June 2010 archive
One trend that’s been bubbling to the surface in recent weeks has been seeing a number of affiliate bloggers (typically practising or at one time practising CPA affiliates) branch into the list building/ebook promotion game.
I’m not sure that this is exactly a good thing.
But first, let’s look at when it might be a good thing.
If your business was heavily dependent on rebills and some of your favorite offers got nuked due to the change in Wells Fargo bank and other payment processors cancelling merchant accounts for some of these rebill offer owners, you’re left with either promoting short form lead gen offers at about 5-10% of the payout of your rebill offers or branching into other areas of internet marketing like domain development/site flipping through flippa, pay-per-sale affiliate programs, promoting/dropshipping physical products or joining the ebook promotion game. Nothing wrong with any of these options.
But here’s the rub. With ebook promos, it can be a guru clusterfrack, especially when everyone is promoting the same offer. That’s already what happens in the information marketing world, especially in the make money online niche. Everyone and his half-sister and dog is suddenly promotion Jeff Johnson’s Product Launch Formula 3.0 making it sounds like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. If so, what’re you going to do when the next product comes along? Again, proclaim that it’s the “bestest” thing you’re ever seen?
What some bloggers or wannabee experts don’t realize is that you have a social goodwill bank to draw upon. Each time you “sell out”, you withdraw some goodwill out of that bank. If you go overboard, you’re not going to have anything to draw upon and will probably lose the respect of your peers and others in the industry.
If you do choose to go down this path, choose wisely because it’s pretty difficult to turn back.
Although other websites might have some items which are a couple of bucks cheaper than on Amazon, I still order most of my stuff from there because I can get almost everything at one place – books, DVDs, software, electronics and computer stuff.
I’m a “burst shopper” because I’m overseas. So when I come visit the US, I tend to buy a couple hundred bucks worth of stuff each time and send it to my hotel or conference location.
I just saved about $60 on an order placed just this weekend. It was really easy since Amazon has just changed some of their terms and conditions. Want to know how?
Click the “More” link below to find out:
(more…)
If you’re not sure what the title’s refering to, be sure to read the Internet Marketing Cookbook launch promo post.
What’s happened in the past week since the launch, I’ve kicked off a pay-per-sale case study for the Mail Order Shoppe and will be revving the campaign into high gear till mid-July before shifting into another case study. Whether you’re a new or advanced marketer, you should get some tips from this to incorporate into your own campaigns.
Promo ends Wednesday, Midnight EST (which will be noon Thursday in my part of the world).
See you on the other side.
PS: The promo code is available at the IMC 2 launch post.
I’ve been looking at different ways to promote the pay-per-sale merchant, Mail Order Shoppe, the main case study on Internet Marketing Cookbook (which will run from now till mid July)and it’s been amusing and sometimes funny to see how merchants and affiliates can get their video marketing strategy messed up.
First the good news:
- YouTube has replaced Google as a search engine for a number of demographics, especially tweens, teens, young adults.
- The user interface means that everyone has an equal opportunity to put video up and generate leads for affiliate offers or your own products.
- Hosted video streaming services mean you don’t need a VPS or dedicated server or content delivery network. It’s literally upload and go.
Now the bad news:
- Just because you have the ability to upload 10 minutes videos doesn’t mean you should. I’m doing editorial consulting work now, and just because a writer has written 1,000 words, doesn’t mean they’ll get published. In some cases I’ve cut it down to 300 words or less (ie: deleted 70% of the content). You have to give content the space it deserves. More is (frequently) not always better. 1-2 minutes is the sweet spot if you want impactful video that converts.
- Making a video that showcases your company or your product. Beep, wrong answer. Consumers search for answers to questions or problems they have. That doesn’t mean they want to watch a 5-minute video. What they want is a relevant, neutral, informative (being entertaining doesn’t hurt) video that helps them fix a problem now. Look at the “Does it blend?” videos. Be entertained as iphones, ipaqs get shredded, then go out and order your own Blendtec juicer.
- Lacking a call to action: Institutional advertising is where big brands spend big bucks creating “branding”/mindshare. There’s no regard for ROI, in many cases there’s no clear call to action, aside from viewership or Nielsen ratings (which don’t have ROI or revenue related metrics built in). This is about as useful as a bazooka to someone trying to make an omelette.
So if you’re going to do video, consider:
- Length: follow the “mini skirt” rule. Long enough to cover the essentials, short enough to keep things interesting.
- On-point, on-target: Focus on the core of the problem and provide a solution. Save your lifestory for someone who cares.
- Call to action, stats/analytics: If you’re not implementing some form of conversion tracking in your video marketing (using a special URL, dedicated domain), then you might as well be doing ppc/ppv without any conversion tracking too. Good luck with that.
Video can be powerful, effective and highly profitable.
Just don’t join the 99% of marketers who try it and suck at it.
In the last couple of years there’s been a big shift towards lead generation or pay-per-action (CPA) offers because they’re perceived as “easier” to promote compared to merely asking someone for their name and email, or to request information or quotation for a service.
It would be a mistake to write pay-per-sale affiliate programs too quickly because it can provide long term sustainable income, while CPA offers tend to be more churn-and-burn in nature and I’m fine with adding them as an option to a site where the customers have purchased a product, or are on a subscription or continuity plan.
But operating purely on an arbitrage-only model makes me uncomfortable.
To put my action where my mouth is, I’m building an pay-per-sale affiliate site from scratch.
Having recently won an affiliate site from ShareASale-listed merchant, Mail Order Shoppe, I’ll be building out the site, SEO optimizing it, generating traffic and monitoring conversions from now till mid July.
I’ll be documenting the process as a case study on the Internet Marketing Cookbook, so members can see how I build out websites.
From past experience, I’ve seen that no two successful marketers will do things the same way, even if they’re using the same tools, same site ranking and traffic generation techniques.
If you’re interested in following along, you can check out my earlier post about the Internet Marketing Cookbook version 2 launch. The launch promotion ends this Wednesday, midnight EST.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a period of time, you might be aware that I have an internet marketing newsletter, Internet Marketing Cookbook, which publishes monthly training to provide tips on traffic generation, monetization and strategies to bring your business to the next level.
The past couple of months have been an interesting time for me as I’ve been planning to bring IMC to the next level, as well as help members get more mileage out of their membership.
Although it’s been a couple of months and days (the original announcement was scheduled for June 1st), I’m glad to announce the launch of the Internet Marketing Cookbook 2.0. This will be one of my main projects for the rest of the year and my team and I (particularly my programmer who’s made a number of enhancements to the code) are glad to announce that IMC features the following upgrades:
- Focus: Internet Marketing Cookbook’s focus will be on my 3 areas of expertise: product creation, affiliate marketing and relationship marketing (a combination of social media + influence/persuasion = conversions)
- Learning center: This will feature regularly updated content to help you grow your business. The IMC archive will be available here (about 20 hours of content that members had paid more than $200 each to access)
- Case studies/”Look over my shoulder” campaigns: There’ll be multiple ongoing case studies which will feature strategies and techniques from the learning center. You’ll get to see the techniques in action and members are welcome to post their campaigns for feedback and critiques.
- Advisors/Subject experts: I’ve invited a number of specialists and experts in different areas of online marketing to participate in the forum and share their expertise with the members. The confirmed lineup is shown at InternetMarketingCookbook.com and more will be added once they’re on board.
- Networking: As the community is centered around a forum, there’ll be more opportunities to network with fellow marketers.
The main thrust of IMC is the focus on building a long-term, sustainable online business. If you’re serious about bringing your business to a new level, you should check out the Internet Marketing Cookbook.
It’ll be structured as a monthly subscription at $47/month.
[Update: The launch promotion is over]
Here is the link:
#1: Internet Marketing Cookbook ($47/month)
