Welcome to the May 2008 issue of the APD newsletter.
Yes….the nice weather is here! I played a charity football match
on Monday and got *seriously* sunburnt! You may ask what on earth
I’m doing playing any football matches at my age…especially
against a team of Under 18′s!
As it happens, I’ve been involved in youth football since my son
joined his chosen team at Under 8. He’s now finished at Under 18,
and for the last three seasons we’ve had an end of season
game…Lads v Dads (and guests…we need help!).
At Under 16, us Dads won 5-0. Last year we lost 3-2 to a hotly
disputed last minute goal. This year…well, it was the heat! O.K,
I’ll come clean, we lost 7-3. But, it was a great day out and
approximately £1,000 was raised for my chosen charity Action For
M.E. So, despite the reverse it was a worthwhile day. Monday
afternoon was spent in agony…I ached and hurt in places I didn’t
even know existed!
My son now goes off into senior football after having played for
the same youth team his entire youth football “career”…I applaud
his loyalty. His team have only ever won one trophy in 12 years,
yet he stuck at it and persevered…along with 3 of his friends who
also played all the way through.
That loyalty and persistence will serve him well in his life!
Moving on, it’s time to get down to business. This is part two of
the lengthy tome on how I built my online business. Get yourself
comfortable…here we go.
Last month I covered organisation, dealing with information
overload, the basics of online marketing and Adwords.
This month I’ll take you through the rest of my business model and
the tools I use to “make it happen”.
First up is affiliate marketing.
It took me an absolute age to get my head around what affiliate
marketing is! I have no idea why, resistance to new ideas maybe,
but it did. However, I am happy to report that it is really a very
simple concept. This should clearly demonstrate to you that if I
can do this, you can too!
In very basic terms you promote someone else’s product (through
your website, Adwords etc) and every time a sale is made from your
promotional efforts…you get paid a commission. Why did I have
such a problem with this?
If you want to promote “e” products then the best place to go is
Clickbank. Clickbank is essentially a great big marketplace where
product developers and vendors showcase their products and you can
get a special link that allows you to promote any of the products
“on show” in the Clickbank marketplace.
The link is called a hoplink, and it is a url that goes straight to
the product sales page and has your Clickbank “identity” embedded
within it. So, when a sale is made from that link, Clickbank knows
to credit you with your commission. Simple.
Everything is managed through Clickbank’s own systems and they pay
out commission cheques like clockwork every two weeks. Yes, they do
take a commission of their own, but Clickbank is proven beyond all
reasonable doubt and is the accepted method of affiliate marketing
for “e” products.
If you haven’t got an account, the sign up process is very easy,
just go to
www.clickbank.com
Now, when I first started it again took me a while to unravel
Clickbank, so I have two possible solutions that will really help
you to understand how it all works – very quickly.
Firstly there is the Affiliate Commandments a product from Chris
McNeeny of Day Job Killer and Google Assassin fame.
This is a great little product and it gives you the very, very
basics on how affiliate marketing works. This really is a beginners
guide for the “newbie” affiliate marketer. It shows you how to sign
up for a Clickbank account, how to generate your hoplinks and how
the entire process works in fine detail.
Best bit? It only costs $9.97, less than a fiver in sterling.
You can read my full report on AC by clicking here
Affiliate Commandments Review
Another superb product is Dominating Clickbank by Andrew Fox. This
not only shows you (in more detail and with more advanced
techniques) the affiliate marketing side, it also shows you how to
set yourself up on the product side once you have developed your
own products.
Dominating CB gives you detailed instructions on how to work
Clickbank to your massive advantage and how to make sure you know
exactly how to generate massive sales using the Clickbank system.
This really is excellent stuff and no stone is left unturned.
I’ve only just got this product myself, so I haven’t done a review
page yet, but you can have a look at Andrews sales page by clicking
here.
Dominating Clickbank
Now…don’t go rushing out to buy this product until you have
finished reading this newsletter! I’ll talk more about Andrew a
little later, he is definitely worth knowing!
(Editor Note 2009 – Andrew has more recently released Dominating Clickbank 2
For a free DCB2 report, click the link above)
If you want to learn more advanced affiliate marketing techniques
then I have extensively used Chris McNeeny’s (he’s alsoknown as Chris X)
products Affiliate Project X. and Day Job Killer
Some of the techniques in Day Job Killer in particular have come
in for some stick from Google in their most recent slap, but a lot
of it is still valid.
The areas that Google doesn’t now like on the search network are
the use of “sales puff and boast” type words. “Fr**ee”, “amazing”,
“incredible”, you know what I’m talking about!
The sketch is that on the search network now, you just have to be
totally relevant and totally honest. Your ad groups must be very
tight with a small number of *VERY* relevant keywords.
The rule is the keyword(s) in your ad group must be in and relate
to the ad and the ad must relate as closely as possible to the
landing page. Quality content is king. You see…Google is
committed to giving their customers (the people who search) exactly
what they want, so quality content and complete relevance are what
Google is looking for. Fail to do this on your site and…your quality
score will be poor and you will be charged a very high cost per click.
I heard it called Google’s “stupid tax” this week, whilst that made
me laugh; it sort of sums it up quite nicely!
While we’re back on the subject of Google, I’d like to talk about
keyword research. This is another vital strand in your marketing
armoury if you want to make money (big money) online. Sadly
Overture (now Yahoo) have removed their free tool, I think it’s
only available to customers who actually have a YSM account now.
However, there are still good free keyword research tools available
- thankfully.
You can use either of the following…
DigitalPoint www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
Free Keywords (Wordtracker) www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
Once you get fully up to speed, I would suggest a proper Keyword
Research Tool. The best on the market by far… is Brad Callen’s
Keyword Elite, click here
Keyword Elite Reviewed
to read my review of this powerful tool. All of the top Internet
marketers use Keyword Elite.
If you want to go straight to Brad’s site click the following link.
Buy Keyword Elite
Quite simply, I have found that my effectiveness on both Adwords
and Adsense has increased dramatically since I employed KE.
Now…remember what I said last month, about the investment in time.
KE takes a while to learn and get right. There are extensive video
training libraries, but it does take some time and effort,
but…your efforts are rewarded in terms of higher profits.
Once you’ve understood the basics and you’re starting to make some
money, get KE, this is a complete ” no-brainer”!
You should also make sure you track *EVERYTHING*!
If you don’t know what Keywords are making you sales or getting you
sign ups, the chances are you will be wasting a lot of dosh on
keywords that are not effective. You’ll effectively be paying out
money for clicks that make you nothing back in return. You see all
keywords are not created equal! Some convert, some convert very
well, others just don’t convert at all.
If you don’t know what is and isn’t converting for you the chances
are that a high percentage of your Adwords spend is being wasted on
keywords that cost but don’t earn.
The best tracking tool by far is Xtreme Conversions by Amir
Darwish. This is the daddy of keyword tracking tools.
If you get the “lite” version, you will need to be prepared to work
in PHP to get your tracking sorted (it’s not hugely difficult, but
it does require a bit of technical understanding). As with all of
the products I recommend, there are excellent training materials.
With XC there are videos and a Wiki as well as a manual.
However, the new V3.0 “Pro” version does everything with JavaScript
and is much easier to use…obviously this is the suggested option!
Again, an investment in time to understand and learn is needed, but
tracking is crucial to maximising your profits.
You can track through Google Analytics, but this does require your
code being put on the vendors download or order page. In most cases
you just will not be able to make that happen. GA is fine for your
own sites and pre-sell pages, but not if you need to put code on
other people’s pages. Would you do that for an affiliate – probably
not? Plus the guys who’s products you will want to promote are very
busy, even if they say “yes” with the best will in the world, they
may forget. It is infinitely preferable to have your tracking under
your own control!
Again, I have only recently employed Xtreme Conversions so I’ll
just give you a link to the sales page please click on the link
below have a look.
Xtreme Conversions
Many people who come into Internet Marketing want to actually
“attack” the Internet Marketing niche itself. Now, I can fully
understand why as it is an insatiable market, and by the nature of
the fact that you are involved in IM, it seems logical to “sell”
into that market.
A couple of points.
IM is now a very advanced market and you do have to deliver *REAL*
value to compete.
It is also a very unique market and there is a very much a
“certain” way to approach the IM market…it is a law unto itself.
Think very carefully about going for this market.
I was going to recommend IM Annihilation by Rob Benwell for people
interested in this market. The product gives a really interesting
inside track on the vagaries of the IM market. Sadly it’s sold out!
But I can still give you a little insight. Rob only entered the IM
market a couple of years ago with his Blogging To The Bank product.
That has now sold approaching $1 million worth! No mean feat.
Rob’s trick is to simply find a new niche within the market or to
find a new twist on an existing area.
Blogging was new when he released Blogging to the Bank and he
demonstrated how he had used Blogs to make around $500 / day. A
clear concise instruction manual that showed something new and
profitable.
His latest effort is based around Web2.0, another growing market
and this eBook made $84,000 from a product development spend of
less than $500.
Obviously, I do work in this market, it’s why you subscribe to
this newsletter, but…it is not my primary market. I realised up
front it was a long haul taking on IM as there are a high number of
“Guru’s” who are very well established. They release top-notch
products that are difficult to compete with and I see it as a
long-term project. It’s a bit of a closed shop!
My two cents worth, as the saying goes!
If you’re looking at the broader niche online marketing field then
the two products I would recommend are Stewart McKay’s Adwords
Excellence as I mentioned last month. Yes, it was under the
“Adwords” banner last time, but he does, through the Ultimate
Adwords Strategy, reveal exactly how he researches and develops
non-IM niche markets. Just one more plug for Stewart as he’s been a
huge help to me click below to have a look (if you haven’t already).
(Edit 2009 – once again, I am sad to report AWE is no longer available)
The other strand to niche marketing is knowing how to communicate
and build relationships with your customer base. You see, the
online buyer has become much more “savvy” these past couple of
years. So, you have to know how to deal with your customer base!
Simply the best product in this area is another one from the Andrew
Fox stable. The Affiliate X Factor. This is an excellent product.
It does deal with IM to a degree, but in short it takes an example
of how to set up a new niche from start to finish. It shows you
everything from the inside out even down to the detail of the
contents of each email in a two month autoresponder sequence.
Andrew also goes deeply into the psychology behind what he writes.
He shows you how to put audio on your site, video and even polls to
help build customer loyalty.
This is a slightly more expensive product, but it is one that has
helped me tremendously with the customer interfacing side of online
marketing. You see I spent 25 years doing face-to-face selling.
And…whilst feature, advantage, benefit and situational selling are
relevant online, there is a different way of “talking” to people
online. There is a lot of character and trust building involved.
When you’re “face-to-face”, that just happens, online you have to
make it happen.
It took me a long time to even realise there was a difference.
I’ve only just finished this six-week course and it is gold, click
here to have a look
Affiliate X Factor
Now, the reason I told you to hold off buying Dominating Clickbank
is that…if you buy Affiliate X Factor, you get Dominating CB
included free. This really makes AXF a highly recommended buy. It
really has helped me – big time.
If you just want to get Dominating CB on it’s own, the link is…
Dominating Clickbank
So, that leaves our final strand, your own products.
There are two schools of thought on this.
The first one is use PLR products as the basis for building your
own products. There are numerous PLR sites out there and you can
get monthly memberships for around $27-47. Some are free and a
reasonably good source at the free end is Gabor Olah’s site PLR
Wholesaler. Go and have a look.
PLR Wholesaler
If you want to use PLR products as the basis for your product
development a do have a look at Michael Green’s 20/20 Challenge.
Click below to read my review of this one
20/20 Challenge Review
or you can go straight to the sales page by clicking the following
link
Buy 20/20 Challenge
I have to say I am not a particular fan of PLR, I prefer to either
pay to have a product developed or…find a re-sale rights product.
If you do go the resale rights route make sure that only a small
and finite number of licences are being sold to the product. This
type of product should sell for between $197 – 497 and should
include a pre written sales letter.
I’ve been shown examples of $197 products that net $47,000 in
income, selling out at $27-37. A word of caution, such products are
getting more difficult to come by! A brilliant example of how to
work this is also shown in the Affiliate X Factor.
If you want to get your own product developed, which is my
preferred route, you have two options.
Firstly you can write or develop the product yourself. You have to
have some specialist knowledge that people will be willing to pay
for…although it is my contention we all have this, but that’s for
another day. Or…you have to source the product from elsewhere.
There are a number of ways you can do this. You can search the
Internet (simple Google search) for ghostwriters, or you can go to
one of the sites that allow you to hire a ghostwriter.
Here’s four of the best
www.elance.com
www.rentacoder.com
www.guru.com
www.need-an-article.com
You can expect to pay anywhere from $250-1,000 for a 50 page eBook.
A small price to pay if you can then generate even $20,000 in sales!
You can read reviews on most of the products mentioned in this
newsletter at the main site…
Internet Marketing From APD
O.K, that’s it for this month. There is an awful lot of information
here. It’s also why I am a couple of days late this month
(again…poor show). Seriously though, this edition took a lot
longer to write than I anticipated…I hope you appreciate it :>)
I now have brain ache as well, so I haven’t yet decided what I am
going to write about next month. Rest assured it will be solid
useful information to help you win online.
Until then, enjoy the weather.
Asalways…to *YOUR* success
Cheers now, and have fun!
Derek
www.apd-marketing.co.uk
P.S – If you feel anyone else would benefit from this information,
please feel free to pass it on
