For many years I’ve held onto the items you see in the video to act like a comfort blanket. I wanted to believe that I hadn’t wasted my money on them, and one day they would give me the riches they promised.

But as you can see so many are still in the wrapper, and the world has changed so much the information is now useless and they deserve their new home on the tip.

Butterfly Marketing was the only course worth the money, and it was actually software that had some interviews thrown in to give a “thud” value on arrival so it could live up to generating a million dollars in a day. Yes, back in 2006 you could find 1,000 people willing to pay $1,000. Granted most of that was spend on credit, and some will still be paying for it now, but it was a good feeling to be part of what I think was only second every product launch to achieve the magic million mark in the Internet Marketing niche.

Ultimately the point is that I have all the information I needed to make it online, yet I still go out to a job, albeit a well paid and flexible job that’s more of a hobby and allows me to discover new ways to develop potentially life saving drugs.

Spend your money learning how to create value, how to create a website, how to build a list, build up your personal brand, and then sell your own product or service. Don’t be like me and waste thousands looking for magic bullets.

Speak soon where you will see how I’m taking massive action now that I’ve thrown the comfort blanket out.

Andrew

 

So it seems that the subject of launching a site via the traditional JV model has stirred up some controversy.

This post is going to compare this “scummy” Internet Marketing model vs a more sustainable model.

Traditional Model

You pick a date, and then spend all your effort on schmoozing the big list owners and setting up the site to get highest earning per click for the affiliates. On top of that a contest will be in place to give away cool items such as ipads, experience days, and other shiny items.

The reason this model works so well in the world of internet marketing is the “shiny object” syndrome. Every month a new fad appears, currently it’s pintrest, could it be sitizen’s next month?

Your salespage will be set up for maximum hype and use all the pressure tactics such as blind salescopy and playing with emotions by selling hopes and dreams.

Now the trouble with this as a list owner is that you can get carried away with the “hype” and promote because you want the prizes and don’t care how good the “product” is, and if it will actually help your customers out.

With the rise of “churn & burn” marketing I’ve seem plenty of people go from making thousands on that first mailing to then making zero in a few months when profits have been put in front of ethics.

Ultimately the JV model is a cash grab, and it’s no different to the mobile phone market. Big money can be made today, but if you still have stock left once the hype is over then you’ll struggle to shift it.

To make this model work you need to constantly have new products and keep generating that newbie list to prevent the list you worked so hard to create from being burnt.

Community Model

This model works if you still want to sell the same product a year from now.

It’s about getting the people who buy / use your product or service to tell friends about how they’ve used it and what the benefits are. Typically the “salespage” will explain exactly what the product does, who the owner is, and be free of the normal marketing BS you have if you want to attract a “guru” to promote it.

Customer service will be a priority and the owner themselves will want all the users to succeed. Refund rates will be exceptionally low, and if you have a question then generally other members of the site will be ready to help out.

Social media will also be a key feature of these sites, you can form friendships with like minded people in the same niche.

Strike The Perfect Balance

To me it’s important that you focus on your marketing and make sure that the page will convert as well as possible. If you want to be successful you need to attract affiliates who are able to promote your site, so you do need to have ways of attracting the “big fish” who can send you lots of traffic.

As an owner make sure that you spend your advertising dollars in the right place and get to know the people who you want to promote your business. If you’re a traffic exchange owner and want to have the TimTech community help you then spend money with them and buy the tiered badges and take the time to meet the TELive community.

If you want the other “big players” in TE / Safelist Land to promote you then buy login adverts and credit specials then tell the site owner what the conversions were and how much profit they made you. This sort of information will get you onto the radar and show you as a serious business owner not someone after a money grab.

Place banners to their site inside your members area and add a follow-up message to your autoresponder. Integration marketing is the only strategy that works as well today as it did last year.

Be True To Yourself

It’s up to you how ethical you want to be. If you’re happy with “churn & burn” marketing where you only care about the profits you make today that’s cool, but when you mail out next month and make no sales don’t be surprised.

Andrew

So this week’s blog post should have been a list of Killer Resources, but that will have to wait until next week as I’m not organised enough to have planned ahead.

Today’s post is back to a threat headline.

Why Can’t We Trust Internet Marketers

Almost everyone you speak to online can tell you about a product or service they bought that was over priced and under delivered. Perhaps even worse is the fact that many of these people fall foul of the same tactics more than once before finding out that they have been diddled.

The worst thing is that these scumbags actually go out and target people they know are new to the world of Internet Marketing.

What Are The Warning Signs?

Here’s how to tell if someone is trying to abuse your trust.

• Even when you have your credit card in hand all excited you don’t actually know what you’re buying
• When you do buy a product you’re immediately told that you need to buy extra things to make it work better and give you that instant return on investment faster and easier.
• Every email you get from them is trying to sell you something
• You ask support a question and get no answer
• The product is all filler and no actual information. Telling you to promote the product you just bought to make money is not actually a product.
• Google is full of fake reviews and testimonials that have been bough from fiverr

How Can We Find The Good Internet Marketers?

It will take time, but eventually you will do some research and find a product or site such as the warrior forum where someone will take you under their wing and teach you how to create a BS radar and keep you on the straight and narrow.

Even better is when someone takes the time to write blog posts that educate you and teach you how to do things that will result in real sustainable online business.

Hint: By telling you the things above it means that I can no longer send you a copy and paste email to something involving russian programmers and a pintest loophole that will make you a gazillion dollars by the weekend.

Learn From The People Who Actually Have Done It

If someone is selling a blogging product but doesn’t use wordpress themselves then what makes them qualified as a teacher? Like I said in the previous post you need to learn from proven experts.

It’s also worth finding half a dozen or so people you connect with, make friends, and learn together.

Go out and find facebook groups or forums that have the same passion as you, and just have fun learning.

Suddenly the learning means that you’re now able to create content and start your own blog. Then you’re ready to start monetizing the content. If you don’t have real content then you are “faking it” and are no better than the scumbags who are selling hopes and dreams.

 

Recently I’ve been doing some great business over at Fiverr selling my skills around list building and what I think are basic computer tasks but they seem to stop so many people who new to the world of Internet Marketing.

==> http://fiverr.com/andrewstark

I kind of stumbled across fiverr by accident, and for several months I was only making one sale a month of recording and giving advice on people’s existing squeezepages and marketing funnel. Then someone decided to ask me if I was able to install the form rather than record what happened to an existing form. So I agreed, got excellent feedback and added a gig where I offered this service.

Now I’m doing multiple gigs per week installing aweber forms, and some customers are so new to the market they’re joining aweber via my affiliate link which means the lifetime value is much much higher than the intial $5 gig

Very Good Andrew, But What Can I Sell?

The best thing about fiverr is the sheer diversity of things that people are offering. Many will never sell a single gig whilst others will become an overnight success, so what can you sell?

Here’s 2 clues to give you an idea of what to sell.

On the homepage people are actively telling you what they want to buy, talk about low hanging fruit waiting to be picked! Just remember that recording HD quality Big Ben would only be profitable if you already live in London and own a HD camera.

Also you want to look at these categories and see what the “featured” sellers are offering, and work out if you can do the same sort of thing just better and faster. As far as I’m aware these gigs are placed at the top of the rankings by the fiverr staff based on number of sales and feedback, you can’t buy your way to the top like other sites, so this means that this gig is high demand, and the market is ready for a new seller.

Do A Local Search

When I searched for Macclesfield I found someone selling a gig where they send a postcard of the town. If you happen to live somewhere a bit more high end on the tourist scale then this could be a lucrative gig. I also searched for Scotland, again a few postcard gigs, but this time I see people are selling voice over’s where they read a script or record a video. So if you do have a regional accent and are proud of it then you can sell your services.

Have a think about what is unique about your local area, and use this to your advantage. A common gig is to advertise a logo / url, so do you know of somewhere awesome with a background that would make the advert different to what is already being sold?

They also have an entire section dedicated to travel, so write a guide to the wider area where you live. Even if you don’t get any buyers on fiverr you have created a digital product that you can sell elsewhere

Make More Sales

When you’ve sold a couple of gigs it’s time to make that 1 minute video to promote yourself. If you’re selling your accent or a banner gig it’s a sure way to increase conversions.

Depending on what you’re selling it may also be worth linking to your gigs from your blog, signature box on your favourite forums. If you’ve gone local then create business cards and leave them in tourist hotspots, or if you are selling to the IM crowd make a splash page / banner and advertise it as you would an affiliate programme.

So How Do I Get Rich?

The simple answer is that you don’t. Well not directly… You see the whole point of fiverr is to generate a list of customers who are willing and able to pay for products and services online.  When you deliver the information you can attach a document that is essentially just a flier for your other services.

Think of fiverr gigs as the bread and milk of your online business. You have to stock these items to get people to visit your shop, but by having them at the the far end you’re making the customer walk past all your other offerings. Sure most people will just buy the basics, but we are all marketers and it would be rude not to put your special offers and impulse buys in front of the customer.

I hope you find this information useful, doing this sort of thing is different to selling Internet Marketing products, most of the buyers here aren’t full of cynicism and fed up of being sold over hyped crap.

When you get your gig listed let me know and I’ll give it a tweet in recognition of your hard work.

Lastly if you do like to over deliver this is a fantastic gig you can buy at any time.