Free Niche Marketing Videos
December 29, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Free How To Videos
Niche Affiliate Marketing Explained
Finding Good Niche Affiliate Marketing Programs
Learning The Most From A Niche Marketing Ebook
How To Find The Best Niche Marketing Ideas
The Hottest Niche Marketing Strategies Around Revealed!
How To Get Others To Promote You N.O.W.
December 5, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Affiliates, Joint Ventures
See if you can spot the similarity.
What do the following three statements have in common?
1. I can’t do it right now, but maybe later. 2. I’ve already got my mailings scheduled. 3. Let me get back to you.
Got the similarity spotted?
These are all typical responses that most people get when asking partners and affiliates to promote their offers.
Chances are you’ve gotten answers much like these, right?
Don’t despair … there are ways around the barriers of reluctance and passiveness.
Let me share some simple ideas for getting affiliates to take action on your promotions quickly. I use the acronym “N.O.W.” to describe three ways to get others to promote you now…
N - News
In journalism, no one wants to be “scooped” when it comes to newsworthy items. Sharing some big story that another network or publication broke days ago is a big “no-no”. You always want to be first when it comes to getting the word out.
That same philosophy applies to what I’ve labeled “The Principle of First”. The idea is simple: being “first to market” aids in responses. Those who let their contacts know about your news promptly will generate the greatest results. If they wait, someone else will break the news.
So, to apply this principle, you simply need to create some newsworthy buzz that your affiliates and partners can’t pass up on sharing with their network of influence.
**CASE STUDY**
Several months ago I decided that I was going to remove the archives from one of my membership sites. This announcement served as a strong motivator to get my affiliates to promote my site promptly before someone else did. The result was almost 500 new members paying monthly fees!
If you make dramatic changes to your offer, or create some other kind of “story” or “news” that warrants discussion promptly, you’ll find you can get many fence-setters active in promoting you.
O - Occasions
Another great way to motivate affiliates to get active is to use “occasions” that have a real deadline involved.
Some examples include –
* Product launches
* Firesales
* Live events (teleseminars, workshops, etc.)
* Contests
* Special offers
* Limited quantities
This is what might be referred to as “The Principle Of Force”. That is, you MUST promote the offer now or miss out simply because the offer will no longer be valid. You “force” participation.
For example: If you have a 3-day “firesale” set for a specific date, then anyone interested in earning commissions for referring customers to the “firesale” would be “forced” to promote it during your pre-determined timeframe or they’d miss out because the event will end.
My recommendation is that you schedule some kind of “occasion” every quarter. That should give you four significant spikes in your revenue each year, which can be a tremendous boost to your bottom line.
W – Wants
What do your partners and affiliates want? Seriously, stop and think about that for a moment. In fact, go one step further than that and ASK them a simple question…
“What would it take for you to promote this offer this week?”
Make it happen.
I want you to remember the intangibles here: the sales of your initial offer aren’t really all that important. (Don’t freak out, hear what I have to say
It’s building a lead list, an affiliate list and a customer list along with ADDITIONAL offers over time that makes the real money.
Consider this –
Option A:
Miss Ima Guru ignores your request to promote your offer as it currently stands.
Option B:
Miss Ima Guru accepts your modified offer which includes giving her 100% of the revenue she generates. You make nothing off her promotion…but in the process of her promotion she adds 500 new subscribers to your list, 75 new affiliates and 60 new customers.
Which would you rather have?
Whatever it takes to get people to promote your offer now, make it happen.
*** NOTE ***
Now, let me make a simple suggestion here: The deal you make should be directly proportional to the potential results the partner represents.
Some affiliates and partners bring more to the table and should be offered more in order to get them to participate.
That being said, you can get virtually any affiliate to promote you now if you make it worth their while. So, ask them, “what will it take?”
This is what I call “The Principle Of Fear”. That is, a feeling of “This is such a compelling offer, I can’t afford to miss out on this deal.”
All of this adds up to more involvement and participation among your affiliates and partners…
N – News + O – Occasions + W – Wants = ——————- Other people promoting you NOW!
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of the course, “5 Practices Of Highly Profitable Affiliate Programs”. For your free copy, drop by www.MyAffiliateForce.com
Online Business Owners: Avoid These 5 Outsourcing Mistakes
November 22, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Outsourcing Your Biz
For those considering outsourcing in their online business, the goal is to create a more profitable company while streamlining the owner’s work. Taking the time to avoid common outsourcing mistakes will make the process go much smoother and avoid the feeling that you are spinning your wheels and getting nowhere. Or to quote Nicole Dean of www.OutsourceWeekly.com “You must plan your outsourcing wisely. Otherwise, you’re simply throwing money into the wind.”
As with any part of business, outsourcing has its good and bad points, however if you are aware of the potential problems before hand, you increase your chances of an enjoyable experience.
Here are 5 potential outsourcing mistakes every online business owner should be aware of, in order to avoid making them.
1. Not Knowing Who You Are Dealing With
Most business owners who outsource will tell you the biggest benefit of doing so is the fact that their assistants work remotely. The number one problem when it comes to outsourcing, though, is not thoroughly checking out the contractor or company who will be performing the work. Keep in mind that sometimes this independence can work in the opposite direction if not taken seriously. Make it a point to carefully interview the people you are considering working with before assigning a task or project to them. The person or company should be someone you can trust to represent your business.
2. Non-Communication between Owner & Assistant
Whether you are outsourcing tech support, writing, web design or something else, there is a great deal of effort needed in order to keep the lines of communication open. If you allow your workers to do work for you without communicating your goals and what it is that you need, you will find that they your work will not be done as you’d hoped. Assistants are not mind-readers and do need guidance. Take some time to make sure that you and the people you outsource to understand your expectations. This is an important part of making sure that you get what you need.
3. Forgetting to Budget Wisely
In order for outsourcing to work properly, you’ll need to keep a good eye on what you are spending for the work being done. While some projects will require single payments to your assistant, others may involve recurring or retainer payments and you will more than likely have some type of contract or agreement that binds you. Some of your assistants may charge by the hour while others may invoice by project or expect payment based on a commission of some sort. Take the time to figure out how much money you can afford to spend on certain tasks and budget appropriately.
4. Under Utilizing Your Contractor & Their Resources When you choose to outsource certain tasks, make certain you are using your assistant to their fullest capabilities and not just outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing or splitting up work between two assistants when it makes more sense to have one handle both jobs. Sometimes you can find freelancers who are willing to work on a recurring basis or who will complete larger projects at a reduced rate in order to get and keep your business. Don’t be afraid to ask potential contractors if they have room for more than just one or two jobs and don’t outsource something just to say that you’re on the outsourcing wagon.
5. Misunderstanding Your Role as the Outsourcer
As the one doing the outsourcing, you need to understand your role. In order for the relationship between business owner and assistant to flourish, you’ll want to keep the lines of communication not only open, but clear as well. Be detailed in what you expect from your help. Also keep in mind that you are probably not their only client and as much as you would love to have them all to yourself, that probably isn’t the case. Be respectful of their time and give feedback on their work. This will help them do a better job and respect your time in return.
Making yourself aware of possible problems that often occur in the outsourcing relationship now allows your business to grow by leaps and bounds. Don’t be afraid to start your outsourcing journey, especially that you are now better prepared to do so.
Outsource? Of Course! Get started now at www.LearningToOutsource.com
5 Easy to Outsource Tasks for Online Businesses
November 22, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Outsourcing Your Biz
When you are looking to save yourself time and to make sure that your online business is running to the best of its ability, you will find that one of the things that you should look at is outsourcing. You may consider outsourcing to be something that only huge companies do, but you’ll find that online business and outsourcing are a perfect fit. Because online business calls for a wide variety of skills and talents, no one person can or should tackle them all on their own. There are several tasks that can easily and, more importantly, beneficially be outsourced elsewhere. Here are just a few of them.
Writing
For many people, writing is not a strong point in their business. Therefore, putting well written, action provoking content on their website is a difficult task. However, this is NOT an area to be skimped upon when it comes to online business. The content on a website has a direct effect on search engine rankings. Copy that is neglected will show when it comes to a business’ bottom line. If you find it difficult to get the results you are looking for with your writing, consider outsourcing it to a qualified writer. You will find that there are a ton of freelancers who can help you get the content you want, to help generate sales from your visitors.
Recommendation: www.Shelancers.com/directory
Website Design
If you are running an online business, you need to put as much time and effort into your website as you would a brick and mortar store. Getting an attractive, easy to use website is not easy and you will find that there are many professional website designers who are looking to wow you with their expertise. This is something that is well-worth the money spent. You’ll be able to rest assured that your website design is attractive and easy to navigate, which is always a plus for turning visitors into buyers.
Search Engine Optimization
If you run an online business, you already know how important search engine traffic is to your success. In order to rank high for your keywords and phrases, hiring a search engine optimization expert or link-building service will help to put you on the map. Search engine optimization, when done correctly, will increase the traffic to your website and is an easy way to get your business name out there for the entire world to see.
Recommended Service: easyplr.com/vana.htm - Sit back and let this service write blog posts on their network of blogs and link to your websites.
easyplr.com/kings.htm - This new service will create a youtube video about your website, submit your blog to RSS directories, and handle your social media for you, while you focus on other parts of your business.
Customer Support
For those who sell a product, whether it’s candles or ebooks, more than likely you will need customer support. Outsourcing is a great deal easier than putting together a full support staff, training them, and then getting them set up with equipment. When outsourcing customer support, you will be making the most out of your time and ensuring that your customers get the most out of their products.
Blogging
If you’ve been online for any amount of time, you already know that Web 2.0 and all that goes with it are important parts of your business. One way to add value to your business is to create a blog. You can easily find a qualified contractor to help you update the blog and provide ghostwritten blog posts for you. A great way to keep in touch with customers, clients and others interested in your business, outsourcing your blog tasks will keep you from overextending yourself.
Outsourcing is something that every business owner, whether large or small, can do to help make their business more successful. Put the work in the hands of the experts and you can focus on the things that you enjoy and come easier to you.
These are only a few of the many business activities that you can outsource. Check out www.LearningToOutsource.com for a step-by-step guide to get started.
5 Benefits of Outsourcing for Online Business Owners
November 22, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Outsourcing Your Biz
When you are in business for yourself, especially one that is conducted online, you’ll find there are a number of different things for you to learn about that can save you time and make you money. Outsourcing is by far one of the more exciting things to discover and put to use.
All too common is the business owner who feels they have to do everything themselves in order for things to go smoothly in their online venture. This couldn’t be farther from the truth! In case you’re curious about why so many online business owners are singing the praises of outsourcing, keep reading to see just five of the many benefits it can obtain.
More Value for Your Time
When you own an online business, one of the most important things to remember is how much your time is really worth. When you think about the dull or repetitive tasks that you are doing, you’ll find this work is not worth your high per hour price tag! When you outsource, you’ll pay someone else to take care of those responsibilities while you give attention to the more important, money-making projects.
Saving Resources
Think about everything that goes into the tasks that you would outsource. This will range from things like your time and space to costs such as Internet and software. After awhile all of these costs add up. For instance, graphics software can get quite expensive. If you are outsourcing an activity, you get more than just the task itself out of the way. You will also get someone who specializes in areas of your business that you may not know quite as well as or have no desire to learn. More than likely these people will already have the tools needed to complete their assignment. Depending on the project, this might save you money and learning time. This brings me to the next benefit of outsourcing.
Going to the Experts
The tasks you are outsourcing might not be ones that you have no desire to learn about, whether they are troubleshooting, manufacturing, taking orders, website design and maintenance, or something else. By handing the work over to an expert who enjoys and makes it their business to know these things, you’ll be able to take advantage of their knowledge in the area without having to learn it yourself. This in turn will give your customers or clients more than you could possibly give them yourself.
Expand
When you outsource, you will soon realize that you are in a great place when it comes to getting more involved with your business. You will be able to expand and provide everything your customers need. Outsourcing frees you up to try new things with your business, learn more and experience new aspects of your industry.
Accountability
When you outsource, you will have a contract with the person or company you are working with. By having someone else who is depending on work from you, you are more apt to stay ahead of the game by planning better and making sure that you’re tasks are getting completed as well.
When you first begin learning about and implementing outsourcing techniques within your business, you’ll find out those boring or repetitive tasks can easily be handed off to someone who enjoys doing them. This will allow you, as the business’ owner, to free up more time to concentrate on more important aspects of your business such as product creation, advertising, networking and other marketing practices.
These are the things that will help your business to grow even more profitable.
Are you a slave to your Online Business? Break the chains. Check out www.LearningToOutSource.com to find out how!
Affiliate Marketing How To Videos
November 18, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Affiliate Marketing, Free How To Videos
I’ve decided to dedicate this blog post to all the free affiliate marketing videos that I create. Of course I could just leave them on YouTube and make you just accidently find them.
Instead I’ve decided to put them all on one page for you. Bookmark this page, share it with friends, and keep coming back as I update this page…
5 Day Cash Machine - Affiliate Marketing Made Easy
What Is The Best Affiliate Marketing Ebook?
What Is An Affiliate Marketing Directory?
Starting Your Own Affiliate Marketing Business
Looking For A Great Affiliate Internet Marketing Tip?
Getting Started With Affiliate Email Marketing
Examples Of Video Marketing
November 18, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Video Marketing
The other day I decided to do a video to start helping you with video marketing.
Video marketing is VERY powerful, and if you aren’t using it yet, you need to knock yourself in the head, and create a plan to start using it!
I use it to provide free content, to create products, to use as a sales tool, amd much much more.
Okay before I ramble on… Here’s the video…
5 Costly Viral Ebook Mistakes (Or, How To Make Viral Ebooks Work For You)
October 20, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Internet Marketing
If I had only known, I wouldn’t have made these mistakes. But I did.
For such a small word, “if” sure does cause a lot of problems, doesn’t it?
“If I had not turned off the alarm clock, I wouldn’t have overslept.”
“If I had paid attention to what my wife said, I would have not shrunk my 100% cotton shirt three sizes too small.”
“If I would have taken the time to fuel up, my car wouldn’t have run out of gas out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“If I had charged up the battery on my mobile phone, then I would be able to call AAA to bring me some gas out here in the middle of nowhere!”
See what I mean?
“If” is such a tiny word.
But it’s like dynamite. It packs a lot of punch.
For me, as I teach (and learn myself!) about viral eBooks, the phrase is this:
“If I had only known, I wouldn’t have made these mistakes.”
You see, I made MANY costly mistakes in my early viral eBooks. Mistakes that are *literally* costing me thousands of dollars in profits right now.
And there is nothing I can do to change them.
Once you set a viral eBook into motion, it’s impossible to get it back and make corrections to things ya screwed up on.
Man, if I could go back into time and change some things.
I have learned the hard way some things you DON’T want to do with viral ebooks.
That’s what we’re going to take a look at here.
I’ve made ‘em all.
You don’t have to.
Don’t do this…
1. Never use any link inside the content that you can’t control.
I learned the hard way that you should always use redirect links from your own domain when putting any kind of link inside your ebook.
For example: most people insert their affiliate link for an affiliate offer inside the ebook that they have put together. The one that was given to them by the affiliate program owner.
Instead, you want to link to a page at your site that refreshes and redirects the visitor to your assigned affiliate link. Something like this… www.yourdomain.com/brainstorm.html
This is important so you can CHANGE the link anytime you want to in the future.
For example: If I decided to no longer use ClickBank to handle my affiliate program and went with a different affiliate tracking link, what happens to the thousands of copies of your viral eBook that are in place with that old affiliate link in there?
They become obsolete, unusable and unprofitable.
Or, suppose you are linking to a dating service that goes out of business? What now?
Your links are toast. They are worthless to you.
With a redirect link you can easily adjust the target page and send the traffic to a different dating service, or to a page at your site. With a redirect link the changes are made at YOUR SITE, which you remain in control of regardless of what happens with the products and services that you linked to.
Even if you change hosts or servers, you still remain in control.
You don’t have to make changes to all of those eBooks — which would be impossible to do — you simply make a 2 minute change at your site.
I can’t tell you how many dead links are in some of my earlier ebooks that continue to give me headaches as people email me saying, “Jimmy, you’ve got a dead link here … can you give the correct link?”
It creates a lot of extra work in answering emails and certainly is throwing away potential profit for the countless people who never bother to ask for an updated link.
So, never use any link inside the content that you can’t control.
Always use redirect links.
2. Another thing is you want to avoid using dated information by providing too specific details.
Affiliate program A may not be offering that free 30 day trial offer very much longer.
The price for admission to that special site may not always be $29.95.
That site that was “just released last week” may have become an all-time classic by the time Bob reads your viral ebook two years after it was released.
You want to make certain that you stay away from information that is too specific that can easily become irrelevant.
Again, I get emails all the time griping about inconsistent prices because I put a price for the Profits Vault membership into one of my early viral ebooks and that price is no longer valid.
Hasn’t been for almost two years.
I’ve even gotten ugly emails accusing me of fraud and false advertising, with threats to turn me in to the attorney general and all kinds of nonsense.
So, be careful that you don’t date your viral ebook if you can avoid it.
3. Another no-no is to never put any information into your ebook that you don’t want all over the world.
These things travel folks and they can be global in a matter of days and certainly over time you can easily have a worldwide audience.
I made the mistake of putting my cell phone number in one of my earlier ebooks because everyone claimed that if I didn’t have my contact information in there, no one would buy from me… which is nonsense I might add.
Anyway, I started getting all kinds of calls at all hours of the day.
What was 3:00 in the afternoon in the Philippines was 3:00 in the morning where I live.
So, it was a nuisance.
Kind of a funny story came out of it.
I disconnected that number, of course, and got a new one. That was almost 2 years ago.
Well, about a month or so ago I had a lady email me and she was hopping mad.
Apparently, she had ordered a cellular phone and got my old number… and folks were still calling!
She told me that she was getting calls from England and all over looking for me and they were running her cellular bill up with charges.
She wanted me to do something about it and all I could do was tell her “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do”
With viral marketing, it’s pretty much unstoppable, which is why it is so effective. It keeps spreading and it’s hard to stop the growth once it gets going.
So, never put anything into your ebook that you don’t want the world to know and use.
4. Another thing is this … always have your carriers do the branding.
You want to automate the process as much as possible.
Again, I learned the hard way.
Early on, before there were all of these branding tools available, I hand customized each ebook.
And as they began to spread, the customization requests grew to be way too much for me to handle. I was spending most of my day putting together these customized viral ebooks for each new person that requested a copy.
That had to change and so now I use branding tools and branding instructions. I give them to anyone who wants to customize the ebook and I let THEM do the work.
Keeps me out of the loop completely.
So, unless you have some specific reason to do it yourself, place that responsibility onto the ones who want to distribute the viral ebooks.
5. One more thing I want to share. Always launch new browser windows with your links in your ebooks.
Whenever you link to a site within your viral eBook content, always remember to code that link to launch a new browser window when the reader clicks on it. I learned this the hard way. There are many scripts involved in the order-taking process at online credit card processing sites.
And many of those have caused glitches in the eBook due to the software the eBook was created with and it crashes the eBook, making it impossible to order.
So, what happens is this.
You do your job well. The content is great. You’ve got a hungry customer waiting to buy.
They click on a recommended product link. They arrive at the site still inside your eBook window. They click on the order link and the entire thing shuts down. I mean completely shuts down the ebook and website altogether.
And, in some cases, it even crashes the computer. You just lost a customer because two sets of code didn’t like each other.
That has happened to me on MANY different occasions in some of my early ebooks.
Now, all of my links launch new browser windows OUTSIDE of the ebook if you click on a link inside the ebook. All you need to do is insert a simple line of code into your links inside the eBook. The code looks like this…
Target=”Resource Window”
Now when someone clicks on your link, a new browser window will launch outside of the eBook itself before taking them to the website. Now, you’re safe. EVERY link in your eBook should have this code. You can thank me later.
(NOTE: IF you are using a PDF maker for your ebooks, you should be fine with your links.)
Viral eBooks are tremendous tools. But, there are also some pitfalls associated with them.
I’ve just shared five of the mistakes that I have made.
There is just no way of measuring how much profit I have lost over the years due to those errors.
There wasn’t a manual available to tell me how to do it. History hadn’t really been recorded at that time to tell me what to stay away from and what to make sure I did in order to protect myself from problems.
So, you’re getting something that I didn’t have.
Aren’t ya happy?
In all seriousness, don’t make the mistakes that I made.
History doesn’t need to repeat itself on this one.
Want to learn a NEW viral ebook strategy that isn’t outdated and overused? Check out “How To Get Free Traffic With PLR Reports ” by going to www.ThisKicksButt.com/PLRReports You’ll learn a great way to get free traffic to any site you choose with free “private label rights” reports.
What Is Internet Marketing?
October 5, 2008 by Liz Tomey
Filed under Internet Marketing
This part of the blog is going to be basically a “hodge podge” of information about Internet marketing.
All the way from tips and tricks to strategies that we are using to make more sales, build our lists, and anything else that helps make us more money in our business.
Since this is the first post, I wanted to talk a little bit about what Internet marketing is…
The following is from Wikipedia.org
Internet marketing, also referred to as web marketing, online marketing, Internet advertising, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.
The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it refers to digital media such as the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media; however, Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems.
Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing does not simply entail building or promoting a website, nor does it mean placing a banner ad on another website. Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive strategy that synergizes a given company’s business model and sales goals with its website function and appearance, focusing on its target market through proper choice of advertising type, media, and design.
Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies. In 2008 The New York Times working with comScore published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found the potential for collecting upward of 2,500 pieces of data on average per user per month.[1]
This is a pretty good explanation, and you can read more at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing
Now to me, Internet marketing is the means in which I sell my digital products.
Basically I create a product with Internet marketing strategies, and use different Internet marketing strategies to sell it.. Strategies like….
Online market research (This helps me determine what product to create.)
Copywriting (To create a good sales page to sell my product from, and ads to entice people to visit my sales page)
Traffic strategies (There are hundreds of ways to drive traffic. Some of the strategies I use are: article marketing, affiliate marketing, forum marketing, web 2.0 strategies, and more.)
So now you have a little bit of an understanding of Internet marketing. Keep watching this category for more great information!
Liz Tomey


