Armand’s 50 Things: Thing 1
Armand’s 50 Things
One of the biggest questions I get asked whether it’s while traveling around the world speaking or even on my famous “Ask Armand” calls is:
“What would you do if you had to start all over again, from scratch, knowing what you know today?”
In 2013, you will see these 50 things play a big part in my business. These things aren’t only things that I would do, but they are things you should do, too.
During the next year, you will see weekly posts that will be taken from these 50 things. They will be labeled as “Armand’s 50 Things” Thing 1, Thing 2, etc.
Enjoy!
Start to Build a List
I am sure that will surprise many people, but I would not start with a product. Starting with a list would make it easier down the road when I actually start marketing a product and/or a service.
A very easy way to start building a list is with a newsletter. It doesn’t have to be a large one. Just a basic newsletter with a couple of articles will work. You could have two articles and a product review to start it off. You can lay out your newsletter in something as simple as Word and save it as a PDF.
You’ll want to collect the email addresses of those people requesting your newsletter in an autoresponder. The company I recommend for this is one I also own called Sender.info. I have recommended others in the past, but just could not get everything I wanted in them so I went out and searched until I found the easiest and with the most important elements I could think of.
This autoresponder is where you’ll gather your list. You can gather any amount of information, but I usually just ask for name and primary email. If you are going to market events at a later time, asking for a zip code is a good idea also.
With an autoresponder, when someone opts in, their information goes onto the list. You can create a list of messages to market products or to keep in touch with them as they opt in to your list. For example, the list that I would be building in this scenario would be a monthly newsletter. You can do it more frequently if you want, but I’m not that motivated and you need to think about how much work you want to put into this.
You are going to want to set it up so your newsletter is sent out automatically. You could have someone else write your newsletters or you could write them yourself, but I recommend writing them all at the same time for the whole year. You could literally get this done in a matter of a day or two.
You are going to want to set it up so your newsletter is sent out automatically. You could have someone else write your newsletters or you could write them yourself, but I recommend writing them all at the same time for the whole year. You could literally get this done in a matter of a day or two.
Again, they come onto your list today, and 30 days from today they receive another email, but it’s important that it’s automated. Put the emails you’re going to send in the autoresponder and mark it to go out every 30 days from the opt in. Every 30 days it sends them the next newsletter in the queue, then the next one in the queue and then the next one.
So I’d start with a list, and I would start with the list by getting people to opt-in for a newsletter. Basically, it’s just a form that says here’s my free newsletter, and then it has a place for them to enter their name and email address. They hit the submit button, and they hit your autoresponder and are put in the que to start receiving those newsletters.
The autoresponder actually gives you a form code to put on the website to gather those names. If you don’t know how to do that, you can easily go to RentACoder.com. Some people will hire themselves out to set that up for you so you don’t have to worry about it.
