The Silent Avatar Speaks

I’ve been an avid reader of Rich Schefren and Strategic Profits for some time now, and Rich’s post today focuses in the power of Joint Ventures for forging ahead in the Internet marketing world (and let’s face it.. everyone online is a part of the Internet marketing world).

When you’re strating out (or still holding a job and getting into an online business in your spare time) its’ a daunting task to think about who you can joint venture your product or business with, but with a bit of strategic planning, maintaining and building momentum for your site/product can happen quicker if you joint venture.

As Rich states in his post, joint ventures don’t have to be long term alliances, but need to be profitable for both parties. I guess the biggest joint venture partner is Clickbank. Clickbank gives you the opportunity to present your product to an army of affiliates and have them sell your product, however unless you have a “name” or a product that will simply blow everyone out of the water, you will find it difficult to get affiliates to promote your product. Of course the key is that joint ventures have to be profitable for  both.  Clickbank products can offer up to 75% or 80% commission (less fees).

So short of paying out $97 for Rich’s e-book (and I don’t know why it is that e-books seem to have this magical $97, or ending in $7 whatever), but it seems to be getting out of hand. It is worth the price tag? If it’s Rich Schrefren he’s got too much to loose putting out trash. Yes.. knowledge doesn’t come cheap from successful people , but then with a little creative thinking you don’t have to fork out big bucks to get ways to JV with someone.

STOP! Before you even THINK about JV partnership your product has to be good. No - make that great. There are too many products out there that fail to deliver, and your product has to be top notch and ideally solve a problem. If it doesn’t solve a problem then go back and create something that does - people want solutions to problems!

OK.. so lets look at who you can JV with…

Let’s start with the obvious…

1. If you have any sort of downloadable product then align yourself with partners who have customers who would also appreciate your product. Here’s an example;

• If you have an e-book to do with travel align yourself with travel agencies. There are a lot of independent agencies who would be more than willing to take a cut from your sale to have their consultants promote it for you.
• Taking this further you could also joint venture with sites who offer travel accessories (like luggage)
• You may even want o JV with an eBay “power-seller”. If they sell products similar to yours (and are willing to promote your product as am “add on” to their business.

Just start by making a list of businesses which can potentially profit from your product, write then a short letter asking if they would be interested in making more more (who isn’t), and invite them to contact you.

No doubt Rich has a hell of a lot more info to add so you can read about his post here along with his new book “The Complete Guide To Highly Successful Internet Joint Venture Partnerships“, and if your looking to emulate someone who has proven themselves successful grab a copy of his e-book and start putting his words into action.

Tags: Joint Ventures // Add Comment »

No doubt taking a business online is a decision which shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s easy to get caught up in all the hype of the Internet, but the bottom line is “will you see a return on your investment”?

One of the biggest headaches can be getting traffic (aka customers) to your site, and eBay already has that covered.

Here are the traffic statistics from Alexa.com

Of course there is a multitude of ways to drive traffic to your site. Most take time to do, others you can pay money for and get moving straight way. All should be monitored (especially if you are spending advertising dollars to get the customers) as to how effective they are for you.

So here are a couple of scenarios which you may want to consider…

1. Open an online shop and either hold physical stock or drop ship.

2. Sell your products for a competitive price (including postage).

3. Advertise your site using free classified, forum posts, Pay Per Click advertising, etc

or

1. Research your market on Ebay
   Log in and go to “Advanced Search”. Input your product (be specific). Check “Search Title and Description” and Check “Completed Listings Only”, and check “new items only” (if you sell new) - then search. This will return you a listing of SOLD items which have been listed for sale on eBay, which are more than likely products you would offer to sell.

   Note: Search through “all Categories”, then refine down your listings using “Narrow your results” (which is accessed by going to the left of the window)

   Only review the listings highlighted in green (these are sold items).

   Now… Start a spreadsheet or pen/paper and input the data from the sold items.

2. Enter in the following:

· Item Name ( you want to know which items are the biggest sellers)

· Sold price – (because you want to know the lowest/highest price you can sell for

· Date sold – you want to know which day/s things sell more of than other days.

· Time sold – you want to know which time is the best sale time.

· Postage – you want to know what postage is reasonable (though you shouldn’t make money on postage – it should be flat postage fee plus an amount to cover packaging and getting to the post office).

· The seller (the best seller may have tricks you can use)

Armed with the information from Ebay you have a much better idea what people are willing to pay for the item you are going to sell. You also have a good idea what day you should be listing your items, and what time you should be listing them to get them in front of buyers, and how you should be listing them (I’ll go into that next post).

If you have found that the price people are willing to pay is something that you can work with, the next step is to use this information and set up a listings on Ebay of around 30 products (they don’t all have to be individual products) and list them on the day and time that your research has turned up as being the best time to sell. Don’t list the same items one after the other.

Do this for 1 month and see how sales go.

While you are doing your research you can also be checking out other auction sites like oztion.com.au and do the same thing.

You can also check out forums in your selected niche (let’s say you want to sell Xbox 360 video games). You can simply Google search for “Xbox forums”, join up and have a look around the forum for anyone who is talking about where they buy their games. You can also get a pretty good idea about what products they are buying.

While this might sound a little tedious it will pay huge dividends and either confirm to you the project is viable, or scrap it as you can’t compete with what is already out there (and lets face it with imports from china it’s getting harder and harder to compete)

Having said that… all is not lost if the price issue is looking pretty grim.

If you specialise in a “niche” (and I’ll use the video games as an example, you could “specialise” in games for only Xbox or a certain type of game ie; racing car, war games, etc.

If you determine you have a viable product and can sell at a price which is comparable to your competition, you are then good to go…

You can either set up your own website and market traffic directly to the site or set up a full eBay store and run it as a business, or, you can keep listing products (using the research you have done), and just list single items to sell.

Over to you….

As always feel free to post a comment or question for me to answer.

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Traffic Generation // Add Comment »

Listen up folks! Want a $3,997 site for next to nothing? … Now Complete With a Revolutionary Breakthrough Technology that “FORCES” Cash Directly Into Your Pocket!! - Guaranteed!!

Here’s another opportunity for all you budding internet marketers to make money online.

Hot off the press today comes a “new” kind of website these days - one that “FORCES” money into your pocket!

The days are now over where you were left with just “chance” on your side when it came to making money on the Internet.

A brand new “technology” has been developed that makes websites pay you by “force!”

Short of putting a gun to people’s heads and making them take their money out of their wallets and pay you without choice, this new technology might as well be the exact same thing.

This breakthrough was developed by a New York Virtual Marketing Firm, and is taking the Web by storm!

Already some pretty famous names are taking note of this new “money making invention” that “forces” money out of the Internet directly into your bank account!

A spokesperson for the NYC firm boasted proudly:

“Imagine the Worldwide-Web as an ocean of money … our new technology merely makes a way for YOU to be able to dig a big trench from that ‘cash-sea’ directly into your backyard!”

And that’s obviously a pretty amazing feat to say the very least!

People get a webpage that’s NOT ordinary by any means!

The webpage “captures” a huge segment of the daily visitors it receives and winds up upselling them repeatedly with a predictable conversion each and every time!

Plus, the webpage has a “built-in” device that allows it to generate “free traffic” without end!

So considering the fact that you get free traffic, along with a predictable and steady stream of sales conversions, you get a guaranteed source of endless income!

Additionally, the webpage you get already contains a PROVEN digital product that no online marketer can live without, and one that is delivered where all your orders are filled automatically by another firm on behalf of you, the webpage owner! (And at no costs!)

Not only that, but the webpage contains a video that makes further an irresistible offer so that people must surrender their contact information, and which also becomes a VAST double-optin list!

This list is maintained by yet another separate online firm on our behalf, and that has the HIGHEST track record for getting over 98% deliverability for follow-up emailings (the same that convert another 378% more sales for you!)

So in a nutshell you get:

• An amazing website!
• A website that converts sales automatically!
• A website that puts “forced” money directly into your pocket!
• A website that’s run by another firm for you (at NO charge!)
• A website that continues to promote for you over &over!
• A website that grows & cultivates a proven list!
• A website that functions automatically (so you never run it!)
• And a website that you get Free H0STING for!

So as you can easily see you get the whole “Sha-Bang!”

Here are just a few examples of the successes people are having using this “Forced Money” breakthrough system:

—> “Lisa C.” Made $44,047 In Just 97 Days
—> “Jay R.” Made $102,033 In Just 32 Days
—> “Cal W.” Made $317,951 In Just 17 Days

Without wasting another moment of your time, why not go to the new site that shows you how you can get this site for yourself (if you’d like) for next to nothing? …

~~~> Check it out here

But I must warn you that they are only giving away a very limited number of these “forced money” websites that forcibly pour money into your pocket! - So please [for your sake] HURRY!

Tags: Hot Off The Press, Internet Marketing // Add Comment »

I’m very grateful for the readers of my blog, and especially the comments which inspire me to give out some more useful information about webdesign and Internet marketing in general.

A reader (Casey) recently posted a comment to my previous post “How to get your site visitors (NOT) doing what you want”.

Casey wanted some feedback (which I am happy to do), and I hope that you will relate my feedback I am giving on this website PropertyWishList.com.au to your own site in evaluating its effectiveness. You can open the site I am evaluating in another browser window to check it out as we go.

The first comment I want to make is not to launch a site until you have tested the site.

Testing encompasses a lot of things, not the least to make sure everything works technically. Another test should encompass what users think of the site. Now I’m not talking about you, your offsider, or your web developer. When you have been working on a site for any length of time you can become quite blind to what the site obviously needs. Find someone who fits a typical user. It could be a friend, an acquaintance, or a respected business person. You will want to go through the site and do what I am doing - evaluate it from a user perspective.

Your task for them should be clear. Does our site encompass everything that you (as a user) want and need to be of benefit to use this site? (this is especially the case when your site is a “service” website).

If necessary get them to fill in an online form, or ask them to just make notes and give you a call, or send them to you via email. You many even want to offer an incentive.

So lets go…

How do I think this site stacks up against the competition?

While it might bruise some egos, send out a collective *groan*, and put you in a spin, what I about to say could have been alleviated if you had assessed the wants and needs of the users first over what your competition offers.

I heard something recently (can’t remember where) the saying “Never be the first one to do anything”. I’ve pondered this good advice and now know why. When you are the first to do something you never get it right. You just set the benchmark for someone else to do it better.

I’ve used real estate sites often. In fact very often. For the past 3 years I have been trying to sell a property which I have moved on from (due to re-locating).

Realestate.com.au is by far the biggest competitor (and I have used this site extensively when searching for property to buy), so first know who your competitor/s are and evaluate their website for areas which don’t work or could work better. Do this from the prospective of a user and make notes. Then do it from the prospective of a developer (and take notes).

[Read more →]

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Web Design // Add Comment »