Copywriting as a Metaphor - Living Life by Communication

Communication as a way of life, learned at the feet of Master Copywriters.

One thing that came up when I was studying Mike Dillard's new Elevation Income release, was that Dillard had been studying and doing copywriting so long that it had become internalized. He no longer had to think about how to write anything - it just came naturally.

Robert Hirsch (his partner, friend, and cohort in this video series) pointed out that Mike's writing was the way he talked. Meaning that he'd become his skills.

Since marketing is just communication in essence, learning copywriting is just another style of talking, like a dialect - not a different language at all.

This is different from the idea of learning Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" plot structure, but not by much. Much as Louis L'amour studied all the bestseller classics to come up with a style of writing that gave him continuing bestselling popular books. Cliffhangers, action, love interest, exotic locations - everything to take a person away from their own world to visit a new one in those pages.

I'd say really that the optimal writing and communicating style would be between those two. And then throw in a healthy dose of TED talks in there as well.

The point is that the bulk of humanity wants to be entertained, educated, enlightened - and need to be told what to do and how to take action. They are looking for leaders.

All Dillard has pointed out with his Magnetic Sponsoring and now his Elevation Income, is that you can be that leader. His own tools of choice are copywriting. His partner's are sales and entrepreneurship. Both have internalized these skills and actually become them.

They've done tons of study and gone though mountains of books, seminars, and recordings (audio and video) in order to learn their craft. Both agree (and many share this) that lifelong learning plays a key part. Essentially, you are doing this as your passion. So improving your craft - just as professional sports players constantly work on keeping in shape and being able to deliver that pass or block or serve, etc.

When sports players finally wind up physically unable to keep up with younger players, then they have to seque into another career. (But this isn't all that different from you and I - most people move through 2 or 3 or more careers in their lives. "Retirement" is one most people look forward to.)

Separately, I'm collecting up and distilling the copywriting material from the all-time greats. And directly republishing any I've found in the public domain. (I've already written an overview once.) Of course, these will all be made available to you as I can.

What I'm finding is that this starts to change me as I go - not surprising, since you always find what you expect to find (quantum physics, the "Secret", and all that...)

It's change in a good way, though. Remarkable stuff.

The point is that you are changing your life by design. This is just as any person who studies personal development (self help books) changes their lives by surrounding themselves with inspirational and motivational works.

You can look around your own life and see how you are changing your own universe by what you are surrounding yourself with. Yes, that includes your own home and your friends, as well as (*shudder*) TV.

Check it out and you'll see how your ability to communicate is being affected or improved.

Luck with this.

Related articles

• The missing ladder to start climbing to your success with Elevation Income by Mike Dillard
• How Mike Dillard Did it - he gets naked in public...
• The Bottom Line to Mike Dillard's Success with Evolution Group and Magnetic Sponsoring
• What Makes a Good Online Copywriter?

Day 28 - List of Tools and Courses

The Grand (In)Complete List of Tools and Courses - to help you earn extra income online.

It's called so, as I am constantly finding more stuff which has great practical value. (It's that Attraction thing at work. Jesus said something like: "As you look, you will find.") And as I find more, I plan to come back and add them.

However, I did want to drop a long list on you of other courses and tools you could use. This is exactly what people say not to do, since the more choices you give, the less chances people will click on anything. So I recommend you bookmark this or save it as a page with links to your hard-drive (where you can find it later..)

Now I already have listed in the sidebar how to find various things like Market Samurai, SBI!, Synnd, MMI, and Magnetic Marketing.

This 30-day blog in itself is probably one of the greatest tools, since what I tell you about creating content and linking into affiliate sites is true for every page here. But this is as I recommend: find valuable products and services, then become an affiliate for them - and link to these in your content.

If you like what I tell you and find it workable (especially the free versions, trial versions, and so forth), then I'm sure that when you decide to invest in the fully working paid versions, you won't mind that I get a split of what you pay for it?

Day 26 - Ebay and Craigslist: getting buyers to find you

The biggest scam I fell for was in researching eBay...

(And funny enough, when I was getting my refund - and they found out how good I was at blogging and how much I knew about earning income online - he asked, well why did you sign up, then? Answer was: I just wanted to find out how eBay worked. Which left him quiet. He knew I had overpaid for that simple knowledge.)

Ebay and Craigslist by themselves only get a short mention in the book (page 264-265). But the best way to learn what I know about Ebay is to do a search on the digital version of The Online Sunshine Plan and simply read before and after every time I mention eBay. My examples tell you volumes about how this system works.

Not your grandfather's eBay...

Originally, it was an auction site. Now, it's either a clearance rack for the Big Box stores, or it's for limted, higher-priced collectibles. Those are the only two types of sellers really earning income online via eBay sales. Mostly the community which supported eBay has moved on, as has the management which created it. There are little niche communities there - and that's about it.

The 3rd way to earn online income via eBay is discussed in my book on page  265. You simply offer a small unique product, such as self-burned CD's for a cheap price and then use that to collect names of buyers who might be interested in similar products (your sales funnel). They are qualified leads already, since you only get their email when they bought something from you.

CD's can cost you less than 2 bucks to make and ship to any client in the U.S. If you use a service like Kunaki.com, you can then have professionally made CD's which you can dropship, or simply ship yourself.  There are also companies which will do short runs for you and print a nice color image on top in stacks of 100 or so, which would bring the price per unit below making them yourself (and having to print out and then paste on the label).

While I don't suggest it, eBay has a "store" where you can offer your products. Of course, this means you have routine sales high enough that you can absorb that overhead.

What eBay is great for is market research. You can take any type or kind of product and search for what people are buying, as well as what their price points are.

I was looking though my material to see what I could give you, but only found books what were 10 years old now. So these are to dated to be any good (an eternity has passed in Internet time). I'd suggest instead that you visit http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/index.html to get the current data.

And Terapeak still exists as a way to do market research. Their resource page (as linked) will tell you if it's a service you need to invest in. Of course, you have a 7-day trial period, but that might not be enough to really get your market researched.

Another tool is WorldWideBrands - which was built to help people dropship, especially on eBay. But they can help you with Yahoo and Amazon stores as well. If you click on Seller Resources, you'll get their whole library of data on the various ways to sell your products. I like (and have bought) this service, because it's a one-time investment which gives you access to continuing product and marketing research.

Linked on their resource page as well are newsletters from people like Skip McGrath, who has been selling on eBay nearly since it started. That link takes you to his tools page where you can find all the latest and proven tools.

Craigslist - free classified ads

King of classifieds. And right up front, this is where my next research is taking me. Like ebay, this is where buyers find you instead of the other way around.

The trick with this is in writing the ads. You're going to need 4 things:

1. A product or service people actually want
2. A landing or sales page for conversions
3. Decently written ad
4. Places to post that ad

We've already covered finding a product that is valuable.

As to creating your landing page and ad copy, again, I'd suggest you study the ads which others are writing for you to see what they are using. Those at Magnetic Sponsoring and Peak Potentials (T. Harv Eker's group) are quite good, as this is all they do. Sign up as an ambassador (affiliate) for free at https://www.peakambassador.com/

As for places to post your ad, consider this short list from quickregister.net:

1. http://www.craigslist.org- The grandaddy of classified ads sites.

2. http://www.backpage.com The second busiest classified site after Craigslist. This is where all the escort ads went after Craigslist took down their erotic ads section due to pressure from 17 Attorney Generals. Not so with Village Voice owned Backpage.com. They told the attorney generals they were just fine with their erotic ads section thank you. Those guys at the Village Voice have major cohones!

3. http://www.gumtree.com Weird name but this site is one of the busiest classifieds sites out there. This high traffic classifieds site is focused on UK ads.

4. http://www.oodle.com This serious classified site has partnerships with ForRent.com in the US and Autotrader UK.

5. http://www.ebayclassifieds.com The official classifieds site for Ebay.

6. http://www.olx.com This board has a presence in most countries and can be read in English or Spanish.

7. http://www.usfreeads.com A popular US focused site with a large business opportunity and pet section.

8. http://www.classifiedads.com Classifieds focused on the English speaking world. US, UK, AU, and India.

9. http://www.inetgiant.com A green board not only in color but in their ads. They have a well represented area for green products. The board is pretty much translated in most languages. I checked their Lithuanian board. No ads there yet. Do you want to be the first?

10. http://adpost.com Solid board with presences in the United States, Singapore,Canada,Malaysia, United Kingdom, Philippines, Ireland, Australia, India, Indonesia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

And that should get you started in this area.

The key point is that classifieds have the person finding you, as this type of Internet user is already a buyer. The studies I done to this date point to using classifieds for network marketing, among others. And the conversion rate for such ads is more than twice what regular Internet viewers do. Makes sense - you are pitching to people who have already decided to buy. It's just a matter of which product at this point.

- - - -

Again, plenty of freebies and homework in the above, so nothing additional from my Gringold vaults.

Tomorrow: Reviewing the Natural Laws of Marketing

Day 25 - The Stigma of Network Marketing

Network Marketing, like Internet Marketing, has gotten a bad rap.

But it's their own fault - in both cases.

The problem is GRQ (Get Rich Quick) and this means Lack of Value.

Both have had their problems with this. And the real people making most of the money are those who do educating in this field. Because that is where the real value is. Lets face it - the majority of the people out there are wanting to be educated. Spammers are another form of education - when you come out of the other side, you've learned some lessons which will stay with you a long time.

Fortunately, there are easier (and less expensive) ways to learn life's lessons.

Network Marketing Basics

The point of this is to get people to sell for you. And the basis of Network marketing is to have a repeatable pattern, which can easily be taught and applied. So a person learns this pattern and gets someone else in who they teach this pattern to, getting a percentage of their sales as part of it. That taught person then gets others in and teaches the pattern to them, getting a percentage, and so on.

This is also why I recommend 2-tier (at least) affiliate sales products. So you get returns on the work you do, while you also get returns on others who are working for you. And if they are any good, you'll start getting returns from the people who are selling for them.

And this is also the point of offering valuable consumables - because they have to be replaced. So you have continuing sales.

Shaklee

This brings up Shaklee as an example. While I'm still learning how to crack into this via Internet sales, you can study their whole system with a low entry fee (around $30 - which gives you a lifetime discount on their products) and  see if it's a good match for you and the people you would bring in as a "downline". (I like and have had good results with their Cinch diet plan.)

Shaklee is so low key and not in-your-face, it's almost hard to see why they are expanding. They don't follow the "rules" you expect with various other network marketing offers and systems. Their underlying reason for success is the extreme quality of their products - and the fact that they only sell on word of mouth, not a lot of advertising. Instead, they hand out commissions to people who sell for them.

The marketing which most "classic" network marketing companies use is hard-sell and built on a ponzi scheme of getting more people in at the bottom to pay for those who were there first. Like Social Security. Eventually, these get top heavy and the people who get in later don't get paid anything. (Unless you have the government backing it, in which case they can force people to pay and also print all the "money" they want to pay for things.)

The key is to realize that this is an educational process. And learn from everything. Meanwhile, you simply keep looking for valuable products which can and will teach you the ropes of marketing, plus give a valuable return to everyone who comes into the system.

Magnetic Sponsoring

One fascinating educational process (my only criticism is that they email too much) is one called Magnetic Sponsoring. Ostensibly, you get leads for your own networking system by offering their program. Again, this is about a $30 entry fee for the basic course of the same name to start learning and working their system. You get a nice little ebook and some free video lessons which can start your education process. (That's the only way to become an affiliate - get some "skin in the game") And they are coming out with more materials regularly. Their main point is to teach people about how to network market - and share commissions on all sales, so you are getting a piece of the "action" from day one. Obviously, when people are satisfied, they tell others, and you are then getting another set of commissions from those sales. (Oh, and don't get their "Building on a Budget" - it's based on marketing through Squidoo, so you know how dated it is. I haven't gotten their higher end products, so couldn't give you a review of them.)

The main part with Magnetic Sponsoring is that they give you sample ads to run as classifieds and are constantly tweaking their sales pages for conversions, etc. Of course, you are getting numerous emails to buy this and that new release - which you can opt out of. These are great for simply studying how they are pitching their offers and the frequency (as well as what is annoying and what you should be avoiding.)

Continuing Income (on "autopilot")

The point with these two programs is that you have a low-entry point and are able to train yourself on the whole system of Network Marketing to create a continuing income.

There is no "autopilot" in actuality. The people who earn a lot of money in Network Marketing invest time in working and coaching their downlines to greater production. That's if you want continuing sales and income. I've got a lot of stuff out there (built as tests) which gives me surprise checks every now and then, but I don't work these and have simply put them up as a simple series of pages with affiliate links. And that is more like putting a plane in the air and hoping it doesn't hit something or run out of fuel.

If you want to get somewhere, you have to have a goal and actively work at getting there. Simple.

But there are some very interesting things you should know about setting up a "continuing income" system. I recently read T. Harv Eker's Speedwealth (a free download here) (webinar replay here)and re-learned some datums I'd earlier read while studying Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad).  The point is that you want to build a system so you can simply get out of the way at some point. Passive income (like our online income earning) is like that. Once you can get it up to the point where you can hire (or recruit) promotion outlets, and someone who will keep your content freshened, then you are able to then put your attention on other ways to earn income - or simply sell it off as a turn-key income source. That is why Kiyosaki was interested in real estate. Buy once and rent it out to other people indefinitely after that. Only so much real estate on this planet, so the supply is limited, while demand continues to grow.

More Network Marketing training routes

Another T. Harv Eker ebook, "Millionaire Minds for Network Marketers", takes what he already has been saying (and improving) in his Millionaire Mind Intensives, just for people who are studying Network Marketing. He also has an hour-long teleseminar (podcast) where you can listen to him describe how to network market from the inside out.

But wait, there's more...

Yes, I've already given you far too much. There's one last way to train on Network Marketing that I wanted to tell you about before I sign off for today.

This is the good old boys at Site Build It!. They have a very direct page which ties in having an Internet content publishing system to a successful network marketing downline. And it has a couple of free whitepapers and a video and other stuff you can check out. They are the past-masters of pre-sell and this page shows they use what they preach.

So if you are into Network Marketing, you can have all these links and free stuff to satisfy your thirst for knowledge on how to succeed.

- - - -

No, I don't have (more) freebies today - because I've already given you nearly a dozen above. And that is plenty to study in this area.

See you tomorrow.

Day 09 - Affiliate Programs: Good, Bad, and Remunerative

Hello again.

Today's topic is Affiliate programs. Figured it's about time we tackled this by the horns.

I went through the entire book and see that this is an omitted section. It's touched on, but not worked up directly. So - relief is yours - no chapter to study today as preps.

When and Why Affiliates?

The purpose of affliates is to get additional sales people to pitch your products/services. They can cover more ground than your own two hands and feed can. They use their resources to promote your product, in return for some percentage of your price.  So affiliates come with an overhead - but they are getting you sales you wouldn't normally have.

The other side of this coin is that you can build up some income by finding and pushing an affiliate product which is valuable. This is how you can get paid while you learn.

The logic of this is simple:

• You are producing content anyway to forward your own purpose of delivering value to people.
• You might as well get paid for telling people about a good product or service which aligns with your purpose.
• And you can meanwhile learn from any effective affiliate marketing program, as the good ones will regularly be sending you special offers which you can promote.
• So you learn while you get paid for producing content.
• As you get better producing content, then you get paid more.
• Ultimately, you've both had the time to perfect your own product or service and also learned how to enable others to do affiliate sales for you (or signed up with some company that does - like writing ebooks for Smashwords).

Now while you are just starting out, you'll probably want to get into product- or service-lines which give you the maximal leverage for your time and money. Best return on your investment.

To get this best return, you want 2 things:

1. Offer services or products which people must renew, restock, or re-supply.
2. Offer services or products which enable others to sell under you, where you also can get paid for their work.
   

In this, there are a few - "evergreen markets", they are called:

• Food (and food supplements, medicines fall into this)
  
• Clothing
• Housing

- - - -

• Children's items
• Pet items
• Insurance

- - - -

• Entertainment
• Education
• Enlightenment
  

The above lists are roughly in order of how people will pay for and buy stuff. They also are in the order of greatest return.  As you can get people to subscribe on a continuing basis (such as Insurance), then you can earn a "piece of the action" on a continuing basis.

One sale gives potentially a lifetime of income. Get several of these and you have what is called "autopilot" income. You'll also see this in simple things, such as where a person continually re-news his domain name and his ISP hosting. (As in Domain Samurai - which has a good affiliate program.)

If you can become an affiliate on that chain, you'll get a piece of that action as long as that person continues to renew these services. And is why people who sell Insurance (and who own Insurance companies) become very well off indeed.

While fashions and food needs change, children grow up, and pets get older - people will usually stay with their same Insurance companies for years - and will often expand their coverage to include other items they own. (No, I haven't researched Insurance companies to find out which has a good affiliate program - but thanks for asking. Now this starts to make sense, yes?)

By supporting companies which have affiliate programs, you can get people funneled through your site and link to buy these programs. And then you get a continuing income based on those sales.

Oh No -- Not "Network Marketing"....

And this is where "Network Marketing" comes in. Regardless of the bad press it gets, the principle is to have people selling under you which gives you a piece of their action as well as your own sales. You would prefer to get programs which are at least 2-tier affiliate programs - meaning you can sign up people and get commissions from their sales as well, and they in turn can sign up a person under them for their own commissions, and so on. (And yes, Insurance Companies utilize this same principle from top to bottom in their organizations, as well as any sales company or sales section. People get paid by their production, but also take a piece of the pie of those salespeople under them who are producing.)

My book, Online Sunshine Plan (OSP) deals with making an "online" living in general terms. The underlying basic is that the Internet is built on information and usable content. The search engines are evolved from helping people find out what they want by constantly studying what people want and how they want it presented to them.

What ranks on the search engine findings are simply the content which best answers the question being asked. Google published guidelines for these years ago and simply following their outline gets the best results.
You find problems people have, then find an affiliate program which solves those problems. Providing content in a way that the search engines can use - you get a large number of people to visit your site and click on those links to visit those affiliate programs. When they buy, you get credit for the sale and a commission payment (or in Amazon's parlance - advertising fees.)

All that work in OSP deals with the Internet as a content-driven scene. However, it's only one of several ways to get visitors to opt-in to your program or someone else's (which you are writing/blogging/videoing about.)

There are  5 main ways to earn income online:

1. Organic SEO - being at the top of the rankings and so getting search engine traffic to your page
2. Classified Ads - driving to a landing page for conversion to sales.
3. PPC - also driving to a landing page for conversion to sales.
4. Email - biggest app on the Internet, you develop a stable of readers and provide them good content and opportunities.
5. Social Networking - Facebook is a prime example right now. Engaging in chats can lead to off-line conversations where you can personally pitch your offer. (Takes considerable time-investment.)

All of these have minimal finances invested if you know what you are doing. Mostly you are investing time. And as you get better at writing and posting online, you'll get improved results (income).

The reason affiliate programs are easier to get started than developing your own product is that these companies are doing the research to create effective landing pages. (Nothing like spending years perfecting a product or service which wasn't ever an item people really need in their lives.)

Affiliate Products of Mention

The programs I recommend all have affiliate links and can give you some income, although it's been spotty for me as I'd rather do research than promote their products all the time. Pushing any of the 6 that I lay out below will give you some regular on-going income, plus the ability to put affiliates under you and increase your income from their sales. (Win-win-win.)

Here's the short list, though I'll tell you more of why these work below (and note all the affiliate links, as well as how they are set up):

Top of the list right now: Shaklee (http://order-online-today.myshaklee.com/us/en/whyshaklee.html) and a fairly complete set of pages for you to do your due diligence on this company - with lots of videos: http://order-online-today.myshaklee.com/us/en/about.html
SBI - http://affiliates.sitesell.com/limited_offer0.html - they have an incredible amount of training offered, which push their time-proved site-building services.

Synnd - Social Media Marketing - http://socialmediascience.com/affiliates/?p=worstell&w=afflink - these guys are a leader in this area for serious SEO users.

Silva Life Systems (plus other self-help/enlightenment programs) - http://mindvalley.hasoffers.com/signup/1081 - lots of programs an regular new releases for people.

Peak Potentials - Millionaire Mind Intensive / T. Harv Eker - http://peakstrategicalliancetools.com/cmd.php?af=mmi8806&p=1 - their Millionaire Mind Intensive or http://www.peakambassador.com/cmd.php?af=mmi8806&p=fbw-speedwealth -Their current Facebook webinar, which is a good informative deal on its own. Sign up as an affiliate at peakpotentials.com, but you'll want to get on their mailing list to see how they do things.

And here's an odd little one I just recently found, which is a good study of how network marketing works: Magnetic Sponsoring - http://robertworstell.magneticsponsoringonline.com - once you buy one of their products (about $30), then you are automatically in on their affiliate scene. And they give 7 free video lessons on how network marketing works in general. And the ongoing emails from them are a hoot - entertaining and educational as to what good copywriting (mostly) consists of (though my own style wouldn't be so brash - or so frequent.)

Another, found only a few days ago, is Domain Samurai, as I've told you about before. 2-tier affiliate, but no real work at promoting their product - so it's not rated well on the scale below.

In most of these cases above, I've given you the straight affiliate sign-up link if they have one. But do look around their sites and see what you can find out - sign up for newsletters and so on (you can always opt-out.)

- - - -

10 Ways to Accurately Pick Affilate Programs That Do Earn You Extra Income Online

Yes, this is opening a can of worms. People who have been burned by affiliate schemes in the past - not to mention Network- and what passes for "Internet" Marketing - will be heading toward the door or hitting their browser's back button right about now.

Because about 97% of all the programs out there are utter crap. Worthless. Shinola. Scams.

True. And you know it.


So what makes a good one? And which ones should you invest your hard-earned money and valuable spare time into?

Let's look at what you would want to buy as a product - if you were the customer (an acid test):

1. Does it actually have a valuable product which solves  some problem you have?

2. Does it actually give more in return than you expected?

3. Is it ethical - does it actually improve the culture you live in? (Could you easily tell your mother or partner what you just emptied your savings account for?)

4. Is this product or service you can keep buying for the rest of your life - because it keeps helping you? (Like food, vitamins, insurance...)

5. Has the company been in business for a long time and doing well even during recessions?

Now, given that this is a product which is high-quality and useful, and you'd tell your friends, family, and anyone else who asks you about it - let's now look at how you could earn extra income doing just that. Is it worth becoming an affiliate sales outlet?

6. Does this company have an affiliate program which pays a substantial return?

7. Does this company enable you to put 2nd tier, or even more sales people under you who can in turn sell (and make you even more commissions)?

8. Does this company put out regular helpful marketing material which helps you get these offers out to people who are looking for this solution?

9. Does this company offer substantial training to help you succeed in selling their program?

10. Does this company take care of product delivery and returns? Has effective online presence and converting landing pages?

Those 10 points will tell you everything about whether that company is a fly-by-night scene, or will give you effective return on your investment of both time and money. Obviously, we don't want to get into something which will tie up either time or money which we can't get a decent return out of.

(One scam I was suckered into had a fee of about 1/4 year's salary, and some 20 hours a week going through their training - and when it failed, they would say you didn't put enough time and effort into it. Not "their fault" you failed. Actual success rate was around 1 in 10,000...)

Just to keep a regular job you are already putting more than 40 hours in - not counting commutes, which is a sizable hidden drain on your take-home pay just in fuel prices alone.  Having a regular job is often the worst example of how something cannot be leveraged, isn't something you'd recruit other people to join, and isn't something you'd want to do for the rest of your life.

I've found maybe 6 product lines which are effective and rank highly on this scale above.

Company	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Shaklee - health supplements	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
SiteBuildIt! - site building, online marketing	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Synnd - social media marketing	*	*	*		*	*	*		*	*
Silva Life Systems - meditation and clearing	*	*	*		*	*	*			*
Peak Potentials - Millionaire Mind Intensive	*	*	*			*		*	*	*
Magnetic Sponsoring - network marketing training	*	*	*				*	*	*	*

The results:

10 stars - Shaklee, SiteBuildIt!
8 stars - Synnd
7 stars - Silva Life Systems, Peak Potentials, Magnetic Sponsoring


This doesn't say these are the last word in affiliate products you can try. This does give you a sensible 10-point approach to figuring out which ones are the best. Practically, you can find affiliate programs in almost every product line. Just type in [product line phrase] and then the word "affiliate" after it. The checklist above helps you with finding programs which are more than just "making money online". 

They give you the chance to find real products which you can enjoy putting content online to promote - because you are helping people improve their lives with every purchase. In some of these, just reading the materials alone can give them a life-changing experience. And really good programs, in my experience, offer substantial free material which shows their value and excites interest in purchasing the full product.

Additional note is that the best affiliate programs have a substantial library of data you can use to educate yourself on how to promote, how to convert leads, how to keep yourself enthusiastic - lots of free training. Because their success is based on how well you succeed...
 

- - - -

Assignment:

1. Go over the evergreen product lines above - with a modern popular (or tabloid) magazine to hand (or study the ads on TV or in Internet sidebars for awhile). Which do you find represented?

2. Visit http://www.affiliateseeking.com/ and search around for various affiliate products. Note those which have multi-tier affiliate structures as well as those with continuing payments. Do some rough calculations to see how many sales of what you would need to make your own income goals.

Freebie:

This week it's Inside the Mind of Winners - a nice little inspirational essay collection which should be a nice reference to come back to now and again. (Or even offer as a giveaway on your own site...)

Day 06 - Sales, Funnels, and Human Nature

Today we are reviewing Section IV of An Online Sunshine Plan.

It's titled "Your Sales Funnel", but you might as well call it human nature.

And an additional ebook you should be familiar with is "Get Your Self Scam Free". 

Because what we are doing with sales is using the built-in foibles which pretty much all humankind has already programmed in. And "Scam Free" was written after I got very interested in how I was duped into a scam. Interestingly, that research allowed me to get out from under and help several others get their own money back as well. (Even though I told these scammers exactly what I was doing - they wouldn't believe it until it cost them far more...)

You simply take the data in that book and reverse it to find out how something like 99.99997% of this population works.

And of course, I was introduced to this by studying how to write "sales pages".

This data in OSP starts about page 187. And you'll see how Cialdini and Maslow were used in "Scam Free". Too simple, though.

Sales pages are just one style of writing, though. In a couple of days, I'll go over the others and how they differ - so stay tuned.

Sales Funnels

Whoever thought this term up should probably be shot. It's not all that accurate. (See page 184 as to why.)

But the general concept is that you have not just a single product to offer your new customers. Regular income is built on having a string of products which anyone can buy, so they continue to give you valuables in exchange for their trust in your on-going valuable offers.

And (though I'll go over this point in a few days in more detail) you should be investing in product lines which are consumables, or have regular service payments. All this other stuff about "income on autopilot" is a bunch of hooey. You want to deliver value and continue delivering value. You want leads to turn into clients and so your cost-per-lead drops considerably, since you don't have to spend a great deal in finding new customers in order to make your extra income goals.

The article on "Adding Value" (page 193-200) is quite interesting from this view.

You'll see from what you've covered before this, that I've changed some views on things. However, the base of this is still straight.

Mostly, this is pretty pat stuff when you review it from the data above.  So I'll leave you to this study.

I do recommend you check out the free or one-time payment for Market Samurai. Their ability search for affiliate programs is quite good. And you can tell what would be a good match and value you can deliver that supports your purpose - or simply more Internet Marketing Sleaze.

Another entertaining set of sales pages and an opt-in email series is found with "Magnetic Sponsoring". It's really worth the study. And for only about $30, you can get into their affiliate scene, where you get even more info on how their system works from an insider's view.

- - - -

Freebie today is another ebook by Michel Campbell - "Nothing but 'Net". I think you'll find his style refreshingly honest, plus you get some insider history of the early Internet. And some good ideas on how to build your own business these days.

Assignment is as above - check out some various products and services you might be interested in offering. And sign up for some newsletters so  you can study their sales funnel. (Just put your credit card well out of reach - like in another room or with someone you trust.)

Tomorrow, we'll be covering Search Engines - their supposed care and feeding...