Multiple streams of automated Internet income:

By Terry Dean
Posted Sunday, August 15, 2004

I sent one email.

Twenty-four hours later I had earned $10,185.

That's a pretty good day.

I sent another email a couple of months later. This email brought in a total of $31,185 in 96 hours.

That's a pretty good weekend in anyone's book.

The funny thing is that you can duplicate my results...if you follow my lead.

As I'm sure you've figured out by now, these weren't just any old emails. They were special.

They were both sent to my opt-in email list.

Each of these emails went out to over 30,000 people, but it took only one click of the mouse and one actual email leaving my box to generate the income.

An opt-in email list is the exact opposite of a bulk email list. Everywhere you turn online someone is sending an email into your inbox about how you can earn big money online by buying 1,000,000 email names you can send email to.

Don't do it! Purchasing email lists and mailing to them is called Spamming and will get your ISP and web site shut down. You'll also earn the dreaded reputation of a spammer.

An opt-in email list is one where the recipients have requested for you to send them email. It may be an ezine, a free email course, a customer list, or anything else you can use to build relationships with your prospects and customers by email.

Spam is based on generating and sending out sales letters to as many people found online.

Opt-In email is based on building relationships with thousands of people at one time.

If your web site is not taking advantage of opt-in email in one fashion or another, then you are losing out on as much as 90% of your potential income.

You are making the same mistake I did the first year I was in business. Instead of working to build an opt-in email list, I was just trying to make one-time sales from my web sites.

Sure, I had times where I made some money that first year (not much), but I wasn't building any long term value into my business.

The #1 asset in your business is not your products, your talents, or your web site traffic. Your #1 asset is the number of strong relationships you build with your prospects and customers.

Email is perfect for doing this. To send a letter to over 30,000 people would cost a bare minimum of $15,000 and that's being very conservative. I would break out in cold sweats if I had to fork out that much money every time I wanted to contact my list with an offer.

I don't think I would be able to sleep for days if that much was riding on a one-shot opportunity!

Sending out an email to 30,000 people is free except for a small fee I pay for online access and the database system it's running on.

In a year where there has been one dotbomb failure after another...the small guys are still profiting.

A major reason for this is opt-in email. We've figured it out, and large companies are still in the dark.

It's not about the traffic. It's not about the branding. It's about the relationship.

Having an opt-in list takes you away from having a one-shot sales opportunity or one stream of income. It opens you up to earning multiple streams of income from one web site.

Our list earns us 7 streams of Internet Income...

Income Stream #1: Special Offers

The two examples I gave you at the beginning of this article are from special offers we have done. Although we normally send out content in the form of articles, questions & answers, etc. to our list, we also send out special offers every 2 to 3 months.

These special offers go out with nothing else in the email to distract our readers and produce the most income in the least amount of time. We keep them rare though so as to not "waste" the relationship we've built up with our readers.

They're a great way to generate a lot of cash flow in a short period of time (please note that they must really be specials and not some offer you regularly run).

Income Stream #2: Selling My Products

The second income stream for our opt-in email list is the income we generate from selling our own products to the list. We post a quick welcome message to our subscribers and then post a quick note about one of our products usually at the very top of most of the issues which go out.

Our opt-in email list is the primary driver of our web site sales. Our response rates are actually much higher by using our web site to generate subscribers more than anything else...instead of going for a sale right from the site on a prospect's first visit.

Income Stream #3: Joint Ventures

One of the most valuable joint venture partners you can ever find is an ezine owner with a large email list. They have an audience and they are in constant need of high quality products and services to sell to their list.

As an opt-in email publisher, I regularly contact product sellers and negotiate to sell their products and services to my audience. Guess what? As a person with a large list, I'm able to command a much higher percentage of the profits than what the average individual receives in a deal such as this.

Whereas most affiliate programs pay 10% to 30% commissions, I'm usually looking for at least 50% of the sales price when I contact someone to joint venture their product to my list. You won't have this luxury if your list is small, but it will start happening more and more as your business grows.

Income Stream #4: Affiliate Programs

Just because I do special joint venture deals doesn't mean that I don't join affiliate programs from time to time. I still do, but it usually isn't just to sell the product.

I specifically go out of my way to look for affiliate programs who provide you with good content and articles that you can use to promote them with. You can accomplish two goals at one time by joining these programs.

You get content already written for you for your opt-in email publication, and you get to earn profits from the affiliate program for running the article.

Income Stream #5: Sponsor Ads

A sponsor ad runs at the top of my ezine before the main article in every issue. In some cases these will be ads for my own products, but in many cases they will be ad spaces that I traded someone for.

We could easily sell this space, and most ezine publishers do, but we find it more profitable to use it in bargaining for space with other publishers. Then we simply trade ad for ad to keep our own ad expenses down.

If you sell this space, it is the most valuable section of your publication and usually commands a price of around $5 to $20 per 1,000 subscribers or more. If you're thinking about pricing the space, then I recommend selling one of your own products or doing a joint venture to determine the value of this space in your specific publication.

Income Stream #6: Classified Ads

Classified ads in opt-in email publications are losing value and are being replaced by having one to four sponsorship positions spread throughout the content.

People still buy them though and you can easily use classified ad space as a bargaining chip for trading ads or as bonuses with products you're selling (for example, give a free classified ad to anyone who buys one of the affiliate program products you're recommending).

Income Stream #7: Membership Site Upgrade

This is an income stream from opt-in email that most publishers never even think about. Email publications are usually sent out free, but this doesn't mean you should be giving away your very best content free.

Information is valuable and customers are willing to pay for it if it is unique and difficult to find information.

So many publishers have found themselves another incredible stream of income. They've started up paid membership sites to provide the most exclusive content to only paid subscribers.

For us, we've created the Netbreakthroughs site which contains all our special training reports and our weekly ad tests (showing results we're receiving from our own advertising).

Take a look at it at: (http://www.netbreakthroughs.com/)

Most publishers will find that they can create a backend private membership publication like ours for their email list. This expands their income with a totally new income stream you've probably never even thought of before.

About the Author
Terry Dean, a 5 year veteran of Internet marketing, will Take You By The Hand and Show You Exact Results of All the Internet Marketing Techniques he tests and Uses Every Single Month" Click here to Find Out More: (http://www.netbreakthroughs.com/)