APD-Marketing Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the March edition of the APD newsletter.

At last, some nice weather here in the U.K, Monday and Tuesday last week were wonderful. So, I took a day out on Monday and Alison and I went for a nice walk around the Hertfordshire countryside in the sunshine.

It was absolutely wonderful to be out walking without a coat for the first time in 2010. It sort of reminded me that we haven’t had a holiday for a few months! Mind you Lee and I have been hugely busy as you will have seen with the launch of Internet Marketing Strategic. If you haven’t joined yet, and you are interested in making some money online, get along and join. It’s free, and you have my promise that it will always remain free.

So far there’s great video tutorial series on running your website (everything you need to kow about control panel), affiliate marketing, SEO and Adwords. There’s also loads of eBooks and website and WordPress templates…oh, and a huge file of website graphics…all totally gratis.

Join Internet Marketing Strategic Now…it’s free!

There will be more great info added soon, so make sure you use it to help you get yourself up and running and making some money on the Internet. Even if you know what you’re doing there’s still some great resources, you have nothing to lose.

And, if you know someone else who might be interested do them a favour and tell them about Internet Marketing Strategic

I have also totally revamped the APD site during February, so you can now find that at APD Internet Marketing – loads of Internet Marketing product reviews and links to all of our own products, which brings me nicely to…

..the launch of my Life Mastery System.

I’m giving you the “heads up” on this because it’s at a special introductory price at the moment, only for APD subscribers…so get in quick before I withdraw the offer.

What is it? Well, it’s the distillation of how I turned myself around from no-hoper to the lifestyle I’ve always dreamed about in just a few months.

It’s a short concise eBook (with some bonus items) that shows how I learned from some of the “money-power” giants of this world. How I learned to control time, money and therefore my life and destiny.

It’s hugely powerful stuff that shows you how to break down time and money into their smallest component parts, exercise absolute control over them and then build powerful money making systems from those minute parts.

You see, most people just do not understand time and money at the most basic level. If you can master the art of doing this, you gain complete and utter control over your life and destiny.

Life will be dancing to your tune, not the other way around!

Please go and have a look at www.control-your-life.info/Life_Mastery_APD_Offer.html

Be quick though as I will be taking this offer down on Friday12th March 2010 and then it’s gone forever…even if you plead with me :>)

O.K, I hope you’ll indulge me blowing my own trumpet a little this month, it’s not very often I take a major chunk of newsletter space to do so :>)

So, let’s get on with some money making info for you.

I talk to a lot of people over the course of any given month and obviously, being in “Internet Marketing” I tend to talk about the subject an awful lot. In talking to many people on this broad subject, one of the things that comes up time and again, particularly for those just starting out, is how do you build a website? I’ll admit it was the same for me.

I don’t know about you, but I have a chromosome lose that dictates I just HAVE to know how everything in my business works. So, as sure as night follows day, I had to know how to build a website :>)

So, I am going to make a very bold statement right here, right now.

This “personality defect” has cost me many thousands of dollars over the last four or five years!

Why, I hear you ask?

Well, it held me back in terms of the time it took me to learn how to build even the most basic website. And, it also held me back because the websites I built were, not to put too finer a point on it…complete and utter crap!

There are three issues here.

Firstly, the time issue, which I have alluded to already, secondly a tools issue and finally a training or knowledge issue.

I’ll take these in turn.

Time, I’ve talked about time many times before and by now you will know my view that time is a very precious commodity indeed. This life of yours is NOT a trial run. This is it, you get one chance and once your race is run that’s it…there is no more. A bit unnerving that, isn’t it?

So, if you’re like me and not wonderfully good technically do one of two things. Either, get yourself some proper training in order to make your self good…or get someone who is good and time efficient at building websites to build yours for you.

By default we have gone into the knowledge aspect of this here. What I will also say is that gaining the knowledge can be very time consuming and costly as well.

Where did I go wrong? Well, I guess I tried to learn Dreamweaver, which is a fairly complicated program, by myself from the ground up. It was a stupid task when I should have been concentrating on the making money aspect.

So, talking of tools, there are now tools that can make your life a whole lot easier. I now use Blue Voda, and it’s great, it’s also FREE – yipee! If you can use Word, you can use Blue Voda with about an hour in the online tutorials.

It’s a great tool and when I do build sites, it’s what I now use and I am now reasonably proficient.

However, it’s still NOT a good use of my time…if I’m honest I have come to enjoy pottering around in Blue Voda, but I can get “lost” in it for hours on end. I repeat it’s not a good use of my time.

So, when it comes to technical stuff, if you enjoy it and you are good at it, then great go for it. But if you are not that way inclined…outsource!

I use Rentacoder and Odesk. I’ve stopped using Elance because prices were going up and I just didn’t seem to get what I wanted on the ocasions I did use it.

When you outsource you do need to be prepared to “kiss a few frogs” first. I had a situation where I was looking to hire someone to do a one week “socialisation” project for me.

I ended up hiring a young lady from China, first time I had used her and she was quite aggressive on pricing and closing the deal. I felt she really wanted the work so despite a slight nagging feeling I hired her.

She never did a drop of work, and I ended up having to go through arbitration to get my money back. I guess the lesson here is trust your instincts, if something appears to be too good or doesn’t feel right, be more diligent in checking it out!

But don’t be put off, because this is a very cost effective way to get work (of all sorts) done and after a while you find a number of suppliers that you trust and deliver good work on time and to budget.

I now have a list of “go to” suppliers for websites, writing, SEO and socialisation.

Outsourcing is how you really start to leverage time in your favour and I have become a great fan. It has also taught me that I don’t have to understand in finite detail everything that goes on “under the hood” of my business…I still like to know though :>)

Oh, and just before I go, one other little trick I have used to good effect in certain circumstances is to use the local University for technical resource. I have developed links with a couple of local educational establishments that have Computer Science departments.

One two occasions I have used final year students to do web development work for me. This is a real win/win as the student can use the project towards their course and you get a young, enthusiastic and hungry technician who is very keen to please to do your work for you…for beer money!

It does take some time and effort to find the right people to talk to and to gain trust, but it can be a worthwhile tap into some excellent resource.

And talking of leveraging time, I had to go out in the rush hour this morning! My daughter came round last night and stayed over (she can’t resist my amazing roast dinners), so I had to get her to college by 9am this morning! It’s a seven mile run, door to door, and it took….54 minutes.

What a waste of time and life force! Although clearly I enjoyed extra time with my daughter, but…I queued in traffic for most of the seven miles! Frightening, why would you want to do that just to go to work? Stay at home and make money online, it’s much more fun!

O.K, that’s it for March, I’ll be back just after Easter with the April newsletter. Argghhhh, Easter, haven’t we only just had Christmas?

I’m sure time goes more quickly the older I get…but that’s another subject for another day.

Until next month, have fun and make money!

Cheers now

Derek

Hello and welcome to the August edition of the APD Newsletter.

If, like me, you are in the U.K, you will have noticed that the Met Office retracted their promise of a B-B-Q summer last week.

Talk about stating the obvious. It hasn’t stopped raining since mid June! It’s apparently due to the fact that, for the third year in a row, that naughty old jet stream has failed to “go north”.

So, it’s sitting right above us dropping one low pressure system after another on top of a wet and soggy U.K. If they ever talk about droughts again!!!

Add this to the recession, and as usual the press are having a field day peddling the doom and gloom.

And, this was the subject I was talking to a friend about a couple weeks back. He was fed up with his job and the weather and was looking for a way out. Now the interesting thing is that he had totally ridiculed my Internet marketing efforts when I first got started!

However, he had come to realise that I was having much more fun than him so, given his own situation, he started asking some questions.

In the end, he asked for a route plan he could follow to get started online, so…this is what I gave him! A step-by-step guide to getting your online business up and running…I am good to you :>)

Firstly, a plan is vitally important. Failing to plan is planning to fail! O.K, I know it is awful, but it is true…it’s vital you have a proper strategic plan.

This is where most people starting out fail. I have said many times, and I repeat, there is so much information out there (most of it not very good) that it is very easy to fall into the information overload trap.

If you have a plan, this problem is immediately overcome, you can read my Hub on this issue here, just click the following link Internet Marketing Pitfalls.

The first thing I advised my friend to do was to make the best of his knowledge and interests. Maybe look at a specific talent or experience. List them out.

Then go and have a look in Clickbank and see what products match your areas of experience or interest. Look for products that you have experience in, or a passion about. This is key as you will already understand some of the motivations and mindset of the market.

Having researched Clickbank, pick the first niche you are going to go for!

Then, having decided on your niche, list all of the products and pick the best three based on…

Sales page effectiveness (hint…does it sell to you?)

Gravity (higher the better)

Percentage Commission (at least 50%)

Commission payout (ideally at least $25).

Next, you need to register a domain name that is relevant to the niche. I recommend Namecheap, as the name suggests, it’s cheap – $8.96 If you can’t afford $9 for a domain, then you shouldn’t be here.

Despite what some might tell you, you definitely need a domain. Having a domain name that is relevant (like www.instant-social-traffic.com) helps in so many ways!

It keeps your PPC costs down, increases your quality score and generally helps get you recognised by the search engines (and added PR) because relevancy pertains throughout!

Is this message starting to sink in? The thread through your entire campaign MUST be common! Even down to keyword level (more on this subject in Part 2).

So if we have a site about German Shepherd Dog Training, the domain www.germanshepherdtraining.com would be ideal (no idea if it exists by the way). I tend to use hyphens if the domain I want is not available, as in www.instant-social-traffic.com

There is a lot of argument about this and many people say using the hyphenation harms your effectiveness. I have not found that, and it does allow me to create keyword rich domains that might otherwise have been taken.

Having got your domain, you now need to get it hosted.

I use Hostgator and Hosting Bay for all of my sites. They are both good as recommended in last month’s newsletter, I’ll say no more on this subject.

Both are really easy to use and give you explicit instructions on how to transfer your domains to them. Generally two or three fields to fill in and click the button!

Now, the bit most people dread…you have to put up a website, or at very least a squeeze page to promote your products. Make sure you have a mechanism for collecting names and email addresses. (You will need an autoresponder for this – more in a minute).

Three years ago I couldn’t have built a website if my life depended on it! However, as with all things Internet marketing, there is a learning curve…and you simply MUST make that investment in learning unless you can afford to outsource.

Initially I learned to use Dreamweaver, which is a fair task for a technical bonehead (that’s me by the way).

Nowadays I use Blue Voda. This is a free download product and is so easy to use my Mum can do it! It took my Mum three years to learn email and she still rings me to ask questions about it! So, that gives you an idea as to how easy it is to use Blue Voda. If you can use Word, you can use Blue Voda with about an hours learning – maybe less.

If you can afford to outsource your web build, great go for it.

I use the following outsource sites when Lee or I don’t have the time to do our own web work…

Elance

Odesk

Rentacoder

There are others, but I have built good relationships with service providers at all of these sites.

They can be a bit “hit and miss” to start with and I had some horror stories, but over about 6 months, I have found a number of providers who have done excellent work and I can now trust. If I need work done, I turn to these trusted suppliers.

It’s the same as everything, you have to start somewhere and you can’t expect everything to flow right away. As long as you learn and gain experience from the setbacks, it makes you more effective in the long run.

I’m sure I have said before every negative has the seed of at least an equal or greater benefit within it. Sometimes you just have to look a little!

Back to autoresponders. You need one. I use Aweber.

It’s the best for the budding Internet marketer! There are free autoresponders, but…beware, many of them are blacklisted so your delivery rates will be poor.

Aweber is $19.95/month and worth a bundle more than that for the functionality you get. It’s a professional, well-respected service that will stand you in good stead in the market.

An autoresponder will automate all of your communication with your customers and potential customers.

Why do you need one?

Well, research has proven that it takes seven contacts for people to buy. After years in sales I can confirm this is true. Your customers need to trust you before they will buy as a general rule…and that takes around seven contacts from you. So, if you do not follow up with people who show an interest, you are leaving money (lots of it) on the table!

I like using the seven part free course that allows you to market the products subtly and build trust at the same time.

Again, Aweber is so easy to use. If you can point and click you can do this. And…Aweber now have extensive video training so nothing is left to chance. Everything is demonstrated in fine detail.

Now you need to enter information into your autoresponder.

As I said, at least a seven message sequence.

This is where I think it’s important that you have an interest and understanding of the niche you are attacking. If you have that understanding, then you’ll be able to write your messages as an “insider”. People will relate to you and you’ll be on the “same page” as your readers.

This is so powerful when you are trying to sell – that you can sell from your prospects “point of view”. That you’re seen as an “insider” who understands their problems and troubles.

Yes, you can outsource the writing of your content and autoresponder series, but I don’t like doing that. I like to have intimate knowledge of what I post online so that I can respond effectively to any questions. I think that is important and show’s you are serious about your niche.

There is a lot of information in this month’s missive! I still can’t believe I give all this away free to you every month! I was reading about the Red Hat business model this morning (they give their software away free), but I am convinced that if I keep giving all this great free stuff away…I will be rewarded in full (plus some) for the products I do sell.

Plus, I enjoy writing the newsletter, it’s my subject and it’s fun – and so we come full circle!

One final thing, Lee and I have upgraded the Instant Social Traffic free members area. There is now at least $497 worth of freebies in there that show you how you can start to profit from “social traffic”.

The product itself has been delivering some spectacular results for paid members. I’ll be putting a video up with some case studies soon. Keep an eye out for that.

O.K, that’s it for this month, I’ll be back with part two of the IM plan next month when I look at configuring your autoresponder, the sales process, keyword research and a few other sneaky marketing methods!

Until then, as always…to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now.

Derek

Instant Social Traffic

How To Control Time and Money

Instant Social Traffic

Instant Information Product Ideas

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Hello and welcome to the first APD newsletter of 2008. First up I would like to wish
you and your family a very happy and prosperous 2008.

I don’t want to start a new year in a negative vein, but sadly I am going to…however,
on a brighter note, the big black cloud will have a silver lining – promise!

If you can remember back to 2007 (yes, it already seems a long time ago doesn’t it?) I
was saying that I thought 2008 was going to be a bumpy ride, and I’ve seen nothing to
change my view on that. Indeed, even Gordon Brown has publicly stated he thinks
things might not be so good this year!

Well done Gordon, very astute. If I could see it coming last summer and it takes you
until January 2008 to realise…just who should be running the country? Send your
votes in now please!

Seriously though…there will be a lot written by those doom and gloom merchants I
was talking about back in August last year. In fact, it would really help to read that
issue again in view of what I am going to say today.

You see it was brought very firmly home to me that the situation is very real.
Mortgage defaults are up, people are not spending so much and believe me when I tell
you the number of jobs out there will decrease during the year.

However, what you must remember is that it is up to you how you react to all of this.
Also remember what I told you… the media will build this up to be a huge economic
wave when really it’s just a mere ripple.

So, what happened to jolt me back into the real world after the festivities? Simply
waiting in the check out queue in Sainsbury’s and listening to two people recount
their stories of a pre Christmas redundancy! It was quite sad as the two guys chatting
were both really down and just didn’t know how to react or what they should do. My
estimate is they were both in their mid fifties.

I also had one of my old City chums on the phone telling me the software house he
worked for had just suddenly, out of the blue, shut down their recruitment branch. No
warning, he got called to a meeting and that was it…out.

The bottom line is that job security is disappearing. It has been disappearing for a
number of years. When I first started work for a clearing bank back in 1976, it was a
“job for life”. Such a thing no longer exists.

I’m not just talking about losing jobs to layoffs and business closings, which is
happening at an alarming rate in some regions. I’m also referring to a new trend that has emerged… outsourcing. And this is good news for you!

Many employers are starting to outsource more and more of the work that was
traditionally performed by employees. Now something that is very interesting has
started to emerge. Yes, the large chunks of work are off-shored to places like India, but…the smaller packets of work are going to freelancers and other specialised “micro-businesses” with just a few employees.

One factor forcing this trend is today’s high speed of technology change. The
necessary expertise to perform certain functions can literally change from year to
year. In many cases it’s simply easier and cheaper to hire different people on a limited
time basis instead of continuously having one employee trying to keep up with all the
different tricks of the trade.

This trend will have far reaching consequences for today’s workforce. Even the more
experienced employees will have to stay sharp. They can’t sit on their laurels anymore
because they will continuously have to prove their worth in new situations, more now
than ever before.

Some consider this outsourcing trend a huge threat to their career. The truth is though
that it’s an opportunity, a big one.

To give you an example, I recently purchased a software product called Keyword
Elite. You can read my review at the following URL…

Keyword Elite Review

Initially I just got the product to help with my own PPC marketing and keyword
research. However, I was telling a friend about it (he used to work for me and now
owns his own recruitment agency in the North West) and he suddenly got all excited.

“I’ve been looking to get into some PPC marketing to see if I can cut my advertising
costs…could you help me out?”

I agreed and spent a few hours researching a market for him. I sent him the results and
he came back to me a couple of days later delighted and with a new niche market
open.

Two days later a friend of his called me asking if I could do some work for him as
well. Personal referrals – very powerful!

You will know from past newsletters that I have relatives in Vancouver. Some of the
family were visiting and they complained they couldn’t make Adwords work…guess
what? Yep, I showed them the product and before I knew it I was doing some
keyword research for their t-shirt printing business!

They gave me a glowing testimonial, and the penny dropped…hey, there’s a market
for this.

This is exactly the sort of work that small and medium sized businesses don’t have the
time and skills to keep up with.  So, I now offer the use of my software product and
services in this area. How cool is that? It pays a premium as well!

What skills or abilities do you have that you can use in a similar way to protect
yourself? Think about it.

And that brings me to another “slant” on this story. It was great to be back at “work”.

The time off was fantastic but I was so ready to dive back into work. What did you
feel on Wednesday 2nd January (Thursday 3rd if you’re in Scotland)?

Taking time completely away from work is a necessity for many reasons that I won’t
go into here. But here’s a reason I’m willing to bet you have never thought of, and
more importantly what it can tell you about yourself and the business you are in…

If your work / business is ideal for you – you should’ve noticed a certain feeling over
the break. With each passing day away from work you would have felt yourself being
drawn back to work.

First of all you just feel a bit uneasy about not “doing something”. But…it keeps building with each passing day away until you just can’t take it anymore. Finally to simply keep your sanity you just HAVE to get back to work.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, the chances are you are in the wrong
business. If you took a (long enough) break and weren’t itching to get back – you need
to evaluate your business and determine if it’s right for you.

If your business is not calling you back while you’re away, it’s likely you’re not playing to your strengths.

I’ve written about this before, so I am not going to go into detail today – but hopefully
the whole reason you decided to go into business (aside from the money) is do
something you love doing each day…so that it’s not just a job…a chore.

Too many people find themselves doing things they hate, and I find that so sad. This
is especially so when opportunity abounds! We are surrounded by opportunity, it’s
everywhere.

So, what about that silver lining?

Well, when the economy turns downward there is always an increased market for the
“how to make money” products. What do you know how to make money with? What
could you turn into a product that could help people make money? How could you
help people earn in return for payment?

When companies have to tighten the purse strings there is always an increased
demand for “packets of work” as described above. What services can you offer that
will fill such a need? What skills and abilities do you have that might be useful for
local / small companies? What are you specialised in?

You should know the market you work in, or your interest of preference…what can you offer to others?

When one door closes, another opens. It’s the old accountancy syndrome I talked
about last year. They make money from doing all the accounts when the economy
does well and also make money from the insolvencies when it goes badly.

Can what you do or want to do be turned on its head?It’s the same as the banks will do in the coming choppy waters. They will hedge and bet on derivatives so that when one market loses, they’ll be on to another that wins.

There is always a way to stand on your own two feet. Everyone has something that is
a saleable asset, and I mean everyone.

Think about what yours is and how you intend to use it for your benefit in 2008. It
may be the best move that you ever make!

This is a vitally important area and I will put up a PDF in the freebies area of the main
site to help you with this over the next week or so. I’ll send a mail out when it’s
ready.

How To Get What You Want (Edit 2009, here it is)

And, finally, just for a giggle, I’ve decided that I need to lose a bit of weight after the
excess of the festive period. So, to aid my discipline in this matter, I have decided to
go public with my efforts. I’ve started my first blog and you can find it at:

(Edit 2009…weight loss campaign over – blog now shut down)

To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing when I started it, so that’s why the name
doesn’t really reflect what it’s about. But, hey I wasn’t going to be stopped!

Feel free to have a laugh at my expense and add comment if you wish.

But, as much of a laugh as this might cause, it does have a serious message. You see, I
didn’t have a clue how to put up a blog, how to put up a post, I still haven’t got a clue
about most of it…but…did it stop me? (Edit 2009, look at me now!!!)

No, it didn’t. And therein lies a very serious and vitally important message. Don’t
procrastinate! Even if you don’t have a clue, just do something. I did and I got a
result. OK, not the best result, but I will get there.

And that’s the vital point…I will get there. It may not be the finished article right
now, but at least it’s up there, available on the world-wide-web and it has the
possibility to make me some money!

In fact…to take this a step further 18 months ago I didn’t have a clue about anything
to do with internet marketing.

Did I let that stop me? Obviously not!

I have said many times before…I am nothing special. If I can do it…YOU CAN too.
On that very bright note, I will wish you all the best for a successful 2008.

As always, I’ll be back next month with more great information to help you profit in
2008.

Now…go for it!

As always…to *YOUR* success

Cheers now, and have fun!

Derek

www.apd-marketing.co.uk

How To Find Great Information Product Ideas