.

Let’s say you put your group, your company, or your vision of a company up on Meetup.com. Of course, you should try to get into every conceivable category and niche you can. This will, of course, drive up your visibility on Google and the other search engines. This will also increase your visibility in Meetup.com itself. Now, what to do with it from there?

More or less, it depends on what you want to do with it. Whatever it is, you should make it up front in your group’s bio. If you want a group of like-minded people meeting up for coffee every weekend, do that. If you’re looking for volunteers to help you get your business off the ground, that’s good too. Whatever it is, it should be on the front page.

Use Meetup to Share Lists

Now, why would you want to arrange a group just for coffee meetings? If you get more affiliates who share your niches in the same room, even just once a week, you can share lists, ideas, and techniques. You can get more lists, ideas, and techniques. Let’s say that you happen to be looking for a hot new niche as a means to expand your business. If you have five people talking about their business niches over coffee, you’re much more likely to find that extra niche than if you racked your brain on your own.

Using Meetup to Forge Partnerships and Joint Ventures

The potential for forming partnerships and joint ventures is also really great on Meetup.com.  It can be used as a mastermind “think tank,” and from there your alliances can launch.  Then you can collect the benefits of these ventures.

That is, potential customers LOVE the idea of two or more marketers working together.  They join the mailing list in throngs, and the great thing is that everyone in the partnership gets the new members on their lists.  After all, an effective joint venture is meant to be a win-win situation for everyone.

Submit Articles to Article Directories

Article marketing is the backbone of almost every marketing campaign, and article directories are your resource for it.  For starters, you will have keyword specific backlinks to your web page.  This can drive targeted traffic to your page, which is great.  The article itself can usually get page one status, since article directories are considered to be authoritative pages by the search engines.

If listbuilding is your objective, then your link in the author bio or resource box will need to lead to your opt-in.  If someone clicked on the link in your bio, then they already want to know more about what you have to say about your niche.  In other words, they want to be on your mailing list.

Blog for Fun and Profit

Writing a blog is another great way to draw attention to yourself.  Simultaneously, you can show that you are an authority in your niche and can entice people to join your list on a more personal level.

You can make the blog itself into a list by using RSS feeds.  Including this button on your blog or some other “subscribe now” option can keep people informed of the developments you’ve made or have noticed in your niche.  If you use products like FeedBurner, you get free analytics on your list.  This will help you to more easily add contextual advertising, which can be challenging on your own.

Get Into Joint Ventures with Other Marketers

While marketing can often be a cutthroat business, joint ventures are still a great way to build a list.  As a beginner especially, the saying “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” applies.  The top shelf marketers can be powerful enemies or powerful allies.  It’s your choice.

If you’ve researched your niche properly, you know what marketers you want to team with.  Write them individually, thank them for what you’ve learned from them, butter them up however you choose to, and propose a joint venture.  Do a list swap, and even if you only get as many people as you give, you’ve still doubled your list.

Giveaways are a Great Listbuilding Strategy

Giveaways are pretty much a staple part of listbuilding these days.  The idea is pretty simple:  If you want people to give you their names and e-mail addresses, you have to give them something in return.  Here are some popular ideas for giveaways.

Self help courses or eBooks are a hot commodity.  Whatever your niche, people like lessons in having the right attitude.  You can also provide free webinars on your niche subjects.  You can also provide marketing tools as an additional impetus.  Whatever your giveaway is, it must have value to the customer and cost you virtually nothing to provide.  In this electronic world of information, it’s pretty easy to come by.

Basically, Google changed some of its ranking criteria, and thousands of marketers and other webmasters lost their rankings.  Some of them came back from it after a while.  Others never recovered from it.  Can it happen again?  I’m not banking on it.  Here are some tips to insulate you from this kind of threat.

Listbuilding is Your Friend

Listbuilding isn’t just the key to a successful affiliate marketing career; it’s also your greatest buffer against a de-indexing.  Whether you were justifiably de-indexed or not, having a large and responsive list will keep you in business in the meanwhile.  With a strong list, you don’t need page rank in order to make money.

Your websites don’t go away just because they’re not indexed.  You don’t lose your list, either.  Until your indexing issue gets resolved, your list is one of your greatest keys to keeping afloat in the meanwhile.

Promoting Through Social Media Platforms

Promoting your websites through social media platforms is also a great form of protection against losing your business for losing your rank.  Again, the benefit here is similar to that of listbuilding—you don’t need a high page rank to get traffic to your website.

There are right ways and wrong ways to promote on social media, most of which I’ve addressed at one point or another.  The gist of it is that in order to make social media promotions work for you, you have to consider the long haul.  Spammy techniques just don’t work – not in a quick, immediate sense – or in the long run.  Build trust and authority with your friends, followers or what-have-you, keep making more, and you’ll hardly see a ripple in your profits when Google hiccups.

Build Your Bookmarking Traffic

Nearly everyone has a blog that they use to direct traffic to their website.  What really makes this traffic valuable is people bookmarking the blog.  Those who have bookmarked your blog are your fans, and they’re some highly targeted traffic.  They love what you have to say, and they’re more willing to buy what you promote.

You should have your bookmark tabs highly visible on your blog.  Every so often, you might draw it to your readers’ attention.  The more people who bookmark your site, the more people will get notified when you make a new post.  Your page rank has nothing to do with this.

Ultimately, while it’s in your best interest to use SEO to aim for a high page ranking on Google and the other search engines, it’s also in your best interest to do business as if they don’t exist.  That way, when they decide that you don’t exist, it ain’t no skin off your nose.  You can calmly work on getting re-indexed without fear of a huge plummet in your conversions.

Tweeting About Your Blogging

The most useful thing about Twitter is that you can use it to drive traffic to your blogging site or your other monetized sites.  What it basically amounts to is that you Tweet something to the effect of “My thoughts on…” and provide a link to your website.  Your followers see this, and if they’re interested, follow the link.

Of course, this means that you have to have a list of followers on Twitter.  The great thing about this is that since nearly everyone has a Twitter account, you can just announce that you have one, and everyone that follows your other social media sites will follow your Twitter.  Some, because they already have a Twitter account, and others may create their own accounts to follow yours.

Are the Old Social Media Sites Dead?

Many social media platforms have tools that allow you to import posts from other media sites so that what you Tweet about on Twitter becomes a post on Facebook, Plaxo, Multiply, and so on.  Many people still want the older social media accounts so they can post longer blogs.

From this, it’s easy to see that your more established social media sites aren’t rendered useless by the new micro-blogs.  Some people actually abhor Twitter, just because they don’t want to write little mini-blurbs about their grilled cheese sandwiches.  When your Tweets are imported to these larger sites, you don’t lose the customer base that isn’t impressed by Twitter.

Listbuilding on Twitter—What to Keep in Mind

When you start listbuilding on Twitter, there are some things to consider if you want to impress your new followers.  You don’t want them to think you’re a “spammer.”  Don’t delude yourself. “Spammer” is a loosely given title that people give, and it doesn’t necessarily follow the technical definition.  If you’re a marketer, you’re at risk of being defamed as a spammer.

The first thing people look at when you make a friend request is your previous posts.  Twitter shows up to 20 of them.  A mistake that the actual spammers make is that they make a bunch of friends and immediately flood them with links to membership sites.  It doesn’t snag many users, and it gives marketing a bad name.

Instead, you can make a few small Tweets about your grilled cheese sandwich, your family, and then a link to your blog.  Do this a few more times, and you can start adding your other monetized sites.  The point is that if you start off on Twitter thinking that you’re going to make quick money, you’re wrong.  You have to establish trust with your followers in order to keep making money.

Provide Special Incentives for Your List

The first thing you need to know about keeping your list as a valuable resource is that you should give extra incentives to them to buy products that you have newly launched.  You can do this by providing bonus products and discounts above and beyond what you offer “outsiders.”

You may not always be able to provide discounts, such as in cases where you’re just an affiliate.  This is where offering bonus material comes in.  It’s best if this is niche-related material, either of your own creation or outsourced.

Provide Original Content in Newsletters

Newsletters are a staple in listbuilding.  You will want to keep your list updated with new, original content to keep their interest.  Again, this can either be your own material or it can be outsourced.

The essential idea is to make your list members feel like they’re in a special “insiders club.”  You’ve branded yourself as an expert in your niche.  By joining your list, the members expect to see the proverbial “proof in the pudding.”  By updating your list on the latest trends in your niche, you prove that you’re worth their interest.

With that said, you don’t want to overload your list with daily or hourly updates.  First of all, you can tend to run out of original material quickly this way.  If you’re rehashing the same newsletters within the first month, people will get bored.  Besides that, a lot of the people on your list won’t have the time to read all your messages and will get annoyed.  Weekly or monthly updates are the best compromise between being “in your face” and being aloof.

Build Your List with Teasers

While you’re delivering quality material and products to your list members, you should still build your list.  A great way to do this is to have teasers in your copy.  Don’t just say that you regularly deliver quality tips to members. Everyone says that and potential members expect it.

Instead, if you include a quote from one of your older newsletters and leave it as a sort of cliffhanger, people will want to come in and see the rest of the story.  Highlight your best content, say that it resolved a certain need, and leave an ellipse just before you would normally go on into HOW it fixed the problem.  Engage the viewer’s curiosity, and they will join your list.  Make sure that the link to your opt-in or the opt-in itself is the next thing they see.