How I Made Money Doing Something I Like From This Forum

(Original post here: http://www.moremoneytospend.com/blog...e-from-a-forum)


Working and providing a service for someone is a very viable option to make money online, there already exists many available jobs online like writing articles, providing SEO service, submission services, graphic creation, mini-site creation, blog creating, etc.

However, instead of choosing one of those and basically getting myself another job (which I'll eventually hate), I decided to look at what I have got to offer that can satisfy people and at the same time, keep me interested.

So, I headed to the Warrior Forums, a place I hang out quite often to pick up on internet marketing tips and strategies, to offer my service. I bought a thread, offered a service to turn written articles into audio or video format. Taking the exact same content and turning it into another format will bring a whole new audience.

Here's the thread currently: ★★★CONVERT YOUR ARTICLES TO VIDEO/AUDIO★★★

And I'm glad to report that the thread has been rather successful - I've been able to use it to generate some interest and garner some seed money for a project I'm working on right now. (Can't reveal it just yet)


But it didn't garner that much interest until I changed the salesletter copy and re-wrote it myself. Here's the earlier copy: Testing - Handcrafted Custom Video Products At Your Service!

I've been reading a few copywriting books and tips which led me to write the first, not-so-successful one. Then when it didn't do as well as I expected, I looked at the copy and gave it an overhaul.

Before: 1 - 2 projects after 2 months (terrible)
After: 3 projects (completed) and 4 more on hand, discussing, in less than 2 weeks

The first one had people who wanted to find out about my service. The second one had people who were ready to order. I give credit to something I learnt from some NLP strategies - that the sub-conscious is much larger than the conscious and can do better work.

So I submitted an order to the back of my mind saying "Work on this copy" and I forgot about it. A few days later, my subconscious mind kicked in and gave me the recommendations I needed to re-work the copy.

The other lessons I've learned through this thread are...

• Fire a question early into the letter

This creates interaction with the reader rather than me stating a fact (which I did in the earlier copy). My first one was this... telling people that

I want to introduce to you a unique service which many top
experts are already using to make more money from the exact
same product -- I'm talking about transforming your ebook or
articles into multimedia format.

Who is already making use of video and audio to make more
money? Big names like Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, Eben Pagan,
Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, Gary Ambrose, Ross Goldberg, and
many many more.

By converting your ebook into multimedia and offering that for
sale together with your ebook, you can target a bigger market
& you are justified for increasing your selling prices! Many
people choose not to buy from you simply because you are only
offering a written format - Get rid of that lame excuse once
and for all!

The new one is this:

Try this: Ask 10 random people on the street... which site do they recognize... YouTube.com or EzineArticles.com?
Some statistics from Alexa (as of 13 August 2009):

* EzineArticles.com - traffic ranking of 181
* YouTube.com - traffic ranking of 3

It only makes sense to go to where the people are to promote your website/business.

So I am offering my service to take YOUR EXISTING ARTICLES AND/OR WRITTEN CONTENT and convert them into VIDEO/AUDIO format.

The new copy is interesting, engaging, informative and most importantly, hype-free and real. So it worked!

• Swipe some ideas

I went around looking at different copies on the internet selling video services and stuff. I found one that engaged me early on - so what I did was to take the opening idea and inject it into the starting. Worked like magic, I had 2 people so far who contacted me starting with "What you said makes sense about EzineArticles and YouTube" - they had actually read my copy.

• Dare to follow up

Because I believed in my service, I dared to follow up with people and sent them messages constantly. There's a saying... The money's in the follow-up. So I sought them out and checked with them if they are still keen on the service. I always kept my messages courteous, never pushy.

A couple of them wanted to take the service but forgot - but my messages reminded them of me and so, they decided to carry on with my service. Most people don't follow-up because they don't believe in what they are trying to sell.

But I did, so I sold and am still making money.

• Do some forum marketing

I went to the main discussion forum and started to make some good comments on other peoples threads. I did not spam any of the threads and interacted with the people there.

Eventually, some of them saw my signature file and clicked to visit my thread - offering the service. And from there, they made some orders. Note though that it was the copy that made the biggest difference - I had been posting already before the new copy.
And that's about it! I am still providing this service and am still making money from it. This is also my second offer thread. The first one absolutely BOMBED. No orders, a few posts, but basically, nothing.

This one is successful and I'll keep at it until I find another shiney object to play with.