Just got my first subscriber!! Here is how I did it!

Hey Warriors,

I decided to jump into the Internet marketing mix about two months ago in a niche that NO ONE is doing... wait for it... wedding planning. I am a videographer and entrepreneur by heart. My main income comes from filming and editing weddings. I have been sick of the service based business model and wanted to sell products. Needless to say I am not an inventor. So, I figured I'd try info products in my unique niche and try Internet marketing.

I took on a partner (wedding planner) who handles content creation, and I do the website stuff (wordpress, SEO, sales page copy, etc) and the marketing. Here are the the steps we have taken so far and money we have spent. I am hoping to shed some light on anyone interested in getting started. FACT: It's been more time consuming (and more expensive) than I imagined and I don't even create the content and haven't purchased any advertising yet (FB or Adwords).

Start Up Expenses:
Filing LLC (used legal zoom was $99 plus NJ state fees and $50 fee for them to file EIN #): $352.95
Domain Name (from godaddy): $13
Hosting (per year thru godaddy): $108
Wordpress Template (studio press): $75
Logo (LogoSauce.com - offers competitions and you can get an AMAZING professional logo to choose from for 20% of what it would cost a designer): $275
Email Marketing (aweber up to 2500 names): $269 pre-paid the year otherwise would be $30/month
DAP (membership plugin/shopping cart): $167
Instabuilder (sales page/landing page creator plugin): $47
PO Box $64/yr
Graphic River (templates for some graphics including a template to create my first free report and another action in photoshop to create ebook mock up design): $29
• Powtoon (online program to create artistic landing page videos, promotional videos, etc): $269 (if paid the year in full)

Total Spent: just over $1,500

Here is some of the visuals I created so you can see:

Website (still a work in progress, developing products, implementing PayPal integration, and creating promo video): Bridal Mentor - Wedding Planning, Personalized Wedding, Unique Wedding Ideas |

Landing Page for FREE report to get on mailing list (you will also notice a sidebar form and form in every blog post footer offering the same free report): How to REALLY Plan Your Wedding With Pinterest | Bridal Mentor - Wedding Planning, Personalized Wedding, Unique Wedding Ideas

The idea is to grow the list before releasing any products but here is the plan for products to be offered:

Bridal Mentor Planning Club - $9.99/month
Here's What You Get as a Planning Club Member:
• A MONTHLY webinar with our wedding planner and her special expert wedding industry guests.
• A RECORDING of the webinar as a downloadable MP3, so you can store it and listen to it anytime you need to during the rest of your planning process
• A WRITTEN COPY of every call as a digital PDF, so you can also keep on file for future use, or for easy note-taking.
• BONUS: Planning Club Members SAVE 10% Off ALL Bridal Mentor Products and Courses

eBook - $29.99
• 101 Unique Wedding Ideas: How to Personalize Your Wedding Ceremony, {and stay under budget}
o BONUS#1: You will also receive an audio book version in MP3 format, FREE, and available for INSTANT download. Listen on your iPod while in your car, at the gym, or while cooking dinner. You will never be too busy to learn the valuable information this book has to offer.
o BONUS #2: Get a FREE video tutorial covering the most common mistakes when preparing for your wedding ceremony. Learn what you will need to know and what you will NOT want to forget. You can download this video INSTANTLY and this BONUS includes a FREE accompanying downloadable PDF checklist.

Full Course - $199.99
• Still thinking of a Catchy Name
• Includes:
o 15 part DOWNLOADABLE video course: "Never Before Shared Secrets to Personalizing EVERY Aspect of Your Wedding Day"
o MP3 recordings and written transcripts of ALL videos
o eBook: "101 Unique Wedding Ideas: How to Personalize Your Wedding Ceremony, {and stay under budget}"
o Handouts, Checklists, Worksheets, and Forms: ALL the materials you will need to create your personal wedding planning binder to keep track of your wedding personalizations
o Bonus #1: You will receive a one-hour pre-recorded Q&A session with Caitlin answering REAL bride's questions about anything and everything covered in the program
o BONUS #2: Also included is a FREE membership in Bridal Mentor's Planning Club that includes monthly calls with Caitlin and her hand-picked experts - plus downloadable MP3 recordings, action worksheets, and PDF transcripts for EACH AND EVERY Webinar.

Membership Website Access - Two Options:
• $349/yr. (price will increase at a later date when more content is added)
o All content is made available to full year memberships up front. Watch what you want, whenever you want. New content will be periodically added as it is created, but nothing is held back.
• $29.95/month (price will remain the same as we will drip the available content)
o All new monthly members will start will approximately 25% of available content, and new content will be made available each week (an email will be sent reminding member to access new content). This option is perfect for those who do not want to be overwhelmed with content, or who do not want to commit to a full year membership. Monthly membership can be cancelled at anytime.
• Membership content includes:
o Courses, eBooks, Tele-seminars, Transcripts, Worksheets, Video Courses and Special Never Before Seen Videos (expert guest Videos).
o Also included is a FREE membership in Bridal Mentor's Planning Club that includes monthly calls with Caitlin and her hand-picked experts - plus downloadable MP3 recordings, action worksheets, and PDF transcripts for EACH AND EVERY WEBINAR.

MARKETING:
I have take much advice regarding marketing from this forum, and here are some things we have done.
• we have employed this strategy to the letter. Here is the post for reference and our YouTube channel to see how we optimized all the titles for our videos. For keyword research I use google Adwords keyword research tool and keywordspy.com:
• link to awesome post about YouTube marketing: http://www.warriorforum.com/social-m...blueprint.html
• link to our YouTube channel (will be adding many more different videos moving forward, this is just a start): YouTube

• Created a Pinterest board and every time we blog we create a board that links back to the blog (on the clickable pics and in the description). Here is our Pinterest URL so you can see: Bridal Mentor (thebridalmentor) on Pinterest

• submitting every article we have to ezine/article directories and writing them as notes on Facebook. The most time consuming part is creating all the accounts, verifying them, and getting it started. Once that's done submitting is pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

Here is a list I have been using to submit for:
1. Hubpages.com
2. Ezinearticles.com
3. Goarticles.com
4. Buzzle.com
5. Apsense.com/article/submit
6. Squidoo.com
7. Gather.com - never received email confirmation
9. Amazines.com
10. Infobarrel.com
11. Knoji.com/articles/
12. Isnare.com
14. Technorati.com
15. Pubarticles.com
16. Ezinemark.com
17. Brighthub.com
18. Sooperaticles.com
19. Textbroker.com
20. Articlerich.com
21. Selfseo.com
22. Triond.com
23. Thefreelibrary.com
24. Evancarmichael.com
25. Streetarticles.com
26. Articlesfactory.com
27. Articleclick.com - never received email confirmation
28. Articletrader.com
29. Articlefeeder.com
30. Snipsly.com

You can see I have deleted some miners as they were no good.

Here is a additional marketing plan strategies in which I have been adhering by. It will show some other strategies such as blog commenting, forum posting, and yahoo answers. I have spent two hours per day minimum on marketing tasks. This does not include website updates, SEO research, or the content creation my partner is doing.

Monday:
Pinterest Marketing
• Create a new board. This board should be a board related to the Monday blog post if possible. If not possible, its ok to create a board with any topic of your choice as long as its somehow related to personalizing, unique ideas, etc.
• Be sure to pin one of the YouTube videos that the title most closely matches the theme of the board.
Yahoo Answers
• Answer any question have knowledge on.
• Yahoo allows you to answer up to twenty questions per day. Goal should be to answer 5-10 questions minimum
Create a PowerPoint presentation for Monday's blog post.
• upload to slide share Upload & Share PowerPoint presentations and documents
• Title Slide, slides with main points/headlines, slides with one or two short examples, rinse, repeat, end slide with call to action to subscribe to free report. Pictures in the slides are a must.
Blog Commenting
• Leave a comment on at least 5 blogs:
• Facebook & Twitter
o Facebook - minimum of two quality posts per day
o Twitter - minimum of three quality posts per day
• Schedule with Hootsuite or Facebook scheduler if need be
• Posts should be spaced out and not back-to-back-to-back

Tuesday:
• Focus on content creation. Write one to three blog posts to be used for the next week. Write any guest blog posts, HARO articles, and work on ebook.
Facebook & Twitter

Wednesday:
Pinterest Marketing
Yahoo Answers
• Post minimum of two-three times on Wednesday on EACH forum subscribed
o Facebook +Twitter

Thursday:
• Focus on content creation. One to three blog posts to be used for the next week. Write any guest blog posts, HARO articles, and work on ebook.
Facebook & Twitter

Friday:
Pinterest Marketing
Yahoo Answers
Create a PowerPoint presentation for Friday's blog post.
Blog Commenting
• Leave a comment on 5 different industry blogs
Upload all blog posts to Wordpress and schedule next week's posts
Facebook & Twitter

Saturday & Sunday
Facebook & Twitter

In addition, I have reached out to numerous industry blogs asking if they would like us to guest post. We have already guest posted for three different blogs. It has driven traffic and created backlinks. Nothing groundbreaking but its all about chipping away slowly. I also check HARO every day. Huffing ton will be pics listing an interview with my partner sometime soon. I always respond to wedding related topics. Here is an example copy of my email response to them to attempt to get interest in interviewing us:

Dear REPORTER,

My name is Caitlin Boshnack, wedding planner, and owner of a brand new wedding blog, BridalMentor.com. I have spent the last five years assisting clients in planning their dream wedding. I am a member and board member for numerous industry groups such as ABC (Association of Bridal Consultants) and ISES (International Special Events Society), and have been published in numerous wedding industry blogs, magazines, and publications as an industry expert.

I would be honored to share my vast knowledge and experience regarding (INSERT TOPIC HERE). I am available for an in-person and/or telephone interview, or I would be happy to provide you with written articles, quotes, or bullet points on this topic. Thank you in advance for your consideration, and please let me know how I can be of assistance to you.

Caitlin B[]{}##%
Wedding Planner | Blogger | Industry Expert
Bridal Mentor, LLC
{website} BridalMentor.com
{cell} xxx-xxx-xxxx

I know this is a lot. I hope it helps someone and feel free to ask any questions. It's been a jam packed two months and little things you wouldn't think like creating a nice looking opt-in box can take hours upon hours. Formatting creating your auto responders and newsletters. TIME CONSUMING. but once its done, its done!!

Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions. I am a pro now. I have some steady traffic coming in (not a lot by any means but marketing efforts are compounding daily so its a slow process) and as my title says we have our FIRST subscriber to our list.

I'd be certainly be willing to accept feedback as well from the experienced Internet marketers making six figures or more. That's our goal as a minimum and we aren't too proud to listen to the experts. Fire away questions, critiques, or criticisms.