Marketing on a Shoestring

There are many great methods of marketing your online business but there is one that stands head and shoulders above the rest-your own affiliate program. If you create a good product and pay a substantial affiliate fee, you could not only make some money from sales but, you could possibly build a massive list for your newsletter. While there is some cost involved, it pales in comparison to the benefits that you will receive. If you have dozens or perhaps hundreds of affiliates promoting your product, think of how this could build your business.

If you look at the sales page of any big-hitter in marketing, you will always notice that on the sales page they offer a free short content report to promote their product. This does two things. First, it gives the reader more reason to buy the product and secondly, it is an opt-in form to add them to your newsletter. Think now in terms of massive business growth.

Of course, the first step is to build your product. At first, this may seem to be an overwhelming project. It doesn’t have to be. If you have been article marketing for any period of time, you may have a massive amount of material that you can now reuse. It is a simple matter of taking your articles, rewriting as necessary, put them into chapter form and then write an introduction and summary. Voila, instant product.

The next step is to produce a 7 to 10 page special report that you can use on your sales page to encourage sales and of course opt-ins. The report should be of the highest quality, content rich and it should answer common problems in your niche that would help your prospects.

Over delivering should be a key concern when developing your sales page. Not only should your product over deliver but you should add as least 4 or 5 special reports, software or Ebooks as bonuses that support you primary product.

Probably, the next step should be to get your product listed on Click Bank. When you do that, offer a full 70% affiliate fee. The purpose of creating the affiliate program is not to try to make a fortune off of this product. The primary purpose is to garner the power of having your affiliates doing the advertising for you and as a result building your list. You know the old axiom, the gold is in the list.

While this method is not free, the results of having possibly hundreds of affiliates helping to build your list is massive. This is probably
the most overlooked method of internet marketing available and could move you up into the ranks of the super affiliate.

In the Beginning, Edison said Let their be Moving Pictures. Well, not exactly, there had been several attempts at creating moving pictures, but, in 1896 Edison invented the Vitascope-the first commercially successful movie projector in the United States. Virtually overnight, moving pictures became a success. Today, we call it video and if used properly, is virtually an untapped source of website traffic.

You can put up marketing videos on any number of video sites like You Tube and if the content is good, it might be viewed by thousands of video fans and result in massive traffic to your website. Not only that, video has become so easy to produce that when they get to your site, they could be greeted with video right on your site and if you don’t think that this will improve your website conversion statistics, you are living in the past.

If you think that it might be too expensive, think again. Almost any digital still camera will produce professional looking videos that you can use on the web. Not only that, there is plenty of video editing freeware that will help you produce professional quality results.

I don’t know what is going to be the wave of the future in internet marketing but, I do know that video is the wave of the present and if you are not using it, you are giving potential customers just one more excuse to visit and buy from another marketers site.

Don’t live in the past, get on the video bandwagon and reap the benefits of this new and effective form of internet marketing. Hey guys, it is the 21st century and video rules.

I fought the law and the law won may be a good song title but, when it comes to internet marketing, the law is one land-mine that you don’t want to step on. Not knowing the law has never been accepted in court as a reasonable defense. One small mistake in internet marketing could result in something as simple as having your site shut down to having to pay thousands of dollars in fines. Just to protect myself here-no part of this article should be construed to be legal advice. If in doubt, you should seek legal counsel.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a ton of regulations on how you may conduct business, advertise, use email and more. If you run afoul of the FTC, you could end up in serious trouble. How you write your Terms of Service (TOS), your Privacy Policy and any advertising that you do may bring you under the scrutiny of the FTC.

Even if you don’t break any regulations, some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are so gun shy of the FTC that they may shut down your web site because of a single spam complaint-even if you have proof that the reader who complained was a valid opt-in subscriber. You will probably get your site back but in the mean time, you may lose several weeks or months of income.

Certainly, you should review internet and advertising regulations at the FTC web site: www.ftc.gov. Another thing that you might do is check for internet law Ebooks. There are a number of them available on Click Bank and not only might they help protect you, it might also be a product that you might wish to promote.

Of course, the best advice is always consult a lawyer and I highly advise that. However, while the big cities will have lawyers familiar with the internet rules and regulations, small towns may be more problematic.

Even if you are not guilty, the FTC and your ISP may put you out of business for an extended period and I don’t know about you but, I can’t afford that. Remember the old cliche-better to be safe than sorry.

To be good is not enough when you dream of being great! What a beautiful idea. I agree with it entirely but, the modern equivalent of the snake-oil salesman has also latched onto this sentiment and used it to take our wallets right out of our pockets and not only that, we are happy to give them our money.

One statement that almost all of the self-help gurus quote is from a 1953 study at Yale University. As the story goes, the graduating class of 1953 was asked who had written goals. The answer was 3%. Twenty years later the class of 53 was contacted and the results were startling. The 3% who had written goals had acquired more wealth that the other 97% combined. It is certainly a great proof for the power of goal setting and every single self-help guru quotes this survey. The only problem with this is that when Yale was contacted, they said that the survey never took place and that it was only Urban Myth.

Noted self-help guru Denis Waitley states “The secret to productive goal setting is in establishing clearly defined goals, writing them down and then focusing on them several times a day with words, pictures and emotions as if we’ve already achieved them.” and I am sure that Waitley truly believes this. Self-deception is a wonderful thing.

In response to statements like this author Paul Kerr in his PDF online book Goal Setting Garbage said: “The first real problem with goal setting is that every time you focus on your goal, as many strategies prescribe today, you come face to face with the fact that you don’t actually have it. Rather than inspire motivation this can, more often than not, spark of a train of negative self-talk, doubt and the reality that you don’t have what you want.

I am not saying that goal setting does not work. In the proper context, goal setting can be extremely helpful. In fact, Yale University teaches a program called SMART Goal Setting. The word SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time framed.

In the business world, we might call this a business plan. We look at our resources, build strategic plans and then dedicate ourselves to taking the actions necessary to reach a specific measurable goal. If you have set an achievable goal and you have a good plan, you will be able to attain you goal.

The latest self-help gurus are now jumping on the bandwagon of “The Secret”. More or less it is the old power of positive thinking combined with the misuse of Quantum Physics theory. Hey guys, I don’t live in the world of Quantum Theory, I live in the real world and need real world answers.

I am not saying that goal setting does not work-it does. What I am saying is that no amount of visualization and self-deception is going to help you achieve your goals. I am a believer in goals. They help us set a direction in our life and can help us achieve far greater things in our life than we believed possible. Just remember, dedication and hard work are necessary. I also believe in what Andrew Carnegie said: “Aim for the Highest.” If you set your goals too low, you will find that the goal itself becomes self-limiting.

One final note, today is the only time that we have. We can’t live in the past and if disaster strikes, there is no future. We can only be thankful for what we have today and we should make the best we can out of it because it is all that we truly have.

I started out with the idea of forum marketing but, somewhere along the way, I have found that I am now in the midst of a love affair with the forums. There is much more to the forums than just forum marketing.

Yes, I will admit that I still use the forums. By starting good threads or making appropriate and educated responses to other’s comments, I have been able to promote my image as a knowledgeable professional internet marketer. But, that is only a small part of the story. I have found that by spending time on the forums, I have been able to glean the combined knowledge of the best internet marketers in the world. I have learned more about internet marketing from the forums than from any other single source.

For example, I am currently in the process of working on my own Ebook that I plan to market on Click Bank. Fortunately, one of the discussions that was started today was about recent rule changes that Click Bank has made which will dramatically affect the way in which I both write my book and in the sales literature that will accompany the book.

In an effort to stay in compliance with FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regulation on advertising, Click Bank no longer allows you to make claims that you can make specific dollar amounts with any given product. The FTC considers this to be false advertising and the last thing that Click Bank needs is trouble with the FTC. For example, you may say if you can substantiate the figures, “I made $10,268 dollars on a single day with this product.” The key to being able to say that is that you can prove it. On the other hand, you may not say, “I made $10,268 dollars in a single day and now, you can too.” If you were to use that comment, you would run afoul of both Click Bank and the FTC. The difference is that you can prove the first statement but, the second statement is pure conjecture and will be labeled as false advertising.

It is an important lesson and one that I might not have known about had I not been reading the marketing forums. Even if I were to stop forum marketing, I would still visit them everyday. There is just so much information that you can learn from the professionals on the forums that you are truly doing yourself a disservice if you don’t visit them on a regular basis. Knowledge along with it’s application has always been and will always be your key to success on the internet. No matter how expert you think you are, there is always someone out there with even greater expertise. Visit the forums and learn from the best.

Time Flies and Then You Die. You only have three basic things that you can use to build and market your business-money, knowledge and time. You can always get more money,you can always study and build your knowledge but time can not be created. You have a limited amount of time and if you don’t use it wisely, you can kiss your hopes of internet success a sweet goodbye.

Right now, you might be thinking, “Oh no, not another lecture on time management.” You are right. You can control your time and use it wisely to build your business or you can waste it on any of a myriad of distractions and lose it forever. It is your choice-use your time or lose your time. Either way, it is the one thing in marketing that you can not create more of.

There are many methods and systems that you can use to manage your time and in order to accomplish anything on the internet, you must adopt one of them. It is far too easy to start reading your email in the morning and get sidetracked and end up clicking on numerous links, wasting many non-productive hours on the internet and the important things that will build your business get passed over.

Then you look back at your day and wonder how you could have been so busy and still didn’t get anything accomplished. The answer is simple, you did not put a priority on the things that build your business and spent your valuable time doing essentially nothing.

Personally, I sit down each evening and plan out my next day. It goes something like this.

0600-0620 Check email and read and respond to emails that are urgent or might help build my business. The rest are set aside for my slack time.

0620-0700 Write 2 to three articles and submit them to the article directories. At this time, I also add them to my blog and on Monday, I select my best article of the week to send out it to my list.

0700-0800 This hour is devoted to blog and forum commenting. It is important that you comment daily as the blogs and forums are very important in building your online reputation.

0800-0900 At this point in the morning, I spend my time in the social networking circles-My Space, Myface and Squidoo. These social networks are becoming increasingly important in online business building. Although I have started these just recently, I have found them to be an important adjunct to my other marketing methods.

These are the most important things that I do and I have accomplished them by nine in the morning. The day is already a success and now I can go back and look at my emails, surf the net and scope out new and interesting business opportunities. You may have more that you have to do, if so, put it in your schedule.

This method works for me. You may find some other method of time management. It really doesn’t matter which method you use as long as you can look back at your day with a feeling of accomplishment. Our time on earth is limited. When Mr. Death knocks on your door, he is not going to give you the time that you need to write one more article or make a blog/forum comment. Your time has run out. The only question is did you make good use of it or did you fritter it away surfing the net.

When I first started marketing, well, you know the expression-I didn’t have a pot nor a window. Without the finances to market my business, I had to become an expert it what is known as Shoestring Marketing. There are many free and inexpensive marketing methods that in the long run are as good as or better than paid advertising. In fact, in terms of marketing longevity, these methods have given me long term results in building my online businesses. The following 10 items are the ones that I have found to be the most effective and have long term effects.

1. Build a list. We have always been told that the money is in the list and that is as true today as it was 10 years ago. Of course, with all of the competition on the net, it is harder to build a list today but, if you follow the rest of my 10 ways to market, it will happen and without a list you really don’t have a sustainable business. With a responsive list, you build trust and respect with your list members and then and only then will they buy from you. Of the 10 ways to market, this is the only one that requires that you spend some money. You will need a good autoresponder. Please don’t go for the free or cheap ones, all you are doing is shooting yourself in the foot. A good autoresponder will make sure that your message is delivered.

2. Article Marketing. This is a great way to build your reputation as an expert in your chosen niche. The internet has a voracious appetite for fresh information and if your articles are well written and fact based, you will be remembered as an expert in you field. Make sure that you never advertise in your articles. You should rely upon your signature to do your marketing. No one wants to publish an article that is nothing more than a promotion for someone else’s product. One of the neat things about article marketing is that some articles stand the test of time and may be published not only when fresh but also weeks, months and sometimes years after you wrote the article.

3. Blogging. Not only do you need your own blog but, you should also be making comments on other people’s blogs. Once again a well written blog entry or comment will build your reputation as an expert and you will build trust with potential customers. With your own blog, you can blatantly advertise if you want to. I personally prefer to give my blog readers solid content without the blatant promo.
The reason for this being is that I am trying to build trust and display my expertise. If you are commenting on someone else’s blog, never advertise. Just rely upon your signature to do the advertising for you. If you try to advertise on someone’s blog, you will likely find that your comment has found it’s way to the circular file and will never be seen or heard from again.

4. Forum Marketing. No matter how small your niche is, you will find forums that are dedicated to your area of expertise. Before you start making forum comments or new threads, make sure that you read and understand the forum rules. Failure to follow the rules could get you banned from the forum or worse yet, hurt your reputation. Forum members can sometimes be very blunt when they see a comment that doesn’t conform to the forums protocols. Also, take some time to read the forum threads and comments so that when you start threads or comments, they are appropriate for the forum.

5. You Tube. I have only just begun to utilize You Tube as one of my marketing strategies. But, I have found that with a little preplanning
you can get very high ratings and a very loyal following of viewers. It is not unusual to get multiple if not scores of comments on a good
You Tube presentation. This is also an area that, so far, has much less competition than most of the other marketing methods. I think that this is from that natural tendency for many people to be camera shy. The person that introduced me to You Tube, took the top five Google video results in his niche within one week of producing his first video. Don’t be shy. Get out that video camera and dive into this relatively untapped market.

6. Social Networking. You have heard the names, My Lot, My Space, Facebook, Squidoo and many more. The world of social networking takes internet marketing to a whole new plateau. This is part of the Web 2.0 internet revolution that is changing the face of the internet at an incredibly fast and accelerating pace. It has literally become a brave new world. Don’t jump in too fast. Learn the rules of the road. If you do it right, you will be developing friends and potential customers. I suggest that you enter social networking with some degree of caution. You can develop friends but also like the non-cyber world, not everyone if going to like you and without some degree of care, you might also develop enemies.

7 Virtual Worlds. I think that most people have at least looked at Second Life or one of the other virtual worlds that have been created.
In these virtual worlds, you create an avatar that is your online ego. You can be anything you want-male, female, or even an infinite variety of critters. I have met rabbits that speak and women that suddenly fly away when I get a little too close. Anything is possible in these virtual worlds. Anything including making money. You can buy and sell virtual real estate in the virtual world that translates to real dollars in the non-cyber world. You can created a virtual business that exists not only in the virtual world but, has a physical counterpart in the real world. Second Life might be an excellent place to help market your real world internet business. Even major corporation have created virtual stores where you can purchase something in Second Life and have it delivered to your real world doorstep in 3 days. My last computer purchase was from Dell and the whole transaction took place in Second Life. No, that is not quite right. The transaction took place in the virtual but the Dell computer that I am currently typing on was delivered in the real world. As with the social networking sites, reasonable care should be taken. Although you are dealing with an Avatar in Second Life, there is a real person with real feelings and emotions and your interactions should be given as much care as you would in the real world. Everyday, the line between the real world and the virtual world becomes more and more blurred.

8. Joint Venture Gift Events. Come Easter, July 4, Memorial Day or Christmas, etc. some of the bigger names in internet marketing will create a givaway event. They are usually free to join and you get to offer a free Ebook, membership or some other free offer in exchange for people signing up for your list. Some of these have been very effective for me. When getting involved in these make sure that the backers are among the top marketers and not some fly-by-night operation. Many times these events will also have an upgrade available so that your offer gets toward the top of the list. This may be a worthwhile investment as some of these events have usually several hundred offers available. You really have nothing to lose and if your free offer is unique, you may have a dramatic increase in your list. There are other ways to get into joint ventures but that will be an article all by itself. JVs are very much a win-win situation.

9. Press Releases. If you are offering something new and unique to the marketplace, you should consider putting out both an online and off line press release. If the right reporter picks it up, it might get published as is or you may get a call from one of the different news mediums wanting to interview you. One of the top marketers on the net today got his start from Fox News doing an interview about his rags to riches story. It is free to do and the worst case scenario is that no one pays any attention to your news release. Remember the old cliche: nothing ventured-nothing gained.

10. Your own Affiliate Program. If you have gone to the work of creating a product, then it is just natural that you offer an affiliate program to market your product. Affiliate marketers are always looking for something new and hot to promote. If you set up the program properly, you could have hundreds or even thousands of affiliates promoting your product. Create the affiliate program, create promotional materials for your product and pay your affiliates promptly. When the affiliate’s prospect visits your sales page, you also have the chance to capture that person’s name and email for your own optin list. Just make sure that if the new customer buys one of your future offers, you pay the affiliate on the new offer also.

Now the question is why are you sitting around doing nothing. I have just given you 10 great ways to build your business. Stop reading and get to work.

There is a paradigm shift taking place on the internet and as an internet marketer if you don’t stay ahead of the curve, your online business if going to be left in the dust. It is called Web 2.0 and it is changing our world so fast that I am quite sure that I can not give you a good definition of what it is. I know that it is about things like You Tube, social networking, virtual worlds and that it is changing the face of the way that we must market on the internet.

When I first started on the net, all you had to do was put up a website, run a few banner ads and you could build a business. Banner ads have long since past their prime and hardly anyone will click on them today. Pay Per Click (PPC) was great for a while but today, it has also become a white elephant. Not only has it become ineffective, it has become just too darn expensive. For many a new marketer, it has become a one way trip to the poor house.

We have all heard “the money is in the list.” While this is still true, the competition to get people to sign up for your list has become incredibly difficult Article marketing, blogging, forum marketing are somewhat effective but to stay competitive, now you must get involved in Web 2.0. Each day I see a new Ebook trying to explain how to use Web 2.0 but at the rate that
the internet is changing, even these Ebooks are outdated on the day of their release.

In order to try to stay competitive, I have created blogs, Lenses, participate in My Space, Facebook, My Lot and several others and of course You Tube. There are new social networks sprouting up daily on the net. It is hard to keep up with these changes but, don’t think that social networking is a passing phase. We have only just begun to see the tip of the iceberg and I don’t intend to go down like the Titantic.

One of the most interesting facets of the paridigm shift is the virtual worlds that are being created on the net. There are many of them but, the most famous is Second Life where you create an avatar (your internet alter ego). You can be anything you want and at the end of March 2008, Second Life had more than 13 million registered users. That is one big marketplace.

The thing about Second Life is that in this virtual world you can buy and sell virtual property and goods and make a real life profit. Not only that but, many of the “Big Box Stores” have a Second Life presence where you can purchase things in the Second Life virtual world and have the goods delivered to your real life doorstep. Dell Computers sells real computers in their Second Life virtual store and there are many others doing the same thing.

At the current time, my avatar is meandering around in Second Life. I am about to start making some marketing moves but, I feel that there are also a lot of landmines to be careful of, so I m currently learning the rules of the road before I make any actual moves. While I am a proponent of marketing in Second Life, I don’t want to be stupid enough to make the wrong moves and shoot myself in the foot. Like everything else in internet marketing, the only thing that really counts is your reputation.

Well, I hope that we meet someday in Second Life. I am the incredibly handsome young man in T-shirt and jeans who is more than willing to talk about making a fortune on the internet. If you happen to meet me outside of Second Life, I’m the bald old guy in a 3 piece suit but I’m still happy to tell you about marketing on the net.

Don’t get left in the dust. If you are not doing the Web 2.0 thing, then you must start immediately. Last year would have been better but today is not too late.