Article Marketing and Free Traffic is Bloody Expensive

[Ron Douglas]

I'm sure some people are going to disagree with me, but this is my opinion based on 8 years of experience in IM.

Everyone wants to find ways to get free traffic. But the truth is, unless your cousin has a big email list, there is no such thing as free traffic.

Traffic generation is Advertising. Real companies have advertising budgets. If your product is worth the pixels it's displayed with, you should have a budget for advertising also. But Internet Marketers spend so much time searching for the latest loophole to get around running a real business.

Let's get back to free traffic and why it is a misnomer. Just look at some of the most powerful "free" ways of getting traffic:

- Launching an affiliate program / JVs: Probably the most expensive way to get traffic. People are paying others 50%, 75%, and even 100% of their revenue just to receive traffic. How much additional money would you make if you got 100% of the sale instead of 25%. Think about that for a moment.

- Article Marketing: To really do well with article marketing, you need to write lots of high quality articles and get them distributed all over the Net. You also need to be good at keyword research or you're just wasting your efforts. This is very time consuming and there is a huge OPPORTUNITY COST. You're taking away time that could be spent doing other things - like creating new revenue streams or getting to know your children. If you paid yourself just $15 per hour, how much would article marketing really cost you? Definetely not "FREE."

- Video Marketing: I don't know about you, but I could spend a whole day just on one video. I don't really have a knack for getting it done on one take. I have to plan what I want to say and then work my way through it using the pause button about 100 times. Very time consuming and expensive (opportunity cost), not to mention how much it costs for a decent video editor.

- Forum Marketing / Web 2.0 Sites: You can't just jump on these sites and develop and immediate following. It can take many months to earn the respect it takes for this form of marketing to be effective. Not to mention all the time you're gonna waste just surfing around.

I got so fed up with doing all this "free" stuff that I decided to outsource it all to a team of specialists to do it me. It's been working out great for me. There are so many hours in the day, is generating so called free traffic really the best use of your time?

I'd like to hear from people who still do it themselves. How many hours do you spend on traffic generation? Multiply your hours by $15/per hour and let us know your monthly total.

[Daniel Molano]

I agree to an extent Ron.

Right now I outsource most of the time consuming work to specialists who do it even better than I do, mostly content, which is now done by professional writers.

Link building, SEO, graphics, copy, all that is done by specialists, because no matter how good I am or how good I consider myself to be, these people do it way better.

Nevertheless you have to start somewhere, when I first began I didn't have a single dime so I had to rely on free methods which then built up and allowed me to outsource the work.

Also, doing all these "free" things (which I agree, they are not free at all, they require a huge amount of time investment) allowed me to learn the mechanics and the basics.

Not only did I start generating a great income from scratch when I was broke, but I also became quite proficient in the areas that I now outsource.

When my SEO team does something I actually know what the hell they are doing.

When my ghostwriters develop articles I actually know if they are doing them right and of how much quality they are.

When I set my VA to do some backlinking, I have already experienced it and I know how to check if he's doing the work right. And so forth.

In short, I agree. But people have to start somewhere.

- Dan

P.S: I highly disagree on the affiliate program/JV point though.

Sure you could keep 100% profits and if you know your stuff you can generate massive amounts of traffic, nevertheless you cannot work as much as 10+ additional marketers who are at the same level you are or at a superior point in their business.

What's better, making 1,000 sales for $100 or 10,000 sales for $50?

[Phillip King]

You hit the nail on the head Ron, folks need to realize that to be successful in the internet you have to treat it and work it like a BUSINESS, that's what it is, treat is as a hobby, it'll pay you like a hobby, treat it like a business, it'll pay you like a business.

Thanks for the great post !

Phillip King

[edlewis]

I agree with some of the stuff you mentioned, especially since many people only create jobs for themselves online and not a business.

However, I thoroughly disagree with this one:

Originally Posted by Ron Douglas

- Launching an affiliate program / JVs: Probably the most expensive way to get traffic. People are paying others 50%, 75%, and even 100% of their revenue just to receive traffic. How much additional money would you make if you got 100% of the sale instead of 25%. Think about that for a moment.

REALLY!?!?

Lauching an affiliate program is no different than hiring a bunch of employees to promote your product. Employees who, by the way, ONLY get paid when a sale is made.

Your whole point was about "free" traffic not really being free. But now you want to suggest not having affiliates who only get paid when a sale is made is a BAD thing that is COSTING people money? Huh...?

Doesn't make a bit of sense to me.

So you're saying you'd rather try to do all that promotional work yourself instead of paying affiliates a percentage of sales - and that's supposed to give you MORE time?

I don't think so.

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have 50% (or even only 25%) of the sales made by affiliates than NOT have any affiliates and have to make all those sales myself.

I'll take 25% of something over 100% of nothing any day.

Especially because when a business is run CORRECTLY you are REALLY only paying affiliates 75% of the UPFRONT sale, while the LIFETIME value of a customer is worth much more than that.

I don't see the downside here and really don't understand how affiliate marketing fits into the rest of your post. Almost seems backwards to me....

Ed

[Bert Ritz]

This is interesting because I was just commenting to a friend today about how I've noticed the lack of advertising by the automakers and other companies that are in 'trouble'. Why would they axe their advertising first, when that should be the last thing that goes. Axe the high level bonuses!
There seems to be a correlation here, no advertising, business deminishes.
As far as IM, free traffic takes alot of work and time. Time and work that might be spent on something with a greater return.

[JamesMSpacey]

Yeah, there's just nothing for nothing.

The only comment I would make is maybe in regard to article marketing.

Personally I use it a lot at the beginning of an advertising campaign when I enter a new niche because the article stays up virtually forever, second, it can create a number of initial backlinks, but most of all beccause for me the process of writing new articles in a new niche cements my knowledge of the niche and then enables me to produce better, more relevant content and participate more actively in that niche's communities. In my opinion, for those reasons, the opportunity cost is low at the start of a campaign. Though, I agree that it rises with time and particularly as your promotion efforts begin to pick up momentum.

[Ron Douglas]

Originally Posted by edlewis

I agree with some of the stuff you mentioned, especially since many people only create jobs for themselves online and not a business.

However, I thoroughly disagree with this one:




REALLY!?!?

Lauching an affiliate program is no different than hiring a bunch of employees to promote your product. Employees who, by the way, ONLY get paid when a sale is made.

Your whole point was about "free" traffic not really being free. But now you want to suggest not having affiliates who only get paid when a sale is made is a BAD thing that is COSTING people money? Huh...?

Doesn't make a bit of sense to me.

So you're saying you'd rather try to do all that promotional work yourself instead of paying affiliates a percentage of sales - and that's supposed to give you MORE time?

I don't think so.

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have 50% (or even only 25%) of the sales made by affiliates than NOT have any affiliates and have to make all those sales myself.

I'll take 25% of something over 100% of nothing any day.

Especially because when a business is run CORRECTLY you are REALLY only paying affiliates 75% of the UPFRONT sale, while the LIFETIME value of a customer is worth much more than that.

I don't see the downside here and really don't understand how affiliate marketing fits into the rest of your post. Almost seems backwards to me....

Ed

I gotta say something to get a rise out of you Ed ;-).

I built an entire business around paying affiliates, so I'm not knocking it. I'm just saying that it's not a "free" method to support the case that there is no free traffic.

You can have an affiliate program but still advertise to get direct sales. Paying out 75% of your revenue may actually be more expensive than advertising directly in some cases.

[Sandi Valentine]

I think one of the major problems with "free traffic" is that many people underestimate the value of their time. It's better to set the hourly rate that you're trying to achieve, and then outsource tasks that are worth less than that that you don't enjoy.

I personally enjoy writing, but prefer to outsource technical tasks and graphics. I could learn to install scripts or design headers, but it probably wouldn't be worth the time that I've invested. I can get a higher return by finding someone who's good at it and enjoys it to do some of the work for me.

Others might enjoy technical topics, but hate writing or link building - there's always room for an exchange of skills.

Originally Posted by Ron Douglas

Traffic generation is Advertising. Real companies have advertising budgets. If your product is worth the pixels it's displayed with, you should have a budget for advertising also. But Internet Marketers spend so much time searching for the latest loophole to get around running a real business.

I agree wholeheartedly... In order to make big money--you must be willing to take the financial risk of investing money in advertising. In the offline world, there is no way around it. However--online the word "free" has become security blanket that hinders small business growth.

Also, when it comes to finding loopholes--what many people fail to realize is that--you can easily waste eons of time, and tons of money buying products teaching you how to exploit loopholes that will eventually be closed.

Here's a quick tip for search engine loophole hunters:

You can't beat Google... You can't beat Yahoo... You can't beat MSN

At best, you can manipulate their algorithms for an indefinite time--which is obviously a very unstable time length to rely on

- Launching an affiliate program / JVs: Probably the most expensive way to get traffic. People are paying others 50%, 75%, and even 100% of their revenue just to receive traffic. How much additional money would you make if you got 100% of the sale instead of 25%. Think about that for a moment.

Ron,
I'm not entirely with you on this one. But, I do see your point.

As a product owner, I look at affiliate revenue as a bonus. It doesn't stop me from aggressively marketing my product, and receiving the entire sale.

- Article Marketing: To really do well with article marketing, you need to write lots of high quality articles and get them distributed all over the Net. You also need to be good at keyword research or you're just wasting your efforts. This is very time consuming and there is a huge OPPORTUNITY COST. You're taking away time that could be spent doing other things - like creating new revenue streams or getting to know your children. If you paid yourself just $15 per hour, how much would article marketing really cost you? Definetely not "FREE."

As you know, I couldn't agree with you more when it comes to article marketing...you are much better than me though, I refuse to outsource it.

It's too much of a lackadaisical marketing practice for me...

- Video Marketing: I don't know about you, but I could spend a whole day just on one video. I don't really have a knack for getting it done on one take. I have to plan what I want to say and then work my way through it using the pause button about 100 times. Very time consuming and expensive (opportunity cost), not to mention how much it costs for a decent video editor.

Video marketing is by far the best form of free marketing. Video marketing is the more superior alternative to article marketing.

Videos are just as easy to optimize as an article--and video has been proven to be much more effective than articles... on Youtube your given a description box that allows you to write a keyword rich article, headline, and many video sites have good page rank.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen a video rank on the first page of Google for a targeted keyword.

And, the connection made between you and the viewer is extremely powerful.

I hope that others are enlightened by your post

Take care

Marc

Ron,
I can agree to a certain point but let's face reality here.. Now you base this on Internet Marketers but I do not consider myself an internet marketer. I am a website developer and have been one for over 15 years.

I disagree with the hourly wage thing, in my business I have never based my work on an hourly wage and never will. The work I do I love to do and as such its not just a business, atleast not to me...

Article Marketing I will disagree with your point here as you can very well generate a great deal of traffic and sales without massive articles being distributed all over the net. This highly depends upon what you are writing, promoting, advertising, and your type of business. Many many factors play into this...

I used to manage several affiliate programs for clients but these affiliate programs have nothing to do with clickbank or information products. So I will not comment on the affiliate programs other than I do have an affiliate program on my site which pays out instant payments by paypal.

I do have a staff that I pay, I do not outsource but I have hired a few to write a few articles. 97% of the articles I publish are written by myself. I do the bookmarking, writing articles, development, support and etc and I love every single minute of it. I work 7 days a week 14 - 18 hours a day, on occassion I will take off for the day.

You must understand that many newbies also do not have the money to pay for many services and they rely on the free traffic generation.

I also notice you left out opt-in list generation....

James