How to Make It Work

In the last couple of weeks, there has been a stampede of product launches of affiliate marketing/ internet marketing courses/ membership sites.  Man, it’s tough being subscribed to so many lists.  Seems like the gurus understand that their opt-in email lists are comprised of people like me who subscribe to multiple lists.  I estimate that at least 60% of their lists have the same subscribers.  So when one guru plans a launch, he is essentially marketing to the other gurus’ list.  As a result, the other gurus quickly plan their own launch to occur around the same time to compete for these subscribers’ money.

Here are the major launches in recent weeks.  All except the last are being promoted as re-vamped versions of current courses:

• Affiliate Classroom 2.0
• Commission Blueprint 2.0
• StomperNet
• Jeff Johnson’s Underground Training Lab
• Internet Marketing Masterminds

As I keep mentioning on this blog, internet marketing can be like getting caught in a spiderweb:  you’re hit with so many professionally copyrighted sales pages (mind you, from internet marketing experts) and emails that offer hard to resist incentives to purchase the product.  As if this weren’t enough, you get hit with a slew of emails from joint venture partners offering juicy bribes to get you to order through their link.*

*the gurus usually have contests for their affiliates/JV partners to see who can get the most sales and commissions, and pay handsome rewards.

Here’s an email from StomperNet announcing their launch:

We have what we think is the coolest launch ever starting today.

And you should be here, not because it’s cool, but because of
what it’s going to mean for you.

If you’ve wanted to join StomperNet, today’s the day
you’ve been waiting for.

And it’s going to cost you a LOT less to be a part of the
MotherShip of Internet Marketing.

Online Success for Less.

It’s got a nice ring to it.

But that’s not all: when you join, you’ll get more than
10 World Class internet marketing tools – some of
which have never even been introduced to the public
- for Free as part of your membership.

Let’s face it: for 3 years, at StomperNet we have given
our Members a pretty serious leg up on their competitors.
Now, with everything we have to offer in the New StomperNet,
you’ll CRUSH your competitors.

It’s more for less – we call it a Mafia Offer.

And today – at 9:09 am – we’re making you an offer you can’t refuse.

See you then.
Brad Fallon
CEO
StomperNet

And one from Commission Blueprint:

Hi Dan,

There has been so much buzz about this over the past
week or so, the likelihood is that you will have heard
about the imminent launch of our ‘Commission Blueprint 2.0′
this coming Wednesday…

When it goes live, you are going to have to act FAST
and we will let you know as soon as the doors open in
a couple of days time.

If you haven’t done so already, be sure to check out
the videos that have been posted up on the site so far.

There’s an introduction to the course which also
includes two AMAZING free reports you can get your
hands on, which are already making people money as
you can see on our forum:

http://www.blueprintcentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=5925.msg46278#new

Then there’s the ‘exposee’ revealing our brand new
keyword tool, ‘Keyword Blueprint’ in action.
(this is guaranteed to blow you away)

…and now we have literally just uploaded a third
and final video answering ALL the questions that
they’ve been received about Commission Blueprint 2.0
over the past 7 days… Plus we give you a sneak
peak inside the course so you can see what you’re
going to get and how everything is laid out to help
you create a massively successful affiliate marketing
business in as short a time as possible.

I highly recommend you watch everything right now
and as I say, as soon at the doors open, we will let
you know. Here’s the link:

==> http://www.CommissionBlueprintTwo.com/video.html

Remember, we go live at 9am Eastern Time on Wednesday
9th September

thanks!

Tim & Steve

And here’s an email from a Commission Blueprint Joint Venture partner, Kabita Kalita (she’s pretty good):

Hi Dan ,

Here I have got another good IM product which i will recommend to you guys with confidence. Tim Godfrey and Steven Clayton have launched 5 products till now and none have even a single negative feedback.These two guys have launched commission blueprint 2.0 the 2nd version of their successful past product commission blueprint.

I was invited and authorized access to the product and I was thrilled to see the softwares and contents inside. These guys are well equipped and over smart. I can ensure you that your money will not be wasted and you will be in really good hands.

* SPECIAL ‘SHORTCUT SUPER AFFILIATE’ BONUS.WILL BE DELIVERED WITHIN 5 MINUTES OF YOUR PURCHASE*

* The Top 50 Super-Affiliates from CJ: Every product they promote, every keyword they spend money on, what their PPC ads say, how much they spend, every URL they advertise – as well as the organic competition level for each keyword.

* The Top 50 Super-Affiliates from ClickBank: (Same data as CJ…)

* The Top 50 Super-Affiliates from LinkShare: Ditto above

* The Top 50 Super-Affiliates from ShareASale: Ditto

* The Top 50 Super-Affiliates from MaxBounty: Ditto

In total, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of keywords – and thousands of different products – that the TOP GUNS on every major network are actively promoting.

And in addition to this, EACH keyword in every affiliate’s marketing campaign displays its organic competition level (keyword or keyphrase searched in quotations) – which is a gold mine for article marketers, conduit affiliates, SEOers, etc.

So, here is the bonus details.

[1] 5 Affiliate networks clickbank, shareasale, Maxbounty, commission junction and linkshare.

[2] 50 top affiliates of all the 5 above networks.

[3] Over 400 niches these affiliates are promoting successfully for more than 6 months.

[4] Their landing pages and keywords and yes…

[5] Ads and ad groups as well as traffic sources [mainly PPC]

[6] Plug and play.

[7] No more niche research.

[8] No more keyword brainstorming and PPC testing spending thousands of dollars.

[9] Great time saver and reverse engineering of profitable PPC campaigns at its best.

Read details here: http://commissionblueprint2-review.com

Thanking you,

To your success,

Kabita Kalita

If you’re new to this and are interested in signing up for formal training in affiliate marketing, you’re going to have to do your homework on these course offerings. Each has its own approach; most of them include having access to cool tools like keyword mining, spying, and testing tools. I believe that all of them offer a good product, as long as you actually put it to use.

Good Luck!

Folks, learning internet marketing can be hazardous to your career if you don’t manage your time well.  There is so much information coming out every WEEK it seems, along with free bonuses (which by the way have gotten a LOT better over the years– real, useful stuff including fully functioning FREE software).

Internet marketers are fully aware of the constantly evolving nature of the business and are therefore compelled to learn  (or at least check out) everything new that comes out, or risk missing out on a key discovery/technique that competitors will use to their advantage.  Before you have a chance to test out a new technique, another one comes along, and the cycle repeats.  So it’s very easy to find yourself spending 80% of your time studying internet marketing and 20% of your time actually DOING the actual internet marketing activities that MAKE YOU MONEY.  Most people justify this by telling themselves that the studying is an investment that will pay off later… but later may never come if you keep getting bombarded with an endless supply of material.

I am subscribed to several lists (which was pared down from a much bigger list) and therefore get notified of upcoming product launches; usually a course of some type or a software application.  And when one is about to get released, I receive a torrent of emails from the product creator’s JVs (joint venture partners; super affiliates) .  You see, if you buy the product through their link, they get a commission; usually 50% or more.  And these JVers know that they share a lot of the same people on their lists, but have no shame sending out the emails, offering something free if you access the product through their link.  It’s like a bunch of fishermen angling for a big prize.

Check this one out from StomperNet regarding Brad Callen’s Keyword Minute report (great stuff, by the way):

From:  StomperNet

Subject:  3 Money-Making Strategies in Under a Minute (free report)

Many of you reading this will already know Brad Callen – if not, chances are you thought we were the same guy.   (That happens a lot.)

Brad CALLEN is well-known as the maker of one of the BEST (and one of my favorite) SEO toolsets out there.  Particularly, SEO Elite and Keyword Elite have been incredibly useful in my businesses.

So he knows a thing or two when it comes to making money online, and that’s why I want you to check out this free report called “The Keyword Minute” [I removed their affiliate link].

In it, he takes 3 strategies that beginners and veterans alike often find confusing:

- Integration Marketing
- AdWords
- Article Marketing

…And boils them all down to strategies that you can use to immediately start making money today.  I’m telling you, at 36 pages, this is massive for a free report, but it’s amazing how thoroughly these THREE powerful tactics are explained.

And best of all, it’s step-by-step, so you can begin using what you learn before you even finish reading the report if you do them as you follow along.

This is definitely worth your time, so don’t miss it while you can get it for free.

Talk again soon,
Brad Fallon
CEO
StomperNet

The solution to this conundrum is to read fast; take the good stuff, and put it to use.  Set metered goals each week, and don’t jump to a new strategy until you complete each goal (build a website, create a product, set up a PPC campaign, etc.).  Otherwise, you’ll be the most knowledgeable yet poorest internet marketer on the planet!

P.S.  I’ll talk about Brad Callen’s three techniques in the next post; they are quite good.

Affiliate Classroom, the brainchild of super affiliate Anik Singal, opened its doors this week.  For only $1, you can test out the online course for ten (10) days.

Affiliate Classroom is the premier, all-in-one “learning platform” on affiliate marketing.  Members enjoy access to a comprehensive library of training modules, case studies, special tools, videos, and webinars that cover every aspect of affiliate marketing.  You’ll learn things like:

• how to do research to find a good niche
• how to build a website optimized for affiliate marketing
• how to drive traffic to your website:  free and paid (PPC)
• how to get into CPA networks
• monetization models
• and much, much more

Affiliate Classroom has three levels of courses, designated Level 100, Level 200 and Level 300.  As of the writing of this post, Levels 100 and 200 have 29 courses each on various topics; and Level 300 has seven (7) courses.    Members are free to go through as many as they like.  Since Affiliate Classroom members have varying levels of expertise in affiliate marketing, some may choose to skip certain lessons that they are already proficient in.  The most basic beginners should go through all the courses.  As members go through the training, they attain an affiliate marketing proficiency rating between 1 – 10.

The Affiliate Classroom Rating is based on successfully completing courses and reaching set milestones.  You move from one class to the next by completing three courses for each level (Levels 100, 200, and 300) and achieving certain success milestones as an affiliate:

AC members can reference their Affiliate Classroom rating on applications to affiliate programs, with a link to the AC site.  This tells the affiliate manager that you are serious about your business as you are undertaking formal training in affiliate marketing, and may be helpful in getting accepted into the program.

There are other online affiliate marketing courses out there, but I believe that this is the one you want to go with.   The material is well written, it is presented in a logical sequence; “learning reinforcement” elements such as quizzes, case studies, and related articles are available to ensure students master the concepts; members can participate in a user forum to get more insight into affiliate marketing from their peers, and the customer support is great.

One word of caution; though:  when you sign up for the free trial, be prepared for a series of upsells during the checkout process.  Live bootcamps and mentorships are offered at extra cost.  It’s up to you if you want to buy in; they do seem like great value.

Just got a new, great opt-in software called Ultimate Footer Ad. You must have seen it when you first logged on to this site.

Since using it, my opt-in rate has increased by over 100%! What’s ingenious about this “pop-under” is that it loads at the bottom border of the screen, so as not to annoy your visitor by blocking his view. He can continue to browse your site with the Ultimate Footer Ad at the bottom; finish reading your great content, and THEN decide to opt in.

The problem with a lot of the other pop under/ hover ads out there is that they drop in and block the visitor from reading, forcing him to look at the intrusive opt in box that just slid down from the top. Well, this is not a good strategy because it may annoy your visitor causing him to leave your site; plus, if the delay is too short it doesn’t give him enough time to evaluate your “worth”. If he doesn’t know you well enough, he is not going to opt in.

Ultimate footer ad solves this by loading at the bottom and not blocking the view, but having just enough motion in the visitor’s field of vision to get his attention.

UFA can also be used for CPA offers and links to some of your products. It comes with pre-made templates, and instructions on how to create your own– awesome if you know how to create graphics in Fireworks, Photoshop or other image editing software. At a one-time price of $47, Ultimate Footer Ads is a steal. Check it out!

Two weeks ago, a shockwave rattled the internet marketing community as many pay per click marketers discovered that Google had “slapped” their AdWords campaigns.  It was another nail in the coffin for the PPC to CPA model.

For those not in the know, a Google slap is when Google dramatically raises the cost per click of all your keywords, essentially destroying your PPC campaign.  For example, let’s say you put up a website about golf, and embedded it with affiliate links to golf products.  You use one of the site’s pages as a landing page (where the visitor is taken to after he clicks the AdWords ad link).  You have great content, and the visitor clicks your affiliate link for a set of golf clubs and buys it.  Your commission is $30.00, but the cost of the click was $5.00 for the keyword “golf clubs” due to the Google slap, and 49 other people clicked it before that one person actually purchased something.  So your profit is $30 – $250 (50 x $5) = -$220.

Affiliate sites are easy to identify.  Most of them are there to generate referrals, so they are embedded with links coded with affiliate IDs.  So Google is targeting them and is making it difficult if not impossible for these site owners to continue doing business through PPC.  And, it doesn’t matter how good your campaign is set up:  the word is that the best laid out AdWords ads (great landing pages, highly researched keyword lists containing only the highly converting words, high page rank landing pages) are getting slapped with unsustainable keyword bids.

Google is making a statement that it is not interested in having a bunch of affiliate marketing sites dominate its pay per click network.  This is amazing, because I’m sure Google gets tens of millions of dollars a month in PPC fees from affiliate marketers.  But the Big G is looking out for its reputation and long term growth.  It believes that if the user experience is trashy, it will lose money in the long run as people abandon using it.

I have said for some time that PPC marketing in most cases is a big waste of money.  This event proves it further.  You have to be crazy to think you can outwit Google.

Even though I’m not a big PPC marketing fan, I’m still worried about this news.    If Google doesn’t like affiliate sites in its PPC network, then what about its organic listings?  If the same “penalty” is applied to all indexed sites, there’s a good chance that affiliate sites may drop off the face of the Google earth in search results.  If this happens, it could devastate affiliate marketing.  The only other option is to have a large email list of prospects, and market to them directly, sending them content embedded with your affiliate links.

My advice is to not rely on one internet marketing business model.  Diversify; consider returning to the basics and investing in a “niche” ecommerce website.

Oh, boy.  Perfect timing, right after Perry Belcher’s massive Social Media marketing webinar on how to use FaceBook and Twitter to build up a following.

Bill Gates, the uber tech figure of this era says he recently quit FaceBook because, according to him, “too many people wanted to be my friends.”  Gates,  who was honoured Saturday by India for his charity work, told an audience in New Delhi he had tried out Facebook but ended up with “10,000 people wanting to be my friends”.  He complained that he had difficulty figuring out if he really knew these people who wanted to “friend” him, and it got out of hand, so he quit.

Coming from any other person, this wouldn’t have registered a blip on the world wide web.  But Bill Gates?  The guy who practically invented personal computing, and has a natural gift for evaluating anything tech?  It’s fair to say this is an omen for FaceBook.

Right now, my FaceBook account is a mess.  I have to admit I was resistant when I signed up for it a couple of years ago, as part of a StomperNet course I took on Web 2.0.  The course required us to sign up on FaceBook and “friend” all other course members (several hundred).  Well, I really haven’t met these people; I have not developed a “real life, person-to-person” relationship with them, so therefore don’t really care to talk to them.  Since then, my “real” friends found me on FB, and I friended their requests, so now my FB account is a mish-mash of real friends and not-real friends.  I log on about once a week to see what some people are saying, but I must say, for me at least, FaceBook doesn’t inspire me to participate.  It’s just another thing to check besides my four email accounts, which take up a significant amount of time.

Gates, who sought to drive a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home, said the information technology revolution had been “hugely beneficial” but added: “All these tools of tech waste our time if we’re not careful.” (my bold).

This is something to take seriously.  I wrote previously that internet marketing can be like getting caught in a spiderweb.  Make sure to stick to one thing, and don’t spread yourself too thin.  Get away from the computer every day and spend time with your loved ones.

Perry Belcher is a “Social Media” whiz who has a new course that teaches people how to use Facebook and Twitter for internet marketing purposes.  He claims to have built a list of over 50,000 Twitter followers using his system.  He believes that social media offers a new frontier for internet marketing.

For the newbies, social media, sometimes called Web 2.0 refers to interactive websites where people can communicate with one another on just about any topic and for any reason.   Blogging, forums, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube are the major players.   Social media has been around for several years now, and internet marketers have been trying to use it to make money since it started.

Perry held a webinar last night (which I missed) to up the ante prior to the launch of his new service.  It was indeed a very large turnout; billed as the biggest webinar thus far in internet marketing history.

I am going through his free ebook, How to Monetize Social Media, and will post my H2MIW thoughts on it soon.

Website flipping is another business model that some people are having success with.  You basically create a website on a niche topic, and sell it.  Pretty simple.

I am going through a course called Profit Loophole by an internet marketer named Dave Kelly.  Dave insists that this particular business model, when done correctly (per his experience) has long-term profit potential compared to other, popular internet marketing models.

Dave insists that there is a market of people who buy websites, dress them up a bit, and sell them at a higher price (just like house flipping).  Some of them even keep the website and try to monetize it with AdSense ads, affiliate offers, and their own products.  It all depends on the website’s niche and how much traffic it generates.

Here are the minimum requirements of a website that has the potential to be sold:

1) Indexed in Google, even if just 1 page indexed
2) Has a current Page Rank of at least 2 on the Google toolbar
3) Is a non hyphenated .com, .net, or .org domain
4) Has at least 1 link pointing to the site when using the link:domain.com operator in Google
5) The sites can be of any type, static HTML or Blog, it is not important as the potential buyer would not use your existing content.

But the two things that gives websites the most value are:

1) the amount of monthly hits to the site (traffic)
2) the amount of email subscribers to the site

So, if you can build up a website property that has these two features, chances are someone is willing to buy it from you.  Afterall, these are the two main reasons why Google purchased YouTube for over a billion dollars (YouTube as a business line does not make much money for Google to this day, and may even be losing money.  Google is still figuring out ways to monetize its traffic).

Just another avenue to throw into the mix.  Remember, don’t get caught in the internet marketing spiderweb.   You can try more than one model, but don’t spread yourself too thin; otherwise you’ll get nowhere.

Clickbank.com is a nice way to get your feet wet in internet marketing.  Clickbank is a digital products retailer (digital meaning ebooks, internet-delivered courses, and software) where you can sign up as a “vendor” or as an “affiliate.”  As a vendor you create a digital product and promote it through Clickbank’s Marketplace– a large library of digital products in many niches; for example Business, Relationships, Sports, Money and Finance, Computing, Marketing, and so on.  Clickbank has thousands of affiliates who check the Marketplace for products they want to sell (of course, you can sell your product yourself, and, you can be both a vendor and an affiliate of CB selling other vendors’ products).

Clickbank has an easy-to-follow process to create a Payment Link– the HTML code one puts on his sales page that takes the purchaser to Clickbank’s payment processing system– beats the heck of having to buy an expensive shopping cart system.

But the true power comes from CB’s affiliate link system:  all an affiliate has to do to sell a vendor’s product and get paid a commission is to create a link in this format:

http://AFFILIATE.VENDOR.hop.clickbank.net,

where AFFILIATE is the CB nickname of the affiliate, and VENDOR is the CB nickname of the vendor.   Affiliates promote CB products (they can sell an unlimited amount) using their special link on websites, on forums, on internet bulletin boards and classifieds like Craigslist, and by emailing to friends– basically anywhere on the internet where you can include your affiliate link.

When a prospect clicks the affiliate’s link, he is taken to the vendor’s sales page and a “cookie” is placed on his computer– a script that tells Clickbank (if he buys is) that he was referred by that particular affiliate.  If he winds up buying the product, CB tracks the purchase and the affiliate gets a commission.  Commissions are set by the vendor and can range between 25-75% of the product price.  CB deducts 7.5% of the sale price + $1.00 per sale.

Let me tell you that there are some people who are making 5-figures each MONTH selling Clickbank products.  The name of the game is to get a lot of clicks to your affiliate links.   The most popular approaches are PPC, blogs, using Social Media like Facebook and Twitter, natural search, and email spamming (don’t do this!)

As with many opportunities to make money online, it has gotten a bit more challenging making a lot of money through Clickbank due to increased competition and a general decline in appeal of the long-copy sales page approach.  But since there are new people coming online evey day, the opportunity to make it big still persists.

According to many internet marketing “gurus,” finding and choosing a niche market is the first, critical step in any internet marketing campaign.  Gurus are those self-made, or self-proclaimed ‘experts’ you’ll eventually run into if you dabble in the dizzying field of internet marketing.  Yes, some are very clever and have made a lot of money, thanks to their savvyness.  But most are just rehashing, repackaging, and hawking old get rich quick schemes to unsuspecting newbies.

Anyways, the concept goes like this:  Find a profitable niche and monetize the heck out of it with information products, membership sites, and/or continuity programs.  A niche is a narrowly-defined market; for example:

• halitosis (bad breath) sufferers
• people who have obsessive compulsive disorder
• model train collectors
• German cuckoo clock collectors
• Civil War buffs
• Halo gamers

In a profitable niche, people buy things related to the niche, making it monetizeable.   Now, the reason why niche marketing is so talked about is that, being a narrow topic, it: (1) is easier to market to because it is so narrow (think easier Google rankings); and (2) isn’t that crowded; i.e., not as many people selling to it.  Therefore, according to overzealous gurus, finding a profitable niche market is the key to a successful internet marketing campaign.

But hold on.  Let’s put our thinking cap on for awhile.  Can an outsider actually pass himself off as an expert in a particular niche?  Can some regular Joe, not knowing a thing about, let’s say, model trains really write and sell an ebook on How to Make Model Trains to people who have actually been doing it most of their lives, in some cases?  There is only so much you can teach yourself about a niche you’re not familiar with.  The rest of it comes from years of experience.  Only those who are true members of the niche market will be familiar with the terminology, the slang, the history, the leaders/authority figures, and other fine details.  An outsider posing as an expert is probably going to stand out as an outsider 8 times out of 10; whether it be revealed in his product, his email autoresponder messages, his forum postings, or website.  They will reflect either incorrect information, or shallow/ generalized / useless comments.

I’m not saying it can’t be done; I’m just suggesting that it’s not as simple as the gurus make it out to be.  You can’t just pick a niche as an outsider and expect to teach and sell to real members of the niche by slapping together some cheap ebook or making a generic mini-course.  You are better off entering a market that you are active in yourself, primarily through your career (job) expertise, or one of your hobbies or interests you participate in.  If you try to pick a topic you are not at all familiar with, you won’t be convincing, and you won’t be as motivated.

Something to think about before jumping on the “niche craze.”