Build An Email List With OmniStar Mailer

Many of you Make Money Onliners use affiliate marketing in order to generate income and I am sure that you have heard that one of the secrets to successful affiliate marketing is having a great “list.”

If you are a budding internet marketer or have been considering building a mailing “list” for any reason then you want to give this review a serious look and see if it could be for you.

Omnistar Mailer

The company we are reviewing is OmnistarMailer and what they have to offer is a web based email marketing software that is capable of meeting all of your mailing list needs. They accomplish this by offering a web based PHP mailing list software package that they claim to be very easy to install.

They got my attention early when I noticed that they are so confident of that claim, that if you cannot get it done with their instructions, then they will install it for you. Free.

We’re off to a good start so far.

They also claim that once it is set up, it requires no technical knowledge from there to use. This is a huge plus for someone like me who doesn’t have the time or inclination to spend hours fiddling with code.

I want a simple and easy to use interface and after using their Demo feature, it appears that Omnistar offers that. Another bonus for someone like me.
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The Blog Promotion Curve

Launching and growing a successful blog takes commitment to several different areas, including promotion. Even blogs with large, established audiences need to be doing some type of promotion in order to keep growing. What’s been interesting to me in my experience with blog promotion is the curve that takes place as your blog develops and your base of readers grows.

Defining the promotional curve

When a new blog is launched, off-blog promotion (anything you do to market your blog that takes place away from your blog itself) is critical. Naturally, a new blog will start with zero readers, and in order for people to subscribe they will first have to find the blog somehow. As a result, new bloggers need to dedicate the majority of their promotion efforts to things like commenting on other blogs, writing guest posts, building social media profiles, building inbound links, etc. These efforts will lead people to the blog, which provides the initial exposure that’s necessary to start the growth process.

As the blog’s audience and subscriber count begins to grow, more time will need to be spent on the blog itself, or those who are arriving as a result of the promotional efforts will not stick around because there is nothing worth seeing. Eventually the blog will reach a stage where the blogger’s time is too valuable to be spending on excessive off-blog promotion, and the priority will curve towards promoting the blog by different means. At this time, activities like content creation, community building on the blog, sometimes contests and other activities will be more productive than the tactics that were used to gain the initial exposure.

How the curve impacts you as a blogger

As a blogger, it’s important to understand the stage of development that you are in. My blog started to really grow last summer when I became very active in writing guest posts for other blogs and gaining exposure in that way. That wasn’t my only method, I also did a good bit of social media marketing, but creating content and managing my blog only took a portion of my time, not all of it. One day I hit the Digg front page and gained over 200 new subscribers. Then it hit me. All of a sudden I felt much more pressure to create the best content that I was capable of, because now I had something to lose if I didn’t.

When you are first launching a blog the biggest challenge is simply being noticed. I think most of us believe that our content is good enough to be appreciated by our target audience, the problem is that they can’t appreciate the blog without ever seeing it. Simply put, your first challenge is to get people’s eyes on your work.
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Taking Design Outside (Away from the Web)

Inspiration can come from all sources, and one of the popular sources is architecture. I don’t want to go into using the lines and flow in buildings in terms of a website, but more of an interior sense, to train your eye to make you the best designer possible.

This is more aimed at serious web and graphic designers that might be looking to take their skills to the next level. We all know everyone can always improve. You may not write some things down on your latest performance review, but personally you always have some self-conscious weaknesses.

To me, the one thing you can train is your “eye”. A simple way to put it is “talent”, but that designer’s instinct is something that is constantly developing in one’s mind and needs to be tended to, so you are always on your game.

You Have it

First, let me say this: everyone has that natural gift of design. You know what looks good to you. That’s all that matters. From there it’s just a matter of execution (your vision in conjunction with other skills, ie software) and how your views line up with the General Public.

So imagine you’ve walked into a restaurant. Say the last sit down place you’ve been, for example.

A Designer Sees…

Someone trained or self taught in the ways of design sees everything different than “everybody else”.

• Colours. Interior design has to have great colour, because they don’t have the luxury of being able to casually whip up gradients and images. So, it makes sense that you have to have colour matching skills like no tomorrow to design interior space.
• Lines. Many interior designs are very linear, for the same reason above. Sure you could soften every edge and have less linear presence, but inside a rectangular prism it is costly and more or less pointless.
• Accessories. The little things, down to the salt and pepper shakers on the table to the outfits the servers are wearing. It all matters, just like every element to a website matters.
• Big Picture. Last week we talked about what you look for in the big picture. Similarly, step back observe this building you have entered. How’s the atmosphere?

Someone Else Sees…

If you’re not observing the table layouts and paint colours, chances are you’re there for food and you’re hungry. In your mind the number one priority is to get in, be seated and start the waiting process for food.

That’s something you have to keep in mind when laying out your space. Just like you have to assume when designing a website that the user will not read things in the order you want them to. Design accordingly.

Newspapers

I love newspapers for their design aspects, and it is actually quite close to web design (especially blog design). We’ve been getting a new one in the mail that aims to sort of bridge the gap between two regions. The content? Garbage. The design? Fantastic.

I’ll be honest in that I hate actually reading newspapers. When I want depressing news of murders and abductions, I’ll turn my TV on. Though I do make a point of looking at every newspaper I come across for a few things:

• Typography. Most newspapers have 90% great typography. I just hate it when they through in a really bad Sans-Serif sub heading for no reason. Ruins the whole paper, if you ask me.
• Lines. Design is all about the lines, whether you seem them or not. A good layout for a paper runs on a nice grid layout that remains somewhat consistent throughout and isn’t broken by images and other features.
• Variety. It’s too bad you can’t find the one formula that works and keep beating the horse until it dies. Nickelback has done this already, so were left to create variations on the themes originally stated. This keeps people interested for longer.

Taking design inspiration from these sources is a great way to create unique designs, but the gold lies changing your perspective. What would you do in the shoes of an interior designer? A newspaper designer? A clothing designer?

Could you use your current knowledge and apply it to something else related to the field? I bet if you spent a week with an interior designer you’d start designing more simple, detail oriented and bold websites. The example runs all over the design world.

I’m not saying the trades are interchangeable, but the insight you can provide yourself by changing your train of thought is invaluable.

Design Thursdays on Blogtrepreneur are brought to you by freelance web designer Connor Wilson. 

The Downside of Starting a Blog for Money

There is plenty of talk online about blogging being an excellent opportunity for the average person to make money online, and I know many Blogtrepreneur readers are bloggers themselves. In general, I agree that there is money to be made for the blogger that is willing to put in the effort and have the patience for real results. However, I also feel that there is a downside to this approach that doesn’t get enough attention.

Of course, most of us as bloggers enjoy talking about the upside and the potential, but I think it’s only fair to present a balanced look at the topic. If you are a new blogger or an aspiring online entrepreneur, I hope you will look at both sides of the issue before deciding if blogging is the right path to pursue in your entrepreneurial efforts. Obviously, what’s right for one of us is not always right for everyone else.

The Dirty Aspects of Blogging to Make Money:

Constant Work – I enjoy blogging, at least as of today. At some point I expect this will change, whether that’s six months from now or six years from now. Making money as a blogger requires constant effort, constant writing, constant idea generation, and constant maintenance. Stop posting and most likely your blogging income will dry up pretty fast.

There are other ways to make money online without this type of constant effort (for a great series of articles see Courtney Tuttle’s keyword sniping). Adnan has also written a few times about pay-per-click marketing, which is a method many affiliate marketers use. Blogging on the other hand, forces constant effort to get on-going results.
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