Crash Cash Creation Q & A #1: How to set up an article marketing campaign for maximum profit.
Bad, better and best practices for building evergreen article marketing affiliate islands that produce perpetual push button profits.
Why is article marketing such an instrumental part of my online business? 
Well for one, it’s free – it’s easy, and other than the time you need to invest in creating your content, is an evergreen and everpresently powerful way to generate free traffic for days, weeks, months or even years to come.
Plus, the REAL beauty is that articles can be re purposed in all kinds of powerful permutations and profit pulling ways – from landing pages for your PPC ads, to luscious link bait, to SEO, to free give aways, to Hanukkah gifts for your friends and family. ( especially if you’re cheap and really proud of your articles like I am)
Lets’ take a look at how I begin my own article marketing campaigns – how I recommend to my consulting clients they do they’re own, and how I think will ultimately convert the best for you as well.
We’re going to knock out the basics – and then move into the Bad, Better, and Best practices as it pertains to making an avalanche of money and building a REAL, viable, long term business through article marketing – RATHER than just making an occasional daily sale, and proverbially chasing your tail around in circles trying to create copious amounts of content each and every day simply to keep up. ( and trust me – I’ve done both and the former is FAR easier than the latter)
Step #1: Pick your Product
Important Qualifiers:
Look for Continuity Programs ( recurring billing that pays you multiple times for initial sale)
Look for FREE Trial Programs that offer Your Visitor a “try before you buy offer” – typically for the cost of shipping and handling and will pay you ( the affiliate) full commission for the sale. These convert up to 10 times better than Clickbank products ( conversions can run 3-10% of higher depending on how you set up your sales funnel and sequence) and are popular in the health and wellness marketplaces
Look for Products that are already selling. ( Look for high EPC, Gravity and other conversion metrics that the affiliate networks share with you as an affiliate)
Look for Products that have HUGE off line advertising budgets. ( infomercial products are great for this, diet, dating and similar evergreen markets where the vendor is doing the heavy lifting for you – sending folks ONLINE to buy products they hear advertised on TV, radio, popular magazines, billboards or otherwise – very profitable – very easy – and much more profitable than selling Clickbank ebooks that endeavor to teach your dog to pick up his own poop, or how to pick up women even is you’re bald, fat and shy – 2 of which I’m probably only about 5 years away from myself)
Look for Products that have continued relevance for the long haul as your articles will stay LIVE in engines well past temporal events can support ( say no to shilling McCain/palin bumper stickers or the Devil Rays in 7 2008 World Series T-Shirts)
Step #2: Do your Keyword Research:
For Organic Traffic I use and recommend Nichebot – it’s cheap, easy to learn and efficient. Is it perfect? No – it’s not. But if you’re serious about building an online business, the 50 Cents a day you will spend on a wealth of data is well worth it for sure.
Important qualifiers. Speed counts. Don’t waste too much time on Keyword research. Define your market, Understand the “language” of your prospect, find your most important phrases, and attack.
Step #3: Design Your Funnel.
The most important component to creating a kick ass article marketing campaign? How you design the process by which you get your offer(s) in front of the avalanche of eyeballs you’re going to get from your content distribution.
Let’s take a closer look.
The Bad Way to Design An Article Marketing Sales Funnel:
Drive traffic from directories to Blogger or other “hosted” style blogs, Squidoo lenses, hub pages or US free ads classified listings.
Why? You don’t “own” those resources. You don’t know what kind of trust they’ll have tomorrow, let alone next year. ( and yes, I know Squidoo is making a comeback, but ask anyone who used lenses exclusively to build their business only 12 or 14 months ago how it felt to be punished by the bad neighborhoods and spammy squatters that squidoo attracted)
Squidoo lenses are great to drive free traffic to your OWN blogs and landing pages, but if you’re going to do the heavy lifting and work hard to build a business, you want to control as many of the variables as you can – and in my view, building your own sites is crucial, and critically important to getting there.
The Slightly Better Way to Design an Article Marketing Sales Funnel.
Drive traffic to a root level redirect that sends your visitor straight to the product or offer that your article recommends.
Advantages: Easy to do, fast to set up, vendor has probably optimized copy far better than you will, understands the market better and will constantly refine, re frame and recalibrate their “offer” to amp up conversion percentages.
Allows for lots of scale – you can simultaneously be in 10-15 markets within your first month in business with expeditious ease
Is cheap – especially if you’re registering .info domains
Is Flexible – You can swap out your redirection for another more mainstream page ( a name capture, a sitemap pointing to a blog, or a multiplicity of different offers if you have them, or really whatever you’d like) when you are ready to advance in a niche or unhappy with the redirect conversion percentage.
Disadvantages?
Typically will convert at very low levels, especially for Clickbank products ( 1% or lower is the general rule)
Is more of a simple, quick cash strategy rather than a long term business building solution
Search Engines Don’t Like Them
Demands that you work harder, longer and more frenetically to keep traffic levels high.
Leaves you with that not so fresh feeling in the morning.
The Better Way to Design an Article Marketing Sales Funnel:
Drive traffic to a review style page, or a review style blog where readers can leave comments, and interact with your content.
Advantages:
Gives you the appearance of impartiality, trust and a 3rd party resource
Will get a reasonably high Click Through Rate to your recommended resources ( especially the #1 recommendation)
Are really easy to do, look good and make for good PPC landing pages too
The review style blogs are GREAT for SEO too, can build a quick and loyal following that reviews your recommended products and builds your site on autopilot, allows you to scale out ( and rank well for) many different similar style offers very quickly ( seen on TV style review sites do very well in the search engines and are very easy to create content for too)
Are more honest than the embellished review pages, meaning in the off chance there really is a god and a heaven, your chances of getting there are definitely better.
Disadvantages:
Your visitors can rank a product very poorly, permanently killing sales for that particular item you’ve worked hard to create content around.
The Best Way to Design Your Article Marketing Funnel:
Either create, or get a free e book or resource to give away. ( there are a veritable avalanche of free e books available for just about every market, if you don’t’ find one that you like, you can either create your own out of your article content, or go somewhere like Scribd and download an existing resource and edit it to make it your own)
Drive Traffic to a Landing Page that Collects the name. You will need an auto responder for this – I use and recommend Aweber.
Creatively Use Your “Thank You” Page:
On your thank you page let them know that their e book or download link is in the email. Immediately after that text, have a screen shot to the affiliate offer you recommend, or to a review page on the best resources that you advise them to benefit the consumption of the free guide you just sent.
Redirect straight to a free trial offer
Make a special One Time Offer of Your Own – i.e. – offer additional free resources if they take action right now – i.e. – a bonus e book, audio, offer or even your own services, as you probably saw when you signed up for my list.
Just be creative and experiment with what works best, and constantly aim to improve it.
Take the articles that you’ve created to drive traffic to your site in the first place, and re purpose them on your own blog.
Recycling your traffic is key to this strategy.
Each day, send a VERY short email to your list and let them know that there is more content on the blog, tell them what it is, what it addresses relative to the niche, ask them to interact with the content, and at the very end of each post, have a nice block of text selling the primary affiliate offer.
Bonus tips for this particular strategy: Save ONE boilerplate close for each post on your blog – use testimonials from the affiliates landing page, and lots of short, bulleted benefit oriented copy to drive traffic back to the offer. Each time you create a new post, simply copy and paste this code at the end of the lesson, and watch your conversions on every article marketing campaign, and every niche you apply this approach, go through the roof in a hurry.
You can also take the content from the books themselves that you are giving away, to build the blog content ( as long as it’s permissible of course…:-) which will help amplify your sites positioning in the search engines relative to the niche.
Advantages? To many to list.
You are building a list.
You are building a blog.
You are building a brand.
You are establishing credibility, trust and rapport.
You are going to super charge your SEO, leading to buckets of backsides OUTSIDE of your article marketing campaigns to find, consume and interact with your content. You can make multiple offers to your list, cross promoting other offers you may have in your article marketing affiliate arsenal ( again – health and wellness offers are very powerful for this) driving your list acquisition cost down and your value per visitor up exponentially.
You are only limited by your ambition, imagination and creativity, and your system and sequence, if set up properly, allows you the freedom from the daily grind that the first options simply don’t necessarily allow.
Key Takeaways:
Your First Priority Should ALWAYS Be Building a list
Systems and Sequences are the Keys To Freedom When it Comes to Article Marketing – or online marketing in general
Recommended Resources
Aweber– auto responders for sequential email
Nichebot – Keyword research.
Well done. Some of your readers here might appreciate and alphabetized list of the Generic abreviations & language found in each article, such as:
SEO, ONE boilerplate close, etc. for those of us with leaky memories this approach can lead to you to a useful training tool.
Noel
Hi Noel –
I’ll add it to the list..:-)
The boilerplate close above has confused a few people – boilerplate simply meaning a standard, re-usable “template” of content that you can repurpose on each post. Essentially, I’m referring to a snippet of text that you can copy and paste, at the end of each post to sort of “sell” the product or service – testimonials can be very effective here ( which can be lifted from the vendors site directly in good spirit if you are selling their stuff) or a series of benefits, etc – it’s simply a time saver and will help amplify your conversions of course as well if done properly.
Thanks Ian ,
Firstly , I want you to know , I’m not to much to know English language . I take to much time to understand or to translate to Malay.
So if you want to answer from me , you must be wait but I’m not promise .
I think you give me a simple steps for easy to understand what needs to do from A TO Z .
THANKS TO YOUR INFORMATION
Super post Ian! I don’t know how many of the folks that read this will understand it’s value but this is the kind of information that you usually have to pay for. Great job.
Thanks Noel,
can I get SEO for free
Thank you Scott – much appreciated!
Musa – thanks. ( I think..:-)
Bum Marketing and One Week Marketing have very little to say about designing a sales funnel. They say put a link in your resource box. No discussion of a sales funnel. It seems to me this whole concept of the sales funnel is key. It’s what separates the men from the boys in affiliate marketing, I would guess, as I’m new to this. Your approach is superior in every way as compared to what I have seen so far. Thank you.
Thanks, Mitsu – and yes, I agree that the sales funnel part of this process is what separates making a few sales here and there and automating a system that simply keeps on churning on automatic autopilot. (it’s also – in my view – the creative, challenging and and fun part of the process too!)
I like the Bum Marketing stuff -and I’ve emailed with and like Jennifer (one week marketing) personally alot – it’s just sort of a different approach – although I’m sure, even though their systems may not focus on “funnel” per se – it’s sort of implied that they are capturing names and following up to some degree for sure.
Appreciate the comment!
Hi Ian,
enjoyed the article. But wish you had left out the part about “and on some off chance there is a God and a heaven” Believe me..there IS, and without him, NONE of this is going to work. thanks
Hi Lisa –
I’ve got good news, and bad news for you.
The good news is – I tend to believe there is, and try to live my life accordingly.
The bad news is – if that upset you, or if you find yourself really sensitive to little light moments of goofiness, or offhanded and maybe even odd attempts at levity in your online marketing blogs – my writing style is probably not going to be a good fit for you. ( because if I can’t be a bit silly writing these things – they ain’t worth writing)
Otherwise – I appreciate your comments – and thanks for reading!
Thanks Ian – a great post with lots of good pertinent information. I have to admit that I KNOW that building a list is crucial, but for some reason I am gripped by the fear of getting it all set up, and consequently still haven’t done anything about it 2 years down the line.
By the way – your light hearted touch is welcomed – I also love your graphics – where do you get them from???
Hi Janet – I love the cartoons too! ( I’ve actually wasted days just looking at all of the different ones on the site – I believe it’s Iclipart.com – best 40 bucks I think I’ve spent this year..:-) The list building stuff is dead simple and very important – I would just find one of those cut and paste templates to use – they are everywhere – you can simply take the code from your aweber list and paste it into the box that they specify within the template – and you have a working page, with a properly formatted opt in box! That’s how I started – and probably – most others did as well..:-)
Wow, Ian – FANTASTIC post! There is some very VERY solid info and advice here.
This post also explains why my ears were burning….lol Looks as if you good folks were talking about me =)
I’d like to respond to this comment, please:
Mitsu -
You are very right – I don’t get into sales funnels in One Week Marketing. The main reason is that OWM was designed for real beginners. The concept of creating a sales funnel is a bit more advanced and could be just enough to totally frustrate the reader causing them to take NO action at all.
I really wanted to share some solid basics that can lead to internet earnings… WITHOUT getting too deep. Once I know that the new internet marketer has the good foundation from OWM, I send them to someone like Ian who will help them continue and expand their learning.
Also, you may remember the mind maps in OWM? In essence, that IS a sales funnel (even tho I didn’t come right out and say it….lol).
Building a list IS very important, but it also takes money. Next on my list for One Week Marketing members is learning about building a list with their lenses and campaigns for the smallest investment possible.
You know me, I love sending out free guides to OWM members!
Ian, THANK YOU for allowing me a moment here. Please keep up with all you do helping others make sense (and MONEY) out of internet marketing.
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
Ian,
I don’t think I’m being sensitive…its just that comments like that don’t make your blog or article BETTER. You obviously have a talent and are helping people with their business. But it may be just the little “goofy” as you call it, comments like that ..that inevitably might turn some people off, who otherwise might just buy into what you are selling or hire you to help them. Sillyness, and goofiness is great and I think your writing style is too, just think about how comments like that might appear to your readers. Sorry to offend you but I’m only trying to give you some helpful advice. thanks Lisa
Hi Lisa – I DO understand and get it – and nothing you said offended me, so no worries! I’ve heard it all many times before – this is certainly not the first time I’ve gotten that response and it’s not going to be the last and believe me, I’ve long ago assessed the risk/reward of trying to simply be myself, rather than pretending to be a serious authority figure, which I’m not.
To be honest – when I read some of the online marketing blogs – they bore me to the point of tears, are totally disingenous and the people penning the prophetic prose are more often than not completely and utterly full of shit. This troubles me, and considering my life is a general happy mess at all times, I figure trying to reflect some of that in a humorous way does the body good.
And of course, I may be biased but I DO think it makes the blog better – and it DOES motivate me to want to keep writing and that’s what’s important to me..:-) I genuinely and sincerely appreciate your opinion – and I fully understand if ultimately – you decide to get your marketing advice from someone a bit more mature than I am. ( because I just read the next post in the series and think it may get worse before it gets better..:-)
Hi Jennifer –
Thanks for the comment AND I would be totally remiss in not pointing out that your generous mention of my little article marketing ebook to YOUR list did more for MINE in 2 days than I’ve done for myself in quite some time..:-)
So – that tells me that the people who have purchased your course are big fans of your material, and value your opinion highly – which of course, is about the best compliment you can get in todays otherwise polluted online marketing mentorship space –
So whatever you are doing – it’s working…:-) ( and I appreciate it too!)
Thanks Ian,
You continue to provide important info to make online marketing easier. I like how you reply to every comment also. Shows you care.
I hope Lisa wasn’t put off by your reply. Times like these we need to have a sense of humor and not take things so seriously. Especially when someone such as yourself is kind enough to “give away” important methods like you’ve done.
Thank you Ian! I do appreciate it.
Steven
Thanks again Steven – nice of you to say…:-)
Dude, you are *SO* real – I appreciate that MUCHLY! ^_~ Yes, being (and not just appearing as) an authority figure is a good and needed thing, but being a Human Being is also a needed thing, perhaps more so, and quite refreshing as well.
After all, I’d sooner give merit and trust to someone who isn’t afraid to say something (a product, a concept, etc.) or some people is/are full of shit, than I would to a “faceless” bunch of text and data – and really, you do it with pure honesty and without an ounce of vulgarity. I see no ugliness in your writing.
I must say, the points you make are quite clear and concise, and for a guy with a slow brain such as myself, it’s quite an island of clarity in a sea of confusion. Thanks so much for your many contributions. Keep up the Great Work, Ian! ^_^
Many thanks!
– Falls-Down-Laughing ^_^
Blackfoot/Mohawk-Cree
This is great stuff, Ian. Like many others I have been shit-scared to start a list. My main problem was finding valuable stuff to offer them because while it can be still affiliate marketing you are branding yourself rather than someone elses product.
My conscience is telling just to get right into it and if I make a few mistakes, well who cares.
Keep up the good work and never stop being who you are!
Thanks, Ian. I could use a little humor with my lesson. I have been at this I.M. on a daily basis for about 3 months now. I got started on the wrong foot and fell for a couple of really stupid programs designed to snare the ignorant noob. I won’t name names because I am not bitter, I just want to make some moola. I have learned SEO and have jumped over millions to get stuff all up on the first page. But…Nobody is buying my crappy clickbank products. I must find something that people want to buy before I wind up in a padded cell blowing spit bubbles and humming the theme from the Vonage commercials. Whew! Thanks for letting me vent!
Hi Brett – give some of the free trial offers a try -they convert really well, ( much better than Clickbank) pay very well ( 25-40 bucks per offer) and to be honest – the time is perfect right now to promote many of the higher converting programs in health/beauty/diet/etc from a seasonal standpoint. ( as people start thinking about the beach right now and panic..:-)
This will help immensely. I have been stuck on how to go about writing articles and this will give me a starting point. Thanks Ian.
Thanks Ben – and Falls-Down-Laughing –
I appreciate it!
Can we have an example of what the best way actually looks like? Im a visual learner and would like to actually see it and then sign up just to learn from it. Would Jennifer Jolan’s Ezine articles be a good example of the Best way to do article marketing? If it is Im gonna sign up to her landing page just to study what she has in the emails she sends, how often she sends, where and how she places the affiliate links and so on.
Also Ian you say that Clickbank sucks which I do kind of agree but then which Affiliate network do you recommend? Cause Im promoting a dog training ebook on clickbank right now so stop picking on me and my product. LOL
Seriously though I am in the process of promoting a dog training ebook.
Another thing I would like to point out is that everyone in Internet Marketing comes from different educational backgrounds and they way we all learn or absorb information might be different from one another. So information should be put in a way that everyone can understand regardless of what their educational background is. I think you are doing a good job of it though also Jennifer Pot Pie girl does a really good job at explaining things in her OWM ebook that even a newb like me can follow through.
Hi there Vuedoolor – The key to being successful is to simply find a path that works best for you – and model or emulate it until you get the results you are hoping for. If Jenifer’s OWM process speaks well to you ( and I believe that all her material that I’ve read is great, authentic, and worth pursuing) you should simply adopt that model and pursue that path until you are making a profit.
I’m not picking on you – or your clickbank product – and I’m sure the guy who created that dog training product has made a fortune – CJ.com has offers, however, that are far more ameenable to main stream dog owners in the form of natural or organic foods – toys – training tools, et al – which will invariably outperform a digital download because it has much more broad potential appeal. ( a very small – even minute percentage of dog owners will EVER buy a digital ebook online to train their dog – BUT – just about 100% of dog owners will buy dog food or toys- many will buy natural or organic dog food and look for specialty stores online – etc – that is the jump I’m talking about between small affiliate sales – and playing with the big dogs. ( no pun intended)
Oh no I was just trying to make jokes thats all, cause I saw that reply about the God thing that offended someone. Don’t worry I can take jokes and I make jokes. You know of any Internet marketers that actually have a sense of humor?? Not many. That reply was NOT suppose to sound like I was offended cause im not. Im just no good at expressing my writing that’s why I outsource my writing. I wrote LOL so you’ll know that I was just joking about you intentionally picking on me. Dang I suck at writing. LOL Im actually laughing right now too.
I just signed up to Jennifer Jolan’s weight loss landing page but it looks like thats her own product that she is promoting. I notice her resource box is about 100 words or so, what would you recommend for the length? Would you say 100-200 words for the resource? Or should it be more like 50-100? Maybe longer 100-300?
You just have to test what works best for you..:-) I’m sure Jen J has tested her stuff pretty extensively ( I haven’t looked at her articles since I made that post – which was largely in jest) but I’ve found being consistent, conversationally, works best for transitioning between article – and sales pitch – i.e. – if you’ve got an article that has 3 ways of doing things – you should have a resource box which adds another way ( but links to offer) –
if you have 3 tips – you should have another tip – the more "natural" that transition is, the more it flows with what they’ve just read, the more clicks you are going to earn – and you just have to test it. ( as I’ve written many times before on here – I prefer long resource boxes – but then I do have a tough time stopping talking anyway – so that could be an alternative explanation)
I just want to say that I really enjoy reading your posts, and you give a ton of great advice. However, I’m more than a little confused about the site that you recommend for choosing affiliate product offers.
CJ.com has some pretty stringent requirements for becoming an advertiser. I don’t see how anyone just getting started would be able to benefit from that site. I mean, these are just two of their requirements to even fill out an application: “Selling online for at least 1 year” and “Generate a minimum of $50,000 per month in online sales”.
There has to be something I’m overlooking here. I was thinking I would be able to set up a free account and simply choose whatever product offers I wanted to promote… much like Clickbank.
Aside from CJ.com, what other sites would you recommend?
Thanks, Bo – and I think you are reading the wrong “application” for CJ – you want to look at the PUBLISHERS application, not the ADVERTISERS app..:-) This is actually the second comment today about the 50,000 CJ requirement, and it’s simply not the case – many, if not MOST of the CJ offers can be promoted by anyone, regardless of experience level ( many on CJ do require a manual approval, but many more, if not most, do not once you belong to the network) and want to make sure everyone reading this understands that CJ is FREE to join, and you want to apply as a publisher, NOT as an advertiser..:-) ( unless you are selling something on the network)
Hence – to answer your question, I’d recommend CJ, amongst the other networks – i.e. – azoogle/pepperjam/marketleverage et al – and of course the clickbank style networks for digital downloads.
Ian, thank you.
I’m using Pot Pie Girl’s program right now, just starting, so I’ll follow in her steps for now… But you are opening my eyes to a lot more that’s out there. And as I acquire the skills you seem to have polished I will venture into your web.
Long Life and Plenty of Ideas
Hello Ian.
First, I want to say thanks for this Bad, Better & Best.
Second, what a huge favor you could do for me–(us reading this post??) is to provide a steller, clear example of just exactly what you’re talking about with regards to the “Best”. I ask because I value your opinion here, and there are many who consider their styles as Best. Can you offer up a sacrifial ‘lamb’?
Third … I for one appreciate your humor, no matter how it gets delivered as this business of trying to figure out internet … anything!!!! makes me wonder about a whole lot of things, including God. It’s in the ‘wondering’ that makes me keep going, keep reading, keep searching. That’s my job—remove all doubts and fears. Internet Marketing is scary stuff, and I’m using a nice word there for you.
So .. thanks Ian. Thanks a million! Ellie
Opps, sorry Ian … I should have spell checked myself first! It’s “sacrificial” lamb … and for further clairty … a real live examply of a real article, a real ebook, a real capture page, a real sales page. And, how does this tie in with our Blogs, or Lens??? Thanks again! Ellie
Hi Ellie – thanks for reading and thanks for the comments! You can "reverse engineer" the whole process you took to get here for a live example..:-) In other words – there is an "ebook" on the right in the side bar – that leads to a landing page – that, upon sign up, leads to a "thank you" page, that then follows up with a series of emails, which – ultimately, leads to this blog post ( and the others in this sequence) that furthers, or deepens interaction with those of you on the list, and who are engaging, enraging or enjoying the content..:-) ( and I’ve had all 3 of those responses..:-)
There really isn’t much more to it – many people come here from articles they’ve written and sign up using the same form or capture page ( which is another example of that process) and others through organic traffic based on the content and follow the same path by clicking on the ebook on the right – and a smaller percentage through the mention of others in the same markets – i.e. – Jen from One Week Marketing was nice enough to refer my free ebook -which added a few hundred of her readers, to my process as well)
That’s it – and that’s how it ties into your blogs, and lenses as well – all of your stuff – from start to finish – should have some sort of process of steps, or a strategy that under-pins the "why" you’re doing all of it. If you’re writing a blog – and think that smacking some ads on the sidebar is going to make you rich ( not "you" per se, just in general) it’s not likely. But having a system in place, that moves your marketing from one step to the next in a systemized fashion, often will – and if far easier to implement than some of the "bad, or better" examples I mentioned in the post.
Hey Ian .. great info here on your blog, thanks so very much for sharing so freely. I really liked Ellie’s question very much, as so many talk about this stuff in a generic manner as if those like myself actually know it already. Sorry guys and gals—I can make the best pies you ever wrapped your lips around, but this tech stuff has me ready to put my fist thru my monitor!
So Ian, I did try this “reverse engineer” process you mentioned, began at your home page, clicked on the ‘free ebook on the right side of the page: http://karmicconsulting.net/article-marketing-ebook.html —signed up and, that email capture page did not take me to a download–which was, obviously the Article Marketing Magic. Instead, it simply one back to your home page.
What did I do…not right? Gratitudes Ian. Mel
Hi Mel – good question! The reason is you are already on my list – and hence, I have the form set to re-direct folks who are already ON the list – back to the blog home page if they try to subscribe twice in error. If you try the above process again, using a new email address that the form doesn’t “recognize”…….you’ll go from landing page –> to thank you “special offer” page –> page on blog describing special offer and letting you know about all of my wonderfully transcendent personal qualities ( the offer “expired” a few weeks ago as you’ll see at the top of that page – but I still have the really good qualities I outlined on it – I double checked this morning) and then ultimately – you are getting a series of messages that “drive” you back to individual posts that further delve into some of the mechanics of this marketing stuff..:-)
My “strategy” is simply that I will be offering coaching again at some point in the next month or so – it’s not going to be cost appropriate for most people reading the blog – but for some who want to build a real business online using a whole host of techniques – it will be very worthwhile and uniquely valuable amidst the sound and fury that permeates this space. So – as each of the “lessons” covers different parts of my approach – more and more of my readers, will hopefully be interested in that – and everyone else will hopefully be learning a little bit more about our particular approach – and getting a good free resource by which to do so.
The same can be applied in just about any field -any “niche” or any passion or expertise you may have – be it cooking – gardening – yoga – etc – provide valuable info – bond, connect and care about your readers – try to inspire, innovate, illuminate, and integrate all of this stuff into a system that builds trust, builds a brand and of course, ultimately, builds a new business to boot!
Please could you be my mentor i nee to start from the scratch.
Thanks again Ian – I particularly like the idea of a redirect after the “thank-you” page when somebody signs up for a newsletter using Aweber. I need to tweek mine to add more info on the product and a possible review page. Good stuff!