affiliate marketing tips

This offer is NO longer available…..thank you for your interest! This has been a recording. Don’t forget to vote.

First…….I want to thank everyone who partcipated in the coaching program, and those applied for the 7 day “hardship” coaching offer – and apologize for NOT having gotten back to those of you who posted on the blog – or emailed me directly, as I’ve had a super busy week and simply overestimated (as usual) the amount of free time I’d have to catch up with everything and everyone…and unfortunately, emailing everyone back who I couldn’t take didn’t make the cut…:-(

This doesn’t include – by the way – the total horror story from hell botched trip to the Florida keys for thanksgiving (and where I am thankfully and gratefully writing this today basking today in the warm glow of 85 degrees while I know it’s like wet, cold and winter back home..:-)

But suffice it to say – my trip down here included:

• 1 missed flight to Ft Lauderdale ———————– 297 dollars

• 1 Botched prepaid car ride to key west ——————–147 dollars

• 1 bad decision to drive the whole way instead the day before Thanksgiving on the most heavily trafficked day of the year ———————–378 dollars

• 1 Tire blow out at 1am while driving through bumf*ck North Carolina ———–165 dollars

• Trying to find a tow truck/hotel/new tire/god/not-cry/and or human help at 2am on the side of 95 and ultimately spending the night (and Thanksgiving day) in a Wallmart and eating pretzels from the vending machine for dinner? ———————--Priceless

And for the most part, those were the fun parts.  

Note to self: (and anyone else reading this right now with similar silly notions of how much fun it may be to jump in your car and drive 21 hours to Key West from NJ) 

It ain’t nearly as much fun as you remember it being in college. If you do experience an automotive emergency in the wee hours of the morning – the best thing to do is call your mother. (because she really does know best) 

Okay – let’s take a look at a few common, recurring conundrums, confusions and content creation questions that KEPT coming up…. and some simple ideas I hope will be helpful for you and your business in time for the holiday’s……..and beyond! 

Question: Big markets or small markets for article marketing campaigns?  

A: Both. But stay away from micro niches, and micro markets that have NO back end or follow up.  

One of the most common questions (and complaints) I’ve gotten from many people who have bought "systems" or ebooks or "courses" on micro niche marketing, is the SEO stuff is easy. (i.e. – getting on the first page of google, ain’t tough for a small little market) 

But making REAL money from those sites….even if you put up 50, or 60 or several hundred (as a bunch of you seemingly are doing) is NOT such a great investment of your time, effort or income. Can you make money from these style sites? Yes, absolutely. But is it the smartest, surest or HIGHEST use of your time to do it? Absolutely not.  

Why?

You have no control. Your leverage is based on HOPE (and crossed fingers) You have to remember, you often need a TON of traffic to monetize some of those niches – and YES, if you have a hyper specific, hyper relevant landing page on a certain type of widget….and people are searching for that sort of widget and find YOUR site, first…you can make some decent sales.  

But you DO need a good amount of traffic to make enough money to make it worthwhile and it IS a strategy of SCALE. (i.e. – you need many similar style sites to really make a solid income with this approach, and if you DO use this approach, you should be automating it….NOT building the sites by yourself by hand) 

Note – if you do have a bunch of these style sites….one of the easiest things to do is simply to sell them in small groups – get your value out of the time and effort you put in, and let someone else further them and finish them off.  

Re-invest your profits in building a big list and relationships using more mainstream marketing methods. 

Do I build those sites?  

Yes, and they CAN be very profitable as you heard in my interview with Ed and my recommendation of his software for data feeds and blog automation.  

But you need to be able to put up LOTS of those sites to make it a primary strategy…and overall, there is STILL no relationship building inherent in those sorts of sites, which is truly where I believe most of you should be focusing, and where everyone agrees *most* of the real money is to be made. (being unique, building relationships, creating value and helping people in any area that you have a genuine expertise) 

You can make a BIG market small but creating smaller satellite sites and driving traffic to the primary offer – niche it down…..but make your money on the high volume side of the street i.e. – use the small sites to create "authority" to the primary site…and use that as the high volume, higher dollar play. 

For BIG markets? You can (and should) use article marketing to:

1. The 2 and 1/2 cheek rule (which means ALWAYS look for big A*s markets!)
2. Drive to a list page with a free offer
3. Collect name
4. Thank you page either re-directs to the affiliate offer (less optimal) or thanks them for signing up, and subtly suggests they follow up reading at your blog OR if they are ready to "buy now" – you push them to the products you DO recommend. (affiliate link per the redirect)
5. Do you need the whole thing up in PERFECT PITCH to start?
6. Absolutely not….you can simply say sign up for something that’s COMING in the future….collect the name, and follow the above without doing anything other than putting up the name squeeze, and letting people know you WILL have something to share down the road. (and still not hurt your opt in rates too significantly)

• Take your articles, re-write the titles and post them an a blog – OR – use static html pages. (niche-keyword.html, niche-keyword1.html)

• If you use static html pages, use a BLOG on a sub domain to publish news related to the topic. blog.yourniche.com –>yourniche.com/niche-keyword.html articles

• Use high quality giveaways to amp up opt in percentage

• Add new posts to blog -and link to static pages from the posts. (this is very effective for getting static pages great rankings)

• If you WANT to drive traffic to your internal pages from your articles use keyword friendly anchor text that matches the keywords you are optimizing for….AND use smart and creative name capture strategies as well. (ad impact, footer opt in scripts, hard coded sidebars, etc)

• Again, for SEO (and I’m NOT an self proclaimed seo-expert at all) what I have found works BEST is this: blog on subdomain.

• Static pages with keyword friendly titles.

• Blog post goes up and ANNOUNCES new static page. Ping blog directories and LINK from the post level to the page level using keyword friendly anchor text. Very simple, very effective and you can try it today to prove it to yourself.

The biggest "sin" I see over and over again is this:  

The key to making money through direct response marketing is ultimately relationships. It doesn’t have to be building a big OPT in list anymore. (although it’s still optimal) It’s about relationships that can be built on and through social media marketing, blog comments, and places where value can be created and delivered in a very viral (and valuable) way.

 There is no mystery – no magic, and if you truly want to make more money (or any at all) building, maintaining and creating REAL value, building a list is the best way to do it. (and I truly don’t understand why people don’t get this – it’s FAR easier than building a millions lenses, or product sites, and is much more rewarding as well)

 The truth is….you ALWAYS have a choice in how difficult...or how easy you make this process.  

If you want to rely on the search engines, and leave a lot of your income OUTSIDE of the comfort of your own control, build sites that require a whole host of external factors to become truly successful. 

I’ve had small networks of sites drop out the search engines…inexplicably, overnight.

 I’ve had PPC campaigns, review blogs and other aggressive affiliate oriented sites get slapped…..and literally, dry up and disappear in 72 hours or less. (and without ever really having done anything "wrong" at all…..other than being in the wrong markets and being painted with the same broad brush as those who weren’t playing well or nicely itch others.)  

And when that happens….your leverage disappears.  

The work you put in – to BUILD those businesses from the ground up – evaporates into the ethereal realms faster than you can say merry christmas,mike filsaime. 

But your list – you own. No one can take that away.

1. The relationships you’ve cultivated – DON’T disappear. (ever)
2. The reputation you’ve established, can’t drop out of the search engines.
3. The character (or cult) of personality you’ve crafted…..isn’t subject to the whimsical wanderings of search engines that like you one day, and dislike you the next.

And I can tell you, without any equivocation, the sites that I work on that are based around REAL interaction with people (like this one) and are list/blog/and "social" in nature, are exponentially more fun, more rewarding and this is ultimately where all of the REAL enduring value is in anway. (ask any super successful direct reponse marketer in the world whether they’d like to start again with a GREAT product an NO list…..or a mediocre product and a HUGE list..:-)

 If you want to make it easy on yourself - automate as much of your blog and site building strategy as you can - and focus as much of your efforts as possible on list and relationship building instead.

Build lots of affiliate blogs – amazon store style sites, data feed and article universe style sites…..BUT use technology – and NOT your time to do it.

Questions of Size and Scale: 

How many pages does a site need to be successful? Is 100 enough? What about 10? Do you need a whole plethora of posts to build a profitable business? 

1 page, in some models, is more than enough to build an on line income big enough to retire.

You need a squeeze page, that’s it. You can use articles to drive traffic – and social media sites, and make a full time living, right now with a one page web site.

No joke.

Write articles and use twitter.

Drive the traffic to a freebie – and redirect to the affiliate thereafter. Is that optimal? No, it’s probably not the BEST strategy…but it still can make you very successful, and super happy without a whole mess of muss and fuss.

The Best Approach?

A full "funnel" is best (a oft updated blog – and a dedicated squeeze page, thank you page and a whole series of special, one time offers) and it’s where you would optimally focus, but it’s not worth waiting to build if you are desperate to make some money…and are frustrated, failing and flailing about with what you’re working now. 

Again – capture names – and follow up ethically, but aggressively.….and more you mail, the more money you will make, plain and simple!

 Remember, you can be nice, friendly and evangelical about your products and services and be aggressive in how often you mail.

 Again – if you truly believe in what you are offering, a good argument could be made the more assertive you are in making your pitch….the more protection, you can offer more people, who avail themselves of your services.

 Back to Size and scale……

But…for search engine purposes? The more pages….typically the better. Google seem’s to "love" authority sites over smaller islands.  

Again – use AUTOMATION to build big sites, and point them into smaller islands of information that captures names, sells your services and makes you an authority with hyper speed.

Increasing your article traffic exponentially with your list – and social media.

Want an easy way to build more traffic to your articles? Send your list subscribers to your articles. You can send them directly……or you can send them to a post on your blog, where you link to the article directly.

The more people that see your articles, the higher your articles rank on EZA. The higher your articles rank on EZA, the more site "stickiness" they have. (the highest viewed articles list is often a great GIFT in terms of extra ANYTHING you have created your content to achieve – more affiliate sales, more subscribers and more eyeballs in front of your offers overall….as these articles STICK to the top of your category for dramatically longer periods of time) 

As an example?  

I’ve sent emails to THIS list – that have gone to blog posts that have had links to my own EZA articles woven through.

 A significant portion of those of you READING the posts have clicked through….giving my articles greater amounts of “views”, which ultimately leads to higher rankings, more traffic, more sales and more exposure through and through. It’s all about recycling. Recycling your available resources to build other pieces and parts of your profit puzzle.

You can use EZA auto tweet feature the very same way….although I’ve found it’s MUCH more effective, to just tweet out the links to the articles themselves with a bit of personal commentary or opinion. 

Kill Them with Copy 

The BIGGEST difference I see in people who are cleaning up…and those who are spinning wheels is compelling copy.

1. You have to be able to write copy that converts.

2. This means you’re email sequence can’t suck.

3. Your article titles must titallate.

4. Your resource boxes must compel, coerce, and cajole.

I see FAR too many people writing articles, emails and content that is bland, boring and benign.

• Make Money with Forex 
• Or - 
• Make Money with Forex! 3 Unusual Ideas for Exponentially EXPLODING Your Income with Forex (not for newbies)

Yes, one is cheesy and over the top and high hype. But it will ALSO outpull, outperform and open more eyeballs than the former….and the ONLY place you really need to be over the top….is the title itself. (i.e. – you are fine to write the rest of the article like a normal human being…and you’ll STILL see conversions that will go up dramatically)

The Bottom Line? 

Be verbose! The more passion you can put into your titles…the more punch (and profit) you are going to get from your prose. Plain and simple…and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 

Leverage, Leverage, Leverage!

Automate what you can.

• Leverage freebies and giveaways on the front end for name acquisition

• embed affiliate links in docs

• encourage the people on your list to distribute the docs you give away

• Leverage the expertise of others…..to maximize that of your own

• Leverage multimedia – for blog posts, mailings, landing pages, etc.

Leverage technology

• Blog automation tools (wordpress plugins, article aggregation, data feeds, and more)

• Social Media Automation (automated twitter posts using RSS feeds from your blogs, news, send traffic to your primary sites and blogs using "feeder" style

• WordPress Plugin’s, templates, themes and viral marketing methods

Leverage Partnerships –

1. Can you have you your list promote your articles

2. Can you have your list promote your social media

3. Can you find REAL experts in your field and BORROW their expertise, credibility and CONTENT…..and use YOUR marketing mojo to make a mint? You can…..and I know at least one online enterprise doing that right now to the tune of many millions a year. Find experts who have KILLER content, but no CLUE about making money with it, and partner with them using these style strategies to make money in a win/win way that everybody loves.

   Find people who have products in your niche or industry…and simply co-op or JV with them on their offers. Your marketing…their content – and you’ve got a business in a box to blog about from jump!

Okay…..that’s it for today. I hope some of the above adds a little layer of insight, confirmation or illmuniation to any areas you feel you weren’t 100% on…and while the ideas above are simply suggestions and should NOT be taken as “expert advice”….I can tell you I truly believe that they will work well for you if you give them a try!

What’s Coming Next…..

1. I have a couple really exciting projects in planning with some very smart and very successful partners….one in the IM related space, and one in a tangential “niche” I’m really personally very interested in.

2. The IM project (while not 100% fleshed out yet) is going to be SUPER unique, very small and hopefully….VERY profitable for everyone who particpates. (with access to some very cool tools and technologies that are very special alongside some full service “done for you” options I have NOT seen anyone offer that could be game changers for those of you who don’t have time, energy or available hours to truly build the kind of online enterprise you’ve been hoping to see)

Here is what it means for YOU…….

I am in the process of putting together the BEST price, and most outrageously advantageous coaching offer I’ve ever made, in 15 years of marketing consulting….to launch sometime in the next 10 days.  

Why? Because we need testimonials. And the more of them the merrier.

 And I need people whose copy is now converting 2 and 3 times better…..whose email sequences are selling better than ever before, whose blogs are more interesting, more enlightening and more entertaining to boot. 

And I need people who have live examples of the types of sites, tools and technologies we’re going to be offering to help you build in the monthly memberships….to sell the idea to those who will be seeing all of this much later.

 And I’m going to make an unheard of guarantee as well – on a personal services offer.

I’m just putting the finer touches on it now……but in an age when NO ONE wants to guarantee personal services like coaching and consulting…..I’m going to offer a money back guarantee that puts MY money…..where my mouth is:

 If you don’t feel like you haven’t make 10 TIMES the money you’ve paid me in profit.……..you can have your money back in full. That means next month. Next year. Or the next lifetime. A one time offer of IMMEDIATE help in YOUR specific business – and a lifetime to reclaim your cash if you feel I’ve failed you in any way. (and …….you can even KEEP the stuff that we built for you to boot)

Want to know more?

Send an email to 97 (at) KarmicConsulting.Net and I’ll fill you in on the details. (note….this offer is NO longer available in 2010 – thank you for your interest!)

This is obviously going to be a limited quantity offer….not only because it’s sort of required writing for any urgency related proposition where I’m supposed to tell you to act fast …..but rather, because in this case, I am only one person….even though my shrink thinks that’s up for debate. 

And other than a killer collection of cardigan sweaters and a lake front time share in Vermont – time is my most valuable asset.  

And because this means I’m going to be working with your DIRECTLY with your stuff……you’ve got to let me know pronto, and I’ll give you the details. (they’re really good – trust me..:-)