Make Millions in a month? Don't Read This...a Plan for the realists...

[Ldimilo]

For those of you who find it necessary or believable that you can make a gazillion dollars in a finite amount of time using tricks and schemes, there are a ton of threads available to you throughout the forum. However, for those of you who are tired of getting manhandled by google and spinning your wheels trying to cut corners, here is the real way to start a business.....

Step One: Determine how much you are worth....

Sounds easy enough, right? The problem that most marketers face, especially when just starting out is that they don't value themselves near enough. Think I am kidding?....Do a quick time inventory on all the things you do. Now, take a look at what you make. Divide the number you make by the amount of time you spend.....I imagine that most of you will look at that number and be disgusted with it. Most of you would be better off working at Wendy's or some other fast food joint.

Beginner Marketers and Bloggers have a real hard time with this. They work 20 hours, get one sale or make a few cents with adsense and somehow consider this to be a success b/c they did for for F-R-E-E. It isn't.

If you decide to go with the free route, understand that what you are sacrificing is your time. And sometimes, you may be better off paying for help than doing trying to do everything yourself.

Write down on a piece of paper exactly how much you would like to make a month. Keep it reasonable and attainable. Frame it and put it next to your computer. Hopefully, you will be changing this number soon....

Step Two: Choose a system

There are more ways to skin a cat when you are trying to build something online. People get lost in the methods and tend to over focus on them. Article Marketing, SEM, PPC....all of these are models to get traffic to your offer....nothing more and nothing less. There isn't a magical solution to this. There isn't really anything groundbreaking about it. Once you have read one model, you can pretty much be guaranteed that anything you read regarding the model will pretty much be the same.

With all the models, the focus is to get targeted traffic to your offer.... That's it. If you can get targeted traffic to your site, then you should make money. I say should, because there are other variables at play, such as needs and demands as well as how freely available it is on the internet (and even then, you may get sales).

Step 3: Find a Market, Scale it and LIVE there

If you are a niche marketer, then chances are good that you have a huge range of niches that you are involved with. And chances are that your knowledge on the niche is not that great because you are spread so thin.

I understand the premise behind this. You think that if you throw enough **** against a wall, something will stick. And it does from time to time. But if you really want to attack a niche..and I mean attack it like no other...spend a month building content, adding to your offer, living in the forums of the niche or all in all building authority in the niche.

It is a bit more time consuming than simply grabbing unrelated PLR and spinning it but in the end what you have are multiple funnels coming from all over and eventually siphoning into your offer. And it will pay off...

The really, really good marketers will spend so much time on a niche that they actually become their own competitor because they will have so much stuff out there.

Just to use a fellow warrior as an example, Steven Wagenheim will spend the time to build a hundred articles on a particular niche. All of his articles will siphon in long tail traffic of the niche to his offer. Will all of them work for him? No, of course not. But just by living there, Steven gives himself more of a chance to grab and saturate the market with his name (or persona) everywhere.

To use myself as an example, I actually do quite well in the pregnancy market. I have been able to dominate the SERPS with web 2.0 traffic and article marketing, social bookmark sites that get ranked and mommy forums. All of these eventually go to my offer or opt-in...

So, what I wind up having when I am attacking a niche is something like this-

50 or so articles on whatever niche I am in
20 or so web 2.0 properties
a couple hosted domains for opt-ins with different offers that are consistently being tested
a domain for redirects

Does it take time? Sure. But does it work? Well, it depends on what you mean by work. Last month, my offer in the pregnancy niche was seen nearly 5,000 times and accounted for a little under $4,000 via clickbank and ebay and another $100 or so bucks via adsense (from parasitic blogs).

Oh, and as a caveat, it has been doing this for 6 months and all the while, I have moved to other niches.

And speaking of offers...

There is some misconception into clickbank products and conversion rates....

Some will convert really well....others will hardly convert. A lot of this depends on the conversation you are entering (keyword intent), the intent of the visitor (are they searching for free information and is the offer enticing enough compared to their interest) among other things.

If someone is not used to paying 30 something dollars for a book in real life, a mid priced ebook would require a lot of convincing for them to see the value in it.

If you use a redirect straight to the sales page, then you can expect lower conversions. It is just part of the business. How low? I have seen some as low as .25%. That is a lot of eyes reading your stuff and thinking "uh....maybe I should keep looking..."

If you use a capture page, you will generally get better conversions because you can establish a relationship with the person via email BUT it will take more time away from you from doing other things....

If you go this route, you will need to spend time building an opt-in page with a great offer and may have to offer a bribe for them to subscribe. Typically, the better the bribe the better the conversion rate BUT....

...if you give away a shoddy piece of PLR garbage, understand that you are likely doing the work for nothing. Giving away trash, even if it is free, won't reinforce a relationship between yourself and your customer.

...Then there are the autoresponder messages. There is an art form to this. The key is to give away enough to inform them and make them feel like the time it took to read your message was worth it but not enough to not get them to click on your offer....

This will all take time BUT if you are attacking one market at a time, the results will be worth far more than simply throwing up a mess of pages on different niches in the hopes that someone will randomly buy.

So, what is the difference? I have seen conversion rates as high as 35% solely from my lists. The idea is that if you can establish credibility AND if you can expose them to the same offer multiple times AND if they are sincerely interested, then your chances of grabbing them is a lot higher than a random one time visit that came from a redirect in your bio box in EZA.

Of course, this is all moot if you aren't keeping meticulous records on what is working and what isn't. In some cases, a redirect will outpace an opt-in. You can't know unless you can test and track.

Other times, you may stand to make more by simply monetizing a page with adsense....

One last thing

Because you are attacking a single niche and getting to actually know the niche, you can also move from being an affiliate to actually being a product owner. Because you have spent time within the niche, you could possibly create a product that rivals your competitors. Since you have spent time in the niche (and in the forums of the niche), you should have a good bead on what they are looking for. This will put you at the top of the food chain with affiliates pushing your offer for you (you may or may not want to go this route....sometimes PPC is better than paying affiliates...you will only know this if you test)....

I haven't done this with the pregnancy niche..yet...(I typically focus on alternative remedies and have written stuff for that niche though)

Anyway, that is what works for me. I think that most marketers can't focus for longer than 5 seconds on a niche before moving on and because of this, wind up spinning their wheels.

Internet Marketing doesn't have to be that Hard, folks....you get what you give.

If you give a bunch of spun articles and crap, then chances are you aren't going to get much. You will just be creating more wasted time for yourself....

[Keith Kogane]

I just want to say that this is some killer stuff here - this is pretty much the same underlying philosophy I use to do my online stuff, and just as this poster said, all the technical stuff I'm known to rattle off about here (autoblogging in particular) is simple about getting targeted traffic to the offers. Period.

The simplest niche profit formula is to engage people in their interests (this is very easy with a blog and email lists). Do it largely for free with some ads. If that's working, try affiliate products. These should be easy since your traffic should already be good and your visitors like your stuff (or else you would never be making any money with ads).

If you do well with affiliate products, chances are you've got a strong following. At this point, poll em or have a teleseminar or call for comments. Find out what they still want to know. Then make your first info product delivering exactly that.

I tend to start about 3 or 4 blogs at the first phase at a time. Maybe 1 will make it to phase 2. Then I start again. Maybe 1 in 10 will get to the point where I think it's worth the time to dig deeper and make my own product. Otherwise, my time is better spent building phase 1 blogs and trying everything I can to get them to phase 2.

Anyway, great post, and I hope some newbies are able to recognize the value and get on the right track.

[Scott Ames]

Good stuff...

I noticed some marketers pick one niche and just kill it. Like David DeAngello with dating. (Eben) Instead of going from niche to niche he just kept improving that one until his sales were incredible.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

Good stuff...

I noticed some marketers pick one niche and just kill it. Like David DeAngello with dating. (Eben) Instead of going from niche to niche he just kept improving that one until his sales were incredible.

And isn't it cool that by DOING that, he'd actually created all the cache he needed to launch a super successful IM product because he actually could walk the walk.

You notice how a LOT of gurus go off into the wild and make money OUTSIDE of IM and then use that story to come back and actually have some knowledge of VALUE to sell?

It's almost like they're doing it on purpose or something. ;P

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Ldimilo

For those of you who find it necessary...

... etc.

If you give a bunch of spun articles and crap, then chances are you aren't going to get much. You will just be creating more wasted time for yourself....

Do I know you?

Thanks for the mention, but I assure you that there are plenty of folks
here who are a lot more efficient with their time and resources than I was
when I first started out. Yeah, today I don't do a heck of a lot but it took
many 14 hour days to get there.

Not something I recommend to everybody.

Anyway, thanks for a great post.

[Marian Berghes]

Great post. For beginners especially...but I don't think we shouldn't aim high on our goals or that we should underprice our products.

Just look at what some dudes are doing in the real estate market...selling coaching programs for $5k a pop in this time.

[LilBlackDress]

Awesome post! Are you saying though that you make 20 domains on the same niche?
How do you decide where to direct traffic from your articles?

[Charles Washington]

It's amazing what the basic fundamentals will do for you. Affiliate marketing is just like any other business.
You must have sound business practices and stay the course even when times look bleak. Chasing secrets and codes when times are tough will only serve to deepen the situation.

[bgmacaw]

Well, I hate to rain on the parade but your first two points are good but then, in your third point, you launch into describing a single niche concentration and list building approach which isn't the only niche business model out there. In fact, I think it's one of the more difficult models for most people.

[Ldimilo]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Well, I hate to rain on the parade but your first two points are good but then, in your third point, you launch into describing a single niche concentration and list building approach which isn't the only niche business model out there. In fact, I think it's one of the more difficult models for most people.

You aren't raining on anyone's parade. I am just saying what has worked for me.....

I may have been too vague when I say *niche* because what I actually mean is *market*. As far as difficult is concerned, I have personally found attacking one market at a time much easier than simply throwing up "test" markets and seeing what works and then drilling down and scaling. It allows things to be much more open and requires a commitment and usually a plan of attack.

[lilgrace]

I checked out your blog! Just wanted to say I LOVE it! So much info even just on that one post in your sig!

[feixia913]

Thank you very much! I think I can get some clues from your words!

[LilBlackDress]

Awesome blog! I will spend some time there reading.

Thanks so much!

[JWB]

Excellent post..so much information you give...
I have basically settled on one niche so maybe
I am headed in the right direction...

thanks again for the post

[BrightLife]

Great post. Although it is more or less information that I read in a lot of courses that I bought. But here you have it for free -

[BrashImpact]

Excellent, someone else taking the time to set people str8. It's about taking laser targeted action, day in and day out. Taking massive advantage of the allotted time you available every day, then using tactics to create a long term strategy. So many IM'ers have the worst focus i have ever seen in any industry. Pick one, stick with it, become an expert, and apply the knowledge for massive results.

Thanks again for taking the time to write a great post.

Regards,
Robert Nelson
"The Maverick Motivator"

[Susanrh]

Hi, I hope everyone will forgive me if this is a really stupid question but when you say:
20 or so web 2.0 properties
a couple hosted domains for opt-ins with different offers that are consistently being tested
a domain for redirects

What do you mean by web 2.0 properties? Are they websites or blogs or something else, and the 'hosted domains' are they other sites?

Susan

[macD231]

It is a nice information to have specially those who wants to make huge amount of money in a shortest possible time. The boolish decision maker. The idea is require for them and so to me.

[Susanrh]

Originally Posted by macD231

The boolish decision maker. The idea is require for them and so to me.

There are so many things in this IM business that I don't understand...........



Susan

[georgiel]

Just been reading this thread all these months later...

Oh Susan, you have made me laugh! Thank you!

[CesarGalano]

Really cool info!

Thanks!