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Can this system make me $70k per month within a year? Why not?

by tomswiftjr
16 replies
I've spent the last couple months lurking here and on some other IM forums and I thought it was time that I step out of the shadows and engage. I'd like to get some wisdom from the more experienced folks about my plan and how I'm currently executing it. I'm generally somewhat reserved about telling folks about my dreams for megalomania, but as this is the Internet and I'm anonymous, what the hell? In all seriousness, I know what I'm shooting for is going to be very difficult and I need the help and guidance of those older and wiser who have been there / done that.

My motivations for IM:

My objectives for IM are mostly short-term, something to bring in cash over the next five years or so. I can talk about the reasons for that, but suffice it to say that I want to focus on other types of entrepreneurship in the long run. I see IM as a financial springboard to that. I'm also interested in IM for some passive income that's as stable as possible. No, I'm not looking for easy money or get rich quick. I'm happy to spend a lot of time, energy, and money upfront in the early stages, but I'd like to build a system that won't require more than 5-10 hours per week to maintain, if that. Consequently, I've looked for opportunities in IM that seem to be more stable. From what I've seen, affiliate marketing is crazy unstable, so I decided that creating my own product lines and marketing them myself was the way to go.

My specific goals:
  • Be making a reliable $10k / month by the end of the summer
  • Build out 10 product lines by the end of the year
  • Have each product line making an average of $200 per day in profit
The plan in a nutshell:
  1. Come up with non-IM niches where I feel a good opportunity exists for new products
  2. Narrow the list of niches through keyword research and competitive analysis
  3. Test demand by setting up landing pages and/or squeeze pages and driving traffic with PPC. Measure clicks on order buttons.
  4. For niches that seem to have buyers, move forward and produce info products (ebooks at lowest level, with audio / video products for upsells)
  5. Build squeeze pages and sales pages for intro product (ebook)
  6. Use PPC to drive traffic initially
  7. Use article marketing and other SEO techniques to drive free traffic over time
  8. Build a mailing list and push them quality content and offers, both upsell/cross-sell of my own products, plus affiliate offers for products
  9. Once a product line is up and stable, start back at #1 and build the next one. Rinse and repeat until I have 10-20 product lines.
What I've done so far

Over the 90 days or so, I've gone through steps 1-6 for two product lines. One just went live about a week ago and the other should go live in the next week. One is in the relationship / self-help niche, the other is in the gardening niche. Both tested very well and I hired ghostwriters to write 80-100 page ebooks and 3-4 bonus ebooks (~10 pages each) for each product, plus a 5-10 page free special report to give away for opt-ins. I'm selling the ebooks for $27. The self-help/relationship ebook had a sale every day for its first four days at a respectable conversion rate, but then things just dried up and now it's been five days and nothing. Not sure what happened there, as I'm still getting the same amount of traffic, but I'm testing the hell out of everything and playing with it, so I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'd love feedback and ideas, though. PM me if you want to see the page.

My assumptions on what's realistic (average per product):
  1. 50 paid visitors per day (Google, Yahoo, MS, Facebook, etc.)
  2. $.50 per click on average
  3. 100 organic search visitors per day
  4. 3% direct conversion rate from visitors
  5. 10% opt-in for mailing list
  6. 20% of opt-ins will buy $27 ebook
  7. 20% of ebook buyers will buy $70 premium product
At these numbers, it looks like roughly $7k per month in profit per product. Yes, that seems like a lot, but where are my numbers off? Are these numbers remotely feasible averages across 10 different non-IM product lines that have been tested? I know that so much of it depends on the products, the audience, and the sales copy. Let's say that the copy is great, and keep in mind that I expect to test 5 products for every 1 good one that I eventually put into production. Are numbers like these insane or just good?

Anyway, that's pretty much it so far...I'd love specifics on my first attempt and how I can get it selling again, but mostly I'd like feedback on the overall plan, things to watch out for, what won't work, and how I can improve it. Thanks!
#crazy #income #passive #system #work
  • Profile picture of the author JeffLam
    You are very impressive in that you seem very meticulous with what you are doing.

    I'm a newbie too, and even though I can't offer you much of a good advice due to my low level of IM, I would say that yes, with such an attitude and work ethic, I believe you can make $70k a month and beyond.

    Come on IM pros! Give this guy some advice!
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    • Profile picture of the author tomswiftjr
      Thanks for the encouragement

      I'm definitely a planner...you should see my awesome spreadsheet model that I built to plan this out over the next year. But I'm busting my ass to actually take action and move forward with things as well. That said, my model has a lot of assumptions and I want to find the ones that are way off from reality.
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      • Profile picture of the author discrat
        Wow impressive Plannng and Organizing. You seem to really be focused and I totally commend you on that. Just put in the work and I think you can reach your goal. Keep at it.
        I will be interested in hearing from some of the more experienced Product creators here and see what they think.
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  • Profile picture of the author ripsnorta2
    Just remember, that while meticulous plans and big spreadsheet models are all very nice, it's easy to let them become a distraction from doing what you really need to do: to make money.

    You'll need to plan, track results, and analyse those results, it's true. But the best use of your time is spent on activities that produce an income. Just don't go overboard.

    And remember that famous saying of MacArthur. No plan survives contact with the enemy.
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  • Profile picture of the author cow194234
    All I can say from my personal experience is that my numbers now matter how well I thought I had done the math always turned out less then expected.

    Just do not give up, if you suddenly are not getting sales do split tests, just keep tweaking the sites.

    Oh and about the split tests I do not know if you know this or not but it is a very important factor. DO NOT choose a winning page based on traffic, so don't say "ok I will split test to 1000 unique visitors and pick the site with the most sales" The real and best way to split test is to say, "I will split test for the first 50-100 sales" and then compare which site took less traffic to reach that sales number.

    Once you do that split test again with the site that had the most sales and keep doing it till you find that you are at the equilibrium point on your site. Hopefully you can bump that conversion rate of sales up to 4-8% depending on the market.

    Oh and also never forget your affiliate force, especially if you can pull a high conversion like that from PPC or your own organic traffic. Most of the time affiliates can help butter up your customers, and/or send more targeted traffic to up the conversion rate even more.

    Sorry if I made mistypes or didn't sound coherent its pretty late here and I think it is time for bed.

    Good Luck, and just stick with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author williamwallacehere
    I have a little suggestion...try to keep check points about every week to see what is going wrong with site...cause do remember one thing.... Success will come when everything goes well.....so just dont loose your focus on what is going wrong and try to improve only wrong things.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    Hi Tom,

    It's great that you've done your homework and created a pretty comprehensive plan.

    I do wonder where you got your numbers from though as 3% conversion from traffic where you don't have any kind of relationship is above average and the same applies to your other statistics.

    Now, if you said the traffic was coming from JVs or some method where there was a relationship in place with the visitors then that's a completely different story and you could get MUCH higher conversion rates, but if you're starting from scratch and this is all search engine traffic then I would say don't get disheartened if your numbers don't quite work out like you've set out.

    You'll hear a lot of people say "it's a numbers game" and in some respects that's true - but you'll get MUCH better results when you bring a relationship in to the equation at some point.

    Andy
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    nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author morry
    I like your enthusiasm, but my experience tells me that it won't go as you've planned. Firstly, because no plans ever work as you think. Secondly, because it's pretty damn hard to know your metrics before you start.

    Instead of pumping out products, I'd focus on building one solid business, then when you get to the point where it's easier to start another one than to grow it further, do that.

    All the guys I know doing $1M+ are doing this. In this model, the thing that will kill you is cost of leads. It's a lot easier to make money with one business with 10 products than 10 businesses with one ebook each.

    Overall though you sound like you have your head screwed on pretty well. Just be prepared for loads of things to go wrong and you'll do ok.

    Hope that helps, let me know if you need any clarification.

    Sean Morrissy
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  • Profile picture of the author SoEasyMoney
    With your impressive post about your goal/plan/action you could even do a WSO for newbies that shows step by step what you did, via video. That would be an additional stream of revenue for you!
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    • Profile picture of the author tomswiftjr
      Thanks so much to everyone for your feedback and words of encouragement. Much appreciated. I thought I'd respond to some of the posts in one giant response rather than respond to each post individually...hope folks don't mind

      Action vs. Planning

      I totally agree that it's important not to get caught up in planning to the point where you never take action. I've been a victim of analysis paralysis on many occasions in the past. For this venture, I started several months ago and dived right in with almost no plan, making it up as I went along. It's only now that I'm a little farther along that I'm taking the time to build out a model and understand where I go from here. I'm a big fan of business systems and working on your business, not in it, as described in the E-Myth and other similar books.

      Cold traffic vs. relationship traffic

      I definitely plan on exploring JVs once I have the systems up and running, but I have no idea what to expect there, so it's not part of my model just yet. As far as cold traffic conversion rates, it'd be nice to know what's more realistic than what I have, from people who have experience in non-IM niches. Just to give you an idea, here's a sampling of niches that I'm exploring: pets, relationship, self-help, education, gardening.

      Product line depth vs. product line breadth

      I originally planned on just doing ebooks, but the more I've explored the subject, the more I've realized that people who have already bought from you and trust you are the best people to sell future products to, hence the reason that I've decided to create a "premium" product in the $50 - 100 range. I may create an ultra-premium product for some niches that might be either a membership site with recurring income or something that would sell for $150 - 300, but it would really depend on the niche. Some of these niches just don't seem like they'd lend themselves to products like that. Additionally, my time and personal brand are really important to me, so things like conferences, 1-on-1 calls, and coaching programs are out, unless I can somehow farm those out to someone else.

      The other reason that I'd like more product line breadth is for income stability. Part of the reason I'm selecting the niches that I am is that they don't currently have a lot of competition. I know I can't expect that to continue forever, but if I only have one or two products lines and they dry up due to competition or some other change in the market, I'll lose a big chunk of my income. I'd rather make the same amount of money spread across more product lines, even if I have to work a little harder in the beginning to get there.

      This is also one of the reasons that I'd be hesitant to work the affiliate angle for my products. I've heard affiliates say that they find products that are doing well and then rip them off and create their own. Seems like an affiliate program is a way of broadcasting to other IM pros that you've found a lucrative niche and giving them the tools to sell to it...it might bring good income in the short-term, but in the long run, I see it hurting more than helping. Like to hear people's thoughts on this.

      Validity of assumptions

      I know that a lot of my assumptions will turn out to be invalid, though I'm hoping some of them will be better in reality. That's part of why I'm posting here, to find out what's realistic, and to find out what about my plan is sub-optimal. For example, am I better off focusing heavily on building a list to sell to rather than trying to convert cold traffic? Should my PPC ads be going to squeeze pages instead of sales page? Stuff like that.

      Again, much appreciated to all who took time to respond.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adrian Cooper
    Originally Posted by tomswiftjr View Post

    I've spent the last couple months lurking here and on some other IM forums and I thought it was time that I step out of the shadows and engage. I'd like to get some wisdom from the more experienced folks about my plan and how I'm currently executing it. I'm generally somewhat reserved about telling folks about my dreams for megalomania, but as this is the Internet and I'm anonymous, what the hell? In all seriousness, I know what I'm shooting for is going to be very difficult and I need the help and guidance of those older and wiser who have been there / done that.

    My motivations for IM:

    My objectives for IM are mostly short-term, something to bring in cash over the next five years or so. I can talk about the reasons for that, but suffice it to say that I want to focus on other types of entrepreneurship in the long run. I see IM as a financial springboard to that. I'm also interested in IM for some passive income that's as stable as possible. No, I'm not looking for easy money or get rich quick. I'm happy to spend a lot of time, energy, and money upfront in the early stages, but I'd like to build a system that won't require more than 5-10 hours per week to maintain, if that. Consequently, I've looked for opportunities in IM that seem to be more stable. From what I've seen, affiliate marketing is crazy unstable, so I decided that creating my own product lines and marketing them myself was the way to go.

    My specific goals:
    • Be making a reliable $10k / month by the end of the summer
    • Build out 10 product lines by the end of the year
    • Have each product line making an average of $200 per day in profit
    The plan in a nutshell:
    1. Come up with non-IM niches where I feel a good opportunity exists for new products
    2. Narrow the list of niches through keyword research and competitive analysis
    3. Test demand by setting up landing pages and/or squeeze pages and driving traffic with PPC. Measure clicks on order buttons.
    4. For niches that seem to have buyers, move forward and produce info products (ebooks at lowest level, with audio / video products for upsells)
    5. Build squeeze pages and sales pages for intro product (ebook)
    6. Use PPC to drive traffic initially
    7. Use article marketing and other SEO techniques to drive free traffic over time
    8. Build a mailing list and push them quality content and offers, both upsell/cross-sell of my own products, plus affiliate offers for products
    9. Once a product line is up and stable, start back at #1 and build the next one. Rinse and repeat until I have 10-20 product lines.
    What I've done so far

    Over the 90 days or so, I've gone through steps 1-6 for two product lines. One just went live about a week ago and the other should go live in the next week. One is in the relationship / self-help niche, the other is in the gardening niche. Both tested very well and I hired ghostwriters to write 80-100 page ebooks and 3-4 bonus ebooks (~10 pages each) for each product, plus a 5-10 page free special report to give away for opt-ins. I'm selling the ebooks for $27. The self-help/relationship ebook had a sale every day for its first four days at a respectable conversion rate, but then things just dried up and now it's been five days and nothing. Not sure what happened there, as I'm still getting the same amount of traffic, but I'm testing the hell out of everything and playing with it, so I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'd love feedback and ideas, though. PM me if you want to see the page.

    My assumptions on what's realistic (average per product):
    1. 50 paid visitors per day (Google, Yahoo, MS, Facebook, etc.)
    2. $.50 per click on average
    3. 100 organic search visitors per day
    4. 3% direct conversion rate from visitors
    5. 10% opt-in for mailing list
    6. 20% of opt-ins will buy $27 ebook
    7. 20% of ebook buyers will buy $70 premium product
    At these numbers, it looks like roughly $7k per month in profit per product. Yes, that seems like a lot, but where are my numbers off? Are these numbers remotely feasible averages across 10 different non-IM product lines that have been tested? I know that so much of it depends on the products, the audience, and the sales copy. Let's say that the copy is great, and keep in mind that I expect to test 5 products for every 1 good one that I eventually put into production. Are numbers like these insane or just good?

    Anyway, that's pretty much it so far...I'd love specifics on my first attempt and how I can get it selling again, but mostly I'd like feedback on the overall plan, things to watch out for, what won't work, and how I can improve it. Thanks!
    I definitely admire your planning and attention to detail.

    Necessary though it is, it is extremely rare in IM.

    Failing to plan is planning to fail.

    As for your plan, it looks solid enough in broad terms.

    You may struggle with your projected numbers, but it is doable.

    One mistake - well not exactly because it is a matter of opinion - that I see most make is to build out multiple small sites or landing pages.

    Building a single well structured site is much more powerful, and the future. Google look for authority sites for SEO and increasingly for AdWords - i.e. they are converging. In a year or so such a site could be bringing plenty of organic traffic.

    Apart from that - go for it - and I hope you achieve your goals.
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    • Profile picture of the author tomswiftjr
      Originally Posted by apc01 View Post

      One mistake - well not exactly because it is a matter of opinion - that I see most make is to build out multiple small sites or landing pages.

      Building a single well structured site is much more powerful, and the future. Google look for authority sites for SEO and increasingly for AdWords - i.e. they are converging. In a year or so such a site could be bringing plenty of organic traffic.
      Thanks for the kind words...much appreciated!

      As far as the LP thing, I had originally planned to go with simple landing pages, but I've revised my thinking somewhat. My plan now is to start with that so I can immediately start driving PPC traffic and getting list signups and direct conversions. But from there I'll use Wordpress to build out a series of articles around the topic and probably a blog that links out to related news articles, blog posts, etc. I'll have my VA manage the blog portion so it doesn't end up taking a ton of my time. I'm hoping that the combination of article marketing plus fresh content from the blog should do well in terms of search rankings. And then in the sidebar of every page plus at the end of every article, I'll have a promotion to the ebook.

      I'd love to hear what people think of this approach...seems like I see content approaches like this used more often to sell affiliate products or for adsense. Just wonder what people think of using it to sell your own products.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    You've definitely given a lot of study and thought to your business. Very commendable! Most people don't...

    I think, as Andy Henry said, your conversion numbers may be a little high -- but the important thing for you is to adjust to what your reality turns out to be and not let it affect your attitude. From what you've written, you don't seem to be the type that will have a problem with that, but it's something to watch out for as your business unfolds.

    One remark that you made gives me pause:
    This is also one of the reasons that I'd be hesitant to work the affiliate angle for my products. I've heard affiliates say that they find products that are doing well and then rip them off and create their own. Seems like an affiliate program is a way of broadcasting to other IM pros that you've found a lucrative niche and giving them the tools to sell to it...it might bring good income in the short-term, but in the long run, I see it hurting more than helping. Like to hear people's thoughts on this.
    You can't enter this business with a 'scarcity' mindset, or try to be overprotective. One thing you'll find is that the vast majority of people who make money marketing online 1) do it with affiliates to expand their reach and 2) tend to give away a lot of valuable knowledge for free. Thinking that you need to be the only one in your marketing segment or that you need to monopolize a market in order to make money will cause you to avoid markets that you should be going after.

    Don't be afraid of people 'ripping you off'. It's going to happen - you should get used to the prospect. It can be a signal to you to keep on developing new products for your market, to be the innovator, the leader.

    And don't be afraid of competition. Move your mindset from 'competing' to 'creating', looking for new possibilities and new challenges and opportunities and you'll leave the 'competitors' far behind in the dust, fighting over the scraps you leave behind for them.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    One other small point -
    Originally Posted by acp01

    One mistake - well not exactly because it is a matter of opinion - that I see most make is to build out multiple small sites or landing pages.
    I don't think this is a mistake at all. Building small sites to test a market is a way to limit your 'risk' if a market doesn't respond as you think it might. The 'risk' is time spent (or money, if you outsource).

    acp01 (what's your name, anyway? these handles are so annoying) makes a valid point about the Big G and authority sites. But you build an authority site over time, and only in those markets where it's going to be worth your time to do so. One of the best ways of getting the necessary information to make that decision is to build a mini-site of 10-20 pages and if it looks promising, build it out. If it doesn't look like it will pan out, concentrate your efforts in another area.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adrian Cooper
    Multiple landing pages, mini-sites etc is an inefficient and short sighted approach. Apologies to all those I just upset - just telling it like I know it to be.

    The cost of all those domains each year, creating and building new sites all the time, not to mention the numerous lost opportunities and SEO benefits of large sites.

    WP is a good way of doing it for sure, but you might want to look at the longer term as well. If you are going to build a large site, you need to get the framework right from the outset.
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    • Profile picture of the author tomswiftjr
      Originally Posted by apc01 View Post

      Multiple landing pages, mini-sites etc is an inefficient and short sighted approach. Apologies to all those I just upset - just telling it like I know it to be.

      The cost of all those domains each year, creating and building new sites all the time, not to mention the numerous lost opportunities and SEO benefits of large sites.

      WP is a good way of doing it for sure, but you might want to look at the longer term as well. If you are going to build a large site, you need to get the framework right from the outset.
      I think maybe we're talking about two different things here. I'm a huge fan of testing niches by building out landing pages and mini-sites and testing traffic and conversion rates before I jump in with both feet. But once I find a good niche, I plan on building out large sites with lots of content and keeping the content fresh. On the other hand, if the niche doesn't test well, I'll stop working on it and let the domain lapse.

      That's my approach, anyway. We'll see how it goes...
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