ok, ok.  So online newsletters have been around for a long time – in fact every decent internet marketer has been using newsletters for years.  But i’m seeing a growing trend in the number of bloggers integrating newsletters into their blogs.

So why are newsletters going to be the next big thing?  Well they are already a big thing.  Newsletters offer a very direct way to reach potential customers.  In fact, I have found newsletters to be my single most powerful sales tool.  If you want to sell anything at all online, consider a newsletter.

The good news is integrating a newsletter into a blog is a piece of cake – its as easy as copy and paste.  Products such as Aweber are great, as they offer a hosted and feature rich solution.    But whats not so easy, is capturing leads and converting these into sales.

Here are my tips:

Capturing Leads

A lead is someone who subscribes to your newsletter.  They have the potential to become a customer and are obviously interested in your product or blog.  The easiest way to capture a lead is to offer an incentive.  For example – “subscribe to my newsletter and recieve a free ebook”.   This is simple, effective and can all be automated.

Converting Leads

You will first need to decide what the purpose of your newsletter is.  Do you want to simply keep referring leads back to your blog? Or maybe you want to sell an info product.  I like to do a bit of both.  Sending newsletter subscribers to my blog time and time again is fairly simple – It just takes a “recent posts” section in the newseller highlighting the best of my blog.  Selling an info product is a little harder and would take many more posts to explain – what I will say however, don’t push a product too hard.  Combine content (such as recent posts) with sales pitch for an effective mailing.

Do you have a newsletter?

P.S – First Peep to @feint me on Twitter gets a $10 GoDaddy Gift Card.  Make sure you follow me so you won’t miss out

I’ve been a bit busy here, I’ve got a few new things in the works. Next week I am going to make an announcement of selling one of my blogs. This will be the biggest blog sale so far, looking forward to it.

If this is your first Comment Friday we give one lucky person a free weekly blogroll spot as our “blog of the week“. Along with that we are also giving that winner 250 entrecard credits.

Anthony brought up a great point about paid posting. I don’t think it’s dead, just in a different form. Some of my posts I don’t “get paid for” but I earn money on. How has ‘paid posting’ changed for you?

My buddy Mike over at Bloggin-Ads is having a bit of a tough time. So unfortunately he has to sell his blog. He’s come under a bit of pressure from the last contest and really just has to sell.

His rss readership is currently at 1375 and posted his traffic as well. The auction has just over a day left with a buy now price of $5,000. That’s a lot lower than we’ve seen some of these blogs go for. I’m sure he’d be happy to stay on as a paid writer for people willing to purchase the blog.

View the sitepoint auction.

Bloggin-Ads Good Bye Contest

As a good bye present, Mike has put together a contest with Market Leverage.

The Prizes

8GB iPod Touch (I want this!!)
$50 Market Leverage Credit Gift Card
$25 iTunes Gift Card

The Rules

There are several ways to enter like joining Market Leverage and writing about the contest and the auction. Since I had already planned of doing both that’s a plus for me. Just want to help this guy out!

Good luck on this contest everyone and spread the word about the blog sale.

Contest ends July 27th, 2008.

Here’s a question – has paid posting died?

I’m talking about sites such as PayPerPost which offered to pay bloggers to post sponsored “reviews” of products and sites.

I logged into my PayPerPost account today.  I haven’t used the service for a long time – I gave up on the concept a while back, and what I saw looked like a graveyard.

The majority of “availiable” opportunities on the PPP site, are for credit cards, loans and other spammish looking sites.  I’m starting to get the feeling that the mainstream advertisers, just like myself, have given up on the entire concept.

So here’s the question – who is still using PayPerPost, ReviewMe or other similar sites?   Has Paid Posting Died?

P.S – Guys follow me over on Twitter.  I have about 20 domains that I want to giveaway and a couple of GoDaddy Giftcards.  Just @ me!  And check out BloggingTheme.com where I’m writing for as well these days.

It’s always a good thing to explore other affiliate networks, even if you are happy with several you’ve already joined. This will only open up different possible revenue streams to you. That’s what I just did with Logical Media. I had really never heard of it before, I just saw another website using them (copied their tracking code). This has allowed me to reach over $100 in earnings already.

Logical Media

Most affiliate networks are similar, but little things set them apart. With Logical Media, their offers seem to set them apart.

Logical Media has interesting offers that I haven’t seen on other networks. Most of them are freebies and free samples, which always seem to convert well for me on It’s All Free Online.

What is good for me is that they have special offers almost daily. These offers run so well on the network that the budget of the campaign often runs out in a day or two.

$25 Sign Up Bonus

It’s always a plus to have incentive with affiliate networks. Not only does it make them competitive, it usually means more benefits and money for us, the members.

With Logical Media they are currently offering a $25 bonus when you sign-up and get approved. The approval process only took about a day or two. It did not require a phone call (those can be annoying).

The downside though, is that the minimum payout is $100. I always like getting paid really as I earn, like with some affiliate networks that pay bi weekly, with low minimums.

However the $25 bonus will definitely help you reach that $100 goal.

Referral Program

Logical Media offers 5% of all the commissions of every approved affiliate that you refer. All Webmasters/Affiliates who sign up through your site/code are tracked in real time through the Logical Media tracking system. If they sign up and are approved, you become a Super Affiliate for their account.

Logical Media – Make Money!

I’ve used VistaPrint before to get my own promotional items. Customized t-shirts can be expensive, but not that bad if you get them for free. Vista Print offers several items for free, but the catch is you usually have to pay for shipping.

VistaPrint Free Shipping Deal

Now through July 24th, 2008, VistaPrint is offering free shipping for those spending $30 or more.

If you’ve been putting off getting a few t-shirts made, or want to take your offline business campaign to another level with business cards or small giveaways, now is the time.

I could easily spend $30 just on promotional items for this blog! With free shipping you could pick up a few free items as well as save a load with the shipping.

VistaPrint Freebies

Here is a list of free things you can get from VistaPrint:

• 250 Free Business Cards
• 100 Postcards
• 25 Small Magnets
• 1 Small Car Door Magnet
• Free T-Shirt
• 10 Invitations
• 10 Letterheads

Have you used VistaPrint?

Visit VistaPrint.com…Customize Your FREE T-Shirt Now!

We’ve been letting you know about quite a few plugins lately. We wrote about 5 WordPress Plugins That Will Make Your Blogging Easier. That included WordPress plugins like No Self Pings and others. We didn’t mention however WPAds.

WPAds vs OIOPublisher

OIOPublisher is like a souped up WPAds. However, it does cost money, and some bloggers aren’t willing to pay for it. I only bought it using our Blogging Best Buys coupon code and saved money on the purchase.

If you can’t buy OIOPublisher than WPAds is a great alternative.

WPAds Features

WPAds basically allows you to easily rotate banners, text links or really whatever you want to do. Simply enter in the code of the banner or link that you wish to run. Then give it a zone. If you wish for your ads to rotate, simply put several banners in the same zone.

Then enter the code wherever you want whether it is in a post or in the template itself. It will look something like this:

<‘?php wpads(‘Test Zone’); ?’>

You can also choose to have one banner show more times than the other. This is a plus over OIOPublisher which doesn’t have this feature (as far as I know). This allows me to advertise different things and helps me find out which really work.

WPAds is a great monetization tool for new bloggers not looking to spend the money for OIOPublisher. Even using OIOPublisher, you may still find a need for WPAds.

Download this plugin.