Planning Your Christmas Affiliate Strategy

Welcome back!

I saw the first sign of Christmas decor in a shop last weekend -  there was no surprise, in fact I’d imagine it’ll start kicking off after Easter soon but it got me thinking about the need to prepare for this massive online shopping bonanza!

We started ramping up our xmas strategy in July by adding websites and blogs to our expanding network focusing on popular products. By researching keyword phrases, checking Google trends and buying certain domains we increase our chance of success from the beginning.

So what could you be doing?

A really good place to start is Craig Kaye’s IPK (aff: http://www.nichecontentmachine.com/ipkiller)

- it is a solid strategy for building an affiliate network of product sites whilst making use of free traffic to cash in on the online buying frenzy leading up to Christmas.

You want to update any sites you already have and update any references to Christmas 2010 as well as add new (effective) content to freshen up the pages. (Google looks at updated content as a ranking factor)

Another highly effective way to help your network of blogs and sites to rank highly on Google is to have a backlinking strategy – here’s a good place to start:
aff: http://budurl.com/backlinkbp

We’ve helped many of our own sites and those of our clients scale the heights of Google just through effective backlinking.

You can see a previous video blog post about our christmas affiliate strategy – If you’re going to do it – now’s the time!!

Use Rapbank for Instant Affiliate Commissions

I’ve mentioned the RAPS (Rapid Action Profits) script before on this blog as a great way for delivering your info products. If you don’t know, RAPS is an all-in-one sales and reseller management solution.

On the flipside however, if you’re still shying away from product creation or you just want to focus on building an income stream from instant affiliate commissions then the recently launched Rapbank (aff) offers a ton of possibilities on earning instant payments into your Paypal account.

Here’s an example. You choose a RAPS based product to promote from the RapBank marketplace and grab your unique link. The RAPS system alternates in sales so a 50% commission will give you, as an affiliate 100% of every other sale paid directly into your PayPal account. The other payments go to the vendor of course. This should give you an idea of the possibilities for making quick money, rather than having to wait weeks or months to get your affiliate commissions paid such as on Clickbank.

The RapBank marketplace is set to grow and attract a TON of product creators and affiliates who want to harness this instant income stream.

RapBank allows you to promote 100’s of products not just uniquely but by categories, keywords, RSS feeds, your unique favourite pages and other doorways. There’s even a wordpress plugin for sidebar or blog post widget advertising.

This is a HUGE make money NOW opportunity and I highly recommend Rob Toths Free 87 page report which laser focuses on every aspect of the RapBank possibilities >> Make  Money Now Report

To quote from the report:
“This isn’t some biz opp or “get in on the ground floor” nonsense either… it’s an online business trend that you can position yourself in front.”

Build Your Email List with Adswapping

Apart from JV Giveaway events, the upcoming Easter JV is immiment, Adswapping is a quick way to build your email list.

Each Marketer would have to have a free gift and squeeze page (email opt-in) for it to work and a similiar sized list. You then give each other the email copy to email out to your list and again the norm is to email at the same time. SIMPLE! Just email each others offer and watch your list grow and grow.

Here are some resources:

Matt Garret and Sean Mitz set up the excellent IM Adswaps which is well worth joining – It won’t cost you a bean.

The Warrior Forum JV section often has plenty of Adswap requests as well – one to bookmark.

Sites such as http://safe-swaps.com/ build a community of Adswappers and ensure fairness all round and an appealing marketplace to advertise yourself for an adswap.

So now you have even more reason to get a report/video or audio offer online ASAP and start building your email list!..no excuses

John Thornhill’s Marketing MasterClass 2010 Bonus

You may or may not have heard of John Thornhill, but he is doing very well on the Internet. He has a subscriber base of over 100k, earned $750,000 from info products last year and expects the hit $1.5k this year.

Lee McIntyre, who from school teacher in 2007 now commands a $100k a month info business says about John:  “I can still vividly remember some of the advice you gave me when I was first starting out, and everytime I implemented one of your ideas I always made more money, more quickly. I think that says it all really.

Omar Martin, who works with Mike Filsaime also attributes a lot to him: “If you seriously want to make money online, I suggest you stop wasting your time and just learn from John as I did. He will never steer you wrong, I am living proof and forever grateful.”

I have had the pleasure of consulting with John recently, in fact it was recorded, which is part of my bonus for purchasing through my link.

Check Out the Bonus Here:

http://sosinternetbusinesshelp.com/johnthornhill-masterclass-bonus/

And take your time to watch the video and read the sales page, it really is a pleasure just to do that, whether this is for you or not.

http://budurl.com/peap (aff)

Incredible Business Advice from the League of Extraordinary Minds

I have to say I have been taking a lot of notes from the Extraordinary Minds call sessions so far. The last two have had so much killer info I didn’t know where to begin!

I prefer to take notes as it makes you listen hard and take out the main nuggets of information before applying them.

Remember what we have here: The Top Business Minds who have been paid a lot of money
by Google, Apple, MicroSoft, Yahoo! and plenty of other huge companies for their expertise and high grade knowledge.

Let’s put it another way. Imagine you have a boardroom and in it sits 54 of the world’s foremost marketing and business building experts.

The names and faces are instantly recognizable. Tony Robbins…Jay Conrad Levinson…Robert Caldidini..Brian Tracy…Michael Gerber…Stephen Covey…the list goes on and on.

They’re all here, just waiting to hand you their incredible insight and wisdom to help you create ultimate wealth and business success.

Some of the calls so far has delved into powerful physological marketing techniques, some advice seems so simple but extremely effective. There has been some pure gold in terms of selling, persuasion and marketing advice and how to stand out a mile out from your competition, building trust and going way ahead in terms of relationship and authority building.

This is like having the greatest buisness brains on tap and the questions asked have all come from surveys taken by Rich Schfren and Jay Abraham from ordinary business people..so the fundemental business constraints and problems that you might be facing are all hit head on!

Each special panel interview is around two hours long and the content has been grade A as I said. Rich and Jay also do a great job of summing up the main points at the end which helps clarify a few things.

Please don’t tell me your business couldn’t do with this expertise? You don’t even have to pay for it which is pretty insane (although if you want access to the library of recordings you will) which is a no brainer in itself.

Please Please do yourself and your business a favour and sign up now for this next call. You have nothing ..repeat NOTHING to lose.

Go here to get on the next call this Thursday November 12th, The expert panel for  “Pre-Emptive Marketing: Innovative Tactics That Outperform What Everyone Else Is Doing” session includes:

Paul Cherry… Author of “Questions That Sell” and founder of Performance Based Results, Paul has over 20 years experience in sales training, leadership development, sales coaching and leadership coaching.

Vicki Kunkel… Author of “Instant Appeal: The 8 Primal Factors That Create Blockbuster Success,” is an Influence, Persuasion, Mass Appeal and Communications Expert who helps business owners
unlock the secrets of getting legions of loyal customers.

Jay Conrad Levinson… is one of the foremost business marketing experts in the world. Jay is the author of the #1 best-selling marketing series in history, “Guerrilla Marketing,” plus 55 other books which have sold a total of 14 million copies worldwide. His guerrilla concepts have influenced marketing so much, his books appear in 43
languages and are required reading in many MBA programs worldwide.

Al Ries is a legendary marketing strategist and the bestselling author (or co-author) of 11 books on marketing including “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind,” “Marketing Warfare,” “Focus,” “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding,” “The Fall Of Advertising & The Rise of PR,” and his latest “The Origin of Brands.”

Gary Vaynerchuk... Author of “Crush It: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion,” Gary has captured attention with his pioneering, multi-faceted approach to personal branding and business.

Sergio Zyman… Author of best selling book, “The End Of Marketing As We Know It,” passionately advocates a vision of scientific, process-based marketing as the driver of sales and profits and the centerpiece of business. The only definition of marketing success he upholds is “selling more stuff to more people more often for more money more efficiently.” He is also former Chief Marketing Officer of The Coca-Cola Company.

I’m also looking forward to hearing Michael Gerber on an upcoming call.
For UK readers interested in seeing him live he is doing a presentation in London

An Evening with Michael Gerber

The E-Myth: Why Small Businesses Fail and What To Do About It London 8th December 2009

http://budurl.com/bjlx

Your Extraordinary League of Masterminds

Internet Marketing Legends Rich Schefren and Jay Abraham have been recently working away on something quite incredible.

No hype, this is worth bolting upright and taking serious notice of because what Rich and Jay have done is to assemble the world’s business and marketing elite, experts that have consulted Coca Cola, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo!..the list is endless.

This mega-gathering of business legends is called The League of Extraordinary Minds, and it’s entire focus is to bring together a collection of the world’s finest, leading-edged business experts on highly specialized subjects to help entrepreneurs like you attain more success and bigger profits.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

No one is selling anything in these interview sessions. All are sharing brilliant, ingenious, masterful and outright amazing ideas, concepts, strategies, recommendations and guidance never before available anywhere in any way or at any price >>

>> The League of Extraordinary Minds

P.S There is also an invitation from Rich and Jay for a partners opportunity Click Here

An Info Product Creation Story

When it comes to creating an online information publishing business you just have to look at creating a product and this is something that many would-be web entrepreneurs struggle with.

Whether it is a lack of confidence when it comes to writing or resources to outsource your product creation there will always be a reason not to get started. Having a product of your own (as a start to many more hopefully) gives you credibility as a Marketer and puts you above the millions of affiliates competing with each other to make an income. Instead affiliates will drive traffic to you and along with it sales as well as building your email list, done right.

I want to just tell how we got Wordpress Plugins Guide going and what system we used to hopefully provide some inspiration, by going for the mini guide or report method.

You don’t have to re-invent the wheel, in fact most of the time it is better that you don’t!

Look to markets and products that are already making money, look at the current products, do your research and create a better product.

There are more than a few Wordpress Plugins Guides out there, but we decided we could do a better job, so with the sleeves rolled up and a few late nights we had the Guide, a comprehesive list of Wordpress Plugins that any blogger would find useful. This didn’t really take any writing ability, just a fair bit of research (and being a wordpress blogger anyway I had a fair amount of knowledge of it)

We used Rapid Action Profits (affiliate link) as the system to run the product. This gives you a system to deliver the product, an affiliate program, sales tracking, even the ability to email your buyers direct.

This system is great for small products and it gives affiliates and Joint Venture partners a big incentive in that it pays commissions straight into their paypal accounts as soon as a sale is made! So on a 50% commission, the full amount of every other sale would go to the affiliate.

Pushing on we got the templates onto the RAPS system, tested the sales process and the Guide was ready to rock. One other thing to point out, we created a One Time Offer (The Resell Rights to the Guide) as well, which should be part and parcel of any product model. You can also add and recommend other products in the guide itself to make money from from later on down the line.

Blog Posts and comments, Backlinks, Articles and Press Releases all played a part in the initial traffic jumpstart as well as approaching affiliates who would be interested in this niche. We also put out a Special Offer on the Warrior Forum, which is a great way to build a list and make a few sales along the way.

So far we’ve sold 60 copies with almost half (50%) choosing the upsell!

Making quickfire reports and guides is a great way to start your product creation process, with a relevant back-end and affiliate promotion within the product or alongside it.

One way of looking at it is to see each mini guide as a stepping process to creating a larger product down the line. Think of it as releasing your ’singles before bringing out the album

Check Out the RAPS System here (aff)

Attain Response London Event

Update: I am no longer recommending Attain Response. Please read this updated previous post to find out why.

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If you are near or in London on the 27th August 2009 there is a Free event at the Marriott Hotel, Maida Vale focusing on the Internet Marketing System AttainResponse.

More and more businesses, Marketing Departments and Web Entrepreneurs are discovering the Internet Marketing power of AttainResponse and how it can literally attain a massive response to your email marketing.

You can read a previous AttainResponse Review here.

There will be a demonstration of the product, open networking and a presentation about the lucrative affiliate reseller opportunity available.

• Learn why email marketing gives you the highest return on your marketing investment (ROI) and how you can use the power of AttainResponse quickly and easily in your business and see results – fast!
• Learn how you can get more business from your existing customers with Attain Response
• Learn low cost – high impact marketing strategies that work in today’s world using the power of AttainResponse
• Learn how to leave your competitiors behind by engaging and communicating through the power of streaming video
• Learn how to market your business on autopilot. Save time and money!

Time:
6:30pm – 7:15pm Open networking
7:15pm – 8:00pm AttainResponse
8:00pm – 8:15pm Break
8:15pm – 9:00pm Reseller Opportunity

Where:
Marriott Hotel
Plaza Parade, Maida Vale
London. NW6 5RP

Click here for maps and transportion

Register Your Place Free
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/413613128?ref=ebtn

See you there!

Attain Response F5 Marketing System Review

I’ve spent the last month or so testing out a new autoresponder with a difference, Attain Response. There are 3 main elements to this  marketing system: Media F5, Mail F5 and Marketing F5.

These so called Tools of Attraction pool together for a unique web-based email & video communication platform that has the potential to help businesses, online entrepreneurs and marketers leap ahead of the competition.

Mail F5
The hosting solution behind this allows you to send video and audio enhanced email campaigns, upload database lists, use capture forms in web media and follow up with targetted autoresponder emails.

Media F5
All media can be stored and streamed from here enabling you to reach audiences around the world to both emails and websites. with Live Broadcast, Video Conference, and media you can publish to both emails and websites.

Marketing F5
The heart of the system, from here you can launch campaigns, newsletters and capture leads. Integrate that powerful video media into your own branded email templates or choose from a wide selection.

Every marketer and online business should know list building and an autoresponder is one of the most important online marketing elements for building your online business foundations.

Most go for Aweber (aff) which has excellent deliverability and increasingly intuitive features and Infusionsoft offers an impressive marketing automation system. You can read a useful review on Infusionsoft right here.

By all means Attain Response does not have the smooth mechanics as Aweber and the amount of html code for the website opt-in is pretty horrendous, and should be a lot lot less.

When working with templates the system can really slow down – if you go back and make changes and re-save, there is a massive amount of space created in the stylesheet code which turns editing or doing anything into the equivalent of crawling through roadtar with a spacesuit on – at best.

I have raised this issue with support as well as numerous other glitches but have not had a satisfacory response. I am no longer using this system for myself and dread having to use it for some exisiting clients. Aweber is like a racehorse compared to this!

As a result of continuing problems I am no longer recommending this system to any clients – but watch this space!

5 Ways to Increase Website Conversions

With the western world still struggling to climb out of a self induced recession, every business should be looking at key elements of their online marketing process from website conversion to traffic generation and often a few small changes to increase conversion are all that is needed.

A business website or blog should have a specific function whether it is creating sales, capturing leads or getting users to fill out a form. It is important to know what your websites main function is so that everything on that site can be geared to this main goal and if anything on the page distracts from that, then it should be consigned to the trash bin.

This can be a long process, but once a website is highly optimized for conversions valuable visitors stop getting wasted and the goals of the website will start to be realized. Sometimes increasing the conversion rate can be easier than trying to increase traffic. If you have 1 sale in 100 visitors and you want to increase to 2%, what is easier? Increasing your visitors by another 100 or increasing conversion to 2%?

There are hundreds of ways to increase conversions but let’s keep it simple and concise at 5.

1.    Web Statistics – Implement Google Analytics show you can see what traffic is coming from where, what keywords you’re been found under. You can also tie this in with any Google Adwords Campaigns you’re running and track conversions and results. Using Website Optimizer with Google Analytics allows you to test and optimize site content and design and quickly and easily increase revenue and ROI whether you’re new to marketing or an expert.

2.    Look in the Mirror – Take a long hard look at your website. Is it obvious what you are selling or can solve your reader’s problem? Are there distracting banners, links taking users away from your websites main goal?

3.    Offer Value – In the current climate people are looking for value. Are you offering it? Giving something away for free, free shipping or a similar incentive to order may sound obvious but are you doing it?

4.    Keywords – Is your website targeting the right keyword phrases? If your headlines don’t work or entice. For example: XYZ Florists offer Flowers for every occasion might be better as XYZ Florists of Bristol offer Flowers for Weddings, Funerals, (and depending on the season) Mothers Day / St Valentine’s Day. This would attract more localised results as well as people looking for flowers for a specific occasion.

5.    Testimonials – Are you collecting testimonials from every customer, or as many as you can? Testimonials are a powerful incentive to new buyers. If you can ask for a more in depth testimonial the better. What was it about your service that they liked? How did it benefit them?

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