Co-registration leads are leads generated from people signing up for email lists and clicking an “I’d also like to learn about …” box. Co-registration leads are an often underutilized, yet highly profitable source of traffic. They often get a bad rap from people who don’t understand the business, but that can work to your advantage.

Here are the benefits of using co-registration leads:

They are Inexpensive

You can buy a lead for 20 cents to 40 cents on the low end or about 80 cents on the high end. Contrast this with AdWords traffic. Say you are paying 25 cents a click and you have a 10 percent opt-in rate. That’s $2.50 per email. It’s true that the quality of co-registration leads is lower than people who opt in specifically to your list. Even so, you can very often get high quality co-registration leads at a fraction of what it will cost from other advertising sources.

Few People Understand Co-Registration

A lot of people think co-registration is spam. Others think they never convert. In fact, a lot of people have tried co-registration and lost money. The reality is that they don’t understand how co-registration works. They don’t understand the difference between positive opt-in and negative opt-in (when they check the box to get on your list versus uncheck it), or how crucial the mailing system is to maintaining a relationship with the lead.

When done properly, co-registration can be incredibly lucrative. When done incorrectly, co-registration is often a money losing proposition. The downside to this is that you will have to spend some time learning the ins and outs before beginning. The upside is that there is far less competition on co-registration than other advertising sources.

They Are Scalable

A lot of high-converting, low-competition advertising sources just don’t scale. For example, MySpace ads might have less competition than Facebook’s, but you just can’t get much traffic with MySpace. Co-registration on the other hand is nearly infinitely scalable. If you find a profitable broad market, you can literally buy hundreds of thousands of leads per month. Getting the first $1,000 with co-registration is often harder than going from $1,000 to $10,000.

They Convert

Finally and most importantly, co-registration leads convert. It doesn’t work quite the way most people think, though. Co-registration leads will generally covert after a few well-written emails; not necessarily right away. The people who try co-registration and can’t get it to work usually aren’t approaching it correctly. They are trying to recoup their money too quickly, aren’t mailing new leads quickly enough, or just have bad copy.

The bottom line is that co-registration leads convert, they are scalable, they are inexpensive, and not a lot of people understand them. There’s a lot of room for mistakes, but there’s also a lot of room for profit. If you take the time to understand how co-registration works, you can make a small fortune from it.

Getting high conversion rates is often an incremental process. You start with a sales letter that converts at just 0.2 percent; then through incremental adjustments, experimentation and testing you gradually inch that up to 1- 2 percent, or even as high as 8 percent as some industry leaders claim. Here are a few strategies you can use to increase your conversion rate.

Experiment with Multimedia

There are a few forms of multimedia that have a very good shot of increasing your conversion.

First is the sales video. In general, having a video play automatically when visitors land on your page will increase conversions, provided the video is a good one. It should explain the problem clearly and explain why your product is unique in being able to help your visitor. The video could be you talking to the camera, or it could be a graphical demonstration or even an animation.

Another kind of multimedia that works very well is having a “salesperson” walk onto the screen and explain the benefits of the product. This is done through Flash. Generally, you will need to hire an outside firm to read the sales script and create the Flash animation, which could cost anywhere from $400 to $1,000.

Build a Newsletter

If you aren’t already building a newsletter, you are missing out on perhaps the easiest way to increase your conversion rate. Selling over time is far, far more effective than selling just once. Build a newsletter, provide real value to cultivate customer loyalty, and sell your products repeatedly over time.

Split Testing

You will want to split test just about everything on your website on an ongoing basis. Most importantly, however, is split testing everything that is above the fold. Anything above the fold, including the headline, the pictures by the headline, the layout, the banner, etc., all need to be tested. Test both your email capture page and your sales page. In fact, testing your email capture page often will have a larger influence on your bottom line than your sales pages. Test as much as you can, with getting enough traffic to get statistically significant data as your only barrier.

Brand Building

One often overlooked method of increasing conversions is building your brand. People would rather buy a book from Amazon.com than any other source online, even if the price is cheaper because of Amazon.com’s brand. People know that when they buy from Amazon, they will be taken care of the same can’t be said of some other online bookstores.

This principle applies in all kinds markets. Names of great websites, products and teachers spread through the grapevine in an industry. If someone’s already heard about your product, your conversion rate will be much, much higher. Don’t just look at conversions in terms of statistics. Building your name in an industry by speaking at conferences, doing joint venture deals, and just constantly being a figure in the industry can go a long way towards increasing your conversions.

These are a few powerful strategies for increasing your conversions. With proper testing and experimentation, your conversions can and will rise. Many of the most lucrative websites on the Internet required extensive testing before they became what they are today.

For the last ten years, online newsletters have been one of the most powerful tools available to internet business owners. Today, social media is becoming increasingly more important.

Here are a few tips on how can you write your newsletters in a way that gets people to pass them on through their social media:

Important: Have Your Newsletter on Your Website

Although someone might be able to email someone else a copy of your newsletter, they can’t post the whole thing on Facebook or LinkedIn. In order to make your newsletter easy to share on social networks, you need to have a version of the newsletter on your website.

In fact, some owners prefer to just send short teasers out in their newsletters and have the main article on their website instead. In addition to making it easier to share, they also get more traffic to their website as people have to actually click to get the good stuff.

Useful, Controversial, Funny and/or Timely Content

Post content that people find truly useful and original. Post thoughts and theories that are controversial and against the grain. Be humorous if you can, so long as it doesn’t go against your brand. Finally, post about topics that are timely and related to current topics and events in your industry and in the world.

These are the types of posts that tend to get passed on. Remember that above all else, you’ve got to create content that other people want to pass on if you are going to get your content passed.

Look at your own habits. What kind of posts have you passed on recently? What was it about that post that inspired you to pass it on? Look at your friends. What kind of posts do they pass on? What was special about that post? What do you think inspired them to pass it on? Finally, look at people in your industry. What kind of posts do they pass on?

What you will often find is that among casual friends, funny or newsy content tends to get passed around. Among people more focused in a particular industry, you will find that useful or controversial content about industry topics tend to get passed on more.

Getting Passed On in Social Networks

One way to get passed on is to simply ask. The idea of posting an article on Facebook often doesn’t even occur to someone, though your article may very well be good enough for them to pass it on. Don’t ask too often, but asking to be tweeted or posted on Facebook every once in a while doesn’t hurt.

In summary, make sure you have a copy of your newsletter on your website so it can be passed on. Post useful, controversial, funny or timely content. Every once in a while, ask your readers to pass on a particularly good article to their friends.

Your headline/subject is the most important part of your email. If you don’t have a good headline, your email won’t be opened and the rest of the email won’t even matter. Here are a few tips to writing headlines that are guaranteed to get your emails opened:

Start a Swipe File

Every list owner should have a swipe file of email headlines. It is so easy to start a swipe file that there’s absolutely no reason not to. All you need to do is create an account with a free email service such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail or MSN Mail and then sign up for all the email lists in your industry that you can find.

You will soon be receiving dozens of marketing emails every week. Check this account periodically for headlines that grab your attention and “star” or “favorite” them for later use. When it is time for you to write a headline, all you need to do is go back to your starred emails for ideas.

A Few Proven Headline Formulas

Here are a few email headline formulae proven to generate extremely high open rates:

* The challenge – This one works by directly calling out the user in a challenging manner. Example: “[Name], I’m Putting You on Notice!”

* The controversial opener – Hint that you’re going to share something very controversial in your email. Example: “I’m Gonna Tick Some People Off…”

* Answer a question on their mind – Answer a question people have been wondering about. Example: “Is Good Customer Service REALLY Important?”

* The compelling story – Make the catch phrase of a story the headline. Example: “The Man Who Divorced His Wife to Become a Spammer.”

* A promising how to. Promise to teach the user something they really want to learn. Example: “How to Conquer Your Greatest Creativity Killer.”

* Give against the grain advice – Give someone tips that contradict what everyone else is saying. Example: “What you think is safe is risky – What you think is risky is safe.”

* Important news (or commentary) – Report on an important piece of news or give your opinion on an important piece of news. Example: “Why Facebook’s $50 billion valuation is inflated.”

These are just a few examples of proven headline templates. Writing great headlines is just a matter of figuring out what your users want and learning a few subtle switches that can help catch their attention.

Controversy tends to get email opened. So do how-tos and direct benefits. In other words, if the user believes they will get something by opening the email, they are much more likely to open it.

Get as many emails into your swipe file as possible. Cultivate it, as it can become one of your greatest assets in time. Use your swipe file along with your knowledge of copywriting and who your customers are to write headlines that catch attention and get emails opened.

The best way to sell anything by email is to create a compelling email marketing campaign. A campaign is sending a series of emails to your list and lists of your partners promoting a product. Here is how to craft a successful email marketing campaign in just a few easy steps:

Step 1: Identify and Recruit Partners

You can launch a campaign on your own, only to your own list. Or, you can launch your campaign through your own list and the lists of your partners. Identify who you plan on working with and contact them. A campaign planned just for your list will look very different than a campaign built for the lists of other businesses as you usually have a limit on the number of emails you can send to other lists.

Step 2: Build a Timeline Based on How Many Emails You Can Send

If you are building a campaign for your own list, you might send out 2-3 emails on a minor email campaign and up to 10 emails on a major campaign. If you are building campaigns for the lists of other businesses, you will want to limit your campaigns to 2-4 emails, no matter how large the campaign is.

In the next step, we will go over all the most important phases of an email campaign. For your own internal lists, you will likely go through these stages much more slowly, possibly even one email per stage. For the lists of other businesses, you will condense the process a lot, fitting several steps into a single email.

Step 3: Walk Them Through the Emotional Buying Process

Here are the emotions you want to walk customers through in a successful email campaign:

* Supply proof and credibility. If people have never heard of you, or if they don’t know you enough to trust you, the first and most important step is building up your credibility. People need to know who you are and why they should listen.

* Hint at why this new product or service is so amazing. Give them “the hook,” the most amazing selling point up front.

* Sell the problem. Once they are hooked and want to learn more, dive into the main problem that your product or service will solve. Really bring out the pain of the problem and make it seem like nothing else on the market really addresses the issue.

* Introduce the solution. Again, emphasize why the solution is so amazing. Remember that the sell is both emotional and logical. It should make sense logically why the solution works, but you can also be getting them emotionally excited by painting them a beautiful picture of their potential future if they used your product.

* Keep building up excitement. “The more you tell, the more you sell.”

* Close. Give them a reason why they should buy now rather than later. That can be a time-sensitive discount, or a limit on orders, or any reason you want, but make the close powerful and urgent.

If you follow these steps for launching your email marketing campaign, you will be able to get people excited and ready to buy your product. This formula works for your own list as well as when you’re working with partners.