How to Choose Your Marketing Model And Avoid Being An Unhappy Valentine
Marlon's Marketing Minute
Valentines Edition
How to Choose Your Marketing Model and Avoid
Chasing Rabbits, Dead Ends and False Rainbows
February 13, 2010
10:26 am CST
Hi,
Marlon here.
Today I show you:
Title: How to Choose Your Marketing Model and Avoid Chasing Rabbits,
Dead Ends and False Rainbows (And Avoid Being An Unhappy Valentine)
I think this is a really important issue because you MUST know what
model you're following to avoid getting distracted with a bunch of
junk you don't need to know about or do.
It also wisens you up a bit about sales pitches, so you can be an
educated consumer.
Hey, it's Valentines tomorrow so I wanted to say Happy Valentines to
you, my loyal readers and customers. My present to you is this
week's issue that can help you have the TIME and freedom to spend
with those you love and care about.
It's all about the freedom to live your life the way you want. If
you chase dead ends, you won't get the freedom you crave and you'll
have a VERY unhappy relationship with Internet marketing.
And your NEXT Valentine's day with your Internet marketing career
won't be a happy one. So get smart. Wise up. And read today's
issue so I can put you on the straight and narrow path to your
own personal freedom.
Marlon Sanders
PS: The Writer's Secret WEBINAR Is NEXT WEEK. This is your LAST
chance to get in on it.
PPS: Your Quick Start teleseminar is on the download page along
with a new WHOPPING extra, unannounced 45-page implementation PDF
worth $97. No one else is revealing the info in that PDF.
******************************************
Marlon's Marketing Minute Electronic Newsletter
http://www.promotemarlon.com
Vol. 5, #7, February 13, 2010
******************************************
This issue contains:
A. Sponsor advertisement
B. Announcements from Marlon
C. Main Article: How to Choose Your Marketing
Model and Avoid Chasing Rabbits, Dead Ends and
False Rainbows
D. Resources
Brought to you by: Marlon Sanders, Publisher
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A. Sponsor Advertisement
Discover the “Money Getting” Secret I've used at least
122X since December 3, 1998
Limited Time Bonus Webinar TUESDAY.
Get on the webinar now:
http://www.thewritersecret.com
=============================
B. Announcements from Marlon
=============================
1. Do NOT email us for customer support
Do NOT email us for customer support. We are anxious to
serve you at: http://www.getyoursupport.com
We have LIVE CHAT to serve you better. Most people in this
business skimp on this. I don't. Tim is an award winning
customer service person.
2. ATEAM 2010 is coming
Totally awesome things are ahead for Ateam in January.
Keep your eyes peeled. Also, I'm really behind on posting
the last few webinars. But we're completing revamping the
private site. That is why. You'll love what you see in
Ateam 2010.
I'm CLOSE! I'm installing new affiliate software before I
launch this. So just hang out. I'm revamping all our systems
to making things totally rock for our affiliates. Which also
means a great site for you when it's done.
I have a bunch of my back webinars up now. I'm about to launch
it. Stay tuned. All I lack is some quick start training I have to
create for you.
3. Push Button Letters 10 minute consultations
Some of you purchased Push Button Letters a few weeks ago with a
10 minute consultation. Go to getyoursupport.com and tell Tim you
want to schedule it.
4. The Writer's Secret Quick Start Call
The call is posted on your download page.
5. The Writer's Secret WEBINAR
It's coming on Tuesday. Watch your email. I believe the time is
11 a.m. CST as I recall.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
C. Main Article: How to Choose Your Marketing
Model and Avoid Chasing Rabbits, Dead Ends and
False Rainbows
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you were to look at the inbox on my email account, you'd see a
zillion billion emails from marketers telling you all the things you
need to buy to succeed online.
Whew!
You can't buy all of 'em, read all of 'em or do all of 'em.
What a pickle you have yourself in now! What do you do?
I just keep teaching and preaching the road less taken. Here's how
to avoid dead ends and stay on the straight and narrow path to
online success by focusing on the ONE thing you must do.
Know what model you're following
There are different models for making coin online.
1. The affiliate model
You promote affiliate programs by getting organic search
engine ranking or buying pay-per-click or other types of
ads.
If you DO use affiliate marketing, make SURE you're
building your own list BEFORE you promote affiliate
products. Your list is absolutely key.
— Article marketing is an organic seo (search engine
optimization) play. This is what MOST people do who are on
the affiliate model.
Article marketing DOES work. But it's much better if you
drive your clicks to what we call an email capture or name
squeeze page. That way you can get people on your email
list and follow up.
Just understand that if you're doing article marketing,
it's a play to get traffic from the search engines and
also the article directories you submit to.
The downside of the affiliate model is you're doing the
hard work of getting new customer and putting them into
someone else's funnel. The hardest thing you will EVER do
is get a new customer.
So as an affiliate, you typically do the HARD part and
often make only a 1-time commission for this while the
OTHER person, the merchant, sells product after product to
that new customer and pays you nada.
Now, I have an affiliate program. But we pay on many
back-end or follow up sales and not just the initial sale.
But would you rather be at the top or the bottom of the
food chain? I advocate being at the top where others are
YOUR affiliates.
Understand that a lot of people who advocate the affiliate
model use that approach as a trojan horse to recruit
affiliates for THEIR products.
Nothing wrong with the affiliate model to start with. But
become a producer and promoter as soon as you can.
— Buying ads
Anything that focuses on pay-per-click (ppc) or other
methods of buy advertising is usually an affiliate model.
2. The Web 2.0
For the most part, all the talk you hear about web 2.0
translates into getting higher rankings in Google or the
search engines. So it's an organic seo play.
Web 2.0 sounds like it's some new beast. For the most
part, it's a way to get inbound links to your web sites
with higher authority and trust. There's also the
possibility of getting traffic from the web 2.0 sites
themselves.
You're still either promoting your own products or someone
elses as an affiliate. And if it's the latter, you're
doing the hard part of getting new customers and putting
them into someone else's funnel who will THEN suck out the
lifetime value (that is, a whole bunch of other sales in a
compressed time frame) and pay you zilch on those sales.
I try to play fair by paying backend commissions to my
affiliates.
3. The CPA model
CPA (cost per action) is an affiliate model where you
typically get paid per action like lead generated vs. per
sale.
You're STILL promoting someone else's product vs. your
own.
The challenge with the CPA model is you typically aren't
building a list that has clearcut needs you can sell to
over and over.
What you ARE doing is putting people into someone else's
recurring billing system. MOST CPA offers are built on
recurring billing. With Visa's new crackdown, that will
likely change.
There's nothing wrong with this model. But I prefer an
evergreen model where I build customer equity. In other
words, I build a list of loyal customers with common needs
and desires who buy from me over and over again.
4. The organic seo model
This concept dominates a lot of the affiliate models and a
lot of online marketing talk.
I actually enjoy learning about this model and have a
filipina working on it (I hired her using the gameplan at
outsourceplan.com).
Anyway, the downside of this model is it's SLOW to get
those rankings and requires skill and know how. And the
big thing is, you're subject to Google slaps, whims and
algo changes.
Google can change HOW it ranks sites and overnight your
income can be zapped. OF course, there ARE other search
engines and you can lower your risk by spending part of
your time focusing on those also.
I think seo has a place if you outsource it properly. But
I think it's risky to build your whole business on it.
One of the problems in learning how to do organic seo is
there are so many theories about what works and doesn't.
The main game here is to get inbound links to your
website. But Google changes their mind about what types of
links are acceptable and what aren't.
So you have to always stay on top of the game. And there
is a ton of conflicting information. I've invested a lot
of time and money just boiling the topic down to some
evergreen things you can do that aren't likely to get
zapped by Google.
The other problem with this model is that the amount of
competition for keywords KEEPS increasing! More and more
people keep looking for low competition keywords.
So the competition for low competition keywords keeps
increasing and you have to work harder to maintain
rankings for those “easy” keywords.
This is OK. It's all a game. And with proper effort and
outsourcing it's doable. I wouldn't base my entire
business on it because of the risks involved.
The MAIN thing to know here is when you see people tout
all these huge numbers from an organic seo model, you can
BET there's a whole lot of something going on in the
background. And probably quite a bit more than they let on
about.
5. The PPC model
My friends Joel Peterson and Kirt Christensen totally rock
at this.
PPC is good if you can watch your numbers very closely.
You're spending money so you have to really stay on top of
it.
The risks are similar to organic seo. Google likes to
change the rules as soon as most people figure out WHAT
those rules are!
Which isn't all bad. It weeds out the competition.
You should know that a LOT of the gigantic numbers printed
in sales letters for products about ppc are from selling
things that are very broad market like ringtones.
If the product being promoted isn't revealed in the ad,
this should be a clue.
You'll ALSO find out that a lot of the big success stories
involve products that are either recurring billing or very
large ticket like $3,000. If you can get people on a
webinar and sell something for $3,000, by all means DO IT!
I've never concentrated on verbal selling enough to do
that. I don't like doing it. It's not my cup of tea. Just
understand that anytime you see really large numbers
tossed around, what is actually DONE to make those numbers
usually isn't revealed.
Which is my beef with some of the products sold on the topic. If
you don't show me HOW to do what YOU do but CLAIM you do, then you
didn't play fair.
Is the method fully disclosed? From what I see, a lot of the ppc
stuff never reveals HOW the numbers in the sales letter were
actually generated.
PPC is a pretty complex Game. Still, if you focus on it, you can
do well.
I don't like having my future depend on the whims of Google. Yuk!
I also don't like watching numbers that closely.
But if you're willing to spend 25 g's in a month to bring in 100 g's,
you CAN do it via ppc.
If you DO PPC, you'll probably need automation tools like the
one Joel Peterson showed on the webinar I did with him the other
day.
Very cool tool. I also like buying banner ads as Joel does because
there's a lot less risk of a Google slap than with search.
I'm EXPLORING doing ppc with this software. I need to see if I can
get a process worked up that my oursourcer can use. I don't do this
kind of thing myself but don't mind outsourcing it.
6. The Writer's Secret model
The Writer's Secret is about producing and promoting your OWN products.
And it's about getting traffic via your OWN affiliate program, which
is hands down the best source of traffic in many niches.
Here are a few advantages of the model:
a. Full disclosure
There isn't some deep dark secret you have to join a high-end coaching
program to discover.
b. It's simple, logical and practical
I'm NOT saying anyone can do it. I AM saying it's pretty darned logical
and practical. And it's reasonable to think someone who works at it can
do it.
c. It's evergreen
Nothing about it that's going to “stop working” or “get slapped” tomorrow.
========================
How To Choose Your Model
========================
1. Know what you ARE and are NOT good at
If you're good at spreadsheets and detailed work, ppc is a great
choice for you.
If you're good at routine, sustained effort over an extended period
of time and you're analytical, organic seo may be your cup of tea.
If you're good at writing, creating or talking on video or screen
capture video, the Writer's Secret approach may be for you.
2. Choose a method with full disclosure
Do NOT start using a method where all the secrets aren't revealed
(or available at a cost you can afford) and where you have to spend
$250, $500 or $1,000 a month for coaching to get the REAL scoop.
A lot of systems sound good. But the info product on it is really a
glorified teaser for the coaching program. So the method isn't
actionable to you.
You MUST have an actionable, doable method that does NOT have these
deep dark secrets you don't know that are required for success.
3. Ask yourself if your model matches your abilities
Right now, the idea of video sales pitches is making the rounds.
It's a great method.
Really works.
BUT — if you can't talk, don't like to talk, aren't verbal or
articulate, then save your money.
If you like to write, follow a writer's path.
If you like to talk, then do video products and teleseminars,
webinars or video sales letters to sell your products.
4. See through the fad pitches
When your inbox gets POUNDED with people endorsing a new product or
method, it has LITTLE to do with how great the product or method is
and a LOT to do with how skilled the person was in doing reciprocal
mailings, networking and pulling off a major launch.
It has VERY little to do with the actual value of the product
FOR YOU.
Keep your head screwed on.
5. Once you know your model, focus on your model.
Cut out the noise.
You can't know everything nor do everything.
=======================================================
Marlon Sanders helps people with hopes and dreams figure
out how to turn those into reality by selling stuff on
the Internet. http://www.thewritersecret.com
//////////////////////
REPRINT RIGHTS: You have permission to use the above
article without omission and including the resource box.
You have the right to insert your reseller URL for any
products I mention
=========================
D. Resources you can use
=========================
(If you want to post this ENTIRE ezine, you can replace the
following links with your RESELLER links. Get your links
at http://www.getyourprofits.com)
1. The Marketing Dashboard: Amazing Formula and Gimme
boiled down to icons and step-by-step. Doesn't replace AF
and Gimme but useful. Basically, it spoon feeds all the
things in AF and Gimme. http://www.getitgoing.com
2. The Marketing Diary: Me teaching Matt daily all the
details of the Amazing Formula and Gimme system. This
contains additional insights into The Amazing Formula and
Gimme that you won't find in those products. It's
literally what I taught to Matt in his first 90 days with
me. http://www.themarketingdiary.com
This is an EVERGREEN product and if you're new to this business
you'll learn tons.
3. After 8 years, thousands of customer emails, thousands of
buyers in virtually every major city in the world (and
many you haven't heard of), 13 web site designs, 4 product
designs, after ebook and CD versions, after endorsements
from major marketers the world over, after hundreds of
marketers and products have come and gone, after attacks
by the world's most notorious criminals, after attempts to
put it under, there is ONE product that remains and stands
tall. There is one product that is stable.
http://www.amazingformula.com
4. Are You Paying Over $10.00 For Hosting?
If you are, you may be getting ripped off. Design Dashboard
shows you not only the basics of doing your own design but really
walks you step by step through setting up your hosting,
autoresponders and shopping cart.
http://www.designdashboard.com
5. Promote your own products made easy
Grab the brilliant video by Adeel Chowdhry on how to mash
together stock video, stock sounds and stock music to create
an attention-grabbing, compelling video you can put on your
sales page, Facebook, Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages, or even
Twitter out to your list.
http://www.PromoDashboard.com
6. Your Own Products?
It's the only step-by-step, A to Z system not JUST for
creating info products …. but that shows you HOW to select
product ideas using my “flanking move” I've built my business
on, HOW to do 12-product surveys with an actual example, that
gives you a tested, proven email & source with a 30% success
rate in getting interviews with experts — PLUS, templates
that would cost your more than the Dashboard to have custom
created! http://www.productsdashboard.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
E. Get the Evergreen Traffic System
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tinu emailed and says she has added new info on social media!
Most All Her Domains Got Shut Down, She Can't Get Out Of Bed Some
Days, Her Hands Swell Up Like Balloons, Her Podcast and Video
Hosting Got Shut Down — And She STILL Snagged 3,579 Average
Visits Per Day In April 2008!
http://www.TurboProfits.com/tracking/go.php?c=7_25_tinue
Evergreen Traffic System is now sold and serviced directly by Tinu.
That link there would be a tracking link and NOT an affiliate link.
Tinu's seo stuff is BRILLIANT and evergreen. It STILL works
awesome.
==============================
Copyright 2010 Higher Response Marketing Inc.
All rights reserved.
