Donna Knight's Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews

Category: Articles

Articles by Donna Knight

  • Ten Ways To Maximize Affiliate Income

    Ten Ways To Maximize Affiliate Income
    By Donna Knight

    Any business, online or offline, that doesn’t require an initial cash investment, is a win-win situation. That’s what makes affiliate programs so enticing. An affiliate program allows the affiliate marketer to act as a middleman between the consumer and the merchant. When the affiliate marketer refers a successful sale, they earn a commission. These percentages can add up to a substantial amount of money.

    If you spend enough time in internet marketing circles, you’ll find many individuals who were able to give up their day jobs because of success in affiliate marketing. This was made possible when the amount they earned in affiliate commissions far exceeded their job income.

    If you want to enter the potentially lucrative world of affiliate marketing, there are some things you need to know. You definitely won’t achieve success if you go about it in a haphazard way. Here are ten tips to help you maximize your affiliate commissions and profits.

    1. Focus on a particular area of interest or niche market. One mistake I see many affiliates make is they try to sell products that cater to wildly different target markets. It’s better to concentrate on one specific field and study its’ advantages and disadvantages compared to other niches. For example, if you choose dogs as an area of interest, research to find the places where dog lovers hang out online. Then look for an affiliate program that offers products which cater to their desires.

    2. Choose an affiliate program wisely. Your goal is to choose the most profitable affiliate programs. Stick with higher commissions whenever possible. Promote products people actually want. Additionally, you should also consider the credibility and reliability of the company offering the affiliate program. Do they actually pay, and on time? Are their products worth selling? Read the terms of the affiliate program very carefully before agreeing to them.

    3. Build a content-filled laser-targeted site. You will primarily sell the affiliate products in your mailing list. But if your site does not attract many visitors, sales conversion is virtually impossible. Create a site that focuses on the market you are targeting; Fill it with rich, informative content that people love to read.

    4. Promote your site. If you believe the line “build it and they will come” applies to your website, you’re in for a rude awakening. People will not automatically know about your site just because it’s there. The way people find out about your site is when you advertise it on and off the internet. Submit it to search engines, exchange links with high traffic sites, and promote it in online forums and discussion groups. Tell your friends about it. Get business cards made to promote it. You have to spread the word about your site because no one else will do it for you.

    5. Promote the product. Once a consistent flow of visitors starts, it’s time to promote your favorite affiliate product. This is usually done through a sales page on your site. A sales page is an article full of praises for the product. Things like “it changed my life,” “the secret that they don’t want you to know,” “be a millionaire in one week,” and such are typical for sales pages. But they work. Hire a professional copywriter to write sales copy for you.

    6. Don’t be anonymous. You’ll find many people trying to conduct business in anonymity on the internet, but this is a mistake. People would rather deal with a name they know, rather than a username or YourDomain.com Support. Give your real name. You could choose to keep your contact information undisclosed or use a P.O. Box address, however, until you are sure you’re dealing with a trustworthy party.

    7. Build a network. Befriend other affiliate marketers. Share information about the best deals, the most effective strategies, and perhaps, even some lists of potential buyers. By referring others, you could end up with referrals yourself, even from competitors. There is enough wealth to go around. You can get much further in your success by knowing the right people than by trying to do everything on your own. Anyone you meet could end up helping you out in the future when you need them. Networking online is just as beneficial as networking offline.

    8. Build a list. It’s all well and good if you get visitors and you make some sales, but what about the future. One way to ensure future sales is to make repeat visitors and repeat customers. You do this by building a list. Always encourage your visitors to sign up for your mailing list. A lost sale and a lost visitor who joins your list could become a future sale and a repeat visitor.

    9. Hide your affiliate links. This is not a matter of being sneaky. It’s a matter of increasing your affiliate marketing sales. Your affiliate link ( also known as your referral link) is how you make your commissions so it’s very important to do anything you can to increase the number of people who click on it.

    You can use services such as shorturl.com to shorten and hide it. You can run a script on your site that helps you hide it or you can use an affiliate software program that helps you mask your link. There are multiple choices, but using your bare affiliate link is usually not the best choice. This makes you vulnerable to affiliate hijacking. That means that people will go straight to the main site, such as http://whatevermerchant.com, instead of http://whatevermerchant.com/?aff=you. The painful result is that you will lose a sale.

    10. Multiple streams of affiliate income. While you don’t want to join a bunch of unrelated affiliate programs, you do want to create multiple sources of affiliate income. Join multiple programs so that if a target prospect is not interested in one product you’re introducing them to, they might be interested in another related product.

    One solution is to join an affiliate merchant network such as http://www.linkshare.com or http://cj.com. These are two of the most popular merchant networks. Not only are there hundreds of affiliate programs but there are lots of related affiliate programs in networks like this.

    Joining affiliate programs is free, so there is no risk involved as long as you remember to stay focused in your marketing efforts and choose the affiliate programs wisely.

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    Donna Knight is a Website Promotion Specialist and Website Builder. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. Visit her Internet Marketing Tools blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.name
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    Copyright (C)2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • How To Profit From RSS

    By Donna Knight

    Would you believe an 18 year old girl earned $4000 for the month of March. That may sound like hype for some business opportunity, but in fact, it’s a true story. Would you like to know her secret? Of course you would. I’ll tell you in two words.

    Google AdSense.

    That’s right. She made four thousand smackeroos by slapping some AdSense code on a site that got lots of visitors. Okay, there’s a little more to it than that. First she chose a subject with ravenous fans, Final Fantasy. She was also fortunate enough to be one of the few fans of the series who had the talent to make a beautiful online shrine for people who shared her passion. Most importantly, she took advantage of a time where you can build a site that gets enough visitors so that Google AdSense can be the key to untold riches.

    Fortunately for you, we’re still living in a time where there are plenty more riches to be reaped from the AdSense goldmine. If you want to know more about what you need to do to position yourself to get some of that AdSense gold, read on.

    Increasing website traffic is always the first priority for internet marketers. More visitors means greater chances for a sale. Sales is a numbers game. With AdSense, more visitors means more clicks which means more money. Does that make sense?

    AdSense, however, won’t do you any good if you have no traffic. The rest of this article will focus on how to boost your traffic. Read on. One way to increase your website traffic is through maximizing search engine positioning. Being on the first page of the search engine results will do wonders to increase your chances of getting scores of unique website visitors.

    The million-dollar question is how do you get your website on that first page of the search engine results page (also called the SERP). Part of the solution is to choose the right keywords to use in your site. These keywords would be the words that searchers type into the search engine box, which then show a list of related websites. The better your keyword choices, the greater your chance of getting a higher search engine position. However, choosing the right keywords is only the first step in search engine optimization.

    Here’s a little known secret the gurus don’t want you to know: Search engine spiders are the little programs which actually grab information from your site which will be integrated into the search engines. These spiders love websites with constantly changing content. The more you update your site, the more the spiders will come back to visit your site and spider it.

    The problem is that manually updating your site constantly would be so tedious that even if you thought you really could make a lot of money as a result of doing it, you would eventually lose your motivation. Your goal is an internet marketer is always to save time by automating as many of your tasks as possible.

    That’s where RSS enters the picture. The definition of RSS is Really Simple Syndication. It is a standard for publishing constant updates to a website. RSS technology lets web publishers send out news and updates, called feeds, which visitors can quickly and conveniently read with a program called an RSS reader. RSS now has more uses than it ever was intended for.

    1. RSS allows you to easily and quickly send messages to your target audience, whether they are customers or your mailing list subscribers. Do you have a new promotion to send out an ad for? Do you have new information for your readers to ponder? Have you added new products to your product line that you want your past buyers to consider? Syndicate it! Gone are the days when your only choice was to wait until new information arrived in the mail. RSS feeds are delivered immediately as soon as the user comes online.

    2. The true power of RSS is best realized with a blog. Blogs were originally created to serve as online journals, but leave it to smart internet marketers to find more uses, most importantly how to monetize them.

      3. Blogs are much easier to update than a website, therefore making it very easy to add new content every day. It’s all automated. Write, publish, and voila!, new content! The best part is that your blog updates can also be syndicated as RSS feeds. The benefit are twofold. 1) It saves time and 2) it makes search engine spiders love your constantly updated site as well as your other sites where RSS feeds originate.

    3. RSS is a free web promotion method, so you don’t need any expensive programs to take advantage of it. Blogs are free as well. RSS is still a new technology which means if you start taking advantage now you will be head and shoulders above any competition.

    RSS will expose more people to your site and make search engine spiders frequent visitors to your site. As a result, you will get more visitors. More visitors means more potential sales. The girl with the Final Fantasy site is proof of that. To boost your online present, taking advantage of RSS is a must.

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    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free eBooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.
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  • How to Write Expert Online Sales Copy

    How To Write Expert Online Sales Copy

    By Donna Knight

    Try to win the love of a man by wearing a pretty dress, and you’re in for a major heartbreak. Likewise, try to get a sale by posting just a product description and picture, and you’ll get your heart broken every time. Winning a man’s heart and winning a customer’s trust requires the same process, salesmanship. With winning the one you love, unconscious salesmanship may work; he may like you for characteristics you never knew were lovable. In selling a product, however, passive salesmanship won’t work. You have to consciously take steps to win over a customer.

    The painful truth is products don’t sell themselves, no matter how good they are. You, the marketer, have to tell the prospect why they need your product. You must convince them of why they will love your product. You have to let them know they must buy now or they will miss out on an opportunity they may never have again.

    While selling products online and offline have some similarities, there are some major differences you need to know. Online you don’t have the benefit of your potential customers seeing your trustworthy face and winning smile. People are much more resistant to parting with their hard-earned money to a faceless stranger or company.

    Copywriting is the key to making a sale online and offline. The sooner you take this to heart, the sooner you’ll be making more sales than your little heart ever thought possible. Most people think the product is the most important element to getting a sale. The fact is even a mediocre product can sell boatloads with great sales copy backing it up. Good sales copy can convert an undecided prospect into a successful sale.

    If you try to write sales copy on your own, without knowing anything about copywriting, you will fail miserably. All it takes is one word to win or lose a customer. That’s why many business owners willingly fork over $10,000 to an expert copywriter just to write one sales letter. They know that winning sales copy will earn them their investment back in no time.

    If you don’t have hundreds of dollars to hire a copywriter, don’t worry. All is not lost. You can learn to write sales copy that sells. You just need to know some proven direct response copywriting rules.

      Here is a step-by-step formula for writing killer sales copy to increase your conversion rate:

    1. Write an attention grabbing headline. There are 3 parts to a winning headline:
         A.   A line that sets up the main headline.
         B.   The main headline, using the biggest font you’ll use in your entire sales copy. Preferably it should be in a different color and in bold text. Most expert copywriters swear by red as a color that draws the most attention to the headline. Blue is another color frequently used by copywriters. It must be readable, i.e. no lilac.
         C.   A line that elaborates on your main headline.

      2. Here is an example of a headline that uses this method:

      Would you like a website that will make you money even while you sleep?

      “FINALLY! A FULLY AUTOMATED WEBSITE THAT WILL HAVE YOU READY TO MAKE SALES IN ONLY 7 DAYS. DON’T TRY TO BUILD A BUSINESS OFFLINE THAT FAST. YOU CAN’T!”

      Take Orders and Deliver the Product Without Even Touching Your Website!

    2. Write an introduction that your readers can relate to. The most effective way to do this is to write about a problem that your target market has. Examples include baldness, acne, or lack of money.
    3. Tell them why they should trust you. Tell them who you are and what are your relevant accomplishments. This helps establish your credibility and trustworthiness. Most people are wary of buying online. This section helps put a face on your product.
    4. Now tell them about your product. The mistake many people make is they talk about the product before they explain what problem the product will solve and why they should buy from you. Internet users hate sales pitches. If you mention a product right from the start, they’ll be onto the next site so fast it will make your head spin.
    5. Let them know why your product is effective. Here are two ways:
         A.   List statistics with sources related to the need for your product.
         B.   Show testimonials from satisfied customers who have already bought your product. To make testimonials most convincing, include:
           i. The customer’s full name
           ii.  City and state or their website URL

    6. List the features of your product. Don’t use technical jargon. Don’t always assume someone looking to buy your product is familiar with the technical terms associated with it. You can lose a customer just by using words they don’t know, no matter how badly they need your product.
    7. Describe the benefits of your product. While all of these steps are important, this is one of the most important sections of the sales letter. This is usually where the sale is made.
    8. Add valuable and unique bonuses. Tell the value of each bonus. Bonuses make customers feel like their getting way more for their money. They might even feel like they’re stealing from you. Some people will even buy the product just to get the bonuses.
    9. Give them a reason to buy now. Ways to do this include:
         A.   Threaten a future price increase
         B.   Tell them bonuses are available for a limited time only

    Whether you’re getting 100 visitors a day or 10,000, traffic will do you no good if you don’t know how to convert the visitor into a sale. I’ve had customers literally begging to buy a product that was not even available for sale just because of copy I wrote telling them what the product would do for them. Using these simple rules, you too can transform disinterested website browsers into customers who crave your product.

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    Donna Knight is a Website Promotion Specialist who has sold everything from digital products, including ebooks and software, to hard goods such as computers and medical transcription equipment. For more tips to help you sell your product or service, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.
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  • How To Start Your Own Teleseminar Business

    By Donna Knight

    15 years ago there were only two ways to learn a new subject. You could go to a trade school, college or adult education school. Or you could study a book on the subject on your own. If you didn’t have time to travel back and forth to school, especially after a long hard day of work, the first method was too time-consuming. If you weren’t very disciplined, learning by book wasn’t right for you either.

    With all the technological advances in the last decade, including but not limited to the internet, you now have a bevy of ways to learn something new. In addition, you can now learn more subjects than ever before. One cutting edge way to get an education or even teach others is via teleseminars.

    Teleseminars are classes that allow a room full of people to learn over the telephone. What’s more, each teleseminar attendee can attend without leaving the comfort of their own home. You can even stay in your pajamas! How it works is that each participants is given a phone number to dial at a specific time. This allows them to listen to and even speak to the teleseminar holder and others attending. Teleseminars usually last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. If you’re looking for a business to start, this is a great business you can run right from home.

    There are also classes called webinars which are more of a website-based classroom. The disadvantage of webinars over teleseminars is that they require technical savvy both from the person who holds the webinar and from the attendees. With teleseminars, the only equipment attendees need is a telephone. Everyone knows how to use one of those, right?

    Starting your own teleseminar business does have some requirements. Here’s what you need to know to start your own teleseminar business:

    1. You must have access to a teleseminar system that will allow multiple parties to connect via a single line. There are lots of companies offering this service that you can search for online.

    2. You need a subject that people would love to learn about. Examples of popular topics include starting a business, making money online, offline marketing, as well as highly specialized skills that require expert knowledge, such as taking care of pets or plants.

    3. You should prepare an outline of all your lessons ahead of time. This outline will allow you to practice the teleseminar and determine how long it will take, how many individual sessions it would require, and how much time per session.

    4. You must prepare each lesson beforehand. You can list everything you want to discuss. Make sure it is interesting and easy to understand over the phone. Remember that attendees don’t have the benefit of visual material as they would in a classroom. There are two alternatives though. You could mail handouts to attendees before the teleseminar starts. Alternatively, you could direct attendees to a website, where there are links to different graphics to illustrate your points.

    5. You don’t have to be the expert on the subject of the teleseminars. You could simply interview others who are well-known experts in your chosen field. You could even have the interviews pre-recorded and then use the teleseminar to discuss them and answer questions. Attendees will like it more if the teleseminars are interactive.

    6. You will need to determine how to price your teleseminar series. The answer is simple: The price should be what you think the information is worth. Using the internet, you can look for eBooks or classes on the subject and see what their pricing is.

    7. Like any business venture, you will need to advertise your teleseminar in order to gain attendees. You can market both online and offline and you should. If possible, advertise in places where your target market is most likely to be. For example, if your teleseminar is related to children, pass out flyers at a PTA meeting or little league game. Make enrollment as easy as possible for attendees. If you make it difficult, potential attendees won’t sign up even if they’re dying to learn what you can teach simply because they’re turned off by the sign-up process. The easiest sign up process would be a simple opt-in form on a website.

    8. Integrate a simple payment process that accepts multiple forms of payment. I recommend PayPal (http://www.paypal.com ) or ClickBank (http://www.clickbank.net ) both of which I have used extensively. Both allow you to accept echecks from people who don’t have a credit card. Both are secure payment systems using encryption so that credit card information can’t be viewed by hackers.

    9. Decide if you want to conduct each teleseminar live or by playing a recording. A live teleseminar will allow for interaction with students having the ability to ask questions and discuss the subject further. Interactivity is an added value that will allow you to charge more for the teleseminar. If you are insecure about your speaking abilities, you may not want to do it live. Besides, you can ask students to send in their questions ahead of time and then record the answers when recording the teleseminar.

    10. When it’s time to go live, be sure to start on time. If you’re charging a high price for your seminar, that’s all the more reason attendees will expect you to be a professional in the delivery of your teleseminar.

    11. You must have a good quality phone. A cordless phone or cellphone may be convenient but the sound quality isn’t good enough for a teleseminar. For maximum comfort, you might want to try a headset with a good quality microphone that plugs into the phone. Your neck will thank you!

    That’s not all. There’s more than one way to make money from your teleseminars. You could record the teleseminar with a recording device that hooks onto the telephone and convert it into mp3 format. You can find this device at Radio Shack. You can sell the mp3 files as a download. You could have the whole teleseminar transcribed and sell the transcriptions along with the mp3 recording at a higher price. You can print out the teleseminar into a book and sell it offline as a printed course. You can charge even more for this course than for the previous options. You can include mp3 recordings of the teleseminar on CD or DVD.

    Teleseminars allow you to get into the information product business using a device everyone has, the telephone! You can start doing teleseminars as a part-time business, and if you get really good at it, it can become profitable enough to become a full-time profession.
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    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.

  • Finding a Niche Using Expert Keyword Research Tactics

    By Donna Knight

    In online business, it may seem like the world is your marketplace, but it is also true that the world is your competition. As a result you still have to choose your target market carefully.

    One way to narrow down your potential market to maximize your profitability is to choose a business that caters to a special niche. The definition of a niche market is a smaller segment of the population that has special desires or needs. The best niche may be overlooked by the vast majority of marketers, and as a result there is much less competition. As a result of this neglect by most marketers, niche markets have the potential to be vastly more profitable than an overexploited market with too much competition.

    If you choose your niche wisely, you could end up being the only source for a ravenously hungry market that makes repeat purchases. That’s the best situation for a business to be in.
    With that said, you may be asking, “Okay, so how exactly do I choose a good niche?” I’m glad you asked!. Here are 8 expert keyword research tips for finding a niche to sell a product or service to:

    1. Take inventory. Know what abilities you have and what products you have that may service a niche. You may not be in a good position to cater to a niche that requires a large expenditure of money or specialized knowledge that you don’t have. Write down a list of things you are good at. Your past job descriptions are a good place to start to get ideas. Even extracurricular activities such as coaching a baseball team can be included on this list. You should also write a list of products you already have resell rights to.

    2. Split niches into subniches. Once you have a list of some specific niches you want to pursue, narrow them down even further by listing subniches in those niches. The more general a market is, the more likely it is to be saturated. Smaller marketers have a greater chance of having a higher demand and lower supply, which makes for greater potential profit. If you’re having difficulty finding smaller subniches, use free keyword research tools such as the Overture keyword tool at http://www.inventory.overture.com and http://www.nichebot.com . Simply do a search of a keyword relevant to your target market, and these tools will list related keywords. This is an excellent way to discover untapped niches.

    3. Find a hungry audience. It’s very important to find a niche where there are enough searches to make it profitable. Using the previously mentioned tools, make a record of how many searches there are. A high number of searches (such as 100,000) indicates a strong demand. If there are fewer than 100 searches, that might be too small a niche. However, keep in mind that is only one search engine. There may be more searches on other search engines. Specifically, however many searches there are on Overture for that keyword, Google will have many more since it is a more popular search engine.

    4. Check out the competition. Your next step is to get a feel for how much competition there is in that niche. Manually search multiple search engines for the keywords for your chosen niche and note how many results there are. Also try using Metasearch engines such as http://www.dogpile.com and http://www.mamma.com . Nichebot.com tells you how much competition there is on Google and Wordtracker.

    5. Compare demand vs supply. Compare the number of competing websites (look at the number of search results, which is usually at the top of the page) with the number of searches made. The greater the difference between the two numbers, the less potential profit. For example, if there are 100 searches for a keyword and 10 million search results, this indicates too much competition, especially for such a small audience. If there are 100,000 searches and 10,000 results, this is more promising. If there are less results than there are searches for a keyword, you may have struck gold! For example, if there are 10,000 searches for a keyword, and only 10 results in the search engine, this could signal a potential windfall of profits.

    6. Check your knowledge base. If you’re like me, you may already have a bunch of unread eBooks sitting on your computer. Check out niche marketing eBooks and special reports that provide valuable tips and tactics on finding a good niche. You’ll find a lot of repetitious material, but you could still find some valuable nuggets of information. Paid eBooks are more likely to have valuable information than free ones, so you should focus on these first.

    7. Check niche lists. Although these are not as common as eBooks, there are niche lists prepared by successful marketers. Some people make a living by doing the “dirty work,” of finding potentially profitable niches. Even with one of these lists, you still want to follow the previous steps to confirm the potential profit of any niche. However, a niche list will save you time, especially you have no idea where to start.

    8. Mix and match. You may be able to combine related niches as your target market because your product or service may cater to more than one related market. In your keyword research you may have found several subniches that show 100 searches. If you combine 5 of these subniches, that may be a large enough audience to make it profitable.

    By now you realize, online prospects are not the easy targets some internet marketing experts might want you to think they are. But if you choose your target market carefully, because of a larger potential customer base, you can have an online business more successful than you ever could imagine in the offline world.
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    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.
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  • Are You Down with the Clowns?

    Intro by Donna Knight
    This is an article from controversial internet marketer Jo Han Mok. His copywriting style is a lot like Gary Halbert’s. It’s raw, tough-talking and sometimes funny. If you’ve been in internet marketing circles long enough, you’ll recognize the clowns he’s talking about. Don’t let his somewhat offensive manner of speaking keep you from taking his main message to heart though. He’s right. The most successful people online (and off) really do exhibit the behavior he mentions. The clowns may seem successful for a little while then they suddenly disappear, never to be heard from again. For more information, read on:

    >From the desk of Jo Han Mok
    9/13/2005
    MEMO: Sales Avalanche

    Hi Donna,

    I think you’ll find today’s email rather interesting.

    You see…

    I often get lots of subscribers asking me how it is
    possible for me to consistently get such startling
    reponse rates.

    This is usually the case after they have done some JV
    with a supposed big name marketer claiming to have a
    billion people on his opt in list, and the clown pulls
    in only 3 sales.

    SO the big question is, how do you not fall into the
    trap of becoming a ‘clown’ like our friend above?

    Here are a few pointers.

    Power Pointer #1: It’s NOT the size

    Despite what women say, size has nothing to do with
    it. I don’t care how many people you have on your
    list. I rather have a list of a 1000 people who have
    spent at least $97 than a list of 3 billion people who
    have not spent a dime with me.

    Power Pointer #2: Give MORE value

    Majority of Internet Marketers fall into this
    category. Every email is a pitch. Buy this, then buy
    that. Let me promote anything under the sun. Doesn’t
    matter if it’s garbage, as long as I get my
    commissions. It’s easy to tell when a marketer is
    desperate. Usually you’ll get a flurry of emails that
    will telegraph something like “Hey you know I sent you
    an email yesterday to buy widget X. Guess what? Here’s
    widget Y and it’s better than Widget X”

    It’s everything or anything. Some thrashy fire sale,
    some crap software, the newest niche formula, blah
    blah.

    Leave this to the amateurs. Probably aside from
    sending emails to their list, they have no other means
    of making dough online.

    Don’t, for the love of mother mary fall into this
    trap.

    I’ve been there and done that when I started out. The
    money is crap.

    If you wanna squeeze MAXIMUM profits from your list,
    you gotta give. Give more, and learn to ‘hold out’
    from all that pitching.

    If you’re skeptical try it. Give nothing but your very
    best content for 4 weeks straight and throw in a pitch
    on the 5th, see what happens.

    Most probbaly, people will already be BEGGING you to
    sell them something in the 3rd week.

    Power Pointer #3: Focus

    If you want to make the most number of sales you
    possibly can, do it the PRO way and focus.

    Concentrate on ONE product, and have a CONGRUENT
    message.

    Marketing bozos on the other hand will have a ‘buffet
    spread’ of 72 hour specials alongside with an exlusive
    ‘buy my ebook and you get my mother as well’ type of
    offer.

    When people are confused, they DOn’T buy.

    If you get a poor response intially, try to ‘tweak’
    your offer and your marketing mechanisms and see what
    happens.

    Very often, it could be due to one or more variables
    that you can ‘fix’. For instance, it could be the
    ‘look’ of the piece, the ‘qualifiers’ in the copy, the
    price point yada yada. It could be anything, but
    unless you test and monitor your results, you wouldn’t
    know.

    And last but not least, don’t imitate.

    DARE to be different.

    If you have your own unique spin on things, do it.

    Screw those who don’t like you, and go with your
    heart.

    You can stand your ground and you don’t need anyone
    else’s permission.

    I’ll give you an example.

    Most ‘bozo’ marketers online are followers.

    They see a ‘fire sale’, they come up with a ‘fire
    sale’.

    They see a ‘source code blowout’, they come up with a
    ‘blowout’.

    They see a ‘Private lable package’, they come up with
    a ‘Private Label Package’.

    They see a ‘Content Publishing system’, they come up
    with a ‘Content Publishing System’.

    Yet if you look at them and ask yourself what they
    ‘REALLY’ do, there’s only one answer. They’re anything
    and everything that makes money.

    That’s cool, but where’s your business longevity?

    Where’s your ‘identity’?

    Where’s your ‘brand’?

    How are people EVER gonna relate to you?

    I hope all this is making sense to you.

    It’s a long email laced with sarcasm and some dark
    humor but I’ve been keeping this stuff to myself for
    far too long.

    Time for you to know, and if you dig what I had to
    say, do every marketer on this planet a favor and
    forward it to any other marketers you know.

    The ‘little guy’ CAN succeed!

    Jo Han Mok
    Midas Touch Marketing

    P.s. Don’t take my word for it though. Just look
    through the emails you get in your inbox and see
    if what I said is true.

    P.P.S. You have full permission to reprint this
    article as long as you credit it to me ok? : – )

  • How to Start a Profitable Business on eBay

    By Donna Knight

    Unless you’re new to the internet, you already know that eBay is the most popular online auction site. Here’s how it works: Sellers get potential buyers to bid on an item, with the highest bidder buying the product for the price he or she offered.

    Like all successful sites, eBay started out as a simple site created by Pierre Omidyar for his girlfriend Pam (who is now his wife) to help her find other Pez dispenser collectors in the Bay area. Now this site is a billion dollar industry.

    Why should you care about Pierre’s success? Because Pierre is not the first or the last person who will become a success with eBay. Many people have quit their jobs by selling on eBay. Likewise many businesses have found untold riches on eBay.

    First thing you need to do is open a seller’s account in eBay. You will be asked for verifiable personal information so eBay can make sure you are not a criminal trying to scam people. This information will allow them to catch you if you are. Let’s assume you’re not a scammer though.

    Next step is to choose what payment methods you will accept from buyers.
    Most important is choosing what item you want to sell and how much you want to sell it for.
    Once you’ve chosen what item you want to sell, get your camera and take a picture of it. Upload the picture to the site and decide on the starting bid. Then sit back and relax. Let the bidding begin. If you’ve chosen your product wisely, people will be fighting to bid on it.

    Many people have found financial freedom on eBay. I’ve personally spoken to people who left high-paying jobs because their eBay business become so successful that they couldn’t do both. And why would they want to, when their eBay sales were more profitable? If you could choose to be your own boss, work your own hours from the comfort of your own home, wouldn’t you?

    One thing you must know is that these people hit the jackpot with eBay because they are trustworthy sellers, and that is essential in making buyers come back for more.

    Another ingredient for a successful eBay business, which I’ve already mentioned, is choosing the right product to sell. You don’t have to be the first to sell it, but you do have to sell an item that has few enough sellers to keep the demand high and keep it profitable.

    Some sellers set up online stores on eBay so that they can offer buyers a variety of products to choose from.
    There are almost no limitations on what you can sell on eBay, as long as it’s something that’s legal to sell. You can sell items like wedding dresses and all kinds of clothing, furniture, books, jewelry, and electronics, and lots more. Many items you might have difficulty selling offline do just fine on eBay, such as antiques and eccentric items.

    In fact, eBay has a ‘Weird Stuff” category in its items-for-sale directory and that category is subdivided into ‘Slightly Unusual,’ ‘Real Weird,’ and ‘Totally Bizarre.’ You can’t imagine just how eccentric and unusual the items being sold under these categories are. You should take a look for yourself. You won’t believe it.

    Let’s say you don’t want to sell weird items but still can’t think of an item to sell. Take a look around your home and see what you can get rid of. eBay is the ultimate proof that one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. You probably won’t get thousands of dollars from your trash, but then again you never know. You’ll certainly get more than you would by throwing it away if it’s any good. Sometimes even broken items can be sold for the parts.

    There once was a seller who thought no one would bid for his broken transistor radio, but he decided to put it up for auction anyways. He was shocked when an engineering student bought it. When the seller asked the student why he bought it, the student said he wanted to learn about repairing electronic gadgets.

    Here’s another crazy story: Jay Leno from The Tonight Show confirmed that someone actually paid for a Doritos chip shaped like a Pope’s hat for a thousand dollars. That’s not the first or the last time food shaped like a religious symbol has commanded seemingly ridiculous amounts of money.

    Now that you know how to get started and understand that you can sell almost anything, there’s no reason not to. Whether you’re an individual who wants to make some extra money or a business owner who is already selling a product offline, there is literally money waiting to be made on eBay. All you have to do is get started today.
    =============================================
    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
    =============================================
    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • Why You Need an Opt-in List and How to Get One Fast

    By Donna Knight

    If you want to expose as many people as possible to your products or services, you need traffic. But sometimes traffic alone is not enough. A visitor may not choose to buy from you today. Once a visitor leaves your site, however, chances are they’ll be gone for good. End of story. But wait…what if you could get them to purchase your goods or hire your services tomorrow?

    That is exactly why you need an opt-in list. An opt-in list is a way to capture leads so that you can follow up with visitors who otherwise would never come back. If you follow up enough times, some of those who opt in will buy from you eventually.

    First, let’s discuss what an opt-in list is. It is the online equivalent of a mailing list. It is a database of names and email addresses of website visitors who have chosen or opted to subscribe to your list so that they may receive emails from you, the mailing list owner.

    To grow a sizeable opt-in list, you need to entice people to sign up by offering them something they want or need. Examples of what you can offer include:
    • A highly informative ezine or newsletter that you publish regularly, for example, weekly, biweekly or monthly.
    • A free downloadable digital product like an eBook, a special report, templates, or a software program.
    • A free service such as email accounts, web hosting or an email reminder service.

    Among these free offers, an ezine is by far the most popular among subscribers, and the most effective for the business owner. With an ezine, the business owner can continuously do follow-ups offering educational content mixed with sales messages. Your newsletter can have ads that you sell other advertisers, ads for your own products or affiliate links to products that you earn commissions for.

    Permission from the subscriber is essential for an opt-in list. This ensures that the subscriber won’t delete your emails immediately as spam.

    Here are some steps to help you build an opt-in list in the shortest amount of time:

    • Choose your target market and know what they want like the back of your hand. Opt-in lists are vehicles mostly for follow-ups. Following up won’t do you any good if you don’t know how to connect with your prospects so that you can address their problems in a way that’s most profitable for them and ultimately you. Remember, the ultimate goal is to sell them something. You can’t continuously sell prospects if you know nothing about them and what they want.

    • Send personalized emails. Referring to your subscribers by their name goes a long way in building their trust.

    • Build traffic to your website. You can’t get subscribers if you have no visitors. The traffic must be a sufficient volume since not every visitor will become a subscriber.

    Here are some ways to get more visitors which will lead to more subscribers:

    1. Using search engine optimization tactics like selecting keywords corresponding to what your prospects are searching for, incorporating these keywords into your website, frequently updating your website code, and, if necessary, using Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine campaigns.

    2. Article marketing, by writing some articles relevant to the subject of your business, submitting them to free articles directories on the web, and including a resource box that contains a link to your site.

    3. Link exchanges and ad exchanges

    4. Advertising methods often overlooked, including forum marketing, buying ads in other ezines, and even offline advertising.

    • Make your opt-in offer irresistible. It’s hard to be objective, but when crafting your offer, ask yourself, is this something I would sign up for as a consumer. Look at newsletters you’ve joined and figure what made you want to sign up.

    • Co-opt lists. There are services that let you exchange leads with other webmasters. The result is an increase in subscribers to all newsletters involved.

    • Build relationships. Though follow-ups are usually done through pre-set autoresponder email messages, you should send some individualized emails occasionally. This will make subscribers feel special because it gives them the impression that you’re sincere in your desire to cater to their needs.

    If you ask many successful online businesses what contributed the most to their success, most will tell you their opt-in list. Therefore, if you want your business to be sustainable online, you must have an opt-in list. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling your own product or services, or making money with resale rights or affiliate programs; an opt-in list will boost your business. Now that you’ve read this article, you know exactly what you need to do to get started.
    =============================================
    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
    =============================================
    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • How To Market Your Offline Business Online

    By Donna Knight

    The disadvantage of an offline business compared to an online business is the limited marketplace. There are multiple factors that need to be perfect to guarantee your business success. One factor is the limited geographic area that will be the potential audience for your goods or services. Another factor is the limited number of places to advertise. In addition, to give your products or service the exposure they need usually requires a sizeable financial investment.

    In the past decade, all this has changed. On the internet, the whole world can be your market. Marketing and promotion can be done at the speed of electrons at little or no cost. All this has changed with the advent of the Internet. When you do pay to advertise, your advertising dollars can stretch a lot further with online marketing

    It’s no secret that the Internet has become a breeding place for unknown millionaires. These are the people who have established new online businesses that became wildly successful empires. Despite their success, you won’t see them on T.V., doing the rounds on The Tonight Show or David Letterman. These entrepreneurs are perfectly happy to keep their success to themselves while enjoying a life of abundance beyond their wildest dreams.

    If you have an offline business, right now you may be thinking, “that’s good for them but how will it benefit me?” The good news is that the internet can provide the same benefits for offline businesses. In fact, if you’re smart, you’ll position yourself on the internet now before your competition does and leaves you eating their dust.

    Here are some things you need to know to start marketing your offline business online:
    1. You need a website. A website will be like an online version of your shop where you can display your products or announce your services. You can also choose to perform transactions or make sales on your website. You can accept orders and pre-orders by using forms and online payment processors.

    2. You need a secure payment method to accept payments online. 63% of consumers worldwide are still hesitant to use their credit card or checks online. Your payment pages can be secure by using Secure Sockets Layers (SSL), which protects data transmissions over the web by encrypting or encoding the data so that it can’t be read if intercepted by a hacker.

    3. You also need to learn how to drive traffic to your site. This is not that difficult though. Traffic refers to the number of people who visit your website. The more people who see your site, the more exposure your products or services receive. Therefore, making more sales may require getting more people to come to your site. Making sales is always a numbers game, both online and offline. Here are some proven ways to increase traffic to your site:

    A. Optimize your site for the search engines. A good 80% of traffic comes from search engines queries. If your website gets a high position in the search engine results, you will get more visitors. Search engine optimization tactics include keyword research and integration, content creation, and submission of your site to as many high-traffic search engines as possible.

    B. Exchange links with other similar but non-competing sites, but also try to get one-way links to your site. One-way links are links where they link to you, but you don’t link back. Search engines frown on obviously intentional reciprocal linking. If you get links from completely unrelated sites, these may be poor quality links.

    C. Advertise on other sites by using banners.

    D. Try pay-per-click advertising, such as Overture or Google AdWords.

    4. You also have to establish a way to keep past visitors. This can be done using a good autoresponder service or by regularly sending out an Ezine. Ezines are electronic newsletters that provide valuable information for your subscribers. By offering them something worth their time, you will gain trust, which could result in future sales.

    5. Consider viral marketing, which is the online equivalent of word of mouth advertising. Here’s how it works: distribute a useful and desirable product for free. This is usually in the form of an eBook or a special report on a subject of interest and importance to your target market. Add links to your product or website to this Ebook. Allow your readers to freely distribute it to their friends and family by giving them giveaway rights. An advanced technique is to give them resale rights to this viral product, allowing them to keep 100% of the profits for any sales. This would guarantee an exponential spread of the viral product, resulting in a similar exponential growth of your site’s traffic.

    These days putting your offline business online is so cheap, that you have nothing to lose by trying it. You don’t need a major investment, and the risks are usually negligible. The key is to start now, and you will find that there are endless possibilities for your business online.
    =============================================
    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
    =============================================
    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • Create Your Own Online Marketing “TV” Station

    Here’s an interesting article from Jim Edwards about the start of the convergence of the internet and television. If this is really going to happen, it’s definitely in very early stages, but it’s always a good idea for online marketers to be on the lookout for new marketing media.

    -Donna Knight

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    Create Your Own Online Marketing “TV” Station

    – by Jim Edwards

    © Jim Edwards – All Rights reserved
    http://www.thenetreporter.com
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    It will happen! TV and the Internet will eventually merge into one giant multi-media “melting pot” that includes everything from live footage and old reruns to garage videos posted by your next door neighbor’s kid. Just like cable TV fractured network TV, the Internet will enable everyone with a voice, a video camera, and something to say to fracture cable TV even more. But the real TV revolution on the Internet will only happen when marketers stop trying to copy TV, with its commercials and outdated modes of revenue generation, and start copying the “pay-per-view” and “infomercial” models.

    One company at TVexe.com has started offering television broadcasts from around the world via Internet streaming. The free software (with optional one-time $25 upgrade) allows you to stream TV feeds from around the world to your desktop through a broadband connection. The picture rates a “C+” on the quality side, but, just like Internet telephony 6 years ago, you can expect the quality to improve quickly. If they can keep costs down long enough to figure out how to make money, this company will likely succeed because they provide programming that’s virtually impossible to get anywhere else.

    But, for the rest of us “mortals” who want to stream our images, video, and audio across the Web, trying to provide “live TV” broadcasts spells the kiss of death in both time and money. For the vast majority of companies doing business online, it will prove virtually impossible to get a meaningful number of people to show up to a website at “8:00 P.M. Eastern” for tonight’s live “TV” broadcast. But what will work online is adopting the “pay-per-view” model found in hotels where you watch the program you want, when you want. Offering website visitors video content they can download, start, stop, play, pause, and view on their own schedule holds the key to online “TV” success. I hate to make this overly simplistic, but bottom line: an effective online “TV Station” only needs a basic website and the ability to allow “viewers” to download or stream video files.

    All of us get two basic options when it comes to creating content to deliver from our “TV Station” website. First, you can do “screen capture” video, which combines video of the action taking place on your computer screen with your voice as narration, to create excellent instructional content. You then allow viewers to download this “TV program” from your website either free or for a free. Two programs enable you to do this quickly and easily: “Screen Cam Generator” from http://www.ScreenCamSoftware.com and “Camtasia” from http://www.TechSmith.com.

    Your second option involves using full-motion video, either from a web-cam or a camcorder. The content most easily gets published online either as a WMV file (Windows Media Video) played with Microsoft’s Media Player, or FLV file (Flash Video) played with the free Flash “plug-in” found in most Web browsers.

    Regardless of which option you choose, remember: unlike traditional TV, successful models of “TV-style” content online will empower the viewer to watch when and where they choose.

    —
    Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the
    creator of an amazing course that will teach you step-by-
    step and click-by-click how to finally create your own
    money-making mini-sites…

    -=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    “Finally! A Quick and Easy Way For YOU to Painlessly Set Up
    Your OWN Moneymaking ‘Mini’ Websites… Without Being a
    Computer Geek, Buying Expensive Software, or Paying
    Outrageous Fees To A Webmaster!”

    Click Here => http://www.MiniSiteCreator.com