The Silent Avatar Speaks

I’m sure you are aware that there are a lot of people making money online today. You have probably heard about some of the higher profile Internet Marketers who rake in millions of dollars every year. They also travel all around the world going to Internet Marketing seminars where they discuss the latest money making strategies.

These seminars are located in places like Orlando, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Australia. Not bad places to go to work huh? Besides the bonus of being able to enjoy some sun and local attractions while they are in these cities, they get to discuss the latest Internet Marketing techniques and brainstorm ways to make even more money.

Ah, the life of the Internet Marketer. It’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it .

Are you interested in getting into Internet marketing? Maybe you’re already doing it but you’re struggling to make a buck. Maybe you’re really skeptical and believe that there is no bloody way the little guy can make money online.

You might be thinking… sure it’s easy if you have a lot of cash to pay people that are experts to write content for some hungry profitable niches that you know nothing about. Or sure it’s easy to make a lot of money if you have a list of 100,000 people to pitch to.

Well come on people, do you really think that’s all it takes to make a mitt full of cash with Internet Marketing?

Well, actually you’re not too far off. It could very well happen this way.

So now you are probably thinking that this solidifies what you’ve always thought. The little guy can’t make money online…

… Nonsense!

You gotta remember that these big time money making marketers were in the exact same position as you are now. They struggled and struggled trying to make money and many times thought they would never succeed.

But they never gave up and they kept on trying different things until something worked. Then all they did was repeat the process (aka rinse and repeat)

Once they started making money, they would re-invest this money in tools to make their tasks faster and they would start going to these big Internet Marketing conventions.

This leads to more money, more Internet Marketing friends and Joint Venture partners. It’s a great way to build your business.

If they can do it, there is no reason why you can’t do it. Plus you have an advantage… today there is so much more information available to help you make money online. Most of the big names in Internet Marketing didn’t have all this information available to them and had to figure it all out through trial and error.

So if you are just a beginner and have no idea where to get started, here is a series of easy to follow videos called “Fast Cash For Newbies” that will save you the pain of trying to figure out everything on your own.

Learn how to make more money with capture video on screen strategies.

I’m the silent avatar… and I have spoken

Tags: Blogs, RSS and Podcasting, Internet Marketing, Joint Ventures, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing by the silent avatar
No Comments »

It doesn’t matter what business you are trying to build online, you will need sales leads as part of yor overall promotional strategy if you are ever going to make sales, and sales leads are what you are trying to generate if you are marketing on the internet. In order to survive, any web site needs a steady flow of qualified leads.

The aim of any lead generation campaign is to build your mailing list. Internet marketers often say “the money is in the list”, which is totally true. A list of responsive buying customers that trust you is worth its weight in gold!

While spam filtering has lessened the impact of email marketing, it’s still a viable means to getting your sales messages out there. In theory, email is marketing is free, although of course its costs you in terms of your time. The theory behind email marketing is that by using a “hook” such as a free product or some other incentive, you can “funnel” interested parties onto specific products and services.

When you consider generating leads via an email campaign there are basically three avenues you can

No Spam

explore: email signatures, joint ventures and safe lists. One word of warning though, and that is avoid spam at all cost, one spam complaint can seriously damage your online business. You should familiarise yourself with the laws concerning spam, and at the very least ensure you include a un-subscription link in ALL your marketing emails. Due to spam, it is advisable that you avoid buying leads, no matter how reputable the company, buying leads can easily lead to a spam complaint, you have been warned!

In its simplest form, email marketing is a matter of putting a signature in all your emails that contains a link to your main product.

If you are looking to vastly increase your list quickly then a joint venture (JV) may well be the key you need. In its simplest form, in a JV you supply the product and a fellow marketer supplies the leads and you share the profits. Hopefully, you will then get the emails of your fellow marketer’s customers, so you can then mail them with further offers.

When considering a joint venture there are many considerations you have to think about, but the main one, before you consider contacting anyone about mailing to their list, is “what’s in it for THEM”, not “what’s in it for me”. NEVER write to a fellow marketer unless you can offer them something of value in return for their help, and that is not necessarily just a share of the profits, be inventive!

Finally you have safe lists. A safe list is a list of people that have agreed to receive marketing emails in return for being able to send their own marketing email. The value of this form of marketing has never been that good. After all you are trying to sell to people who are only interested in selling to you!

You can use pay per click advertising such as overture or Google adwords to advertise your site and draw in interested leads.

One other highly effective way of generating interested leads is posting in forums that are related to your area of business. Include a link to your site in your signature and people interested in your sphere of business will often click it if your forum post was interesting.

Three other popular sales lead generation techniques are submitting articles to e-zine publishers and article directories, press releases and testimonials for products in your target market.

No matter what lead generation technique you employ you will need a way to capture your leads email address when they arrive at your site.

The traditional method has been to use a pop up or pop under which contains some incentive to get someone to sign up. With the invention of pop up stoppers their effectiveness has dwindled and therefore unstoppable pop ups (also know as hover ads or slide in ads) have evolved. This new generation of pop ups are built into your webpage and as such cannot be stopped. Simply do a search on Goggle for “unstoppable pop up” and you are sure to find a software solution to produce these types of pop ups for you.

The other alternative is to use what is called a “name squeeze page”.

In essence a name squeeze page is a web page whose sole purpose is to capture an email address.

They generally contain a small amount of information about the product or service you are selling as a “teaser” for the reader and will contain a sign up form, with a message like “to find out more simply fill in the form to be immediately directed to further details on this amazing product”.

A name squeeze page not only helps build your list, this information can also be used with certain software to help personalise your site for your visitor, a technique that has been shown to increase sales. Again, simply do a search for name squeeze page generators.

No matter how you generate sales leads there is one thing always to bear in mind, and that is to be effective your leads must be in your targeted market. If, for example, you are selling internet marketing products, then it’s no use advertising on a site that is all about scuba diving!

When you start to build your online business, ensure you include a well thought out sales lead generation strategy from the beginning. Do not make it an afterthought; this should be in place from the very beginning if you want your business to be a success

I’m the silent avatar… and I have spoken

Tags: Internet Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing by the silent avatar
No Comments »

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 by the silent avatar
No Comments »

The thing I love about blogs is the opportunity to share your knowledge with others to assist them in becoming successful.

I read a lot of information on the web, some I take on board, some I reject. Not because the advice is not sound, but because it may be difficult to implement their suggestions right now (financially and technically). This seems to be common with “newbie” website entrepreneurs.

One of my readers posted a comment to my blog article “How to Get Your Site Visitors NOT Doing What You Want” asking how do they get their website noticed.

There is no one step answer to this question. In fact it’s hard work! However there are many ways which (when you combine them together) you can drive visitors to your site. I will give you my top 4 ways to get your website noticed. Just keep reading…

What we know for sure is that unless you ARE known, the first port of call for anyone looking for answers to their problem (after all we all “search to solve a problem”) is the search engines (aka Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc)

What you do want is to be visible in the search engine listings, and preferably on page 1 or 2 of the search results for your site keywords.

This in itself is a huge ask. Many factors go into getting a PR1 or PR2 in the search listings. I have come to the conclusion that you have to be well versed in website SEO (Search Engine Optimization), have the right keywords for your site (after thorough research using something like Wordtracker), be constantly adding new information (like in the form of a blog), and include a site map.

All of this takes time, education and money (how much of each usually depends on finances).

Or.. you can use Google Adwords to do the same thing without the depth needed to get an “organic search result”.

I won’t go into Google Adwords here – suffice to say that it’s Google’s advertising juggernaut which returns “sponsored listings” to search engine queries based on the keywords used in the search term.

Yes it costs you money, however given the unlikelihood of getting PR1 or PR2 listings of your website through “organic” means (believe me… there are website owners out there whose sole purpose is to tweak their sites until they crack they PR1/PR2 ranking), this is definitely an avenue to explore.

Getting your hands on as much information as you can about how to utilize Adwords to give you the maximum ROI (return on investment) just makes sense. No point throwing good money down the drain because you don’t understand how it works. Advertising is a known medium for driving customers to buy. It’s no different for websites.

Tell A Friend
There’s nothing quite like viral marketing to spread the word. Every website should have the means to tell others about the site and thereby drive more traffic to the site. I wrote about this is a previous blog post.

Affiliates & Joint Venture Partners
Another way to get your site noticed is to bring affiliates on board who can promote your site to their subscribers. Check out what other successful websites in your niche are doing. Look to see if they have affiliate programs.

When launching a website it is possible to search out partners to joint venture with to increase your exposure.

Let me give you an example.

I have a friend who I did a website for her to sell an e-book. She is an accomplished travel agent with a wealth of knowledge only a travel agent could give in her e-book. I suggested to her to partner with an eBay powerseller (one who sells a lot).

Simply look for a powerseller who sells travel goods, write a quick email asking if they would be interested in sending out an email to their list promoting her e-book with a cut of the purchase price going back to the Powerseller. Just be careful how you approach them as you don’t want to be in violation of Ebay rules and have your account terminated.

Print Media Advertising
Offline Print Media can be a great way to boost your exposure. If your site is in a niche,  seek out niche publications to advertise in. Make sure you track your advertising so you know what works and what doesn’t.  Don’t put in small classifieds in publications. Far better to save up and go for a decent size advertisement which has all the elements of good sales copy (sell the benefits!!) to entice the reader to act.

Branding
I couldn’t finish this post without mentioning product branding. We can all see that product branding works (you only have to think McDonald’s).

Branding a website starts with using consistency. Same colours, same logo, same tagline, same, same, same.

Brand your website where ever possible. Put your website details on business cards, letterheads, email signatures, promotional material, all advertising, posters, banners… anywhere where you can put your website details put it!

Getting your site noticed does take time, effort and energy. Consistently applying the methods which I have shared with you above will pay dividends.

Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Business Tips, Internet Marketing, SEO, Traffic Generation, Web Design by the silent avatar
2 Comments »