"The Lightning Speed Internet Sales Success Course" LESSON #6 © 1997 B.S.A. / F.M. http://web.idirect.com/~bsa/index.htm _______________________________ THE TOPIC: 4 different places on the Internet to find hot, emotional markets, project ideas, partners, free assistance, materials and customers for FREE, in SECONDS! THE ANSWER: 1) Newsgroups See LESSON #10 and LESSON #11. 2) Listservs <<< Excerpt from Internet Consulting Disk #3 >>> GOLDMINES GALORE ! The Listserv Goldmine Awaits Savvy Internet Spies! Listservs are Internet services that automatically send email messages to you on a specific topic. People who are "subscribed" to any listserv, receive all the messages sent into that listserv. Who sends the messages in? Why, the subscribers, of course. When you're subscribed to a listserv list, you can receive anywhere from one to dozens of emails a day. Needless to say, this is a great way to get great infor- mation about specific topics and possibly, to zoom in on some great direct marketing project ideas. Listservs have some advantages over newsgroups ... - they are usually better monitored and more on topic - you don't have to go to them; you subscribe to them and you'll be deluged in email every day - the list owner can easily blacklist idiots - to keep junk, spam and off-topic messages out of the system - if you are using Pegasus Mail, you can set up filters and let each listserv's messages go into a separate folder - some listservs let you subscribe to a "digest" so you get just one big e-mail every day, instead of dozens of little ones - listserv members are more likely to become customers, to offer you advice or assistance on your projects, and to become your marketing partners Some listservs are "send only"; the subscribers cannot send in messages to be re-sent to all other subscribers. But don't worry that you can't post messages to some groups. You are still well-positioned to profit! Remember, you don't need any use for 99.9% of the lists you find. You just have to find one golden nugget amongst the rubble. Here's what you do with listserv lists ... ------------------------------------------ - collect e-mail addresses - find partners for joint ventures - other people who have the existing resources, customers, mailing lists, and techniques to approach your market - collect snail mail addresses - and of course, most importantly, read what the people on the list are SAYING - what are their areas of concern? What are they emotional about? Remember, 100% of all human buying activity is emotional. One hundred percent! Of course, there are some lists that you CAN post to. I found one that has not flamed me at ALL for going onto the list to find contributions for a CD-Rom project. That list has also determined WHAT the project will contain. The members of the list I am subscribed to are actually encouraging me to complete the project and want me to do a great job on it. Many of them have told me that they are eager to buy a copy from me when it is done. But you need to know something: people are hard to motivate. You will have to be persistent if you need help in a project from listserv subscribers. Most subscribers simply want to talk back and forth to one another and have no interest in your direct marketing projects. STATISTICS: ----------- Number of public listserv lists: 9,925 Membership in public and private lists combined: 6,405,271 Total number of messages sent November 13 1996: 14,486,478 Staggering stuff, isn't it? I say go to the markets FIRST, then zoom in on a need, and your success is a LOT more likely than if you finish the project first and THEN try to find ways to reach a market for it. SITES TO VISIT -------------- www.liszt.com - this is the best place to go to browse long lists of listserv lists, and to search for specific lists by keyword. www.lsoft.com/lists/LIST_Q.html - a partial listing of the universe of listserv lists. www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html - another good place to search. A Sampling Of Listservs with 1,000+ subscribers... -------------------------------------------------- DISPATCH@DISPATCH.CNET.COM Digital Dispatch (573,252 subscribers) SHAREWARE-DISPATCH@DISPATCH.CNET.COM CNET shareware-dispatch list (195,127 subscribers) DISPATCH-HTML@DISPATCH.CNET.COM CNET dispatch-html list (45,670 subscribers) TECHLINK@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM The Technology Information Source on the World Wide Web (39,799 subscribers) TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM The Internet TourBus - A virtual tour of cyberspace (39,443 subscribers) EOL-DISPATCH@DISPATCH.CNET.COM E!Mail Electronic Newsletter (38,195 subscribers) PC-GAMES-NEW@DISPATCH.CNET.COM Shareware.com pc-games-new list (35,972 subscribers) NEWS-DISPATCH@DISPATCH.CNET.COM CNET news-dispatch list (32,314 subscribers) MS-WINDOWS3X-TOP@DISPATCH.CNET.COM Shareware.com ms-windows3x-top list (31,738 subscribers) SCOUT-REPORT@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET The Scout Report (31,274 subscribers) WEEKS-WORTH@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Worth OnLine's weekly email newsletter (25,171 subscribers) DOWNLOAD-DISPATCH@DISPATCH.CNET.COM Download.com Electronic Newsletter (23,909 subscribers) NETGIR-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM The NetGirl Forum Newsletter (23,023 subscribers) LSN2@PUBLISHER.SSRN.COM Legal Scholarship Network (18,447 subscribers) INBUSINESS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Internet In Business Discussion List (18,150 subscribers) NEW-LIST@LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU NEW-LIST - New List Announcements (17,804 subscribers) ANSWERMAN@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Answerman Forum Member Updates (17,795 subscribers) PC-GAMES-TOP@DISPATCH.CNET.COM Shareware.com pc-games-top list (16,068 subscribers) FUTURESUPERSTOCK@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM The Future Superstock (14,566 subscribers) WOMENSWIRE-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM Women's wire tells you what's new at its lively web site. (14,295 subscribers) INDIA-L@INDNET.BGSU.EDU The India News Network at BGSU (13,059 subscribers) HECKLERS-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM The Hecklers Online Mailing List (12,169 subscribers) MS-WINDOWS-ALL--TOP@DISPATCH.CNET.COM Shareware.com ms-windows-all--top list (11,591 subscribers) NET-HAPPENINGS@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET Net-Happenings (9,365 subscribers) HUMOR@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU UGA Humor List (9,180 subscribers) FIRSTNEWS@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM FIRST NEWS - Free News Letter on the Internet - (9,166 subscribers) MOMSONLINE@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Moms Online Main Mailing List (9,151 subscribers) ERN1@PUBLISHER.SSRN.COM Economics Research Network (9,099 subscribers) LATE-SHOW-NEWS@AMERICAN.EDU The LATE SHOW NEWS Broadcast System (9,099 subscribers) CHINA-ND@LISTSERV.KENT.EDU China News Digest (US News) (9,077 subscribers) AOLLIVE-NEWSLETTER@LISTSERV.AOL.COM AOL LIVE Member Newsletter (9,017 subscribers) MACINTOSH-NEW@DISPATCH.CNET.COM Shareware.com macintosh-new list (8,740 subscribers) NOVELL-NETWARE-TOP@DISPATCH.CNET.COM Shareware.com novell-netware-top list (8,544 subscribers) AOLSAILFORUM@LISTSERV.AOL.COM AOL Sail Forum Newsletter (8,209 subscribers) DRUM@SERVICES.WEB.AOL.COM NetNoir Online (7,990 subscribers) DATELINE@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Dateline: Starfleet subscription list (7,137 subscribers) CHRISTIANITY-ONLINE@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Christianity Online COnnection newsletter (6,929 subscribers) INDIA-D@INDNET.BGSU.EDU The India Discussion Network at BGSU (6,866 subscribers) CHINA-NN@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU China News Digest (Global News) (6,796 subscribers) ERN2@PUBLISHER.SSRN.COM Economics Research Network (6,459 subscribers) GAMECENTER-DISPATCH@DISPATCH.CNET.COM CNET gamecenter-dispatch list (6,395 subscribers) PM-NEWS@UA1VM.UA.EDU Pegasus Mail Announcments (6,102 subscribers) 3) The Web (see Internet Consulting Disk #2) Most people - even Internet marketers - remain woefully unaware of how to use a simple WEB SEARCH to find emotional markets, partners, ideas, assistance, material and customers for FREE. There's just no excuse for it! All you have to do is go to http://www.altavista.digital.com and use this wonderful free utility. It'll take a bit of practice but it's worth it. My motto is "If it's on the 'Net I can find it in five minutes with Altavista". The other night I was watching "Millennium" and was astonished to hear that Chernobyl is Russian for "Wormwood" and that in Revelations 8:10 in the Bible, it predicts that a star called Wormwood would fall and ruin lots of water and soil and kill people. Seeing as how Chernobyl's nuclear reactor blew up and did just that, this seemed to indicate to me that the Book of Revelations is indeed glaringly accurate prophecy. I was stunned. My left brain required proof that this wasn't just made up for TV. So all I had to do was go to http://www.altavista.digital.com and do a search using this phrase ... +chernobyl +wormwood which showed me all the web sites that contain BOTH the words wormwood and chernobyl. In LESS THAN THREE SECONDS, I was inundated with exactly the information I was looking for. The results were, to say the least, interesting. Now back to information marketing. Let's say you're marketing books on disk and you need partners. You could use the search phrase: "book on disk" or "reports on disk" Yes, you DO need to use the quotation marks in order to find specific phrases. Otherwise, Altavista will show you all the web sites that contain the word "on" and/or all the other words - in other words, you'll get millions of useless responses. In doing web searches, you want 100 sites or less as your result, or you're not being specific enough. It takes practice and some mental gymnastics to find the right words and phrases to get the search results you want. I use Altavista whenever I need to find out anything quickly. If I can't find it there I go to http://www.search.com - which contains many more search engines, whether you're looking for a car, music lyrics, sports trivia, or anything else. 4) E-mail Go to www.cyberwave.com to find out how to do bulk email properly - without endangering your life and getting buried in flames. It's a good way (although we don't personally use it) to blast tens of thousands of emails out in minutes and collect handfuls of good leads - people who can be REMAILED to and won't flame you - and are more likely to buy. Your web site should be very aggressive about collecting the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of prospects. THE MAGIC OF MAILTO: If there's one thing I know about profitable web site publishing it's this: Collecting Names And Addresses Of Qualified Prospects Is Your Number One Priority. A big helping hand in this endeavour can be found at http://icg.resnet.upenn.edu/mailto.html For those of you who do your own html, the following line of code is the secret key ...
That's the magic key that gives you FREE access to a utility that puts neatly organized information about qualified prospects into your e-mail box. I looked for such a free service months ago and gave up hope. I just found this a couple of weeks ago. Visit http://web.idirect.com/~bsa/index6.htm and you will see what I think should be included in an information- gathering page. Also, view the source code to see exactly how it works with the free mailto cgi utility. The emphasis is on free. Free reports. Free information. Free subscriptions. Free email newsletters. This will urge people to send their mailing address, phone number, fax number, etc. Hopefully not too many of them will be completely insincere curiosity seekers. But some of them will be, and that's life. Life on the Internet at least. Prior to using the above free service (graciously provided by Meng Wong at the University Of Pennsylvania) I simply used in my name-collecting pages and it was a collosal pain. When you use the action mailto: in a form, your email box gets filled up with irrelevant information; commas are all replaced with the characters "%2C"; in fact all punctuation is replaced with a percent sign and 2 hexadecimal numbers. It was a bad mess, and thankfully it's now in my past. _____________________________________________________ START YOUR OWN EMAIL NEWSLETTER Get Over 300 Subscribers In 4 Days! This may be the first time in my life somebody told me a little-known fact ("secret") which I followed up on, and actually worked without costing me anything. Quickly. Here's what you do: post a message announcing your brand new email newsletter to NEW-LIST@LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU as follows: a) Announce the name of the newsletter, and how often it will be published. b) Tell them how to subscribe. c) State the purpose of the newsletter. d) State some sample benefits, articles, freebies, secrets and other great things people get if they subscribe. e) You might include some form of hint that you do NOT want the wrong people subscribing just because they like free stuff. f) Tell them AGAIN exactly how to subscribe. Do this, and soon the message will be sent out to I don't know how many hundred people. Your mailbox will start filling up with subscriptions. These may not be the most qualified names in the world - many will be free subscription addicts. That's OK. It's not costing you anything except time anyway and it doesn't take more time to work the plan just because only maybe half of your readers will be urgently in need of your newsletter's contents and greedily devour every word of every issue. The thing is, you don't want to keep adding tons of unqualified people to your email distribution list. Many Internet publishers will tell you it's a numbers game; collect as many email addresses as you can. To me that seems dumb. Why collect email addresses of people who will never care about your messages and/or become your customers? The only thing you can do with a big collection of names is spam the 'Net and bear its wrath afterwards. So as you grow your list over the months, try to get the right people on it. _____________________________________________________ How To Increase Your Email Newsletter's Circulation 1) Give people a REASON to spread your email newsletter around and increase the circulation. How about cash? People tend to like that sort of thing. Of course you don't want to be handing out wads of actual money but you can offer a line of credit to people who help build circulation for you. It's win-win-win - the new subscriber gets great information, someone gets cash credit for your products, and you get a new subscriber. You could really boost your circulation if a few other people did mass mailings to THEIR own email distribution lists helping you announce your newsletter. 2) Make it clear how to subscribe. State it simply in a sentence at the top and bottom of each issue. 3) Post an issue or two of your newsletter to appropriate newsgroups. Add a little note at the top that this is a new free newsletter and urge them to subscribe. 4) Ask other email newsletter publishers to notify their own distribution list of your newsletter. 5) Advertise your free email newsletter on your letterhead, business card, web site, e-mail signature, and so on. 6) Have patience. Expect to slowly earn respect and recognition, by LASTING longer than fly-by-night publishers. Deliver quality, and deliver it constantly. 7) Love what you do ... or you'll hate it. Love the topic of your newsletter and have a true desire to get the information out into the world. 8) If your email newsletter is nothing more than a monthly salesletter, nobody will read it and you'll get flamed.