The Three Horsemen of Affiliate Marketer Death!
The folks at Noble Samurai (NB) have been pontificating upon the reasons for why SO MANY affiliates fail to not only make a profit but fail outright. Now, while I think the below key failure points are resoundingly obvious, NB is right to point it out because when we THINK we are on a hot trail the best of us can forget to remain calm, be rational, and above all, be objective. They cite three key reasons why affiliates fail:
1. Targeting low traffic keywords
—Why would you target a low traffic keyword? Perhaps you were carried away by your interest in the subject and a hope that you can make it work. Perhaps so, but you will perhaps have a wait of YEARS to get the traffic you need. And then what? Will there also be profitability with the traffic?
2. No commercial value to keywords
—The second reason revolves around something more insidious than simple numbers. Its easy to be seduced by the mongol hordes of traffic! God, what I wouldn't give to have a million unique visits to my site every month., But so what if I did? Does high traffic necessarily equate to a high commercial factor, to extreme profitability? The short answer is "no." Sorry Charlie. But as NB points out, lots of traffic doesn't always mean big sales. When the novice affiliate marketer confuses traffic with profitability, s/he risks disaster or at least disappointment.
3. Fighting the losing battle
—This is SOOO obvious you wonder why we fall for it. The truth is, at least in my case, that its greed. Again and again people are seduced by mongol traffic no matter how stiff the competition may be. But an added complication is that the profitability is often obvious and we start to lick our collective chops in scintillating averice 
Imagine a long tail keyword such as "alternative insurance for classic automobiles." Further imagine Mongol traffic and high profitability. Well, hey, lets just whip up a handy guide on the subject, advertise on Adwords (so Adwords key for anything insurance is high but you wont have to advertise for long, right?), and next thing you know you'll have traffic pouring over the ramparts!
Not. Nope. Sorry. Do you REALLY want to compete against the likes of "Geico," "State Farm,"or even "Esurance" for that matter? Do you honestly think you are going to steal away a profitable keyword from multiple companies that have access to their own indigenous advertising divisions? Really? Pick battles you can win. Pick keywords below the radar of these industry titans. Believe me, you can compete within large industries..but you are not going to control "Insurance" on Adwords! As if… 
Cheers from the otherside of the screen!
Filed under Competition, Keyword Profitability, Market Research, Traffic, keyword Research by on Oct 19th, 2009. 
Market Samurai by Noble Samurai is the latest keyword research tool. But to say it's just a keyword tool is like saying Ella Macpherson is just a model!
I have used both Micro Niche Finder and Keyword Elite 2 research tools. They are both excellent tools and are certainly worth consideration in your tool buying strategy. But much like last year's model Mustang, this year's release leaves me salavating. Market Samurai is the current king of the hill!
Rather than me running my mouth I suggest you view the video and judge for yourself. One word, I AM NOT an affiliate of Market Samurai because they don't yet have a program. When they finally set a program up, I will be in line! Go! Now! Buy Market Samurai before your competition smacks you upside the head!
Filed under Keyword Elite 2, Market Research Tools, Market Samurai, Micro Niche Finder, News by on Oct 18th, 2009.
Hi everyone!
Do you have a subscriber list? If so, do you make money from it? YOU SHOULD!
If your site is generating traffic (visitors), especially if it has a high count of new unique visitors, you should be farming those visitors for their email address. By providing them a free guide or lesson, they are more motivated to part with their email address. Once you have 100s or 1000s of these addresses you can use them to advertise your new products (either of your own creation or of another). Imagine email marketing a product for 20 dollars to a mailing list of 1000 people. If you sell to 1 percent or just 10 people on that list you make 200 dollars! And for virtually no money spent on your part.
How is this done? With an Autoresponder!
Autoresponders make email marketing a snap. Essentially, every time a visitor lands on your site, an offer to give them something free pops up and they then give you their email address. The autoresponder provides or directs the download of the free gift and catalogs the email address. SIMPLE!
There are several companies that offer this service. Among the best and one used by Internet Marketing's giants is "Getresponse.com" See the link below and the top 15 ways to build your subsciber list.
Do it well and do it soon…or lose valuable sales and money in your pocket!
Grow your business with GetResponse Email Marketing: http://www.getresponse.com/index/Dean-MAS
Top 15 Ways to Build Your Subscriber List
Email marketing can be profitable for any business, no matter what kind of product or service you are selling. It is significantly cheaper than other advertising methods and it helps build credibility with your subscribers. As a result, you can generate more sales and profits.
The foundation for successful email marketing is a targeted, responsive and permission-based email list. If you have a list of subscribers that trust you and consider you an expert, you've completed the first step and are on your way!
Below you will several list-building ideas that will help you make the most of your email marketing efforts:
- Provide useful, relevant and unique content. Your visitors will not give you their email addresses just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be useful to your subscribers.
- Add a subscription form to every page of your website. Make sure it stands out so it is easy to find. If appropriate, you can also include it in more than one place. For instance, your opt-in form might always appear in the top-left corner of your site, while you also include an opt-in at the bottom of some of your popular articles.
- Make it easy for your reader to sign up. The more information you request, the fewer people will opt-in. In most cases, a name and an email address should suffice. If it's not necessary, don't include it here. (Note: If you don't have a Privacy Policy, put the words "privacy policy generator" into a search engine and you should be able to find a suitable form for your readers to review.
- Publish a Privacy Policy. Let your readers know that they can be confident you will not share their information with others. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Privacy Policy web page and provide the link to it below your opt-in form.
- Show your first issue or other sample to your visitors. This lets potential subscribers review your newsletter before they sign up to determine if it is something they'd be interested in.
- Archive past newsletter issues. A "library" of past newsletters is both appealing and useful to visitors and builds your credibility as an authority. In addition, if your articles are written with good SEO techniques in mind, they can send additional traffic to your web site through good search engine positioning.
- Contact other newsletter publishers. Introduce yourself and explore ways you may be able to help each other. Perhaps you can introduce other publisher's newsletters or print articles they have written to your list, with a link to sign up. When you contact them, be sure to tell them why you think THEIR readers would like what you have to offer and why YOUR readers would benefit from their newsletters. This is a win-win scenario; both of you will build your lists faster!
- Give away bonuses subscribers can use. Create an opt-in bonus for joining your subscriber list. You can write an ebook or PDF report, or even hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. But don't limit yourself to only a gift for new opt-ins. Remind your readers that the next bonus is coming soon. People hate to miss out on things. If you systematically pass on "goodies" throughout the year, your subscribers are unlikely to leave.
- Ask your subscribers to pass it on. Word of mouth is a powerful viral technique that works great with email marketing. If your subscribers find the content you share with them to be informative, they will pass your newsletter on to their friends. This can be a good source of new subscribers.
- Let others reprint your newsletter as long as the content is not modified. Many webmasters and newsletter publishers are actively looking for high-quality content and, if they reprint your newsletter, you will get new subscribers, traffic and links pointing to your site.
- Include a "Sign Up" button in the newsletter. If you are using plain text instead of HTML, provide a text link to your subscription page. You may feel that this is not required because the subscriber is already on your list, but remember that readers will forward your newsletters to others, or reprint it online. You want to make it easy for them to subscribe.
- Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page has one goal − to get an opt-in and build your list. Think of it like a mini-sales letter for your subscription or opt-in bonus. It features a powerful headline and a couple of very important benefits that should make subscribers salivate to sign up to your list. Once created, use a service such as WordTracker to find hundreds of targeted keywords, and advertise there using pay-per-click advertising from Google, MSN and Yahoo.
- Include testimonials on your squeeze page. This is crucial. Put 1 or 2 strong testimonials from satisfied subscribers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video social proof) is more "believable". To increase that believability, include full names, locations and/or urls; don't use "Bob K, FL" as a testimonial name.
- Blog religiously. Blogging is a great way to communicate with your potential customers, and it creates a nice synergy with your email marketing. Be sure to include your newsletter sign-up form on each page of your blog. You can start a free blog at Blogger or Wordpress.
- Post on other blogs. Post great comments and information on similar blogs with a link to your squeeze or opt-in page. Also comment on others' blogs through trackbacks. In most cases, your comments will be posted on their blogs with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers.
Filed under Auto Responders, Email Marketing, subscriber list by on Oct 15th, 2009.
