Today’s Lesson is a Recipe for Failure
I feel another rant coming on, but I don’t know exactly who I’m ranting at. Let me explain…
At least once or twice a week I get a reply to an email that I’ve sent to my list members that’s nothing more than reverse marketing. For anyone who’s not familiar with that term, it means you market to people whose lists you’re on.
In other words, people on my subscriber list hit the reply button and don’t actually ‘write’ an email to me. They just include information about some product or program that they’re pushing.
Now, the reason I don’t know who I’m ranting at here is because I don’t know if this is a common ’marketing method’ among newbies who just happen to think of it and think it’s a good idea, or if some marketer actually wrote a report on using this method and sold it to newbies.
Either way -Â newbies, take heed…
This is not the way to market your products or programs. It’s nothing more than spam, because I didn’t ask to hear about your products. You asked to hear about mine, therefore you double opted in to my mailing list, giving me permission to email you. I did not give you permission to email me.
Of course, if you ever have questions, comments or joint venture offers,  I’m more than happy to read your emails, and I reply to every one that I receive.
But please don’t get on my bad side, or that of other marketers, and start your marketing career with a bad reputation by using reverse marketing methods. Starting off on the wrong foot will only lead to failure.
It’s much easier to ‘play nice’ and build a good reputation from the get-go, than it is to re-build your reputation after you’ve had a bad one.
Social Marketing Brings Instant Website Traffic
Hopefully by now you’re using social marketing to drive traffic to your website or blog. Web 2.0 is here to stay, and it’s the fastest way to get free targeted traffic to any site you choose.
Sites such as StumbleUpon, Squidoo, MySpace, HubPages, Twitter and others are prime spots to “drop” your url’s while you’re “socializing” with people in the communities.
And the best part about these sites is that you don’t have to wait days or weeks to see results. Social sites will bring you an instant surge of “same day” traffic!
The reason for this instant traffic is that social sites are extremely viral. If one person enjoys your posts or comments, they’ll let their friends know about it. And those people will let their friends know, and so on.
A good number of the people who read your comments at social sites are likely to visit your website or blog to see what else you have to say.
Once the ball starts rolling you almost can’t stop the traffic coming to your website… but why would you want to? 
Big businesses are sure rude these days!
Maybe it’s just me, but the dealings I’ve had with any big business in the last few months or so haven’t really been very pleasant.
For instance, I just got a phone call from my gas company offering me a warrenty plan for my home appliances, furnace, etc. When I told the woman that I don’t need their plan, but thank you anyway, she hung up!
This is not the first such incident like this. It annoys the heck out of me that people are so rude! Big Corporate America must have told its employees that as soon as they hear the word “no” they need to hang up and call the next victim… errrr, potential customer.
Another thing that annoys me is when I receive a phone call and there’s an automated message telling me to please hold for an important phone call.
I don’t think so! You called me, you idiots, not the other way around. I refuse to be put on hold in such situations.
Can you imagine how long small businesses, either offline or online, would be in business if we treated our customers this way? Not very long, I’m sure.
That’s why, to me, customer service is so important, especially online where your customers can’t see or hear you. It’s very important to set yourself apart by offering fast replies to emails and support tickets, and by helping your customers and subscribers as much as possible.
It just makes good business sense and it will keep loyal customers and readers coming back for more.
Making money online takes work, like it or not
Sorry if this is a bit of a rant, but I can’t help it. I’m tired of people saying they want to make money online, but then they don’t want to work for it. Making money online isn’t really much different than making money offline… you have to work. It’s just a different kind of work.
Let me give you an example…
“Joe” emails me asking how to make money online. I give him some ideas like creating a blog or Squidoo lens and putting links to related affiliate products there.
I tell him to make frequent posts and updates to keep the search engines happy, and to drive traffic by visiting forums, blogs, Squidoo lenses, etc. that are related to his topic and leaving his url in his signature file.
There’s nothing hard about any of that. It can be a bit time-consuming, but anyone can do it.
“Joe” writes me back and says I haven’t helped him at all. He knows all of that stuff.
Ummmm… OK, “Joe”… but knowing it and doing it are two different things.
It sounds like “Joe” is looking for a magic pill that will dump money into his bank account. Sorry “Joe” - it ain’t gonna happen.
Here’s another example…
There are MANY different ways to make money online. If someone is good at writing, for instance, they can offer writing services to webmasters who need articles, ecourses or ebooks written. If someone is good at web design or installing scripts, they can offer those services.
Those are good, honest ways to make money online. Yet some people think that getting paid to ‘do someone else’s work’ is beneath them.
Let me put it this way…
If you work offline and have a boss, aren’t you ‘doing his work’ in a sense? After all, the work you are doing is keeping the company you work for going. (You aren’t doing that work for yourself, or your own company.) The boss cannot do it all by himself, therefore he hired employees. So what’s the difference if you do things for other people online?
In reality, you are your own boss online, even if you contract your services to other people. You don’t have to be at your desk any specific hours, you can take on only the work that you want to do, and you can charge your own prices. You ARE running your own business. And isn’t that what you’re trying to accomplish?
If you want to make money with no work, well… the only way I know for you to do it is to pay people to do all the work for you - create a product, set up your website and drive traffic to it. If you have lots of money to spend, then more power to you!
But assuming you’re like most people, you don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on outsourcing so you’ll need to dig in and get your hands dirty, too, to get your business going. Sorry, Charlie, but it’s the only way you’ll make money online, or offline, for that matter.
Top 10 Reasons to Use Squidoo to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Social networking sites are a popular way for internet marketers to draw guaranteed website traffic. Creating a Squidoo lens to promote your affiliate programs or your own products can help you reach your target market and explode your client base without breaking your budget.
In fact, Squidoo.com is quickly becoming THE place to market your products and services, especially if you are new to the world of internet marketing.
In the past, online marketers brand new to marketing struggled to earn their first profitable dollar. The only way to bring in traffic in a hurry was through pay-per-click.
In 2008, it’s a whole new ball game, and here are your top ten tips for SQUIDOO! 1. It is FREE!
We all like FREE. Am I right? The new internet marketer can get started without spending a dime.
2. You don’t need a web site to get started.
The fact is that the budding internet marketer has to begin SOMEWHERE. And when you turn to Squidoo as one of your first steps to online revenue … the web site can now become secondary. Until you’re ready for your own brand and your own site, Squidoo can BE your web site. Create as many pages (or Squidoo lenses) as you need, for any topic you want.
3. You position yourself as an expert faster than ever before.
The definition of expert is knowing more about a topic than other people. When you make a lens on a topic you know something about you quickly become an expert in other’s eyes.
4. A knowledge of SEO is NOT a requirement.
Search Engine Optimization is one of the key features of Squidoo.com. In fact, it’s all built in. The makers of Squidoo have designed it so lenses would come up quickly and are ranked in Google and other major search engines.
5. You can brand yourself.
Branding yourself is easy with Squidoo. People will see your name in relation to your lens topics and will remember you. Remember that marketing online is NOT about hiding behind a cutesy user name. Use your REAL NAME and your photo. They are part of your unique brand identity.
6. Easily feature affiliate products.
There’s no need to hide, cloak or mask affiliate links at Squidoo. You can make entire lenses about 1 product or many.
7. Squidoo earnings.
Without the need to join affiliate programs and create funky links with strings or weird characters and numbers, Squidoo makes this easy through the use of their modules as well. No need join a program, just build your own lens.
8. Easily build and grow an opt-in list
You’ve heard it before – the money’s in the list. By adding a link to your squeeze page to your lens and building a targeted opt-in list you can later follow up and send additional offers.9. Easily add video.Already mentioned in this audio is Squidoo.com’s modules. One module is YouTube. Quickly add a YouTube video, whether it’s yours or even someone else’s to your lenses.10. Easily ping and bookmark lenses.Web 2.0 is an important part of any online marketing strategy. Since each lens has an RSS feed you can easily ping them to blog and RSS directories. You can also include an “add this” button to your lens making it easy for others to bookmark it!
In conclusion, when you participate in a free social site such as Squidoo.com, it is a perfect way to boost your sales without spending a dime on targeted niche traffic. The power becomes unleashed when you create interactivity between your Squidoo lens, your blog, and your web site. You can get started in the next few minutes by choosing your keywords and creating your first lens.
Note: Due to a reader’s request, here are some of my Squidoo lenses that pull in natural search engine traffic, as well as traffic from StumbleUpon, Digg and Delicious, on autopilot. You’ll see that they’re in a variety of niches. Since they’re quick to create, you can pump out quite a few of them in no time.
www.squidoo.com/HowToGuaranteeFailureUsingGoogleAdWords
www.squidoo.com/MistakenIdentity
www.squidoo.com/stop_panic_attack
Finding and Marketing to Lucrative Niches
I know it’s been awhile since I answered any of your questions here. I apologize. I was having problems with this blog, but they’re all fixed now, so let’s get back to it.
This is a question that comes up all the time…
"How do I zero in on a truly profitable niche?"
There are ways to do research online that will show you where people "hang out" and give you ideas on what they would want to buy if it was offered to them.
Basically you need to locate "hot" topics of interest. You can do this by searching online forums, groups and popular social networking sites.
In order to find out what they might be interested in buying, you’ll need to read their questions and comments. This will give you ideas of what they’re looking for.
This is a pretty general answer because the step-by-step details are too much to write here. However, that’s exactly what I did when I created my new product, Niche-Blueprint.
I don’t want this to sound like an ad, but Niche-Blueprint will show you exactly where to find hot markets, how to figure out if the niche is profitable enough to be worth your time and effort, and how to market your products to the niches you find.
Now, here’s another question sent to me by a reader…
"How can I make money quickly? P.S. Denise, I love your work! You’re an inspiration."
Here’s a great idea to make some quick money from the "hot topics" you locate at forums or other websites…
Write a report (or use a product with Private Label Rights) that answers the questions the forum or group members have. Then simply put a link to your report in your signature file. (Be sure to use an enticing line of text so people will click your link.)
Contribute some value to the conversation that’s going on about that topic daily so your signature appears frequently and you’ll start getting traffic and sales in no time.
This totally cracked me up!
I got a notice from Aweber today that someone had unsubscribed from my newsletter list. Sometimes people leave comments about why they unsubscribed. I like to read them because it helps me know better what my list likes, or doesn’t like, so I can serve my list members better.
The comment I received today made me laugh out loud. The guy said "BECAUSE THIS IS SPAM EMAIL - DUH!"
I felt like writing to him and telling him it most certainly is NOT spam, that he had to double opt-in to my list in order to receive my emails. (And I know exactly when and where he opted in, too.)
And that brings me to the point of this post… It sounds like maybe he had never received emails from me before or he wouldn’t have thought I was spamming him. It seems that even good old Aweber can’t get ALL emails delivered these days due to the heavy filters imposed by ISP’s.
I know we all get tons of true spam email, but it really bites when someone opts in for information and they don’t receive what they requested. Then when suddenly an email does get through they think it’s spam because by then they forgot they signed up for information.
I don’t know quite how to do it, but there’s gotta be a better way for ISP’s to filter out TRUE spam. If anyone has any ideas, please tell the rest of the world. Maybe we’ll get rid of all the "enlargement" and "drug" emails and receive what we really want in our email inbox.
Sal, The Site Stealer, Got Me In Trouble
I picked up a copy of Site Stealer yesterday and after reading every word of it I decided to promote it to my newsletter subscribers today because it’s full of good marketing tactics.
Little did I know I was going to offend one of my readers so much that he unsubscribed!
He wrote and told me he used to think I was an OK person, and that he has even bought a few products from me in the past, but if I’m going to promote stealing I should promote it elsewhere.
I emailed him back and explained that Site Stealer doesn’t actually teach you how to steal websites, but rather how to copy successful marketing tactics.
I thought I had cleared the air with my explanation, but I was wrong.
This reader wrote back and said "To quote from the sales letter ‘I call it "Site Stealing’ because straight-up that’s what it is."
At that point I wrote back and said "That’s sales hype, which unfortunately the ‘make money online’ niche has become accustomed to."
Once again, I thought I had cleared things up, but again I was mistaken. He wrote back saying "that’s a cop-out" and then he unsubscribed.
I’m quite upset over this, to say the least. To begin with, I included a note in my email this morning that Site Stealer isn’t illegal or immoral in any way.
But besides that, Site Stealer had a huge launch last week where dozens of marketers promoted it to their lists. And as near I can remember they also mentioned that it’s not illegal, it’s not really stealing, etc.
But it seems like this guy somehow missed all that noise and now he’s taken his disdain of what he thinks Site Stealer is about out on me.
Sal would probably say "Hey, fuggedaboutit!" but I can’t forget about it. My subscribers are my friends and I don’t want any of them to be upset or offended.
Sal, don’t let me catch you in a dark alley. I don’t like losing subscribers, especially over a misunderstanding like this. You don’t wanna mess with this little half-Italian woman!
So since I can’t give you a good punch in the chops for losing me a good subscriber, I’ll just sell Site Stealer for less than you’re selling it for. How’s that grab ya, buddy? Hey, fuggedaboutit!
This kind of crap just pi**es me off!
I came across an interesting post at the Warrior Forum a few minutes ago and it made me so mad I felt I had to write this.
Actually, it wasn’t the post itself that got my goat. It was what I discovered about the forum member who made the post.
His post was simple… he said he has no money and no job and needs to make $400 by July 11th. He was asking for ideas on how to do that.
Being curious about the guy, I clicked through to his profile and what I saw appalled me to the point that I had to call him on it right there in the forum.
He didn’t even get my point and he seemed to think it was a joking matter!
I had intentions of putting the link to the forum thread here so you could view it for yourself, but it disappeared while I was typing this. I’m not sure how, because as far as I know only the forum moderators can delete threads and they had no reason to delete it.
Since I can’t post the thread I’ll give you the jist of it…
As I said, he was asking how he could make $400 by July 11th with no money for advertising or anything. I clicked through to view his homepage and what I read there told me this guy was so full of sh*t it’s turning his blue eyes brown!
I really don’t want to send traffic to his website, but I do want you to see his Rich Jerk style sales tactics to understand how completely full of doo-doo he is. So go read it here:
My reply to his post basically said that I don’t understand why he’s broke and in debt because according to his home page he makes a fortune online so his ebook must not work as well as his sales letter claims it does.
I went on to point out that also according to his sales letter with his "large volume of sales" and the price he charges for the ebook it won’t take him very long to make $400.
And I couldn’t help one final thought to finish off my reply to his post. I told him that while his sales letter implies I’d be a "f*cking idiot" not to buy his ebook, I think I would be one if I did buy the ebook.
He replied to my post within a couple of minutes with "LOL yea, my page is still being worked on."
I wrote back that apparently he didn’t get my point at all and I mentioned something about deceptive advertising. Then the forum thread disappeared.
This guy is a classic case of bullsh*t in action!
Please, please, please always do your due diligence before buying into
someone’s BS! I know it isn’t always easy to know what’s right and wrong or who’s telling the truth and who’s not.
Here are some things to watch out for, taken right off this idiot’s sales page:
1. If you look at the top of the page you’ll notice he’s using free web hosting from GoDaddy.com. But according to the sales page he’s rich, so why doens’t he pay for hosting?
2. Inconsistencies in information… take a peek at the ClickBank screen shot. He’s actually pieced together information from 2 different time frames and they don’t even come close to adding up.
The first part shows sales from 2001-2002! The next part shows ClickBank totals for pay periods ending 9/16/06 and 10/1/06!
3. This one is hilarious - look at the newsletter opt-in form. He didn’t customize the directions for filling it out and apparently doesn’t know enough to remove the text that comes with the form!
If you’re not familiar with a person or product check with your friends. You can also look for reviews about the product or the marketer by doing a search at your favorite search engine. Find out as much as you can before you buy anything from anyone.
Your Ticket To Traffic
Video Marketing Your Ticket To Traffic
by Theresa Cahill
Copyright 2007 - All rights reserved
Making a video is fun, but making a profitable video is even better. Best of
all, to make a profitable video, all you need to do is create a video ‘how-to’
and provide links to your website inside that video. As for subject matter?
That’s truly the very best part because it doesn’t matter what your ‘how-to’
video covers.
Just be sure that as you create your new how to video that your website url is:
At best, displayed the whole time your video is running, or
At worse, displayed when the video first starts and right before it ends.
Let’s face it, people love how-to’s… and they search for them every day on a
very large scale. As an example, a friend of ours had this experience to share:
"Just a few days ago I was folding clothes, and on a whim I went to google
videos and typed in "how to fold a shirt". Sure enough there were a few videos
there. I watched them (and learned a very cool way to fold shirts), and it
impressed the kids too."
She then told us, "So here’s the thing. I’m not a professional shirt folder, I
wasn’t checking out the competition, I just did a search for something on a
whim, and then I watched a few videos."
There’s the key phrase - "ON A WHIM"
Internet marketers often find themselves with tunnel vision. They focus so
intently on what they have to offer that they miss the big wide world, and what
that world is doing while he or she is thinking exclusively about just their
own website.
Tunnel vision… if you have it (and we all get it, don’t worry), you need to
learn how to "Think Outside the Box!"
Let’s continue looking at the shirt folding scenario:
What if one of the shirt folding videos that was watched had had a url
displaying your website? Well, for openers, you could have had a visitor
(traffic) to your website. And, ideally, you may have had a buyer and long-term
client. People are curious animals. If your video was creative enough, it most
definitely can, and most likely will, generate a visit to your website.
The reality is that millions and millions of people are watching tons of videos
every day on every topic you could ever possibly imagine.
That’s worth repeating, "…on every topic you could ever possibly imagine."
So if you’re thinking, "Shouldn’t I create a video related to what I am
selling?" the answer is…. sure, if you have that ability, go for it. But the
truth is it doesn’t matter if you do it on topic to the product you are selling
or not…. the big thing is to make as many videos as you can about as many
things as you can and post them to all of the top video feed sites.
The second most important thing to remember is that as you post them, keyword
them to terms related to your video. Check sites like www.wordtracker.com and
make sure the keywords you are allowed to enter in connection with your video
are ones people are searching for! Keyword-driven, video-related quality
traffic and buyers… make that your goal!
Also keep in mind that you aren’t creating feature length films here. Your
videos can be anywhere from 1 minute to 10-15 minutes or any length in between.
Quiet on the set… Cameras rolling… Action!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Theresa Cahill invites you to further explore the unique qualities of how to
video marketing and for even more ideas on effective internet marketing see
what Molten Marketing can do for your website today!
