Can't seem to break 1k a month - Need advise from others who have

by JROC777

Posted: 13 years ago 27 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi Everyone,

I can't seem to break the $500 to $1200 a month mark in the IM game. Been at this for a few years now and am working hard towards my fist tier goal of a consistent $100 a day.

I've bought many programs over the years some good some just flat out garbage. I have managed to put together some of the pieces to this puzzle but have hit a plateau. Currently the niche that has worked for me is in the work at home arena with affiliate programs (Clickbank). I have tried to come up with a way to scale this up but I think I've hit the ceiling for revenue for my current skill level within this category.

I've been trying my hand in different niches (still selling affiliate products) so far with little success. I gave Matt Basac's Mass Money Makers a try when trying these new category's but perhaps I've messed up on keyword research along the way and picked an area with too much competition.

Here is where I need a successful Warrior to chime in with some real advise. I need to make sense of everything I've learned over the last several years in the IM game to achieve my $100 day goal. I'm just very very tired of reading story after story of how so and so is making 20k a day and Mr.X earns 75k a month on auto pilot blah blah blah.

I know it takes a lot of work and I am definitely not looking for some kind of handout or magic solution here just some sound guidance from someone who has walked this path before me. I also don't want to post another sob story either, so long story short I'm broke living very lean but still believe I can make this realty and I'm not yet willing to give up trying.

So to any Warrior who has achieved a $100/ day or beyond who is willing to put in their 2 cents I would greatly appreciate any advice with the following questions.

Where should I focus my efforts in the IM world today?

Should I keep building websites that focus on affiliate program sales? - if not what direction should I be moving in?

When it comes to just plain financial survival what is the shortest path to accomplish my goal of $100/day

What time frame in your opinion is reasonable to achieve $100/day once your moving the right direction.

Just need to know what path to take and I will fight my way down it!

Thanks in advance to all who respond

Cheers

#advise #break #month

JackPowers

13 years ago

I would focus on learning how to build real websites, small niche websites and learning SEO to rank for organic search traffic. Add some social media and forum traffic and you're set.

Clickbank affiliate sales work for some, but not for most. The people who make the most money as Clickbank affiliates seem either to be 'gurus' in the IM niche or product vendors. They are also people who are good at selling through email.

Being an affiliate on Clickbank is constantly having to keep up with the newest fad. On the other hand, one high quality nice content site can keep you earning with Adsense and affiliate sales for years without updating.

Quality content sites with community/social aspects is where the long term money is at combined with a network of smaller niche sites promoted by SEO.

Go for the long term big money while chasing the short term hacks of the search engines.

That's what took me over $1000 a month to money you can live on.

PS.

You don't need to buy even one more product. 90% is just rehashed outdated stuff.

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Alexa Smith Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by JackPowers

The people who make the most money as Clickbank affiliates seem either to be 'gurus' in the IM niche

Call me a skepchick, but I suspect not, really.

In the "IM niche" (it's actually a "market", and a huge one, rather than a niche), it's really difficult for affiliates to clean up, simply because a significant proportion of the potential customers are themselves already Clickbank affiliates, and one has to ask oneself why they're going to buy such products through one's hoplink rather than simply through their own? :confused:

Originally Posted by JackPowers

or product vendors.

Vendors, yes: typically with very high gravity products (the gravity often being produced by a never-ending succession of affiliates each buying one copy of the product through their own affiliate-links: nothing inflates a product's gravity like that does!).

Originally Posted by JackPowers

They are also people who are good at selling through email.

This, undeniably: it's certainly extremely difficult to make significant, steady sales of Clickbank products without building lists.

Originally Posted by JackPowers

Being an affiliate on Clickbank is constantly having to keep up with the newest fad.

I suspect that there's a huge turnover of "those affiliates", many dropping out in disillusionment but constantly being replaced, while those quietly selling older, much lower-gravity products which have nothing to do with MMO/IM-advice but can have really good conversion-rates and sales volumes are building up some hugely successful businesses more or less unnoticed by anyone.

Becoming one of those was what originally took me (and pretty quickly, once I'd worked it out) from almost no income at all to over $3,000/$3,500 per month.

Product selection, in other words, is everything: get that wrong, and you can get absolutely everything else right and still never earn a living.
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- JROC777 13 years ago
  
  Thanks Alexa, I appreciate the insite.
  
  Thanks
  
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Chris Donne

13 years ago

I suffered in the same way in my early days online, what really made the difference for me was when i changed my main focus to building my mailing list, i trebled the time i was spending on that one task, Sure enough, what you focus on tends to happen, I then changed how i dealt with my lists, I stopped trying to continually sell, Instead I found out what they wanted , then when possible gave it to them free. A strategy I fully recomend, Good Luck

Thanks
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LooseChange 13 years ago

The big change came for me when I stopped promoting other people/companies products via affiliate marketing and started selling my own products and services.

There are many perils related to affiliate marketing that none of the self-proclaimed gurus pitching e-books will tell you.

For example, what do you do when you've just spent over $3000 in one month on Adwords directed to a landing page, thinking you just earned over $7K in commissions - only to have the affiliate program do a runner and never pay you? You think Google is going to refund your Adwords spend? Think again.

I can't tell you how much money was left "on the table" when I played with Clickbank, Pepperjam and all the other fly-by-night shady affiliate programs and networks.

Selling someone else's product is a suckers game at best. If you really want to make money, take a step forward and create a product or service you can offer to consumers.
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- Alexa Smith Banned 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by LooseChange
  
  Selling someone else's product is a suckers game at best.
  
  Please excuse my observing that this really is one of the more extraordinary comments I've seen here over the last three years.
  
  I can't help wondering whether you have any idea how many hugely successful Warriors have built up businesses based entirely on selling other people's products?
  
  Quite apart from avoiding a vendor's "customer service obligations" altogether, it typically gives you far more flexibility than the vendors have: you can develop your own asset-based niche-sites/lists business, and change the products you're promoting almost overnight, if ever you need/want to, without needing to do constant product-development, and so on.
  
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miahmiah

13 years ago

Hi JRCO777,

I can relate to your story, after spending thousands of pounds on learning strategies and paying high end prices for one on one coaching I have achieved nothing online. I am so disheartened . I read all the success stories and then think there must be a way.Like you I refuse to give up. I have created a website in the personal development field, it has taken me 12 months to implement the stuff that I have learned. Still my knowledge is getting me no-where I am really stuck. I will keep going and I always look on this forum for guidance I want to come back and make a post about my success. Good luck with your efforts keep going the results will come.

Thanks
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JROC777

13 years ago

Originally Posted by miahmiah

Good luck to you as well, cheers

Thanks

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LooseChange

13 years ago

Originally Posted by miahmiah

miahmiah, every successful business person has had to fail a few times before they find something that works for them.

Don't give up. Also, don't look to other people on forums for answers on how to make a living. Think for yourself. Think outside the box.

The real key is products and services.

Look, my landscaper was making more money than me per month cutting lawns until it dawned on me that he found a service, he is reliable, good at what he does and is dedicated to providing his customers satisfaction. Until I had him cutting my lawn, I probably went through 10 lawn services in 3 years. He's been with me 5 years now but he always shows up on time, does a good job and in the process he's built a solid business.

Don't dream of getting rich overnight. That just doesn't happen. Think of the long run. Something you can be as good at or better than anyone else and stick with it.

Thanks
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Richard Van 13 years ago

Originally Posted by LooseChange

miahmiah, every successful business person has had to fail a few times before they find something that works for them.

At the risk of another infraction, is that perhaps why you think affiliate marketing is a suckers game? There's nothing wrong with failing at it, I failed at plenty of things before I did well.

I know quite a few people that do very well from it, I also see many people doing it very badly.

But like all things, it's good to diversify, which is why affiliate marketing is just a small part of my business. I have a rather good offline business amongst others.

One thing though, if I failed to be a success at product creation, or anything else for that matter, I most certainly wouldn't label all people that did it, as being suckers.

No ones the same and what works for one person, won't work for others. That's life. Online or offline, they both work, if you do them properly.
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Jason Perez O'Connor 13 years ago

Take it from someone who has spent stupid amounts on courses, you can find anything on the internet for free.

There isn't one better way, just many you can choose to do and focus on. Clickbank isn't easy, and especially if you aren't list building.

Are you list building?
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- JROC777 13 years ago
  
  Hi Jason,
  
  Actually yes I have just started list building.
  
  Thanks
  
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JROC777 13 years ago

As Jack mentioned I do read alot about building small niche websites but I've never had much luck with adsense or maybe my problem is finding the right niche in the first place?
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saseos 13 years ago

I unfortunately do not make my money through adsense but i did read a article that said you can display the ads as part of your content. I suppose this kind of work could lead to more people clicking on your ads and you making more money.
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- jan roos 13 years ago
  
  Promote physical products as an affiliate or make your own product and sell it.
  
  I do both and it's working well. You'll make much more than 1k a month if u focus on one thing for at least 4 months.
  
  Of course there's tons of other ways to do it as well and most are good. This is just the way I did it and if I had to start over again I'd do the same.
  
  The competition for physical products are still weak and the conversions are through the roof. I am talking 10% conversion from Amazon, think about what that means.
  
  Cheers
  
  Jan
  
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  High Horsepower 13 years ago
  
  I'll put in my 2 cents. I have been online/offline since 2003. Online marketing, Clickbank, CPA, Adwords, Adsense, etc... is a b**** It is hard work and you constantly need to have your -A- game on. I tried that game for months and made very little money. Then in 2004 a friend of mine who owned a retail business asked me if I could help him build a website, back then Frontpage was popular.
  
  After about 10 hours of work he gave me a $1,000 cash. I never made that much for one days work. Been offline ever since. When I get the urge to go Online again I just remember how broke I was, how frustrated I was, and how much more competitive it is today.
  
  I'm 100% offline and love it. Life is much better. I'm not rich, but high six figures a year, and I'm permanent part time. I devote maybe 15 hours a week to my offline business and the rest is spent with other ventures, my family, sports, fishing, travel, etc... Maybe I'm just too stupid to compete with online guys, I don't know. Life is good. Take your great online skills and apply it offline, business owners will love you.
  
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  LooseChange 13 years ago
  
  I fully agree with High Horsepower, taking your ideas offline into the real world and seeing if they stick is a good indicator if you're ready to do business online.
  
  I'll also add that if you're thinking of getting rich sitting behind your computer screen, give up the Facebook dream, the only way you get real money paying clients is by learning how to deal with people face to face.
  
  Thanks
  
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jwhitebiz 13 years ago

Well, I would take a step back first and assess a couple of things...

1.) Is the affiliate side, vs product or something else, the side that you enjoy/want to be on, or do you like it enough to keep doing it.

2.) Do you like the work at home niche? I know some guys that hate it, I personally love it and its probably my second biggest niche.

If you say yes to those, then, my next question would be, what have you done so far to get where you're at? Can it be scaled out more, can you leverage people in the same niche? Chances are since work at home is huge, you easily could.

I should note, when I say "work at home" I don't mean the "IM" niche because IM is a subset of work at home, and work at home is extremely broad and huge with lots of money in it.

I would start buying traffic strategically to build up sales for these products and also try promoting some more CPA based work at home products vs. clickbank types. If you don't have a ton to buy traffic, then you can take a more joint venture approach (not emails, but with ads).

I can say that there are affiliates and networks pushing 1000's of sales/day in the biz opp niche, so I would just dial in some ways to grow what you're doing and you might see that $100/day was too small of a goal
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- ChrisGuthrie 13 years ago
  
  My biggest suggestion would be to not try selling IM products.
  
  It's easier to get started selling physical products as an affiliate, creating a quality website etc
  
  If you're going for free organic traffic from Google think about the way their search engine is changing, they are starting to incorporate a lot of signals to determine brands etc.
  
  If you made just one massively awesome website in one category you truly enjoy you should be able to find success if you work at it. That's what I did with one of the websites I was building back when I still had a day job. See thread here.
  
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Jeremy Banks

13 years ago

TEST TEST TEST

Once you find something that makes some money just keep on repeating those actions and build your monthly income! This is what I did to earn close to $10 000 per month

Thanks
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ChrisGuthrie

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Jeremy Banks

TEST TEST TEST

Once you find something that makes some money just keep on repeating those actions and build your monthly income! This is what I did to earn close to $10 000 per month

Jeremy is a baller read what he says too. We talk on Skype a lot... sup dude

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Josh Richardson 13 years ago

As has been touched on before, i highly recommend you create your own products.

I'm not saying that selling other peoples products to gain affiliate commissions doesnt work, because it does.

The problem comes when the product becomes "not so popular" and judging by the majority of the Clickbank products nowadays, the majority anyway, are NOT here to say (i'd love to be proved wrong) - and are just in it to make the 'guru' in question a quick 6 figures on a launch.

Once the popularity of a Product is gone, youll find less and less traffic, and we all know what less traffic means.

Just think, if you create a great product that solves a problem for people - and it is a problem that people are looking for a fair bit - you should be generating consistant traffic (depending on niche selection, the problem etc but you get my drift) when compared to a product launch of some push button riches profit system.

Just my 2c.

Josh
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omk 13 years ago

Q-Where should I focus my efforts in the IM world today?
A- You'll never go wrong with seasonal targets like xmas, halloween, valentines day, mothers day etc. - prepare for those weeks in advance.
Also keep a sharp eye out for hot trends or world events. Good ones were the Charlie sheen, Royal Wedding and End of the world events. You'll get great traffic and can easily monetize thru simple things like related aff. products, adsense, zip/email submits and content locking/gateways.

Q-Should I keep building websites that focus on affiliate program sales? - if not what direction should I be moving in?
A- Yes and No. You can still do those, but also start building other types of sites/blogs that focus on locked content or your own info products. This way you'll have a variety of sites. Never put all your IM eggs in one basket.

Q-When it comes to just plain financial survival what is the shortest path to accomplish my goal of $100/day?
A- The real answer to that question is trial and error and "it depends". You've got to try several areas in IM first and see how you do and how you feel doing them. There is no right IM path that fits every person. Some people might kill it with CB or networks like CJ. Other people might do better creating their own info products. Still others will find it easier to make money as a guru type. Others may hit their goal going back to a more traditional way of making money and make it big offline, helping small businesses. The shortest path to financial survival is picking something that you seem to have a knack for and scaling it up. Focus on just that area until u dominate, then move on to the next area. One person's easy is another person's hard.
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- jgant 13 years ago
  
  I'd avoid promoting products for sale on Clickbank if you're promoting "work-at-home" products because chances are you're marketing to affiliates who buy through their own affiliate links.
  
  Narrow your market to a niche. Perhaps "work at home accountants" (research the niche - it's just an example). Then write directly for that group of people.
  
  Find one killer product that you use and love and that your narrow audience would use. Be sure affiliates can't buy it through their aff link (given your audience). I love recurring commission products such as web-based software.
  
  Use this product and know everything about it. Then write a series of articles related to the product including a review. Promote those articles.
  
  This technique works for me. I do it in a narrow niche. I promote 1 software product with recurring commissions and make several sales (5 to 10) every month. I anticipate having sold 50 to 100 subscriptions by the end of the year. The recurring commissions will generate passive income for years.
  
  Don't be afraid to contact vendors if they don't have an affiliate program to explore an affiliate arrnagement. That's what I did, and because my micro-niche site catered to their specific customers, we worked out an arrangement where I'm one of a very few affiliates. The competition is non-existent, yet the niche is full of buyers.
  
  This is just one example to get started to consistent monthly income.
  
  I also work on a broad market website loaded with affiliate promotions as well as informative articles. This works as well because I can write posts targeting several niches.
  
  I'm choosy about the products I promote.
  
  Thanks
  
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  jbsmith 13 years ago
  
  Pretty tough to analyze anyone's business without the following:
  
  1. Overview of how much traffic you are sending to your site(s) and how you are getting that traffic
  
  2. What your conversion rates are
  
  3. How you are building back-end earning potential (list, reputation, recurring income vehicles, etc..)
  
  When we get people who's business is not scaling, pretty much always comes down to one or more of these factors isn't quite working.
  
  For example, they have a good product, solid pre-sell campaign, but are only getting 100 visitors a day, 1-sale/day on a product where they earn $30 commission - that's less than $1K
  
  Or -- they are getting 1000's of visitors a day, but either because their source of traffic is weak OR their conversion sucks, they make less than 1-sale/day and are lucky to scrape up $500 in a month.
  
  Or -- lots of traffic and good pre-sales, but the actual affiliate sales page sucks, again conversion suffers and it won't scale.
  
  There is always a way to figure it out.
  
  Jeff
  
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  JROC777 13 years ago
  
  Thank You everyone, all around good advice. I appreciate the time each one of you took to help answer my question.
  
  Cheers
  Jimmy
  
  Thanks
  
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JamesGw 13 years ago

I had a lot of success breaking the 1k/month threshold by selling high ticket items. The market for high priced items isn't as small as you'd think; it just requires a little more selling. Conversion rates are about the same.

If you can get 200 visitors a day with a 2% conversion rate on a $1000 item with a 20% commission, you'll be making $800/day. That's a moderate amount of visitors and a medium conversion rate (not that high, though), so it's certainly possible.

I haven't been able to get 200 visitors a day for any particular $1k+ item, but I do have one that converted 2/103, 4/90, 1/50, and 2/98 for the past four months.
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