This is a simple technique that anyone can use to grow a mailing list, all you need is an autoresponder (such as my favourite, aweber.com) and an eBay account.

You’ll remember the video I created recently showing how I use eBay to drive traffic to my forex website, here is the link if you missed it:

Building a mailing list without a website uses a similar method to encourage our auction viewers to visit our eBay ‘about me’ page but instead of then directing them to visit an external website we simply include an opt-in box on the ‘about me’ page and offer a relevant free gift as an incentive. (Please note that opt-in boxes are not allowed in auction listings but eBay does tolerate them in classified ads and on ‘about me’ pages.)

After watching the video several subscribers asked me how I insert a clickable link to my ‘about me’ page in my auction description.

The answer is a piece of HTML code;

<a href=”http://members.ebay.co.uk/aboutme/YOUREBAYID/”><span style=”font-size: large;”>Visit my <span style=”color: #00429a;”>M</span><span style=”color: #ff0010;”>E</span> page for your valuable <span style=”color: #ff0010;”>FREE gift, </span><span style=”color: #000000;”>Click HERE </span></span></a>

Simply insert your eBay ID in place of YOUREBAYID and make sure you customise the code with the eBay site you use (mine is .co.uk) it is then just a case of copying and pasting the code into your description.

I know it looks complicated but it is really quite simple when you understand how it works.

Learning how to use basic HTML code is an essential skill for the internet marketer and eBay seller and there is an excellent eBook on the subject written by Dan Thompson. (Dan is a partner in d9 Hosting, my favourite web host.)

‘Basic HTML’ shows you how to put together the code to create the exact effect you are looking for.

Maybe you want to change the size of the font, the background or text colour or perhaps insert an image, with ‘Basic HTML’ you can quickly learn how to achieve all of this and much more.

This 35 page guide is written in an easy to follow, step by step manner without using any techie jargon.

Click to download your copy of  ‘Basic HTML’ with my compliments.

(nothing to pay and no opt-in required!)

You’ll be aware that eBay rules prohibit links to your websites in auction descriptions, well here is a sneaky way around this rule;

eBay allows you to include an email address in your description (to enable auction visitors to obtain further information about the item described) the idea is to include an email address @ your domain.

For example; support@forexexplanation.com (forexexplanation.com is the website you want your auction visitors to visit)

Why not make the domain stand out by changing the size and/or colour of the font?

Like this; support@forexexplanation.com

Another technique I use to drive traffic to my websites is to match the eBay ID to my domain name, in this case I am using the eBay ID ‘forexexplanation’ again some auction visitors will pop the name into their web browser and visit the site.

These methods work, I have built a mailing list of people interested in making money trading forex (a very hot niche on eBay) using these exact techniques and so can you.

Having built your mailing list how do you use it to generate further income?

Look out for my next newsletter where I will share the methods I use to build a profitable relationship with my subscribers.

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!

Click here to watch a short ‘Final Word’ video on Multi Profit Websites.

This is time sensitive material and must be watched before the end of Tuesday November 3rd 2009.

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!

I’ve just been advised by John Thornhill and Dave Nicholson that Multi Profit Websites is to be taken off the market at midnight on Tuesday 3rd November.

John and Dave explain that they are taking this surprising action “so we can look after our current members and assess the marketplace”

They went on to tell me that IF Multi Profit Websites returns to the marketplace the price will be “significantly more”

It is clear that Multi Profit Websites has been a huge success, and reading between the lines I think John and Dave have realized that they have seriously misjudged the marketplace and the demand for the product and have concluded that they could have sold it successfully at a much higher price.

As far as my own promotion of the product is concerned I filled all of my special bonus coaching slots within 4 days!

Here are a couple of emails from subscribers who wasted no time in securing their bonus coaching places;

“Dear Mr Turnbull,

Great, nay stupendous news! Had to dance round the living room to the hazard of cats, children and furniture! Look forward to beginning work.

Kind Regards,

Anne Smith”

and;

“Hi Stuart,

Thank you for your e-mail confirming the help that I can expect from you in building my first MPW website, from what I’ve seen so far it looks pretty exciting. I’m hoping to have a really good look at it on Sunday/ Monday. Though I’ve been watching and reading up on IM for some months now, this will be my first real step into the unknown. (I’ll understand if you wish to withdraw your offer at this stage Stuart!). By the way, I hope everything is ok at home now and your wife is fully recovered from her stay in hospital.

I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

David Husbands”

OK, so how do I assess this latest development?

I believe that it presents you with a very small window of opportunity, if you have been thinking about investing in your own future in IM by buying Multi Profit Websites you need to spend some time in the next 24 hours carefully considering whether you are going to grasp this opportunity while you can or whether you are going to do nothing and lose the opportunity for ever (certainly at this price).

I think my role in your deliberations should be to help make your decision a little easier and to that end I have decided to open up 5 more of my special bonus coaching slots!

I certainly won’t be offering dedicated, one to one coaching for free again so now really is the time to take a long, hard look at your online aspirations and decide whether Multi Profit Websites can help you achieve them.

As a further aid to your decision making here is a list of FAQ’s;

Q: Do I have to pay a recurring monthly payment to use MPW?

A: No, MPW is a one off payment, there are no recurring charges.

Q: What about future updates?

A: There are no charges for future updates.

Q: I’ve tried and failed to make money from websites in the past, would MPW help me do this?

A: Absolutely! Anyone with any skill level from complete beginner to experienced marketer can benefit from MPW as it allows you to churn out lots of sites in a short space of time all ready monetized, all you have to do is drive traffic to them and you will make money.

Q: What additional costs are involved?

A: Each website requires a domain name (around $9 per year) and hosting (there is a special hosting deal for all MPW users)

Q: Can I run MPW on sub-domains?

A: Yes!

Q: Are there any limits to the number of pages I can build per site?

A: No!

Q: Will MPW sites achieve search engine rankings?

A: The MPW admin panel enables you to make your site totally unique and include a description and keywords to optimise for the search engines, in this way MPW sites are no different to any other sites.

Remember, Multi Profit Websites work, I have tested the product, created 2 sites and made money.

The concept is simple, if you can bring attractive, feature filled websites and targeted traffic together you will make money, it really is as simple as that and Multi Profit Websites allows ordinary people like you and me with no website building skills whatsoever to achieve this.

The time for talk is over, it is now up to you;

• read (or re-read) my Special Newsletter review
• watch my video; ‘eBay and Multi Profit Websites’
• check out my bonus page with the links to my MPW sites
• make your informed decision.

If you need any help or guidance at all please don’t hesitate to leave a comment on this post, I will respond immediately in view of the time constraints involved.

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!

If you want to buy Multi Profit Websites use the Bonus link at the bottom of this post (I’m offering a unique and strictly limited opportunity to partner with me!)

I have spent the last week reviewing Multi Profit Websites the new product from John Thornhill and Dave Nicholson.

Multi Profit Websites (MPW) is a product that enables anyone, and I do mean anyone, to create a unique website targeted to any niche you can think of in a matter of minutes.

As you know I am not at all ‘techy’ minded in fact I have often been described as ‘inept’ when it comes to anything of this nature! However, MPW is so simple to use that you really can create your own unique website with no technical skills whatsoever.

To prove it I used MPW to build ‘The Stuart Turnbull Newsletter‘ site. I bought a domain name (stuartturnbullnewsletter.com) added it to my hosting account, uploaded the MPW files to the domain and then started customizing the site using the admin control panel. No coding knowledge of any kind is required, I am not exaggerating when I tell you that my ten year old daughter could master it!

I spent an initial twenty minutes adding my Adsense, ClickBank, Amazon and eBay affiliate codes and my Aweber list details to the opt-in box. A further twenty minutes has been spent adding a few affiliate banners.

OK, So MPW is easy to use and quick but how can it create sites targeted to any niche?

Simple! It uses RSS feeds to provide fresh, targeted content.

You pick a niche, search Google for blogs/websites in this niche that provide RSS feeds and then insert the RSS feed URL into the MPW admin control panel, the result is niche specific content that updates itself! (just like I have done with my blog RSS feed – click on the ‘latest news’ button above.)

MPW provides an easy, fast, cost effective way to churn out an unlimited number of niche websites each monetized in several different ways, if you then add targeted traffic into the mix you have a business!

“That’s great, Stuart but how do I send targeted traffic to my sites?”

The easy answer is to take your sites to the traffic and this, of course, means eBay.

eBay is still the place where millions of people from all over the globe converge when they want to pick up a bargain.

There are hundreds of thousands of profitable niches on eBay and MPW gives you the opportunity to make money in any/all of them.

I’ve created a video to show you a step by step example of this strategy

Click  here to visit Multi Profit Websites, watch the videos and  if you still have any questions about how you can use Multi Profit Websites in your business then don’t hesitate to comment on this post and I will get straight back to you.

You can grab yourself a ton of ‘eye watering’ bonuses if you invest in Multi Profit Websites through my link Here

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!

The Stuart Turnbull Newsletter has a new home!

Check out video 1 and video 2 For the full story.

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!

This blog post is an example of my email newsletter sent regularly to subscribers only. If you would like to receive my newsletter use the opt-in box at the bottom of this post.

It’s been a bit of a week!

I’ve experienced life’s highs and lows; I’m delighted to note an increase in sales as the days begin to shorten and the weather deteriorates. More people spend more time online as summer becomes a distant memory and autumn kicks in and this brings a welcome boost to people like you and me who earn a crust online.

I received a phone call on Saturday morning from the hospital to tell me that my wife had suffered a fall resulting in a broken shoulder.

She tells me that she slipped on a wet floor and the pain is excruciating. Apparently this particular injury is more painful than a broken arm or leg because the area cannot be completely immobilised with the traditional plaster cast, she must battle on with a sling and very strong pain killers.

I’m shocked and dismayed that a patient can enter hospital for a ‘routine’ procedure and suffer an additional, serious injury whilst there, can you recommend a good personal injury lawyer!

Anyway, back to business, I’ll try to keep this ‘on theme’, I haven’t got long before the kids finish school and my work drops way down the list of priorities then!

Thank you for taking the time to complete my survey, it may only have taken three or four minutes of your time but it provides me with incredibly useful information.

I won’t share the full results just yet as responses are still coming in but I want to promise you that I will act on all of the feedback I receive and I will use this newsletter to tackle the themes and issues that you have told me you want information and advice about.

Click here if you missed it last time (it really does only take a few minutes of your time)

One of the survey stats that stands out is 73.4% of respondents are not building a mailing list.

As online marketers we are forever being told that we ‘must build a list’ and ‘the money is in the list’ but nobody is prepared to actually explain what this means in simple terms and how we actually go about doing it (without charging several thousand dollars for one to one coaching or mentoring)

Firstly let me start by explaining what ‘a list’ is.

A list is purely and simply the contact details of your customers. Whether you operate a small eBay store or you own a chain of ‘brick and mortar’ shops if you aren’t recording the contact details of your customers then you are leaving money on the table. It really is as simple as that.

There is no mystery and nothing complicated about it, if you can communicate with the people who have bought (or expressed an interest in) your products then you will make more money.

Think about how you come to be reading this email today;

at some time (maybe yesterday, maybe a year ago) you gave me your name and email address in exchange for some information.

This is one of my regular messages containing useful and engaging content (I hope!). Occasionally I will also recommend a relevant product that I have used or reviewed and if you buy the product I get paid.

My list grows over time and so does my income.

As I said; no mystery, nothing complicated, it just works.

To put the importance of list building into perspective approximately half of my online income comes directly from my list.

OK, so you know what ‘a list’ is and the benefits of having one but how do you start?

The first step is to collect email addresses and the most common way of doing this is to put an ‘opt-in’ form in front of your customers. This is simply a box on a webpage or a paper form in a brick and mortar shop that collects an email address (and usually a name) in exchange for some benefit.

The incentive could be a free report (eBook) or free entry into a competition to win a valuable prize, it doesn’t really matter what the incentive is so long as it is relevant to your customer and has a worthwhile perceived value.

You can see an example of an opt-in form at the bottom of this post.

The next step is to build your relationship with your customer by sending regular emails that engage, inform and entertain.

Having successfully established rapport and won your customer’s trust you can move to the next stage which involves product recommendation.

Now there is one tool that makes all of this possible, the autoresponder.

Before I go on, let me be quite clear, you cannot build and communicate effectively with your list without an autoresponder, it is an essential piece of kit.

There is no need to be scared of using an autoresponder, it is like any other tool, once you are familiar with it it becomes second nature.

There are several autoresponders on the market (just Google ‘autoresponder’) so how do you choose which one to buy?

I can only speak from personal experience but having used Aweber successfully for the last couple of years I can vouch for its simplicity and the quality of its service and support.

Aweber isn’t the cheapest option but I (and the marketers whose opinions I trust) believe it is the best option.

Think very carefully before you choose your autoresponder, your list will become your most valuable business asset, bar none, and I have spoken to trusted colleagues who started with a budget autoresponder but decided to switch to Aweber when their lists became substantial and they realised that many of their emails just weren’t getting through (Aweber’s relationship with the major email services means they have the highest delivery rates in the business).

Because Aweber requires a ‘double opt-in’ (you put your email address in the opt-in box then you receive an email requiring you to click a link to confirm your request for information thus drastically reducing spam complaints) my colleagues lost thousands of subscribers when transferring their lists.

Click here to check out Aweber;

(yes, this is my affiliate link, if you buy I receive a commission)

You can watch tutorial videos that explain how everything works and take part in live online webinars to learn everything you need without actually signing up for the service or parting with any money.

I’m afraid the clock has beaten me today and it is time to put my ‘Dad’ hat on!

next time I will explain how to build a list even if you have no websites and what to say in your emails.

Thanks for reading, as always your comments are very welcome.

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!

I hope this blog post finds you in good health, I’m sorry if my thoughts seem a little disjointed today, I have my laptop on the ironing board and I’m ironing school uniforms as I write!

You see my wife is in hospital so it’s all hands to the pumps! Often, it’s only when a person isn’t there that you realise how much they do and how easy it is to take them for granted.

My kids are a great help, I have two teenage boys who keep the gardens tidy, vacuum the house and car and my ten year old daughter is a little star, last night she bathed her five year old sister then blow dried her hair! I’m not much use with long hair, I have very little of it left myself so my brush and hairdryer skills leave a lot to be desired!

Anyway, enough of my domestic strife.

I hope you are working towards your online ambitions and enjoying success, if, however, you are struggling to decide which is the best business model for you then I know exactly how you feel.

Sometimes the sheer variety of different money making ideas can be quite overwhelming and it is so easy to become trapped in a vicious circle of trying new ideas only to find that the latest idea doesn’t work for you and you move onto the next one.

My own online business started some years ago with eBay and this is still a great place to learn what people want and how to present your products professionally to delight your customers. There seems to be a lot of negative press about eBay and how it is in decline but the bottom line is that it still draws a huge amount of targeted traffic and this is the life blood of any online business.

To paraphrase the classic Mark Twain quotation “The reports of its death are greatly exaggerated” if you are looking for an online business model that works then you could do a lot worse than try eBay.

I’ve just finished reading a new eBook about making money on eBay, and before your eyes glaze over at the thought of another ‘get rich on eBay’ eBook let me tell you that this one is different.

The $50 a day auction challenge

Firstly this isn’t a ‘get rich on eBay’ guide, when I see a headline that promises vast, easy profits I run a mile and suggest you do likewise. No, this guide caught my attention because it promises to show me how to make $50 per day on eBay. I like this because it fits in with my overall business strategy of developing lots of small income streams.

I find there is a lot of pressure online to make huge sums of money, if you are a regular IM forum visitor like me you’ll know what I mean, there are so many people claiming they make hundreds of dollars a day that it is quite easy to develop an inferiority complex and start believing you are a failure if you aren’t making the same.

Try not to get caught up in this, if you can learn how to make $1 per day online you are ahead of 95% of the population, and if you can make $1 you can make $10 and so on until you achieve your own personal target.

The second reason why this eBook caught my imagination is that it is written by an eBay PowerSeller who practices what he preaches and I have seen his eBay account and can vouch for this.

Yes, this method takes a bit of hard work to set up but I’m fine with that, I prefer products that are up front about the work involved. In fact I always give a wide berth to products that promise easy money, my experience has taught me there is no such thing.

So, you’ve found an online business model that works, what next?

Work at it, give it 100% focus and only do the things that contribute to it.

Test and Tweak.

Once it is running smoothly and earning consistent profits look to outsource the tedious day to day work and use your time to set up your next income stream and so on.

As always with ClickBank products there is a 60 day money back guarantee so you can give this the once over with no risk whatsoever.

The $50 a day auction challenge

.

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One of the most important characteristics you must develop if you want to prosper online is;

cynicism.

Now I don’t mean this in a negative way, if you assume that every online product and offer is a scam you’ll never discover new ideas or learn new skills. No, what I mean is a healthy cynicism so that you get into the habit of challenging the claims of online vendors and looking behind the hype and BS that proliferates on the internet.

Let me give you a personal example. Some months ago I decided to expand my online activities by buying exclusive rights to an eBook that appeared to be a perfect fit for my niche.

The material I invested in was advertised on the ‘Sitepoint’ marketplace as a ready made website that included a domain name, sales and download pages plus eBook that I was told had been written exclusively for sale through the website and I was assured I would own 100% exclusive rights to it.

All I had to do was add the domain to my hosting account, upload the pages to my webspace and submit the eBook to ClickBank and I would have a new income stream in double quick time!

Of course things didn’t quite work out as I planned. Before offering the product for sale I decided to give it as a gift to reward my loyal subscribers and it was one of my subscribers who pointed out that my ‘exclusive’ eBook was in fact identical to another marketer’s product.

You can imagine my feelings whan I discovered that I’d been scammed, I was hugely embarrassed to think I had given a pirated eBook to my readers and I was hundreds of dollars out of pocket.

Now this experience hasn’t put me off buying goods and services online but it has made me a lot more cautious. I now exercise a healthy cynicism whenever I am reading a sales pitch. I don’t believe everything I read and I try to buy from trusted sources or on the recommendation of people I trust.

You should develop this habit too because it is a sad fact of life that not everybody we do business with online is as honest and trustworthy as ourselves. Sometimes our familiarity with the internet lulls us into a false sense of security which unscrupulous operators take advantage of.

I am sure that I wouldn’t be such an easy victim in an offline transaction, the face to face nature of the offline purchase where we spend real cash money somehow makes us more wary, more likely to challenge the shopkeeper if we aren’t 100% sure about our purchase.

That said, if you take a look at Ray Johnson’s Adswap Masterclass

At first sight it looks like your typical, over hyped product launch. I would urge you, however, to look beyond the hypey sales copy because this is one of those new ideas I mentioned earlier.

I know Ray Johnson personally and I can assure you that there is more than enough quality, free content in Ray’s Adwsap Masterclass to teach you how to use adswaps to build your list (and don’t forget a well managed list is like money in the bank, forever) and provide all of the tools necessary to do so.

Of course Ray offers various levels of paid membership (we all have to make a living, right?) but you can take and use Ray’s expertise to build your business without parting with a single cent.

Remember what I said about following trusted recommendations?

I’ve reviewed Ray’s product and you can trust me when I say that it is worthy of a closer look and I certainly would not risk my reputation with you by recommending a product I hadn’t tried myself.

Take a look and let me know what you think, Adswap Masterclass

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season, I had a very enjoyable 2 week break followed a week later by a long weekend. When I’m away I take a complete break from work partly because it’s not fair on my family if I’m preoccupied with work and partly because I’ve recently cancelled my mobile broadband service which was proving too unreliable.

Anyway, I’ve spent this week getting back into the swing of things and I thought a blog post to bring you up to date  was long overdue.

My Twitter eBook Twitmasterclass is now live on ClickBank, there is a $10 launch discount so take a look if you are interested in using Twitter to boost your business (I have included an unadvertised bonus that is worth the price of the eBook on its own).

About a month ago I came across Tony Shepherd’s Quit Your Job in 90 Days and I can honestly say that I had a ‘Eureka moment’ reading this free report.

Now I have spent a lot of money on internet marketing eBooks, courses, personal coaching etc and since I got serious with it just over a year ago I’ve worked hard to put what I have learned into practice and I have had some success. What I found, however, is that all of the eBooks and courses tended to focus on list building strategies and the technical side of list building with plenty of guidance on using Aweber but none of them explained what to do with your list when you’d built it!

Well here at last is a report that does exactly that, Quit Your Job in 90 Days sets out a step by step plan that does indeed describe how to build a list quickly and cheaply from scratch (without having to write your own eBook) but unlike the others it then explains how to effectively monetise that list, in other words it tells you what to send out to your list and when to send it for maximum sales.

Like I said, reading this was a huge leap forward for me, now that I have tested the methods I know that I have missed out on a lot of money that I could have earned if I’d followed these ideas from day one but at least I now have a tried and tested strategy in place to monetise my future lists.

If you are serious about growing your own internet marketing business then you need Quit Your Job in 90 Days, Tony values it at $97 and having read it I know the ideas it contains will make me many times this amount but you can get it here for free.

Sorry to go on about it but I genuinely think this is the best thing I have ever recommended.

Do please let me know what you think of Tony’s free report by leaving a comment.

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!

Touch the ‘untouchables’!

This is the final part of your twitter mini-course and I have saved the best to last!

Twitter is brilliant for raising your profile or finding skilled professionals to outsource your work to, Twitter’s greatest strength, however, is its ability to cut through the layers of bureaucracy that usually surround and protect the big players in your particular niche and allow you to contact them DIRECTLY.

If you think about the people who dominate your niche, for example, the top internet marketing ‘gurus’ you would find it very difficult if not impossible to pick up the phone and call them or send them an email and get a personal response.

No, because these powerful, influential people have tens of thousands of customers it is impractical to be available to all, so they employ people and systems to handle these personal interactions and therefore protect their time.

Life on Planet Twitter is very different!

Anyone can search for the name of their ‘top person’ and follow them, read their Tweets, send  direct responses to them and in this way build a relationship. This ability to network and build relationships is unique to Twitter and is, I believe, its greatest strength. 

This is such powerful stuff that I want you to go back and read part 5 again.

Twitter has completely rewritten the rules on social networking, if you don’t get up to speed you will be left way behind so get Twitmasterclass NOW and take advantage of my launch special.

If you have enjoyed reading this post, pop your details in the boxes and I will send you my regular email newsletter absolutely FREE!