For more than a while now I’ve been pushing pretty much all my traffic to my squeeze pages.  Only to read some very cool blogs that really build authority by dishing out some quality content and tempting me to join their list.

Still … I rarely do.

If I visit a blog and love the post – it takes time to read it and more time to join their list, download their freebie, digest it – experience some information overload and … do nothing.  At least that’s the thought process that runs through my head as I finish reading.

On the other hand … day in, day out I get email after email promoting a variety of offers (or their friends new paid product for free – heard that one before?) and I opt-in.  You see there is something about the whole process of driving someone to a squeeze page that works a whole lot better.

I get pre-sold by the email, the squeeze page looks good – resonates with my inner needs and sells me on the video or free report they have.  I opt-in.

Sometimes I read the follow up emails – sometimes they just sit there in my inbox.  Either way … I’m on their list and they can potentially call on me at any time – if they hit the right nerve.

After a morning of surfing blogs, reading good, bad and indifferent posts I’ve been feeling like a spare part, like I’ve not been doing my ‘job’ right my letting my blog go dead or not trying to get a gazillion comments.

But I’ve just convinced myself that based on my own actions and what triggers me to join a list … that pushing people towards my squeeze pages is the thing to do to grow my list of prospects and turn them into buyers.  The blog … that’s my back-up plan, my reputation builder (eventually) and an additional tool.

It’s a weird (almost sad fact of life) that you can post hype on a squeeze page, truth on a blog and each and every time the squeeze page will win and build a bigger list and better business.

We’re funny creatures … here’s one of my squeeze pages:

http://www.affiliate-email-marketing.com/bb.html

Would love to hear your thoughts and comments!

When I stared out online, I got scammed something bad … by a friend of mine so when I first came across this muscle bound, crazy successful guy called Daegan Smith … I really didnt like him much.

Anyway the other day I found out how he was helping out this crazy internet legend … Marlon Sanders and they were buddies.

So I checked out this video from Daegan Smith (can’t quite remember how I got  there but I was glad I did).

It’s a really impressive video because you get to see exactly what his goals are which ultimately reveals the cornerstone to making it big and realising that internet marketing dream we all aspire to achieve.

You see behind Daegans money making machine (a 6 figure money making machine) is a couple of key things that drive his success are on the list he shows you on the wall.

1. He knows exactly what he needs to make each day (and motivates him each day) to hit is $2.5 million per year income.
2. See how big he wants his list … over 200K subscribers!
3. He’s a product creator (something that’s not my cup of tea but goes with massive money) and has a goal to make x many big ticket items plus lead in offers.

All together you’ve got a six figure formula … that’s proven itself to be true over and over and over again.  It really is just a case of getting your head down and doing it (that goes for me too)!

Personally I’m not into Network Marketing Success but Daegan is (and that’s where all those checks in the video came from) so if you’d like to find out more about him, his system and what he does … Click HERE!

And if it’s not your ‘bag’ make sure the goals you set yourself are very, very similar.

… not have a clear plan of what I’m going to do before I sit down at the computer.

Today I woke up, sat at the computer and thought to myself “What shall I crack on with today?”

Rubbish!

Cardinal sin number 1!

And the worse thing is I know it’s a crazy mistake to make, arguably one of the worst things you can do when it comes to productivity and actually making it (especially in an industry where so many fail) is to sit down and not have a gameplan of what you need to do.

I think it’s Tony Robbins who said something like – Most people overestimate when they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10.

Part of it has to be down to the fact that they don’t have a gameplan and know exactly what the next step.

So for the rest of the day I’ll be making sure I stick to my traffic generation system (even if I am a little bored of it) and only then start to look around for something new and cool to try and add to the system.

Moral of the story – start the day with a plan.  Finish today with tomorrows plan prepared and ready to go.

Then stick to it.

Can’t remember where I read it or who wrote it…

“Scratch a perfectionist and you’ll find a procrastinator” - source unknown (if you know post a comment)

So when it comes to email your list, promoting your affiliate products and offering quality content it’s so easy to get bombarded with these kinda questions:

• How often should I email (daily, every two days, maybe even 2, 2, 3 day patterns)…?
• Should I go for 80% quality content and 20% sales or 50/50?
• Do I pre-sell or sell?
• etc
• etc
• etc

Before you know it the job that’s supposed to set the shakles free, dump a load of cash in your pocket and let you spend that extra time doing what you want — because stressful, the pressure mounts and you don’t know what to do.

Analysis paralysis – simply because you want to get it right, get it perfect and … end up getting nothing done!

So here’s something I’d happily proclaim to each and every one of my subscribers:

“Sometimes I’ll email you daily, sometimes you won’t here from me for a week.  Sometimes I’ll just give you content and somedays I’ll sell to you day in, day out.  And somedays I’ll get it right and somedays I’ll get it wrong – I dont care.  The reason is simple.  There is no right and wrong when it comes to affiliate email marketing. ”

“There are only good results and bad results”.

“It is all about the results and when I get results – then you, my loyal subscriber, will be the first one to know so that it can be copied, tested and hopefully repeated to line your pockets and build a long term online affiliate marketing business”.

End of procrastination  : )

See you shortly and tell me if you think this is a load of non-sense or you got a better idea for me.  Always keen to learn!

Lance Tamashiro’s “Free Traffic Fast” is a wicked video (and MP3) shortcut for getting serious volumes of traffic free and er… fast.  In his own worlds “Nothing happens without traffic” it’s the lifeblood of any business beit online or in the real world.  We all need a new way to find new customers or subscribers and the freeer – the better.

As someone who cuts his credit cards up and tries to hide his wallet – I’m a little cautious when it comes to spending money on something new when there are stacks of things on my ‘to-do’ list so this one caught me on the hop.

For a meagre $7 which is cheap change, from someone like Lance Tamashiro who genuinely makes a stack of cash from affiliate marketing and when it’s co-authored by ………… another of my favourite affiliates then I’m afraid I’m in.

There are lots of free and fast traffic methods out there to generate free traffic to your blog or squeeze page (this is mine) from articles to forum marketing that most people know about.  “Free Traffic Fast” mentions forum marketing with some good advice, you won’t hear about articles but you will hear about several other totally free methods and how to put them together quickly and easily.  As the salespage says… “Shortcuts” because that’s what it’s all about.

As a fan of audio I’ve listened to this about 4 or 5 times and everytime I do, I hear something new, have another a-ha moment and start to plan my course of action.  With my wallet hidden this has become my traffic generation system for creating oodles of new subscribers for the foreseeable future before I start to leverage my list for bigger and better gains.

The free traffic methods are simple and they work fast and my first subscriber from the blog method mentioned here netted me a new subscriber in minutes.  That was a good feeling.

For small change $7 is  a fantastic investment, you’ll learn loads, can make 100% back on the closed door affiliate scheme and will be learning from someone who’s less of a guru and more of a do’er.

Be quick to check this out because the price is likely to rocket up to $47 – last time I bought a product from Lance it was for $47 and then went up to $197 so be very careful (and very quick).

Check out Lance Tamashiro’s Free Traffic Fast (and listen carefully).

Ok two slants to use this method to find profitable niche markets – the first can be used by most people to evaluate a hot niche.  The second is a cool way to find out more about your buyers, their needs and maybe their niches if you’re already selling something through PayPal.  This is a truely unique way to find total unique niche markets.

• Check out PayPal shops where there are lists of online shops that accept PayPal.  So what?  Well all the shops are listed by sales volume and next to the names is a number in brackets showing how many PayPal users have bought from them…. the higher the number, the hottet the niche.

• When someone buys something from you and the payment is through PayPal you obviously see have access to your online invoice/receipt that shows the name and email address of who bought from you.  Now say that your create (or sell affiliate) products and are paid through PayPal.  All of a sudden you can see if your customer has an online presence and if so… the exact niche which might be something you can go into or market more towards.

If you’re struggling wth finding a profitable niche then I highly recommend this amazing video and audio product that’s cheaper than a DVD from Blockbuster.  I bought it, loved it and listen to it all the time.

Check out the Niche Invasion System

Hand on my heart… I make most of my online income through affilate marketing and that’s what this blog and list is all about.  It’s the perfect way to inject a bit more enthusiasm and document my journey, my thoughts and share them with other marketers.  Anyway… wrong tangent – bad habbit.

When I created my first product in a proper, random niche I know tons about – I created the product first (seemed logical) before moving onto the sales copy.   Whilst I’d done my research, knew the hotish topics I needed to cover in the ebook – the sales copy was a bit tough.

My biggest concern was that I’d big up my book so much that the product would never deliver (even at a meagre $17) and I’d have a ton of complaints, refunds and customer support to deal with.   So after writing the sales copy – I had to go back an amend my ebook to make sure the two were pretty consistent and I wasn’t misleading anybody.  More work when it was hard enough just getting started!

The perfect solution – do the sale copy first.

It sounds a bit back to front, a bit wrong — until you think about it for a moment.

Writing your sales copy forces you ask the right questions about what your visitors want.  What benefits do they need to see and experience to buy your product?  What objections do you need to overcome in your sales copy to make this a success.  When you construct a sales page.  When your write sales copy you focus your writing on the solutions that will trigger your readers hot buttons and get them to whip out their wallet in an instant.

Essentially – the sales copy outlines the perfect product for your customers (and not some information you rambled on about for 30 pages and thought might be useful).

Write the sales page first and when you create your product – you have an agenda all outlined for you.  The problem you wish to solve has been clearly laid out and the expectations your product has to meet are plain for you to see.   Your ebook has a clear path, the writer a clear goal and the end result — meets expectations, does exactly what the sales page says and customer support is minimal (apart from the glowing testimonials of course).

Another good reason to do the sales copy first – it’s often the bit that everyone else procrastinates over – get it done and you’re half way there.

Good luck writing that sales copy… for squeeze pages, for products, for anyone who hires you.

Is it me or are the internet’s brightest sparks getting younger and younger?  George Brown, David Wikinson and Kris Maineri, creator of Super Traffic Method.

Here’s a kid (sorry Kris) who’s mature beyond his years and already made his first $100K online – not bad for someone who’s too young to get a credit card – to young to quit school – and too young to be considered an adult.  That’s pretty impressive.

He’s bright spark and part of his (and the success of his peers) has to be the fact that they knuckle down, dont worry about what they don’t know, tend to lack a little bit of fear (some call it naivity) and just do stuff…  Now Kris calls himself a nerd – he doesn’t look the stereotype – that said… his sales system is pretty s**t hot – maybe even nerd like : )

With a squeeze page to capture emails, then the sales page and an exit splash  – here’s a fellow doing all the right things.  He’s even contributed to private sections of the Warrior Forum with freebies exclusive to War Room members.

He can only have been 16 at the time, building a repuation, a list, learning lots and giving away more.  The perfect start to a successful online career.

Now here’s Kris’s formula – dont blink, you might miss it…

1. Creating products.
2. Getting a ton of free traffic to it.
3. Plus he definately works hard on the back end – very important and easily missed.

That’s it.

In his Super Traffic Method, he focuses on methods to get you a ton of free traffic to your website and sales page, how to create massive rabid, raving fans using free viral methods and how to create volumes of followers with Twitter.  And of course how to monetize those fans and followers for a six figure pay check.

A well packaged product,  the Super Traffic Method is made up of 3 videos that jump straight in and teach what you need to know quickly.  No messing about with some lame pre-amble.   You also get a condensed reference report you can quickly open for the quickest, free traffic methods that bagged this young pup his first $100K.

I’m still jealous ‘cos I was working Maccy D’s at his age : )

When you get to the sales page try to close the window.  He’s got a cheeky pop-up asking you if you really want to close the window.  Do what he wants you to do, stay on the page and you’ll get a short video of this 17 year old nerd offering you 4 extra bonus products if you buy the Super Traffic Method today.

Well worth the extra hassle and the whole package makes this low priced product a no brainer.  Whether you’ve got a ton of traffic or a trickle – there’s something for everyone here and a sweet 30 day money back guarantee.

You can check the free traffic methods from Kris Maineir’s “Super Traffic Method” right HERE

P.S.  If nothing else just be curious and take note of this well put together sales funnel – it’s very well done.

That elusive first affiliate dollar was sometime in early 2008, maybe 2007 I’m not quite sure and was a bit of a shock.  For the first time – theory turned to reality and it feels even better when you get your first check.  Unfortunately the physical payment took sometime.

Anyone familiar with Clickbank will know that you have to have 5 sales from different credit cards to receive payment.  The 5th payment was from someone’s PayPal account which didn’t count so I had to wait for sale 6 to get my money.  So the day the check from Clickbank finally arrived was a very good day.

What my first check taught me…

The best thing about my first sale wasn’t so much the monetary aspect, it was the proof that:

1. It was possible to make money with affiliate marketing and
2. I could see exactly what was working and why I’d failed for so long at my previous attempts in  various markets.

My first attempts were through article or bum marketing.  Reluctant to part with any money I’d find a hot market in Clickbank, write an article and post it on a Blogger blog and generate traffic using Ezine Articles.  A sound and well publicised method but I made no money.

Actually I did I actually made roughly $90 from one of my earliest attempts last week but that’s nearly 2 years too late!

What I changed…

I managed to part with some money and nope I didn’t buy hosting, I didn’t buy a domain name – I bought an eBook or Blueprint called the Conduit Method by Chris Rempel.  Now the strange this is that this blueprint on affiliate marketing has nothing to do with Bum or Article Marketing but the principles in it worked a treat.

They changed my outlook and approach to my entire ‘business’ (if you could call it a business back then) and I started to do things differently.

1. I quickly researched real feedback on products and choose those I had confidence in and yep they were in hot markets.
2. With the research – I created short, concise review pages with snippets of real feedback from forums and blogs.
3. Used a picture of the product on the blogger blog.

Now I had blogger review pages I was proud of.  They had quality information with genuine recommendations and I though they looked quite good (compared to the rubbish I was creating before that leaked traffic).

The final piece of the affiliate marketing jig-saw…

There was one last thing that made a massive difference – this was probably the biggest and most significant change I made.  As documented in the Conduit Method I targetted buyers and choose the keywords that were most likely used by the people who had the credit card in their hands and were ready to part with some money.

Having targetted lots of different ‘buying’ keywords I found that one in particular worked best – it’s generated 90% of my affiliate commissions, gets the best article click through rates and is repeatable.

Want to know what it is?  Get ready….

“Best”

That’s the keyword that got and still gets me most of my sales from those old blogger blogs in more than one market.  Articles that start or include “Best XYZ ebook” or “Learn XYZ in 10 minutes or less with the best XYZ course“.

Like I said – in more than one market – not only did it make me money, it was repeatable.

And now what…

I got some money, grew in confidence and achieved some results.  So now I finally committed and bought some hosting, bought a domain name and started to apply the Conduit Method properly.  The money I made was re-invested, I had some belief in affilate email marketing and myself and built on the momentum to earn more money, faster.

The moral of the story?

Find something that works and push it to it’s limit – milk that baby for all it’s worth and now you have money, experience and results.  Re-invest your money into better (or at least some) resources that build your business and boost your assets.

And if I was to do something different it would have been built a list and done the work faster.  I spent too much time thinking because I was too afraid of failure.  As a famous fighter once said – ‘Even monkey’s fall out of trees‘.

If you’d like to find out how you can use the Conduit Method for your own affiliate marketing you can check it out HERE.  It’s one of the best products I’ve ever bought – it’s what I’d call… wicked.

Here’s a cool tip I learnt from an audio by product creator and copywriter, Jason Fladlien.  It’s a cool tip you can use to write your own copy or I actually use it the other way around – as an affiliate marketer to get information that can be used to pre-sell new promotions.  It’s pretty simple, takes seconds and satisfies every information junkie out there.

Imagine a top selling music artist who wants to release a new album and make some serious sales.   What song do they release first?  Yep you got it – it’s the big hit (or at least the one they think will be).   Fans love the song, buy the album and fingers crossed the rest of the album is equally good.

Great copywriters do the exact same when they want to sell high ticket products.  In the sales letter they trigger an “Ah-ha” moment by showing some of their biggest guns.  You like the information, say “This guy’s good” and buy the product.

It’s more obvious in the bigger affiliate launches nowadays – for weeks on end, high quality, free information is being given away to entice people to buy.   And it works.

Here’s a slight twist – I’m into affiliate email marketing and push to earn some big bucks.  What’s the best kind of product to sell for hefty commissions?  A high ticket product right? What’s the best way to pre-sell it?

Yep read the sales letter and look for the information designed to trigger that “Ah ha” moment (check out the competitors too) and base your posts, your articles and your emails around it.  Great information for a great pre-sell that will actually help your readers.

Resources: Internet Marketing Millionaire

Credit where credit is due…