If you're discouraged about this whole IM thing...don't be. ;-)
Heya.
Whether you're a newbie or a veteran, we can all become super discouraged at times and overwhelmed with how complicated internet marketing can be. But when you have those little moments of success...or even big ones, it can re-energize you. Today, I'd like to share some of my moments of little success. I know it's not quite the same as doing it yourself, but hopefully it will sustain you until you get your own victory.
Alright. My first success:
I made 5 sales with 1 article. I posted it on ezinearticles, and that was it. No additional promotion. I actually intended on doing more than one article per day, but procrastination got in the way.
Here's the funny thing, one of the sales came just a couple of months ago, AFTER I had taken down my promotional page and the link on ezine articles had been dead for months.
So, how did I get those sales?
I simply targeted "product name review" as my keyword.
It was very low competition, and I thought, what the heck. This keyword doesn't get a lot of traffic. At the time when I wrote the article, it was about 300 searches a month. But, the traffic was very targeted. I don't know how, but somehow, my article became the #1 result for my target phrase.
This didn't happen overnight. If I remember rightly, it took a couple of weeks for it to get there. But then, I did NO backlinking whatsoever.
Here's a link to the article: 7 Dollar Secrets Review - Should You Buy It?
It's interesting to note that it only has 179 views, even after being #1 on Google for so many months.
Heck, it's STILL #1 in Google for it's keyword. Look: Google
It looks like someone ripped off my article, and they're doing pretty well.
You will notice that I took great care to optimize my article. It was the first string of text in my title, it was the first string of text in my article (and it was bolded). I was also careful to include several closely related keywords throughout my article.
The blog I linked to is dead and gone. There was nothing spectacular about it. Just a review with a PLR bonus I found on the internet. That was also optimized for my keyword, and while it was indexed by Google, it wasn't anywhere near the first page for my target keyword.
So the first part of my success was optimizing for a low-competition, highly targeted keyword.
The second part of my success (in my humble opinion) was the fact that I was honest. I had the chance to review the product, and I thought it was really good. So I had no problem recommending it. Of course, I wanted to make money. (probably more than I wanted to recommend a good product.
)
I'm sure if I had written just one article like this per day for 30 days, I would have made a LOT more money.
So the take-home step-by-step plan is as follows:
Step 1: Choose a product that you have bought and liked to promote. Or promote a product you have created. Just make sure it's high quality and has a converting sales letter.
Step 2: Do some keyword research, or don't. It doesn't matter. You want to target keywords that are looking for reviews or recommendations for products like yours.
Step 3: Write an honest review. Offer a bonus that adds value to the product (NOT a PLR product).
Step 4: Write about your product, your product's niche, or related products. Doesn't matter. You just need to create content that provides information that people are looking for. Not some crappy PLR junk, real content that you made. People can see through fake stuff like you wouldn't believe.
Step 5: Choose your weapon. You can use ezinearticles to promote your review if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it. Why? Because their review process takes FOREVER, and they have ads galore, and frankly, there are better alternatives. Some examples include:
The key to success to this method is consistency. It doesn't matter if it's 1 article a week, or 10 videos a day. It just needs to be consistent, otherwise it won't work.
My second milestone moment is when I made a $1,000 sale from an offline client. To be honest, I never wanted to go offline. I didn't like cold calling, or dressing up and going to a meeting. It defeats the purpose of "working from home".
But, for whatever reason, I gave it a try. I made an ad, and submitted it to 3 classified ads sites. Somehow I got lucky, and I got 2 leads. One was a serious small business, and I met with the marketing manager, company president, and a couple of managers. We had a 2 hours consultation, which went well. Later, they purchased 1,000 facebook fans from me for $1k.
I don't recommend trying to sell facebook fans right now. Facebook made a new policy that makes it VERY HARD to get fans (they limit the # of invites you can send out). This has affected all suppliers of facebook fans.
Anyway, shortly after that, I decided I would quit offline consulting. Why? Because it wasn't my thing.
Also, I had a minor fall out with my supplier, which has caused me a lot of stress. I'm working to raise $500 or so to ensure I can refund my client if this thing doesn't work out. After a few weeks, I'm still waiting for the fans to be delivered.
Isn't it ironic that a few days after I placed my order for fans, that facebook decided to make it harder with their new policy?
Anyway, you can read the full success story here: http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ine-leads.html
So, how can you succeed if you decide to do offline marketing? Well, I'm no expert, but for what it's worth, here's my advice:
I would much rather be a novelest/how-to book writer, and a forum administrator. I LOVE writing (especially fantasy stuff), and I also love helping people. I think one of the best ways to do this is to create a support forum for people to get and give help and advice.
Once I've secured my finical situation with the offline client fiasco, I plan on doing just that.
But what does that matter to you?
Well, my point is this: No matter what your passion is, you can make money with it. Internet Marketing is a means to an end, not a means in and of itself. Many people get caught up with the whole "info product in big niches and autoresponders" ways of making money online. But they forget that there's many other ways to make money online.
Take email marketing for example. It seems the only way to do it is to use something like aweber.
But, you could use the following instead:
A forum.
A blog and/or RSS feed.
A facebook group/twitter account
Both of those work well to stay in contact with your customers, PLUS they tend to be more viral than email. Not only that, but you can get organic search traffic as well.
This is what the experts mean when they say "think outside of the box". It means to come up with creative alternatives/solutions to common problems and the "normal way of doing things".
It takes work, yes. But it can take far less work than a typical 9-5 job, and it can be far more rewarding.
Just don't give up. Fight tooth and nail for those little moments of success, because when you get that feeling for the first time, when you see that first sale, you know it can be done.
And for those of you who do succeed, and earn a full time income doing this stuff, don't be afraid to take some risk and try something new. If you hate your online business, sell it, and go into something you know you'll love.
I may have caused some confusion with my aimless rambling. But one of the cool things about a forum is, you can ask questions if you get confused. So don't be afraid to ask.
To your success,
Joshua
Whether you're a newbie or a veteran, we can all become super discouraged at times and overwhelmed with how complicated internet marketing can be. But when you have those little moments of success...or even big ones, it can re-energize you. Today, I'd like to share some of my moments of little success. I know it's not quite the same as doing it yourself, but hopefully it will sustain you until you get your own victory.
Alright. My first success:
I made 5 sales with 1 article. I posted it on ezinearticles, and that was it. No additional promotion. I actually intended on doing more than one article per day, but procrastination got in the way.
Here's the funny thing, one of the sales came just a couple of months ago, AFTER I had taken down my promotional page and the link on ezine articles had been dead for months.
So, how did I get those sales?
I simply targeted "product name review" as my keyword.
It was very low competition, and I thought, what the heck. This keyword doesn't get a lot of traffic. At the time when I wrote the article, it was about 300 searches a month. But, the traffic was very targeted. I don't know how, but somehow, my article became the #1 result for my target phrase.
This didn't happen overnight. If I remember rightly, it took a couple of weeks for it to get there. But then, I did NO backlinking whatsoever.
Here's a link to the article: 7 Dollar Secrets Review - Should You Buy It?
It's interesting to note that it only has 179 views, even after being #1 on Google for so many months.
Heck, it's STILL #1 in Google for it's keyword. Look: Google
It looks like someone ripped off my article, and they're doing pretty well.
You will notice that I took great care to optimize my article. It was the first string of text in my title, it was the first string of text in my article (and it was bolded). I was also careful to include several closely related keywords throughout my article.
The blog I linked to is dead and gone. There was nothing spectacular about it. Just a review with a PLR bonus I found on the internet. That was also optimized for my keyword, and while it was indexed by Google, it wasn't anywhere near the first page for my target keyword.
So the first part of my success was optimizing for a low-competition, highly targeted keyword.
The second part of my success (in my humble opinion) was the fact that I was honest. I had the chance to review the product, and I thought it was really good. So I had no problem recommending it. Of course, I wanted to make money. (probably more than I wanted to recommend a good product.
)I'm sure if I had written just one article like this per day for 30 days, I would have made a LOT more money.
So the take-home step-by-step plan is as follows:
Step 1: Choose a product that you have bought and liked to promote. Or promote a product you have created. Just make sure it's high quality and has a converting sales letter.
Step 2: Do some keyword research, or don't. It doesn't matter. You want to target keywords that are looking for reviews or recommendations for products like yours.
Step 3: Write an honest review. Offer a bonus that adds value to the product (NOT a PLR product).
Step 4: Write about your product, your product's niche, or related products. Doesn't matter. You just need to create content that provides information that people are looking for. Not some crappy PLR junk, real content that you made. People can see through fake stuff like you wouldn't believe.
Step 5: Choose your weapon. You can use ezinearticles to promote your review if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it. Why? Because their review process takes FOREVER, and they have ads galore, and frankly, there are better alternatives. Some examples include:
- YouTube: PR of 9, 1 billion daily visitors, #2 search engine after Google. 'Nuff said.
- Niche Forums: My personal favorite. Why? Because I enjoy participating in forums. Why would I do something that I hated to promote my product? One of the reasons I went into IM is to do what I loved for a living. If this is your thing, go to The largest Message Boards and Forums on the web! to find popular forums in your niche. Don't spam, read the forum rules, in short; don't be an idiot.
- Social Networking: I know social sites like Facebook and Twitter get a bad rap because their traffic doesn't "convert". I suspect it has something to do with the fact that most marketers just blast spam ads, thinking that people are stupid enough to fall for that crap. If you use them as they should be used (SOCIALIZE WITH OTHER PEOPLE), you might get success. Here's a tip for facebook: make a group with a crazy name, and add it to your signature when you participate in facebook discussions. Who knows, it might go viral, and you can promote cpa offers when it does.
- Enter your preferred promotion method here: Duh. Do you like talking, but don't want to do video? Do podcasts. Do you hate writing? Get permission to compile some high quality articles into an ebook, and distribute it to sites like docstoc and scribd. When it comes to promoting your product or service, you're only limited by your imagination and creativity.
The key to success to this method is consistency. It doesn't matter if it's 1 article a week, or 10 videos a day. It just needs to be consistent, otherwise it won't work.
My second milestone moment is when I made a $1,000 sale from an offline client. To be honest, I never wanted to go offline. I didn't like cold calling, or dressing up and going to a meeting. It defeats the purpose of "working from home".
But, for whatever reason, I gave it a try. I made an ad, and submitted it to 3 classified ads sites. Somehow I got lucky, and I got 2 leads. One was a serious small business, and I met with the marketing manager, company president, and a couple of managers. We had a 2 hours consultation, which went well. Later, they purchased 1,000 facebook fans from me for $1k.
I don't recommend trying to sell facebook fans right now. Facebook made a new policy that makes it VERY HARD to get fans (they limit the # of invites you can send out). This has affected all suppliers of facebook fans.
Anyway, shortly after that, I decided I would quit offline consulting. Why? Because it wasn't my thing.
Also, I had a minor fall out with my supplier, which has caused me a lot of stress. I'm working to raise $500 or so to ensure I can refund my client if this thing doesn't work out. After a few weeks, I'm still waiting for the fans to be delivered.
Isn't it ironic that a few days after I placed my order for fans, that facebook decided to make it harder with their new policy?
Anyway, you can read the full success story here: http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ine-leads.html
So, how can you succeed if you decide to do offline marketing? Well, I'm no expert, but for what it's worth, here's my advice:
- Be enthusiastic and confident. This will sell your services more than anything else. Also, be honest. You could get into serious legal trouble if you're not.
- You don't have to do cold calling if you don't want to. I've found that it's possible to get offline clients using the same methods one would use to get online clients.
- Many small businesses are ignorant when it comes to internet marketing. That doesn't mean they're stupid. Be respectful, and don't talk down to them. Remember, they are the ones paying you, not the other way around.
I would much rather be a novelest/how-to book writer, and a forum administrator. I LOVE writing (especially fantasy stuff), and I also love helping people. I think one of the best ways to do this is to create a support forum for people to get and give help and advice.
Once I've secured my finical situation with the offline client fiasco, I plan on doing just that.
But what does that matter to you?
Well, my point is this: No matter what your passion is, you can make money with it. Internet Marketing is a means to an end, not a means in and of itself. Many people get caught up with the whole "info product in big niches and autoresponders" ways of making money online. But they forget that there's many other ways to make money online.
Take email marketing for example. It seems the only way to do it is to use something like aweber.
But, you could use the following instead:
A forum.
A blog and/or RSS feed.
A facebook group/twitter account
Both of those work well to stay in contact with your customers, PLUS they tend to be more viral than email. Not only that, but you can get organic search traffic as well.
This is what the experts mean when they say "think outside of the box". It means to come up with creative alternatives/solutions to common problems and the "normal way of doing things".
It takes work, yes. But it can take far less work than a typical 9-5 job, and it can be far more rewarding.
Just don't give up. Fight tooth and nail for those little moments of success, because when you get that feeling for the first time, when you see that first sale, you know it can be done.
And for those of you who do succeed, and earn a full time income doing this stuff, don't be afraid to take some risk and try something new. If you hate your online business, sell it, and go into something you know you'll love.
I may have caused some confusion with my aimless rambling. But one of the cool things about a forum is, you can ask questions if you get confused. So don't be afraid to ask.
To your success,
Joshua