My 3 Day $2500 Challenge Results & Method

[aaronlamont]

I set myself a 3 day challenge of $2500.

Anyway as it started of as a 3 day challenge I didn't even get round to doing research the first two days and so it really ended up like a 5 day challenge anyways the results from the 5 days was $2136.

I didn't reach the target of $2500 but it was still a great effort even if I do say so myself starting again from scratch.


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THE METHOD

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Ok so heres how I did it.

First step was to create a large ebook that I could sell for $37 this would be where I would make the most money.

I was going to research this but didn't focus and just got a great course that I have obtained PLR rights to that was already on my hard drive, if you dont have any plr you can do a google search for free plr and also if you choose you can pay a small amount to get a great quality plr.

Next step tidy up and update the plr ebook and make it unique and my own.

Job 1 Complete.

I then went about trying to figure out what my 10 small reports where going to be about so I went to amazon.com and clicked into books and found out what the bestsellers where and then chose 10 topics that I could write on.

Once I had my topics I simply went to find forums on each of them for example one was about a niche within gardening so I searched for gardening forums and read the posts about my niche.

I made notes of the most common questions that where being asked and that were appearing the most and then I simply found out the questions to those answers within the forums themselves and compiled a report on it.

I did this for 10 topics and so I now had 10 small reports that I could sell.

Job 2 Complete


What I had so far:

1 Large ebook which would sell for $37 each
10 Small ebook reports which would sell for $7 each


Next I made a note of my target goal which was $2500 and tried to figure out how many sales I would need exactly so that I could reach the goal in the quickest time possible.

I worked it out what the minimums that I could achieve would be below:

Between 10-20 for the $37 ebook
10 Copies of each of the $7 ebook

So the totals I worked out would be:

$370-$740 for the $37 ebook
$700 for $7 ebook reports

Total minimum would be $1070-$1440

I looked at this and thought if I only sell the minimum then there is no way that I could reach my target because at the top end its still only $1440 so I had to think of something that I could do to increase sales.

The only thing that I could think of was upsells and one time offers so thats what I did.

I created an upsell for the $37 ebook, to put it simple all I did was take the ebook that I had already created and quickly make it into a video course, now I didnt have much time on my hands so I made the videos short but very precise and step by step which made things much quicker, I then also added short reports and bonuses that I found on the internet.

I priced the upsell at $67, what this means for those that dont understand is normally when someone would buy the $37 ebook that would be it and that would be the amount that I would make but now that I was offering a video course upsell aswell I was then able to increase my sales to $104 for those that went for the upsell.

I did the exact same method above for the short reports that I created once again making a video however it was only 1 video to compliment the report and priced the upsell at $20 increasing my sales to $27 for those that went for the upsell.

Now with the upsells in place I went back to my minimum stats that I made to judge how much I could make and included the upsells.



Between 10-20 for the $37 ebook
Of which 3-5 took upsell at $67
10 Copies of each of the $7 ebook
Of which 15 took upsell at $20

These were the minimums that I thought I could sell.


Job 3 Complete

Now that everything was in place it was just a matter of getting my ebook and reports out there.

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TRAFFIC TIME
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Ok so the first thing I thought was that I would simply upload a sales page onto my hosting however I remembered that I wanted to show people how they could do it from scratch without any money so I did just that.

I created a wordpress blog for the large ebook and also each of the 10 short reports.

I chose a targeted keyword for each of the niche topics that I picked and made that my blog title.

Next I went back to the niche forums to get some content that I could use to put onto my new blog, what I simply did was to find a great post that was getting alot of views and then I contacted the person that wrote the post and said to them that I enjoyed reading their post and that I would like to add it to my blog, she agreed and I also provided a link back to her site so it was a win win situation, free content for me and a free link and some traffic for her.

I did this a few more times so that I created 4 new posts and on the 5th post was when I posted about my new report/ebook that I had created so that it would appear at the top of the blog.

When I was making each post I submitted to 5 social bookmarking sites to get the ball rolling and for the search engines to spider my new blog.

I also went to pingomatic to submit my blog posts.

Now once I had all the content in place for all of the ebook/reports it was time to start bringing in the sales, now I wont go into how I added a paypal button for payment etc as you can find that out or just ask me and I will help but anyway thats who the payments where coming through.

Afterwards I submitted all of my blogs rss feeds to the top sites to bring in some extra traffic and also help my search engine rankings.

I was going to submit some articles to some of the top article directories but I decided not to because for some new people trying this 3 day challenge it could take upto 7 days to get your articles approved so kind of beats the 3 day challenge but go for it anyway.

Next I went back to trusty google and searched for related blogs on each topic of my ebook/reports. I looked through the posts on the blogs to see if there where many comments so that I could see that there was potential traffic there that I could siphon off to my blog, if there wasnt many comments I simply went onto the next blog.

When I found a post with lots of comments now when I say lots I was typically looking for more than 5, then what I did was instead of just writing a normal post I created a short video talking about the post that the author wrote and also gave a tip on the same subject and then shown my blog link in my video plus send, if you want any more tips on such and such then visit my blog at .........

You would be suprised how much traffic alone this brought.

I did that for each of the reports on 3 different blogs and also uploaded the videos to youtube, metacafe and viddler.

Along with the video comments adding great content I also did some normal blog commenting write short comments and providing a link back to my own blog.

Next up I setup a twitter account for each report and then searched for people interested in the topic that I wrote the report about, I simply added them to my twitter following and then posted a link on my twitter profile back to my blog along with some useful other content, once again I did this for each of my products that I had for sale.

I forgot to also mention that when I uploaded my videos onto youtube I searched for similar videos that where already getting a high number of views and added my video as a video response, some great traffic there.

While I was still continuing to add new traffic getting strategies I was already making some sales.

My next move was to go back to the forums where I had found my content and then add my blog to my signature and submit some good quality posts which I found from searching questions on my topic through yahoo answers and combined the best answers into a new thread on the forums.

While on the subject of yahoo answers I submitted my blog there aswell simply search for your niche and then provide an answer with a link back to your website or blog in my case.

Next with my already created content and new found content I created a hubpages, weebly and squidoo page that I could paste my content into and provide a link back to my blog which also helped with the rankings.

When I was done creating all my videos, hubpages, squidoo, weebly, blogs etc I went an used socialmarker to bookmark every single site to also drive traffic.

Now the sales where coming in and so it was time to invest in some more traffic, I only got involved with this traffic source myself around 4 months ago and it is great although some people argue that, anyway I signed up with freeebooks.net and created a new teaser version of each of my 10 reports and submit it to the website freeebooks, remember if you are doing this for traffic to include a link or ad at the bottom of your teaser version that will link to your sales page/blog.

It costs under $20 to register and submit but only do this when you get the first initial sales coming in so that you can use that to pay for it.

I will stop here now so that you can take everything in and if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to ask me.

Yours,

Aaron.

[Shotgunner]

Wow, you are an Internet marketing God! To do all that in so short a time, and so well... that's just incredible. You are truly inspirational.

[petelta]

Nicely done, 2k in 5 days isn't bad lol. I've been useing the same type of methods the past few months with affiliate products and have been getting great results. I think its about time for me to get some PLR rights and increase that profit. Glad I saw this post, just pushes me more.

[Jill Carpenter]

You got all that done in 5 days?

Holy crap.

I'm not a noob, but that is a ton of work to get done in a week.

[1960Texan]

Aaron,
Congratulations on your success! You obviously worked hard for it; glad to see that it paid off. What was the breakdown on your sales? Did the majority of your final numbers come from the ebook, reports, or video upsells?
Will

[Sumit Menon]

Wow.. that's just amazing. You outsourced anything?

[Roy Carter]

Nice one Aaron

Nice detailed case study. Hard work and focus. Next step is to outsource the work from the profits and step it up a notch.

Well done.

[yourreviewer]

A few things on what you did

1. Amazing focus and dedication: It's one thing planning to do something and it is another thing actually doing it.

2. Providing value: If I have to sum up all your efforts, you provided value and didn't overcomplicate things.

3. And finally thanks for being so generous to exactly reveal how you did it. This is so inspirational.

[Pat Jackson]

Originally Posted by avenuegirl

You got all that done in 5 days?

Holy crap.

I'm not a noob, but that is a ton of work to get done in a week.

It actually says that he got it all done in 3 days!

Must have a killer work ethic, I know I wouldn't get that much done in that time period.

[Shaleniie Devi]

Oh wow, this is a very timely post especially when I'm in need of some cash. I'm going to see how I can implement this.

Thank you very very much for this highly informative post Aaron!

[Meonline]

Congratulations in your success story. this is really awesome. keep the great work up :]

[Yuds]

That is one unbelievable post! I think I learned more from reading that than I do from most info products.

I guess it boils down to the fact that it's really not that hard. Make good products and sell them. That's it.

No need for all the fancy trickery and automation stuff. Just get things DONE.

Thanks for the inspiration.

I'm off to create some products.

[Sarah Russell]

Great case study! One thing I'm curious about - did you do full sales page websites for each report or did you just include a Paypal "Buy Now" button in the post and sell them there?

[aaronlamont]

Originally Posted by Sarah Russell

Great case study! One thing I'm curious about - did you do full sales page websites for each report or did you just include a Paypal "Buy Now" button in the post and sell them there?

I created the blogs and then included a paypal button in each, I only used the blogs so that I could start everything from scratch and so others could easily follow my methods without having to spend anything upfront, after all that above I would usually invest some of the sales money into a domain and hosting and then create a sales page properly.

Hope this post helps at least 1 person.

[dremora]

This is a great post. If you don't have the time, it provides a 5 star blueprint for outsourcing it. I think you should turn this into a step by step tutorial package and run it as a wso!

[Daniel Brock]

You're a machine!

You got more work done in 3 days than most people do in a month!

Question for you: how long were your $7 ebooks?

Were they more micro niche?

Like your main ebook was on gardening, then your $7 books were on like tomato gardening, rose gardening, etc?

How do they relate to your main product sales process-wise? Were they just lead ins and you upsell them from there? or just used only for list building?

[John Cabral]

Originally Posted by avenuegirl

You got all that done in 5 days?

Holy crap.

I'm not a noob, but that is a ton of work to get done in a week.

I was thinking the same thing here. Did you ever sleep? Being a single dad I don't see myself doing that in that short period of time but nonetheless excellent info which I will save to my swipe file...

[davidjames42973]

Great post! Thanks for sharing...

[Charann Miller]

Wow, nice job. That was a ton of work. How long was your $37 eBook and how long did it take for you to re-write it?

I think what you did was amazing with no money and no article writing to boot.

Goes to show what can be achieved when you put a plan to action.

I've bookmarked this thread so keep us posted and keep up the great work.

[wantselltrade]

Really great stuff! Thank you very much for sharing this with us. Proves that HARD WORK will make you money nothing is without hard work. You deserve it.

[Maria Gudelis]

Fantastic case study Aaron...now you gotta challenge others to do this - create a WSO on that!!

[um1001]

Originally Posted by aaronlamont

When I found a post with lots of comments now when I say lots I was typically looking for more than 5, then what I did was instead of just writing a normal post I created a short video talking about the post that the author wrote and also gave a tip on the same subject and then shown my blog link in my video plus send, if you want any more tips on such and such then visit my blog at .........

You would be suprised how much traffic alone this brought.

I did that for each of the reports on 3 different blogs and also uploaded the videos to youtube, metacafe and viddler.

That's a super idea. I think I might try it out. Always nice to find a gem on the forums

I was going to do a video collection of tips I and post them on the Halloween treats thread the other day ... which is similar ... But I had been drinking and found myself waffling on a bit and spared everyone

[TommyBussey]

Aaron, I agree with all the posts above, and would really like to congratulate you.

But one major thing I would like to add...your post just proves that the Internet is like any other business. It take hardwork and dedication to succeed. You've done a great job in this case study by bringing that point (inadvertently) to light. Very good lesson for anyone just starting out with IMing.

Keep up the good work, bud.

- Tommy

[redicelander]

Originally Posted by adewolefestus

U have to spend enough time to make it online in the first phase. If you continue with these challenges, you will become an household name.

Very true, but I do not want to be a household name!

Anyway, how's "Goggle" sniper working out for you. Sniping with goggles on, cool!

buy the way, no affiliate links are allowed in your sig file in this forum! You have to link to your own page that is a presell. Just FYI.

[David Mcalorum]

Wow! Well done, you've practically got cash on demand, lol.

[SageSound]

Great job!

How did the initial ebook relate to the smaller eBooks? Were they in the same niche?

Did you put all of the blogs on the same domain? Or different domains? Or just generic blog sites like Blogger?

-David

[VegasGreg]

Great job on taking action and getting ALL that done in 3 days!!

I would just add a 'heads-up" about using Wordpress blogs (the free ones at wordpress.com) instead of Blogger. Wordpress doesn't allow commercial use of their blogs, so they may delete your blogs soon.

I know you mentioned using them since they were free to show others how to start and that is great, but I would suggest using Blogger instead for free blogs.

Also, did you consume a massive amount of Red Bull during this process? LOL

Again, great job!

[richjude]

Being that the Free eBooks website was something I hadn't heard of before, I decided to investigate.

Found out that the site is located at Free-ebooks.net | Download free Fiction, Health, Romance and many more ebooks

Without the dash, it's a Biblical site about the end of the world - Oops!

Thanks again Aaron for this info - I am going to try it myself!

-- Jude

[SimonHarrison]

Nice post, I'm more impressed with the sheer volume of leg work you got done in the time period , did you bother with boring stuff like sleep or food?

A dozen plus e-books made, dozens of videos, social bookmarking, RSS submission, constant content research, multiple blog creation, paypal integrations, backend/upsell page creation, multiple sales copy pages, multiple twitter account creations plus adding twiiter users to each account, yahoo answers implementation both in terms of adding videos and answering questions for each topic and a whole host of other time consuming bits and pieces in between to achieve contacting people on forums and getting permission for content etc in three days..

I think your problem is your just plain lazy...

[Amanda Craven]

Aaron, that's astonishing! Goodness knows what you would achieve in seven days...probably something of Biblical proportions. Seriously, very well done and thank you for being so generous with your share.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you do next!

[SimonHarrison]

You could do a lot worse than package the entire darn thing up as some kind of video tutorial, show people the actual sites, the process flow and the products you created etc.

Flog it as a WSO for $50 and sell a few hundred copies, if you did it right it would be easily worth the price tag as long as you actually showed actual pages, the actual upsell copy, the products etc.

[aaronlamont]

Thanks everyone for the great comments so far, I have had various private messages about turning this into a wso and running it, dont know about that at the moment but I could consider it.

[dahuamao]

where is the e-book ?

[richjude]

I have a question:

Was the $37 eBook, as well as the $10 reports, all in the same genre/niche?

Or were the products unrelated?

Thanks!

[aaronlamont]

Originally Posted by richjude

I have a question:

Was the $37 eBook, as well as the $10 reports, all in the same genre/niche?

Or were the products unrelated?

Thanks!

No they were each in different niches and in no way related to the larger ebook, my main idea for the larger $37 ebook was just a way to bump up my total income from the challenge.

[tyson4]

wow, great post!

[Alminc]

Considering the amount of work involved in your 5 days challenge,
something like that could be a 50 days challenge for me

[Lisa Gergets]

Fantastic business model, Aaron! Congratulations!

For any new IMers wanting to replicate this...print it out and just check off each task as you complete it!

[jhornung]

Nice job dude! Thanks for sharing!!

[LegitIncomes]

Originally Posted by avenuegirl

You got all that done in 5 days?

Holy crap.

I'm not a noob, but that is a ton of work to get done in a week.

Yes, I definitely don't know how one person could get that much work done in such a short period of time - my eyes and fingers couldn't take it. Maybe he has robot eyes and fingers, I could do it with those.

[Slin]

Good work man! Definitely inspiring, did you build a list for these sites too?

This is a lot of work, but extremely doable! Think about it, finding a PLR product? Probably about 3 hours tops.

Writing the 10 7$ ebooks? Maybe 5 hours or so, maybe a bit more.

Doing the videos? Add on another 3 hours.

OK so that's three days work there, then you have two days to build all of that traffic.

Doable? YES! Hard? Heck yeah!

Worth it? I dunno bro...how's that $2500?

[TheDebtEliminator]

Hello Aaron,

You accomplished a lot of work and I am amazed in your ability to do so many things.

Did you outsource anything or do it all yourself.

Maybe you could bottle your abilities and make a WSO for that ... I would start for the first 10 that purchase a bottle at $595 and double it for the next 10.

All the Best

[CatherineMay]

I hope you folks who are obviously old-timers at this don't mind a totally new person jumping in this thread.

I'm just feeling my way around marketing on the internet. Have written a few articles, done a little of this and that. Have not yet made any money.

This post has really opened my eyes to what level of diligence is required, but also what rewards are possible.

I've been thinking about using wordpress to start selling physical products, but am confused by the post above from VegasGreg who says to use blogger instead. I thought everybody uses wordpress. So, are you saying VegasGreg (or anyone who can explain what he meant) that you aren't supposed to put a link to amazon or a paypal button on wordpress?

Looking forward to an answer...and thanks so much for all this information.

[pdrw07]

amazing, you give me inspirational and challenge my self to do more!

[aaronlamont]

Originally Posted by LegitIncomes

Yes, I definitely don't know how one person could get that much work done in such a short period of time - my eyes and fingers couldn't take it. Maybe he has robot eyes and fingers, I could do it with those.

Hey yes everything was done by myself, I have learnt many new strategies about how to get more done etc from watching eben pagan and a few others.

A good tip that I learnt was to write down all your tasks and tackle the biggest one first, break it down into little chunks then break it down again, it makes everything seem alot easier and far easier to work to.

Another method that I learnt was to work in 2-3 hour slots so I did what worked best for me. Work 50 minutes solid then have 10 minutes break then work 50 minutes solid and 10 minutes break browsing forums etc checking emails then take 30 minutes for snack or lunches, I have only implemented these techniques within the last well over 1 month and have been able to get so much more completed.

[Sarah Russell]

Originally Posted by CatherineMay

I've been thinking about using wordpress to start selling physical products, but am confused by the post above from VegasGreg who says to use blogger instead. I thought everybody uses wordpress. So, are you saying VegasGreg (or anyone who can explain what he meant) that you aren't supposed to put a link to amazon or a paypal button on wordpress?

Looking forward to an answer...and thanks so much for all this information.

Hi Catherine,

Hope it's alright if I jump in here - What VegasGreg is referring to is the fact that Aaron set up the blogs in his challenge on Wordpress.com - Wordpress' free blogging solution, which is pretty anti-commercial (aka - don't try to sell things or they take your blog away). These are the kinds of blogs that come with addresses like "yourkeyword.wordpress com." If you have to go free, Blogger is a better choice for now, although there's no guarantee they won't move to a more anti-commercial stance as well in the future.

What most people in IM use is the version of Wordpress found on Wordpress.org (or installed through the Fantastico script system) that's installed separately on your hosting account, so that the Wordpress platform is running off your server. It's a much better option in terms of flexibility and usage, but you do have to buy the domain name to install it on.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Sarah

[dou9las]

I am really curious about your video responses in blog comments.
I guess I am a little behind the curve here.

Actually, I have tried adding video embeds to blog comments in the past, but with no luck. Is that in fact what you did, or did you create the video response, and then link to that video in the blog comment?

Congrats, and along with everyone else, I am astonished at how much work you got done in the 3-5 day period you documented.

[Karen Blundell]

this is incredibly inspiring!
I congratulate you for your determination and most of all your time management skills. Excellent!

[VegasGreg]

Originally Posted by CatherineMay

I've been thinking about using wordpress to start selling physical products, but am confused by the post above from VegasGreg who says to use blogger instead. I thought everybody uses wordpress. So, are you saying VegasGreg (or anyone who can explain what he meant) that you aren't supposed to put a link to amazon or a paypal button on wordpress?

Originally Posted by Sarah Russell

Hi Catherine,

Hope it's alright if I jump in here - What VegasGreg is referring to is the fact that Aaron set up the blogs in his challenge on Wordpress.com - Wordpress' free blogging solution, which is pretty anti-commercial (aka - don't try to sell things or they take your blog away). These are the kinds of blogs that come with addresses like "yourkeyword.wordpress com." If you have to go free, Blogger is a better choice for now, although there's no guarantee they won't move to a more anti-commercial stance as well in the future.

What most people in IM use is the version of Wordpress found on Wordpress.org (or installed through the Fantastico script system) that's installed separately on your hosting account, so that the Wordpress platform is running off your server. It's a much better option in terms of flexibility and usage, but you do have to buy the domain name to install it on.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Sarah

Thanks Sarah, you explained it exactly right.

Wordpress.com (the free, not on your own host, version) not good.
Wordpress.org (self hosted on your domain) extremely good.

[Ellen Violette]

This seems like a huge amount of work to me! I've just picked up the phone and called people who already bought from me in the past and made $7500 in a couple of hours.

But if you're new and don't have a list and want to make money with ebooks,
I think a much easier way to go is to write an ebook and do ebook launches or do a compilation ebook with several cowriters who have big lists. It takes more than 3 days but it's a lot less work! And per day you'l make more money! And the results are way more predictable as long as you find jv partners who's lists are targeted to what you are offering.