So I was thinking today about how much time I waste on the internet.
And really, I think I do fairly well.
When there is serious work to be done I hold off from reading pointless stuff.
But like most everyone, It's not that hard to get distracted and then notice an hour has gone by with nothing to show for it.
I bet I spend at least an hour per day though looking at stupid videos, whining forum posts, Digg.com, reddit.com, blogs, etc, etc.
So I just made a file called TODO.html
Here I have listed all the projects I am working on with bullet points on what needs to be done.
When I finish one, I'll delete it, so I can stay on track.
Starting today, instead of having "google.com" as my home page on firefox, I'll be using my TODO.html.
Everytime I think about screwing off, I'll be faced with what I SHOULD be doing.
Also might try some online solutions like: http://www.tadalist.com/
But I like the idea of having it on my local drive where it loads instantaneously, can be edited quickly, and I can choose the design layout (simple as hell with no links or clutter).
So I'm in a mastermind group with fellow dudes from Georgia, Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins.
A couple days ago, I posted that I got a press copy of Stomping the Search Engines 2.
Point blank:
This stuff is WHITE HOT.
I've learned more new stuff the last 3 days than I have the last three months.
Now, that said... I used to SUCK at SEO.
And I've had some people help me with it AND I researched it a ton.
The problem was, I never had any STEP BY STEP instructions.
...Someone to literally sitting me down and say "Hey Trey. Do this. Ok. Now... Uh... Do this. Good".
Well this does exactly that. And for the first time I'm proud to say I actually do "get it".
Anyways, when Andy sent this to me last week, I didn't know what he was charging.
I knew he was doing a launch soon with something really cheap (well... free), but I didn't know this was it.
Honestly, I love Andy and Brad, but they are fools letting this go so cheap (I think I'm allowed to say it, but the 45+ videos are going to be free for anyone who get's there Stompernet Magazine subscription... Andy, if I'm not supposed to say this yet then please email and I'll remove).
Then uploaded their sales page software to all the software sites out there?
I've seen something similar done with articles, but not the sales page. This would be pretty damn cool, especially if people were looking for software about your niche on download.com or similar sites.
AND - I bet you'd rank high for "YOURNICHE software" keywords in google.
There is even a service out there that will post your software up on the top 1156biggest software sites for only $70.
Definitely don't go here and get them to send copies of your sales page all over the net. And DEFINITELY don't put your domain in the description that they put on these 1156 sites ;)
So after good ol' cousin Frank's successful launch, I decided to do a video optin and a continuity launch for one of my niches.
This was a niche where I haven't given much free content too. And honestly, I haven't written a NEW email or done any special promotions for in about 2 years.
Anyways, some quick results:
1. I had a 38% optin rate on video multiple video optins. The videos were about 4 minutes long, gave good content, then told them about the membership that was launching. I also told them they needed to sign up to get on the "priority list". Everyone on the priority list would be emailed a secret link one hour before everyone else on launch day.
2. I shot 4 videos and did an 8 day launch. On the days I didn't have a video, I would email them to make sure they saw previous videos, and tell them about what video was coming next.
I used a regular sales letter (no video) for the launch day. Did a 13.8% conversion rate on launch day. Not bad! Also, this was NOT forced continuity. It was a $90/month subscription.
After about 4 days, the total converison rate ended up at 8%. Again, I'm thouroughly pleased... I wish I would have gotten more traffic, but the list was SUPER cold. No new optins in over 6 months.
The cool thing is, the HIGHEST optin rate I ever got in this niche was 18% through a name squeeze.
So the video optin was over 200% better than the traditional name squeeze.
Do you sell affiliate products on clickbank? This will make you money:
1. Goto clickbank, click on reporting.
2. Download the past three months data. This will include customer email addresses.
3. Goto icontact.com and sign up with them. Great service with awesome deliverabilty. AND they let you upload emails.
4. Upload your clickbank email addresses, and broadcast them an affiliate offer.
5. Should make you a mint... and you can get easier than that.
Also:
Make sure you are downloading your clickbank activity every three months.
They delete the data after a 3 month period...
(The reason this rocks so hard, is you can send emails to your AFFILITE customer list, not just your regular customer list).
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NOTE: I have no clue how this works with CAN-SPAM or iContacts TOS. Just had the idea and thought it was cool ;) So you might want to look into that first...
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NOTE 2: Some of you were wondering how I have used this.
Well, here is the "white hat" way I've used it in the past (and what made me think about this, I didn't get the idea from the warrior forum).
Let's say I have a list in aweber about Product A.
I find a product on clickbank, that isn't EXACTLY the same, but I think my market might be interested in it.
I'll email the Product A list, and send them an affiliate link to Product B.
Then, I goto clickbank, download the customers who bought Product B, and add upload them to a new list devoted just to "Product B".
Then find other products that I might be able to sell the Product B list... rinse and repeat.
This is the "white hat" version, because I already have permission to email the people who bought Product A.
Well, if I have time. If not today, then in the next week for sure.
Obviously we're seeing more video in the IM market. Video sales pages, Video optins, etc.
I haven't seen this QUITE as much in the niche markets, but I can tell you this is where it's heading.
People typically follow the Guru's moves in there own niches. (hence getting 1,000 emails with the subject "Bad News" two days ago)
And for good reason. Obviously this stuff is tested to hell and back and it plain works.
So here's what I'm thinking for my next niche project:
1. Main page has nothing but a video of me talking with a survey under it. In the video, I explain how I will tell them EXACTLY (with another video) how to fix there problem, I just need some specific details first to make sure I understand everything.
2. I'll keep the survey short, and obviously get there email address. Shoot 5-8 short videos explaining exactly how they can fix there problem (without giving away the "golden ticket"). Shoot one more video that is a closing sales letter. Mend the closing sales letter to each of the 5-8 short videos, so you have a custom sales letter for every possible option. This is your sales page.
3. Put a link to purchase below.
4. Everytime you email them, of course you send them to the same video explaining there exact problem.
Now here's the cool stuff:
You can get Eben Pagan's Psychic Sales Letter software to do most of the scripting. It was not meant for videos, so you might have to do some editing... but if you don't have this you should get it anyway:
If this DOES convert, then you can make it into a SYSTEM, and repeat it fairly easily.
Think about it:
If Google likes it (and you can always add some KEYWORD RICH CONTENT between a <nocode> </nocode> portion of your html), then all you have to do is sit down and record 30-45 minutes of video, edit it, and upload it to your server.
The final purchase link could be a "ninja clickbank link" so you dont' have to build your own product.
See how to do that here if you're not sure what I'm talking about:
So once you have your SYSTEM down, you can setup totally unique and targeted video campaigns in probably under 2 hours from beginning to finish.
I think this would TOTALLY stick out from everyone else advertising a niche.
For example, if you were doing the Fat Loss Niche.
You could have a survey about how much they weigh, and how much they want to lose.
If they weigh over 500 pounds, and want to lose over 50 pounds, you could have a video that says "Ok, well it looks like your health is in danger. And honestly, I can show you how to lose MUCH more weight that your expecting. You need to set your goals higher, and I'm about to show you how to do it".
If they weigh under 200 pounds and want to lose under 10 pounds, your video could say "Ok, it looks like your weight isn't yet TOO out of control. But you need to really watch it. I can definitely help you lose 10 pounds and it will be easier than you think... BUT ... you need to make sure you get on this now before it gets out of control".
Then of course, they would BOTH get the same "long form video sales pitch" after the initial breakdown of the report.
Anyways, when I get some time I'll try this out. Let me know if you've seen this done anywhere else (if not I'm taking credit!)
Been super busy lately getting ready for a launch in one of my niches, then immediately after that Frank and I are launching infomillionaire.com.
(Nothing to look at there yet).
Anyways, I do have some cool stuff to share though. So thanks to Bryan on twitter for reminding me to post something (http://twitter.com/bryantompkins)
Ok, so I've always had pretty good luck with optin rates.
Usually around 20%... in one niche I had 30%, but that was quite a rarity.
I knew Frank was killing it with his video optin thing (I don't think he'd mind me sharing the numbers, if your reading this and do, let me know dude). But I think he had around 40-50% optin rate. Maybe better.
I was like... Well isn't that just something.
So since I was working on a new launch for a non-related IM product, I decided to try something similar.
And what is really cool, is I just used camtasia (not even a fancy looking screenvid) and told them about how awesome it was to be me. And how all these people want my stuff (i'm joking, i'm joking... no really I'm not joking).
What's crazy, is I gave away ZERO content.
I was just like "Hey, this is really cool... all these people are emailing me begging me for this cool thing... Here's some examples... I'm thinking about giving you this cool thing that you and everyone wants, so give me your name and email and I'll tell you more about it".
Anyways, it did a freaki'n 40% optin rate.
And unlike Frank has masterfully done with his business, this was a neglected niche that I haven't really shown a ton of great content to or anything.
So ... I think this video optin thing might be the way to go.
I should say two things:
1. This was an UPSELL for a product... people only came from email. So it wasn't cold optins from PPC or anything.
2. But... I had not sent this list any fresh content for over 2 years. And from now on I'll be trying this out on my front end "name squeeze" pages as well.
Speaking of "name squeeze".
I've been looking for the "name squeeze killer" for years now.
Seriously, I literally spent days testing shit trying to beat it, and I simply couldn't.
Sure it was effective, but I never liked how it worked.. never liked that "your email is your password" shit.
Just didn't seem like the best way to build a relationship ;)
"Hey, give me your password ... and .. err.. make it your ... EMAIL! -- Yeh that's it!I ... Thanks! ... Ok, now give me some money".
Well.. I think I just found out the way to crush the name squeeze. Will have to test more on a front end product though :)
So anyways, nothing rather NEW here.
But, the point is this:
If you hear something is doing REALLY well, then DAMNIT, do it right that second in your business.
If you don't it will probably never get done, and just be a nonunique item at the bottom of your nonunique list of stuff you don't want to do ;)
So I have this total love/hate relationship with adwords.
You can make a TON of money from them, and I can personally
vouch for that. But they can also pull
the damn rug out from under you at ANY time.
They could care less about "biting the hand that feeds
them".
I've never heard of another company that you can spend a million a
year with and never get a personal representative. Or even better... spend millions of dollars
with and they kill accounts with no explanation.
But I've seen this happen on multiple occasions with
different people. Scary stuff.
So I had a big account killed this year with them, and it
got me thinking...
What exactly is going on here, I've GOT to be doing
something wrong.
That was "sorta" true.
Truth is, me (and most big marketers I know that use
adwords) have been using CONTENT network to make most of there money.
I got literally 99% of my traffic from Google content
network (spending over a million last year with them).
Their search network was always good quality traffic, but
every since they released the "quality score" system, I couldn't make
them quite… "like me".
Well, I've noticed an unsettling trend the last few
months...
That is:
Content Network Slaps.
What Google is SLOWLY doing is making the content network as
constricted as there search network.
I talk with Google on the phone at LEAST once a week (usually
Yahoo and Microsoft as well.. just to make sure I'm on the right track. Btw, if you don’t have a day job, then you
should be doing this too! You won’t find
NEAR as good info in some course as you will straight from the sources mouth).
If you’ve ever talked to these people, then you know... it’s like
speaking with Lewis Carroll after taking 2 hits of acid.
There is NEVER a definitive answer, and it’s all kind of
hearsay. And they talk in circles half the time.
(You still can pull out nuggets of awesome stuff in these conversations though... hence why I do it weekly).
But, there was one common theme in ALL the conversations that
came up.
Each one said: "It's all about relevancy".
And I actually talked with a freakin' AWESOME guy from
Microsoft Adcenter last week for over an hour about this.
He could tell I knew what I was doing, and he was looking at
some of my successful adwords "content" campaigns I had uploaded into
Microsoft Adcenter.
He was a little confused...
So much shit wasn't relevant.
I explained, I had a killer sales copy.. and I was making a
killing because I could convert this "off center" long tail traffic
from Google’s content network into buying my product.
Point blank: These
keywords make me money. Screw relevancy…
I had HARD figures on my ROI.
Well, he said he didn't care about that... (He was actually
very blunt about it! One reason I really
liked the guy).
They don't care what is making YOU MONEY.
Ironically… they don’t care what’s making you money REGARDLESS
how much money you give THEM.
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are all doing the same thing.
They want CRAZY amounts of relevancy for all your adgroups.
They want there search engine users to be happy… which in
turn gives THEM traffic… which in turn gives YOU traffic.
I have to say, they might be onto something here…
That means (unless you have a team of bad ass programmers)
you need to make custom campaigns, adgroups, ad text, keywords, sales copies,
image links, meta tags, etc, etc, for every campaign.
HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS.
But guess what? Internet marketing isn’t the new spring chicken anymore.
Nope, lots of people know about it and are in the field now.
So to make the “big bucks” you’re going to have to do one of two things:
Out work them.
Out smart them.
Out working them is easy (if you have the time ;).
Just make custom campaigns, adgroups, adtext, keywords,
sales copies, image links, meta tags, etc, etc, for every campaign.
Out smarting them (in my opinion) is much more fun.
Sit back, and think like a systems engineer.
- Look at all the aspects involved.
- Look at all the processes.
- Examine all the possible outcomes.
Make this nonsense into a proven system. Now manually test your system.
If it doesn’t work, figure out where it broke then start it
over.
Once you have your “formula” (which is pretty much the ONLY
thing that you are buying when you purchase IM products… different formulas)
then either outsource someone to repeat that formula or have a software
engineer create a program to automate that formula.
That simple. And I
doubt you’ll find ANYONE making over 300k a year that doesn’t follow this
system.
One more thing.
As I mentioned here… don’t be scared to GO TO THE SOURCE for
information.
You’ll get better info there than anywhere else.
For example, when looking up quality score info today, I
found this post.
Look at the replies. They are from two
people that WORK for adwords.
This is google adwords official newsgroup/forum. Bookmark this ;)
