What Is

Marketing What Is?

This site is dedicated to dispensing trustworthy marketing information, resources and advice with a primary focus on Internet Marketing.

I have earned virtually 100% of my income online since 1998. I've built 100's of websites and I currently own over 60 active websites. I do all of the marketing for these sites and MOST have Google 'Page 1' rankings.

I am going to tell you what has worked best for me, and what hasn't.
I'll also tell you which products and tools I use, and where to get them.

And...I am not here to sell you anything.

Read My Story

What Is Most Important in Marketing?

In a nutshell, traffic and conversions.

Traffic is getting visitors to your website or business.

But not all traffic is created equal. You need the RIGHT TYPE of visitor in order to make conversions. 1,000 visitors who don't convert are worth less than one visitor who does. NEVER, EVER go after untargeted traffic. It's a complete waste of time, money and effort.

Highly targeted traffic usually costs more, but it's well worth the extra cost. So the first step is...

(1) Find a hungry market.

Conversions is when visitors complete a specific action such as making a purchase, joining your mailing list, filling out a form, etc.

A website or business that doesn't convert visitors into customers is basically useless.

Conversions are easiest once you understand a simple formula.

(2) Ask visitors what "they" want.

(3) Serve it to them, and do it better than anyone else.

So there you have it, a simple "1-2-3" formula for success.

But remember, I said "simple", but it's not always "easy".

Article Marketing Guide

Article Marketing is basically the writing and distribution of text articles to online outlets such as article directories, forums, and newsletter publishers as well as offline outlets such as magazines and newspapers. Article Marketing is perfect for anyone who is selling their own product, affiliate products, or simply wants to get traffic to an opt-in page, an AdSense site, or a site full of affiliate links. Marketing with articles is not only very effective, but it's also quite inexpensive way market your business.
 
Marketing with articles will help your business to grow for multiple reasons. Articles have a tendency to become viral, so your message is spread all over the internet … which in turn increases your traffic and sales. Having articles published in a variety of places also builds your credibility by establishing yourself as THE expert in your niche.
 
The process is fairly simple... 

• You write keyword optimized articles about your niche.

• Submit the articles to popular article directory websites.

• The search engines will 'pick them up.'

• You make sales, get opt-in signups, or earn affiliate commissions.

Let’s say that you’re in the diet niche, and you sell multiple diet products. You write a diet article that is closely related to one of your products, but you don’t advertise your product in the article. Instead, in your article you discuss a particular problem that your product can help solve.

So if you’re selling a diet pill, you can write an article about the dangers of obesity, what causes it, and how to combat it. You should try to make your article be at least 350 words, and no more then 700 words. Remember, most people have a short attention span!
 
At the conclusion of your article, you will want to include an author’s resource box. This is basically a block of text (usually 3-5 lines) that tells a little about yourself and gives the reader a compelling reason to click on your link. Here’s an example:
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Brown is a leading diet expert who has helped thousands of overweight people lose weight and get healthy. You will find more valuable diet  information at his website http://www.DietSecrets.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
After you write the article, be sure to check it for spelling and grammar errors! After you have proofread your article, you are ready to distribute it to article directories, forums, and newsletter publishers.

Trouble Getting Started?

Writing an article doesn’t just mean putting down thoughts into words then typing and writing it. You have to capture the interest of your readers and get them to keep on reading. To send your message across you have to get the attention of the reader and have a firm grasp of their interest and pique their curiosity.

The main ingredient in baking up an article is a large dose of creativity. While creativity may come natural to many people, some just gets into a block or something to that effect that can drive someone crazy. Many writers have literally torn their hair out when they get writers block and just can’t seem to get their creative juices flowing.

Putting words into images in the readers mind is an art. A clear and crisp depiction requires a certain flair that only creativity can provide. Similes and metaphors help a lot, but the way an article gets entwined word for word, sentence by sentence then paragraph by paragraph into a whole article develops the essence of the article.

So just what do you have to do when nothing comes to mind? There is no surefire ways to get the perfect ideas but there are easy ways to get your creative juices flowing. No one can guarantee you of having the perfect mindset but many methods may aid you in achieving that state of mind. Here are five easy ways for that.

Keep a diary or a journal with you always.
 
Ideas can be triggered by anything you may hear, see, or smell. Your senses are your radar in finding great ideas. Write all of them into a journal and keep it with you for future reference. You may also write down anything that you have read or heard, someone’s ideas could be used to develop your own ideas and this is not stealing. Remember that ideas and creativity can come from anywhere; it’s the development of the idea that makes it unique.

Relax and take time to sort things out.
 
A jumbled mind cannot create any space for new ideas. Everyone must have a clear mind if one wishes to have their creativity in full speed. Get rid of all obstacles that can be a hindrance to your creativity. If you are bothered by something, you cannot force your mind to stay focused.

Try to relax every time that you can and think about your experiences and interactions with others. Your experiences are what shape your mindset and your opinions which could be reflected on your writings. Try to discover yourself, find out what triggers your emotions. Discover what inspires you and what ticks you off. You can use these emotions to help you in expressing yourself and your ideas, with this you can grow creatively.

Create a working place that can inspire your creativeness.

Your working place can be quite a hindrance if it doesn’t make you feel happy or relaxed. Creativity comes from being in a good state of mind and a messed up workplace that causes distraction won’t be conducive in firing up your creative flow.

Surround your working place with objects that makes you happy and relaxed. You may put up pictures, or scents, objects that inspire, or anything that can get your creativeness cranking. A clean and well organized workplace also rids of distractions and unwanted hindrances. With a good working place, you can work in peace and never notice the time pass by.

Set the mood.

Setting the mood requires you to just go with the moment or to induce your self to feeling what makes your mind works best. Finding out what makes you tick could help you find ways to get your creative juices flowing. Set the pace and tempo for your mood and everything else will follow.

There are many ways to set the mood. Some writers have been known to use alcohol, a little sip of wine to stir up the imagination. Some would like some mood music while others let the lighting of the environment create the mood.

Go on a getaway and just do something unlike crazy.

Letting yourself go and have fun produces adrenaline that can make your imagination go wild. Take an adventure or a solemn hike. Whatever it is that is unusual from your daily routine can take the rut out of your schedule. In no time at all, your creativeness will make use of that experience and get your imagination to go on overdrive.

Keep This In Mind While Writing

Here are some tips to help you in writing your articles. There are four things that all articles must have to make them successful ...

Targeted Keywords and Keyword Phrases

An article must always be centered on the keywords and keyword phrases. As each website visitor goes to a site, there are those who are just merely browsing but actually looking for a specific something. When this happens, a searcher usually goes to a search engine and types in the keywords they are looking for (e.g. Toyota Camry, Meningitis, Tax Lawyer and Etcetera). It could be anything they want.

The Important thing is that you have an article that has the keywords that are related to your site. For example, if you maintain an auto parts site, you must be able t have articles about cars and their parts. There are many tools in the internet that provides service in helping a webmaster out in determining what keywords and keyword phrases are mostly sought out. You can use this tool to determine what keywords to use and write about.

Keyword Density

Know that you have your keywords and keyword phrases, you must use them fully. An article must have good keyword density for a search engine to “feel” its presence. Articles should at least have ten to fifteen percent of keyword density in their content for search engines to rank a site high in their search results. Getting a high rank is what articles do best for a site.

Keyword density is the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase is used on an article. The number varies depending on the number of words used in an article. An effective article must have a keyword density that is not too high or too low. With a very high density, the essence of the article is lost and may turn off a reader as well as the search engines. It comes off as overeager. A low number may be ignored by the search engines.

Good Article Content

Like what is stated above, you cannot just riddle an article with keywords. They must also be regarded as good reading materials. Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information and help for their needs. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. If you want people to trust you, make your work good and well thought out.

People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to get great information and as many facts as you can. A good and well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic. As more people believe in you. They will be able to trust you and your products.

Linking Articles

And another important thing to remember. If you are going to submit articles to ezines and/or contribute your articles to newsletters and other sites, DON’T ever forget to include a link to your site. A little resource box with a brief description of your site and you should always be placed right after your articles that you have submitted. If people like your articles, they will most likely click on the link directing them to your site.

Your Resource Box Is Critical

Like the article itself, the resource box must also be eye-catching to demand the attention and interest of the reader. While the resource bow encompasses only a small space, providing the right keywords and content for your resource box will provide more prodding for the reader to go to your site.

Many sites would allow articles to be placed in their sites because they can make use of the articles to fill their pages. They also get affiliation with other sites that can be beneficial for them as well. For the sponsoring site, when you get people to click on your resource box, you generate traffic that can be counted upon as potential customers.

So what would be a good content for your resource box? Basically it is keywords, learning about the proper keywords that people are mainly searching for. There are many tools you can find in the internet that can help you in determining what keywords to use.

Resource boxes can also make use of all the creativity it can get. You only get a small space for your resource box so you better make the most of it. Try to catch the attention of your reader with resource box content that can make them give a second look. Unlike TV ads, you don’t have visual aids to drive your point in. But you do have the power of imagination of a reader. With the right content, you can make them think and intrigued.

Another tip is to use keywords that should be related to your site. Do not mislead your potential website visitors. Build your credibility so that more people would get enticed to visit your site and browse what you have to offer. Make the people click your resource box by providing resource box content that makes a lasting impression. You only get one chance to wow them and hundreds of chances to repulse them.

Never underestimate the power of the resource box. It may be small in size but they will provide a significant aid in driving traffic to your site. A boring resource box will never get a job done. Be fun and creative but at the same time show that you have a great deal to offer, too much to ask for something that couldn’t fit a paragraph? Yes and no, there are many tips and guides that can help you in doing this, the first step is realizing how important a resource box could be in making people click your link and be directed to your site.

But, I Hate Writing!

There is one problem with Affiliate Article Marketing: many people dislike writing articles! Many website owners would rather spend their time on something else, and unless you’re a big time company, you don’t have the necessary resources to use on a pool of article writers. So what are the other options?

Outsource The Article Writing

There are writers who have great experience in doing this and charge only a minimal fee for such work. Writers like this can be regarded as experts in this style of writing and can greatly help your website to get that coveted spot in the search engine rankings.

Other than getting your site in the web results page of search engines, they can also provide your site with meaningful articles and content that can impress your website visitors and entice others to view your site. Every website could use the extra traffic website visitors could invite.

Then there are those who need papers to be done either for their school or office work. Top writers around the world are very knowledgeable and do extreme researching to get a job done right. They are also very adept in many writing styles that are needed to best suit the client’s need.

Many writers around the world charge a minimal fee depending on the type of writing job needed and the number of words needed in the content. Usually, a two hundred fifty worded article would cost from 4 to 8 dollars depending on the writers experience and ability. This is a small price to pay for having a content rich site or for a well researched and written paper.

There are also many sites that can offer you these services with their team of well trained and experienced writers. They offer many writing services to cover any writing needs. A writer can be based anywhere in the world and are guaranteed to offer good contents and articles. Each one are doubly checked, edited and proofread so that you would get your money’s worth.

Finding a good writer or a site that offers these kinds of services is simply done by searching for them in search engines. Type down your keyword or keyword phrase (e.g. Content Writers, Article Writers) and you will see a long list of sites that offer these services.

The top sites would probably be the best since they have done a good job of keeping their content at a high quality to get them high rankings. But you may also want to shop around and read some of their sample work to get an idea of how much it will cost you.

Use Public Domain Material

You can use public domain articles in helping you write your articles. With the public domain articles you can simply edit them to your own style and rewrite them as you please to make it suitable for your needs. All the ideas are there already and its just a matter of finding the write article with the topic or subject you need.

This is probably the easiest way to write articles. You don’t need to scour around the library or the internet for hours for information and start an article from scratch. For webmasters who are looking for articles to fill their site and to generate a high ranking for their website in search engine results, they can just modify the article by infusing keywords and keyword phrases related to their site.

A webmaster or website operator do not risk any chance of getting sued for copyright infringement because they are public domain, once again meaning that anybody can use it. Writing articles by using public domain wont require as much work as writing one from scratch would. You save a lot of time also.

One good factor in using public domain articles for your site or for any project is that you save a lot of money. You dismiss the need to hire experienced and seasoned writers that some website operators use to write their articles. While a single five hundred worded article would only set you down 10 to 15 dollars, this cost will drastically increase when you need hundreds of articles to fill the needs of your site.

For those who needs articles to generate newsletters or an e-zine, public domain articles will be very beneficial. You do not need to count on your contributors or pay writers to write down articles for your newsletter or e-zine. You can fill all the pages without any cost or the worry of being sued and sought after by the writers. You can simply copy the articles and place them on your newsletter and e-zine.

Public domain articles are a virtual untapped resource that many people fail to realize the true value. The power of articles, keywords and keyword phrases have been deemed invaluable these past few years for many internet based businesses and sites that want to rank high in search engine results.

The number of article and content writers have grown significantly due to the rise in the demand for articles. As newer and newer topics and subjects have arisen, there are many demands for new articles to be written. An industry has been formed and this is a worldwide demand.

Public domain articles have given a great alternative for those who are cash strapped as well as do not have the time nor the skills to do their articles for themselves.

Searching for public domain articles is as easy as 1 – 2 – 3. You can search for them in search engines and do searches in many directories for the topic or subject that you need. Read them and simply copy paste them to a word processing program and simply edit them to suit your needs.

Tips On Getting Your Articles Read

There are many people who dread having to write papers or articles. Many just feel like it seems to be too much work and it all just goes to waste when no one reads the. To some people, reading articles seems like work to, especially if the article is boring and very bland. Well, articles are supposed to be read, that’s their purpose to impart your message and information. If it is not read then it is a waste of time and effort.

But all the same, articles have to be written to be read. It’s just a matter of making them good. Making a good article doesn’t have to be strenuous and straining. There are just some points needed to be reminded of, and some guides to follow. Once you get the hang of it, writing articles could be fun, as well as profitable for you and your site.

Of course, writing articles must be about something you know about, that’s why if you own a site, you probably is knowledgeable about that certain topic and theme. When you write about it, you won’t have a hard time because you already know what it is and what it’s about. It’s just a matter of making your articles creative and interesting.

To make sure that your articles get read and enjoyed, here are six red hot tips to get your articles read. These tips will make your articles readable and interesting.

1) Use short paragraphs. When the paragraph are very long, the words get jumbled in the mind of the reader just looking at it It can get quite confusing and too much of a hard work to read. The reader will just quickly disregard the paragraph and move on to much easier reading articles that are good to look at as well as read. Paragraphs can be a single sentence, sometimes even a single word!

2) Make use of numbers or bullets. As each point is stressed out, numbers and bullets can quickly make the point easy to remember and digest. As each point, tip, guide or method is started with a bullet or point, readers will know that this is where the tips start and getting stressed. Format you bullets and numbers with indentations so that your4 article won’t look like a single block of square paragraphs. Add a little bit of flair and pizzazz to your articles shape.

3) Use Sub-headings to sub-divide your paragraphs in the page. Doing this will break each point into sections but still would be incorporated into one whole article. It would also be easy for the reader to move on from one point to another; the transition would be smooth and easy. You will never lose your readers attention as well as the point and direction to where the article is pointing.

4) Provide a good attention-grabbing title or header. If your title can entice a person’s curiosity you’re already halfway in getting a person to read your article. Use statements and questions that utilize keywords that people are looking for. Provide titles or headers that describe your articles content but should also be short and concise.

Use titles like, “Tips on making her want you more”, or “How to make her swoon and blush” .You could also use titles that can command people, for example, “Make her yours in six easy Ways”. These types of titles reach out to a persons’ emotions and makes them interested.

5) Keep them interested from the start to the finish. From your opening paragraph, use real life situations that can be adopted by the reader. Use good descriptions and metaphors to drive in your point, just don’t over do it. Driving your examples with graphic metaphors and similes would make it easy for them to imagine what you are talking about. Making the experience pleasurable and enjoyable for them.

6) Utilize figures when necessary and not just ordinary and insipid statements. Using specific facts and figures can heighten your article because it makes it authoritative. But do not make it too formal, it should be light and easy in them and flow. Like a friendly teac her having a little chat with an eager student.  

Affiliate Article Marketing
 
One of the easiest ways to make money online is by using articles to promote affiliate products. Promoting affiliate products is really nice because:

• There's no customer service!
• No product delivery!
• No website building!
• No html or code to worry with!
• You just collect your commission checks!

The problem is that most people who get into affiliate marketing do not have a clue what's going on. They do not know how to promote and advertise the affiliate product or services they're selling. By using Article Marketing to promote affiliate products, you can sell products without much effort and make money.

The keys to being successful with affiliate article marketing are:

• Find a mostly untapped niche market.

• Research a low competition keyword phrase to target.

• Find a product that 'fits' your targeted keywords.

• Write an article or series of articles based on your targeted keywords.

• Submit your article to popular article directories and let it get picked up by the major search engines.

• Collect your commissions!

One of your main goals in Affiliate Article Marketing is to get your articles onto the first page of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The easiest way to accomplish this is by writing keyword rich articles for niches and keywords that aren’t overpopulated. A placement on Google’s first page will assure that your article will be one of the first seen whenever someone searches for the keyword or niche your article is targeting. 

Affiliate Article Marketing makes it easy for the marketer because you don’t need a website. Since the idea behind it is that you write articles with affiliate links either embedded in the article, or in your signature, you’re sending them directly to the sales page for the product you’re promoting.
 
Without a website, you will significantly cut the cost of doing business because you won’t be paying for site maintenance. Other cost reductions such as, maintaining and providing product and by using effective, lower cost, advertising you will be keeping more profits from you efforts.
 
But, some articles sites like www.ezinearticles.com don’t allow you to use or promote affiliate links, so where do you send the visitors if you don’t have a website. That’s easy you send them to a blog. Why a blog? It’s easy to set up, there are no hosting fees when using a service like Wordpress or Blogger, there are no design costs and it takes less than 30 minutes. Plus, you can post all your articles using all the affiliate URL’s you want.
 
You can update your blog as often as you like with new posts, or even add static pages in a snap, and search engines’ spiders are attracted to the blogs because new bits of information are added to it every day or two. Since, search engines love blogs it’s a super simple and easy to get some extra traffic and earn extra commissions.
 
Some people opt to create a blog for each set of niche related articles and products that they promote, from which you can provide reviews and other information.
The only cost to you is the time spent adding your articles and affiliate links.
  

Finding Profitable Niche Markets
 
The first step in Affiliate Article Marketing is to locate niche markets that remain relatively untapped – preferably something that you know a little about. Also ensure that it is a niche that you can identify as one where people have a need or a problem.
 
1. Find a hungry niche.

2. Research what they’re hungry for – find out what makes them tick.

3. Find an affiliate product that is a perfect match (or you could create one yourself but it’s more work and therefore more risk)
 
Some places you can look at include places like eBay Pulse, Yahoo Answers, forums, chat rooms and by using some of the keyword tools listed below. You can even look in offline places including newspaper headlines, weekly gossip magazine headlines and so on. Don't simply assume that the only place you will find ideas is on the web – that’s where almost everyone else is looking. The offline world better reflects what people are really concerned, worried or interested about.
 
Once you think you may have found a niche market, see if there is a product you can find to solve that niche’s problem.
 
It could be a product of your own, one you create or a product belonging to someone else. Some good places to find products include Clickbank.com, Commission Junction at cj.com or Linkshare.com which are essentially massive affiliate product directories. Or you can simply perform a simple web search to see if you can find something good with an affiliate program.
 
There are literally hundreds of website owners willing to pay you a percentage of the sale price of the products and services you endorse. When you become an affiliate with these sites, you are basically advertising for them and can make as much as 75% commission from each sale you are responsible for.
 
Once you find something good, check to see if the Internet has people who are already servicing this market and then research the product like crazy until you become an expert on it.
 

Finding Low Competition Keywords
 
Keyword research is definitely the key to making Affiliate Article Marketing work and probably one of the hardest parts of it. Affiliate Article Marketing revolves around keywords that are not being targeted by any or many other sites, writing articles about them, then using the articles to drive traffic to your affiliate link for something you can make money with.
 
For example, let’s say that you’ve found a new fat burning doodad. Then you do some keyword research for the phrase “buy fat burning doodad” and find that the phrase is only listed a few hundred times in Google’s search results. Then you simply find someone who sells “fat burning doodads” and is willing to pay you anywhere from a 35% - 75% commission of the purchase price for any sales you make. So you write an article about buying fat burning doo-dads that is targeted to the phrase “buy fat burning doodad” and submit it to the article directories.
 
The primary idea here isn't that people will find you in the article database. A few people probably will, but that’s not the point. What you’re really hoping to do is use the high page rank of the articles directories to help your article achieve high search engine ranking results.
 
One of the easiest ways to do keyword competition research is to go to Google, and perform a keyword search for the keyword or phrase you are targeting. Ideally you want there to be no more than 1,000 – 5,000 competitors for the phrase you are targeting. If there’s any more than this, you may only be able to get a first page ranking when putting your keyword phrase in quotes (i.e. “search term”).
 
If you use a keyword phrase like “marketing tips” there are thousands upon thousands of other sites that might have it embedded in their keyword phrases including “internet marketing tips” “email marketing tips” “small business online marketing tips” so getting top 10 results would be almost impossible. In all honesty, “marketing tips” in not a keyword phrase you would ever want to consider using as it is not at all targeted and is certainly not considered to be a nice.
 
Free Keyword Tools
 
http://www.nichetaxi.com
http://www.goodkeywords.com
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://www.spyfu.com
http://keyword.secretstohighprofit.com
 
Paid Keyword Tools 
 
http://www.keywordcountry.com - Allows you to maximize AdSense earnings and search over 600,000 niche keywords

http://www.adwordanalyzer.com - Helps uncover targeted niche markets and maximize AdSense Campaigns

http://www.keywordelite.com - Helps to uncover niche keywords and analyzes PPC campaign competition
 

Writing Your Article

With Affiliate Article Marketing, quantity is better than quality. It’s about writing lots of articles that are of decent quality rather than a few articles of a high quality. (note – I’m not saying that you should put out garbage articles, that would be just plain dumb. Although your articles need to be very informative, they do not have to be written from an English major’s perspective.)
 
It reasons that the more optimized articles you write, the more your chances increase of showing up in the first pages of Google’s results. Only choose to promote products which are based around a subject that you are comfortable with. If you don’t know anything about Golf, how can you write an article about it without a lot of research and a lot of wasted time? This is one thing that so many people seem to be doing wrong and then they wonder why it takes them two or three hours to write a decent article. However, if you know your content, you can just sit down and start writing – no (or very little) research required.
 
Write shorter articles instead of longer ones. If more is better, then it makes much more sense to write two 300-400 word articles then one 600-800 word article. It virtually takes the same amount of time and pretty much doubles the income you can earn. It won’t help you rank better in Google to have a few hundred extra words
 
Write “how to” or “tip” related articles. If you’re writing an article about a red widget that saves time, then your article could be on “How to Save Time” or “5 Time Saving Tips” where you would provide the content and then introduce the red widget at the end as the solution either in the content of the article (if allowed by the article directory) or in your signature. Or you can simply write a review of the product or service that you have settled on promoting.
 
Hint – I find that articles that contain a number in the subject seem to get a lot more reads then others. For example “8 easy ways to increase your golf game”.
 
It also helps not to edit for spelling, grammar and sentence structure while you type. It saves tons of time to do that at the end – only once you’re done writing. Add it to your blog and ping the directories (http://www.pingomatic.com) and submit it to the article directories.
 

Submitting Articles
 
eZineArticles

www.eZineArticles.com

eZineArticles is by far the biggest and best article directory on the net. Usually takes a few days to be accepted, but once it is it usually shows up in Google and ranks well within a couple of days. The big downside to eZineArticles is that they don’t allow you to use affiliate links and it needs to be reviewed by a real person before it is published.
 
GoArticles

www.GoArticles.com
 
GoArticles.com is another search engine directory for articles. Articles submitted to GoArticles usually achieve good placement with Google, and you are allowed affiliate which link directly to a merchant.

SearchWarp 

www.SearchWarp.com
 
Like GoArticles, they also allow you to submit articles with embedded affiliate links and they are also liked by Google and good for first page rankings.
 

Good Article Submission Sites:
 
http://www.submityourarticle.com
http://www.wesubmitarticles.com
http://www.articlemarketer.com
http://www.isnare.com/distribution.php
 

Other Article Promotion Methods
 
After you have finished writing your articles, added them to your blog and submitted them to the directories, you might as well get maximum exposure from them - so here are a few other promo methods:
 
EBay.com – You can take a pack of 5, 10, 15 articles on a similar topic that you have written about and turn them into a PDF ebook with affiliate links embedded. Then list it on eBay and sell it. If you want to go a step further, you can sell it with either master resell rights or even private label rights.
 
USAFreeAds.com – This is a free classified ad site that a lot of people use to put ads on which can also help to get good Google rankings. You need to target keywords that have at least 500 searches and less than 1,000 results.
 
Squidoo.com – You can use Squidoo to create a lens for each product you promote and then send people directly to the affiliate sales page or even to your blog (see below) for reviews and additional info, just as you would with your blog
 
MySpace.com – You can create a MySpace profile for each product that you wish to promote.

CraigsList.com   – You can also post one (no more or it may be removed) ad to CraigsList to get additional traffic/sales.

Suggested Affiliate Article Marketing Layout Plan
 
Here is a suggested plan or outline to use for every product that you promote.
 
• Write 5-15 articles and submit them to ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com and searchwarp.com

• Start a product blog and use articles / reviews as posts

• Start a Squidoo lens

• Package them into an ebook and list as an eBay auction

• Post 5 ads to USFreeAds

• Submit 1 post to CraigsList

• Create one MySpace Profile
 
If you can do this once or twice a week (the more often the better, within reason of ourse), then you’ll be well on your way to making Affiliate Article Marketing work for you.
 
Now as with any internet money making method, don’t expect things to happen overnight. Articles need to be picked up by Google for things to start working, which may take a few days. And the more articles you write, the greater your chances you have to make money. It isn’t uncommon for people to have their first sale in a week or two. As with anything, the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. And once you start to get things out of it, it will slowly start snowballing out of control. Think about it: If you write 25 articles a week for an entire year, you’ll have over 1300 optimized and targeted articles out there earning money for you. Use the tips and techniques throughout this report to help you leverage your time and maximize your effort.
 

Video Marketing Guide

Prior to television, commercials used to be aired on the radio. Before radio, businesses used to advertise their wares in a variety of different ways, mostly through print media. Even before print media, metal signs depicting the nature of the product were produced. For as long as there have been people in business, they have sought different ways to advertise their business. The purpose was to get more sales leads and generate more revenue for the business. Things have not changed. Although advertising has come a long way, the nature of the reason for advertising has not changed since the days of the metal signs.

Radio commercials used to often feature jingles. The purpose of these jingles were to make the listener remember the product. Remember that people could not visualize the product back then, so they identified with the jingle. Commercial jingles were so popular, they were also later used in television advertising, although they seem to have lost their appeal.

Early radio advertisers were the sponsors of the radio program. They were short and sweet and people were forced to listen because they didn’t want to miss the next installment of their favorite radio show. Plus, back in those days, there was no remote control.

When television came out in the late 1940's, advertisers quickly saw this as a good media to sell their product. They began sponsoring certain television shows. They often found ways to not only sponsor by their frequent commercials, but also within the program itself. One example of this is the old “I Love Lucy” television program, probably one of the most popular sitcoms of all times. It was sponsored by Phillip Morris. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had stipulations in their contract that they had to often be seen smoking during the program. This is why Ricky was often seen coming out of his child’s bedroom with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

In return for their sponsorship, the program aired. People were treated to all sorts of commercials in black and white that would seem very amateurish to people today. Madison Avenue was always the place for the big “ad men.” It soon became apparent that in addition to designing clever ads for magazines and billboards, they had to film commercial ads. The needed actors and cameras, lights and sets. Was it worth it?

There were those businesses who thought that television would never last. They balked at the idea of spending a lot more money to advertise on television. And they certainly didn’t want to pay to sponsor an entire program. Most of those businesses have now gone out of business.

Television advertising is a multi-billion dollar business. Commercial jingles from the past are still remembered fondly but advertisers have become more creative and many big businesses have decided to put a lot more money into their advertising. A good example of this is the Super Bowl. The ads that are broadcast during this annual football event are the most expensive ads in the business. Companies spend millions of dollars not only creating the clever ad that they hope will “stand out among the others” but also for the time they need to pay to have their commercial aired. Things have changed since “I Love Lucy.“ No longer are the programs grateful to the sponsors, now the sponsors are grateful to the programs. There are many people who watch the Super Bowl every year just to see the new and very clever ads. And the next day at work, the ads are more discussed than the actual game.

People are visual. And advertising is effective. As more people began using the internet, advertisers turned to this new media to promote their sales. They used print ads and pop up ads most of the time. Then they began to realize that what worked for television may also work for the internet. According to UCLA studies, 82 percent of the people in the United States use the internet. And many use it much more than they watch television. Advertisers took the next logical step and began promoting video advertising on the internet. At first, it began small. Print ads that could be clicked on. Then they moved to more clever banner ads with animation. Now they are moving to video advertising.

You have probably seen video advertising on the internet; Many of the news websites use this. According to a study done by the Chicago Tribune Online, more people click on to the videos than read the news articles. Video advertising is here to stay. And it is now up to businesses to use this new media to make begin increasing their customer base, sales and products through video advertising on the internet.

Here you will learn just who uses video advertising, how it is used, where it is used and the many different ways it can be used to promote your business. Do you want more customers? More profits? Unlike television advertising, video advertising on the internet does not have to cost a lot of money. It can be simple or elaborate, but either way, it is much more effective than a print ad.

This book will tell you how you can increase your sales profits by video advertising. It will tell you the different ways video advertising can work. It will explain the difference in costs and the limitless possibilities that this technology can increase your business sales and profits.

Those who shun new often regret it. There has never been a better time to learn about how to promote your business through video advertising and increase your sales. You do not have to be a technical expert. You do not have to have a lot of money. You do not have to hire actors. You simply have to present your product to your target audience in a way that will make them want to buy your product. Come with us into the future and learn more about video advertising.

Chapter 1 – People Are Visual

Sad but true, most people would rather watch television than read a book. People love to be entertained. Ever since the advent of television, people began staying inside and watching TV rather than going out with friends. Television has more of an influence on society during the 20th century than anything else. Until the internet. Then things started to change. In addition to just watching television, people could find out information, interact with others and even make money on auctions. And each year, the internet becomes more sophisticated. There are billions of websites out there in internet land. People are now spending more time on the internet than they are watching television. And now that most of the country is on the internet, they are also finding different ways to be entertained online.

In the early days of the internet, most of the information was written. You looked up information and read it. If there was a photo, it caught your eye. People soon began using clip art and other visual effects in their ads, e-mails and websites. It was soon discovered that websites and advertisers who used some form of visual stimulation were attracting more people to their site. This included everyone. Internet communities, such as MySpace began popping up for people to meet and network. These included easy ways that one could download a photo of themselves or friends. It also included ways they could design their pages to make them more attractive.

Which would you rather look at? An attractive, well designed page or a typed written article written in black font on a white background. Of course you would rather look at the attractive page. You are not alone. Human beings are highly visual. Even a cartoon photo can be a source of entertainment and can get someone to read what you want them to read. Have you ever received an e-mail that featured photos or a cartoon? Wasn’t that more entertaining than one that featured a text joke (that you already heard 100 times before)?

In the early days of the Internet, advertising consisted of either printed ads that were put on different websites to attract customers and ad banners. When people clicked on to the banner, the owner of the website got money. This was the way the advertisers kept track of which websites were worth their advertising dollars. These advertising vehicles are still being used, but are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Then pop up ads became popular. People would be on a website and an ad would pop up suddenly. Sometimes it looked like it was part of the site. It would take you to another website for advertising. Sometimes, it was just gathering your information so that you could be barraged by constant e-mails.

The pop up ads were ineffective. Although they attempted, like all ads, to reach a target audience, many people found them annoying. Soon there was a way to block pop up ads from appearing. Many people now use this tool as an option on the internet.

News media soon found that it was very effective to put not only the news coverage of an important case, but actual video clippings. They soon discovered that more people were watching the videos than reading the news. It was easier to do and, more importantly, entertaining. News websites were among the first to realize the impact of adding video to their websites. Now many other companies are following suit.

American people want to be entertained. They want to be entertained on television, at the movies and on the internet. And they even expect their advertisements to be entertaining. A simple banner advertisement has no chance against a good video advertisement. Particularly if it is both informative and has a bit of humor. Not only will the person watch the video, they will share it with others. They will place it on their own websites and blogs and even e-mail it to friends.

Entertainment is the key to good advertising. Gone are the days of the catchy commercial jingle. The banners will soon be on their way out, too. The advertisers who are truly adding to their business are using video advertising in many different ways to draw customers to their products. And the more customers they attract, the more business they get and the more profit they make.

If you truly want to move into the new age of advertising, now is the time. Not only is video advertising on the internet cheaper than commercial advertising, it can be done by just about anyone. You do not have to be Francis Ford Coppola to make a video. Sometimes, the most quirky and funny videos are those that are remembered the most.

If you have a website, it is just as easy to add video as it is to add photographs and texts. Of course you will still have the text and photos, but people will be more intrigued by the video. Particularly if it is entertaining and grabs their attention.

Suppose, for example, you want to sell your home. You want to list it on the internet with a price. But you do not include a photo of the home. Chances are, your home listing will not be viewed nearly as much as those with photos.

Suppose you want to advertise for a date on an internet dating site. But you do not want to add your photo. Chances are that no one will read your profile and think about what a wonderful person you are even if you are Prince William. They will see you have no photo and go on to the next.

Why is this? Because people are visual. They need visual stimulation. They need to imagine themselves in the home or on a date with you before they will even think of contacting you. And do not kid yourself, internet dating is also a form of advertising. And those with photos get much more attention than those without.

Now suppose you want to sell your home and you decide to do something different. Instead of posting a photo of your home on the website, you take a video of the home. You move from room to room with the camera and describe the details. It will make people feel as though they are inside the home. And, virtually, they are. How well do you think that advertisement will do against the home ads with no photos or even those with photos? I guarantee it will do a lot better. You may even be able to ask a higher price.

People do not often have the imaginations we would like to give them credit for. For years they have received their news information, weather reports, sports games and entertainment from television. This has been going on for the past 50 years. And as the entertainment industry has grown, the audience has grown more demanding. They want more visuals. No more implications. No more “leave it to the imagination.” They want to see every detail on the screen.

What makes you think that internet advertisement is any different? Do you honestly think that you are going to get more traffic with a small banner ad or an e-mail with a bunch of long paragraphs than a video ad?

Think about having an exciting new product for a special customer. You want to tell your customer all about it, but it is complicated. It may be technical and too difficult for the customer to comprehend. At best, they will skim over the article. At worst, they will not even read it.

What if, instead, you sent them a video of the product in operation? Do you think they will be more or less interested? If you are unsure about the answer, as yourself the same question. What would you rather see? A video demonstration of an exciting new product or a two page e-mail telling you about it? You know the answer. It is the same reason that you would rather watch the football game on television than listen to it on the radio. Because you, like all human beings, are visual.

Now you need to learn how to make that knowledge work for you by using video advertising on the internet to advertise your business.

Chapter 2 – Who Uses Web Videos To Promote Business

After reading a little about web videos for advertising, you may be asking yourself just what type of businesses are taking advantages of this media? The answers are just about everyone who understands the concept of entertainment in advertising.

Just about every business that has a website on the internet is now adding some sort of video advertising to their sites. This ranges from car dealerships, travel agents, real estate agents and even manufacturers. They realize that they get the attention of a viewer right away if a video comes onto the screen instead of a simple advertisement.

Department stores are also beginning to use video advertising on the internet not only on their websites, but also on internet advertising engines such as Google. It simple captures the attention of a potential buyer more than just a plain photo.

Imagine that you have a website that sells T-shirts, for example. A person goes to your website and sees a variety of T-shirts that are for sale. These are often pictured in photos either by themselves or on models. The prices are included, along with an ordering form. Most websites have a search option so if someone is looking for a particular T-shirt, they can find it easier.

The reason models are depicted in T-shirts is to make the product more attractive. More people are apt to purchase a garment featured on a striking model than an average person or on a mannequin. This is simply another way people are visual. They imagine themselves as the model in the T-shirt and feel that they will also look this way once the garment is acquired.

Now imagine you have this same website but decide to implement video advertising as part of your campaign. Instead of clicking on to a website that just depicts a bunch of models in T-shirts, you have a video where a model is wearing the T-shirt and talking about how much she loves her T-shirts from your company.
Or, you decide to go the humor route. A video depicts an unpopular, geeky kid wearing a white shirt with a pencil protector in the pocket and getting his books knocked out of his hands at school. He says something like “I’ve had enough of this, I’m getting myself over to XXX T-shirt company!”

The next clip shows the same student wearing one of the T-shirts and surrounded by a bevy of women. He winks at the camera and says, “XXX T-shirt changed my life - they can change yours, too.”

Corny? Yes. But entertaining and memorable. As a matter of fact, the more humor or unusual aspects you can add to your video, the more people will remember it. They may even like it so much that they post it on their blog or on “You Tube.” Then you get even more advertising for your business. For free.

Travel agents are quickly discovering that video is the way to go when it comes to advertising on the internet. More and more travel agencies are not just depicting photos of exotic places, but videos of the attractions that can be seen when visiting these places. People feel as though they are taking a trip. They sometimes call this a “virtual tour” and it is really quite effective. A virtual tour takes the viewer on a mini vacation all from their home computer. They get to see highlights of the wonderful sights, the hotels, the beaches and a lot of people enjoying themselves. This sparks their imagination. They envision themselves on the tour and it makes them want to visit as well. The more someone knows about the positive aspects of a particular tour, country or vacation spot, the more apt they are to want to book a vacation to this destination.

Speaking of virtual tours, we have already talked about real estate agents in the last chapter. Many real estate companies are now adding video advertising to their websites. Instead of just seeing photos of a home, they see the entire home, just as they were touring it.

In addition to large businesses and professionals using video advertising on the internet, musicians are learning the value of this technology to promote their music and bands. Music videos came out in the 1980s and were frequently depicted on MTV. This was a very popular concept, but soon became very competitive. More and more money was being used to make a more ‘creative video” for the band. Bands who had creative videos depicting models or something unusual were selling more music than other bands who did not have the capital to create such videos.

In the 1980s, video cameras cost over $1,000. And if you wanted the video to look professional, you had to hire a director and some actors. The music videos of the 1980s were actual commercials for a particular artist or a band. And they cost a lot of money to produce.

Today, not only professional musicians advertise by video on the internet, but amateurs as well. Video cameras no longer cost over $1,000. They are easy to use and the content can easily be downloaded into a personal computer. It is just as easy to upload a video into your webpage as it is to upload a photograph or music. So amateur musicians began promoting their bands on the internet. On MySpace, for example, there are thousands of artists doing this. They do not even have to pay for their MySpace page. It is free. They simply have to have someone film their act with a camcorder, upload it to their site and they are advertising for free on the internet. It sure beats the old days of recording demos for thousands of dollars and trying to find someone on the radio to play them.

Individuals who have something unique to sell are also using video advertising on the internet. They can do this with little or no expense if they choose a venue like You Tube. You Tube allows anyone who is a member to upload their videos for others to see. The more clever the video, the better chance of it being discovered. If you want to draw people to your website, mention it in your funny video and put it on YouTube. Millions of people use this website every day. The videos are often either e-mailed to friends or put on blogs and other spaces. Suppose you have invented a special item to sell. You have a patent but have no idea how to sell it. You have a website and are trying to promote it, but are not having much luck. You can advertise on television, but it costs a fortune; even on cable TV.

Maybe you can come up with a funny video that will draw people to your website that involves your product. You can post this on your site and then wait for people to discover the ad. You can also place it on such video websites as YouTube.

Have you ever dated on the internet? Guess what? You are advertising yourself. You are adverting yourself in the hopes of finding a perfect mate. Many people put false photos of themselves on these sites and many internet daters have grown leery of some of the ads. Yet internet dating is big business. In today’s busy world, few people have time to go out and meet a special someone. So many people are taking advantage of the internet dating world.

Some internet dating sites offer their clients a way to communicate with another individual through video instead of just plain text. For a small fee, they can post a video of themselves on the site and talk about their likes, and dislikes. In addition to just seeing a photo, a person who is interested also gets to hear a voice and finds out a little bit more about the person he or she is thinking of contacting. It is very difficult to ascertain what a person is like from a photograph. They may have a voice that sounds like Mickey Mouse and really gets on your nerves. Or they may have such an engaging smile and a sexy voice that you really find attractive. This person may look similar to many others who have turned up as your “match,” but chances are, you will watch the video and, if you like what you see, you will be more inclined to contact the individual. They will seem like a real person to you, instead of a photograph and text profile.

Car dealerships are another business that are using video technology to advertise on the internet. Car dealerships have always been known for their “over the top” approach to advertising. They sometimes run specials depicting happy customers getting great deals, or they show a video of a car being driven down the road and being able to make great turns. This cost them much less than advertising on television.

No matter what business you are in, video advertising on the internet can help you attract more customers, gain more exposure for your company and generate new leads and sales. Best of all, it is easy and relatively inexpensive to use. We will discuss how you can do this in the next chapter.

Chapter 3 – Is Video Advertising Expensive?

If you are already advertising on the internet, you know the costs of having banners or pop up ads. Video advertising is not much more money and is twice as effective. If you do not believe this, check it out. You can try this for a month and see if you get more stats on the video ads or the banner ads. Most advertising engines agree that their customers profit get many more views on their video advertising than plain text or even photo advertising.

Cost will depend on how you wish to use the video to market your business. If, for example, you simply want to use a video on your website, it will not cost anything. Just the uploading of the video into the website. If you want a more professional looking video for your website, there are plenty of companies out there that provide this service for much less than text advertising. You can have a slick ad or you can have one that is home made. Sometimes, the home made videos tend to stand out more.

It will cost you slightly more to have your videos featured on other websites where you advertise. More than a banner ad or a line ad. But again, how much is your business worth to you? If you want to see how effective this media is, test it out.

If you have a small business and want to advertise for free, there are plenty of places on the internet where you can post your videos. They will also give you stats on how many people have viewed your video. On some websites, the videos are rated.

There are many professional companies that can help you out with video advertising. They can offer everything from creating the video, uploading onto the proper websites to even using it in e-mails to your clients. Many businesses keep a data base of their clients. If they don’t, they should. From time to time, they have sales or promotions and wish to contact their clients by e-mail. E-mail is very inexpensive. Actually, it is free. You can either hire a professional to e-mail your clients your advertising video or do it yourself to save even more money.

Writers are gaining publicity for themselves by using videos on writing websites. They upload a video of themselves and talk about their work. This is an excellent way to get people to read your work, particularly if you are on a site that pays you for page views. You can do this in an interview format, or simply have someone film you talking about yourself. This is free.

You can also promote yourself or your business on YouTube for free. Or MySpace. Camcorders have come down significantly in price. Many are around $100 or even cheaper. Each year, the price goes down and the quality goes up. They are easy to use and the contents can be uploaded to your computer with ease. Then all you have to do is decide where you want to “advertise.” If you are advertising a small business, your art, or even a political cause, you can put it on a site that offers free video uploading. When you compare the cost of video advertising on the internet to an actual commercial on television, you are talking apples and oranges. Video advertising is much cheaper and even small businesses can afford a professional agency that can take care of this for them.

How many of you get e-mails from businesses that you have previously done business? Most of you do, I would suspect. Even if you clicked on their ad by some mistake, they will contact you via e-mail. As said previously in this chapter, e-mail is free.

Now, imagine that you get an advertisement from a business that has a very funny video attached to it? You will be entertained and not forget about that business. It may even prompt you to take a look at their sale or new promotion.

I saw one of the most effective and clever uses of advertising on the web recently. I was taking a look at shower filters. Instead of just a website, like most of them, that featured shower filters and explained the advantages of having one of these gadgets, this one had a scene from the movie “Psycho.” Yes, the shower scene. The caption was “Remember when the only thing you had to fear about the shower was….” and then it stopped. We saw the familiar scene of Janet Leigh in the shower and “Mother” coming through the door with the knife. It was clever, entertaining and certainly caught my attention. In fact, this was the company that I decided to purchase the shower filter from.

How much did this ad cost them? A little more than a regular video ad. The film “Psycho” is not in the public domain so they had to pay synchronization rights to the producer to use this on their website. But synchronization rights on film, even the internet, are based upon seconds. They did not have to pay for the rights for the entire film, just a brief portion of the shower scene.

If you have a clever imagination, you can film your own video that will attract attention to your project in the way that this shower filter company did. You can purchase synchronization rights from film producers if you want, or you can simply make up your own video. Also, be aware that many films made prior to 1962 lie within the public domain. This means that they are free to use. Clips can be obtained from all over the internet, or can be downloaded from your television or DVD player. You must make sure that the film is in the public domain, however. The way to do this is to check with the United States Copyright Office. There is also much information about which films lie within the public domain on the internet.

No, it is not expensive to advertise using video on the internet, particularly if you are advertising on your own website or e-mailing your customers video advertisements. Just make sure that the advertisements are not too long or it may bore the customer, no matter how entertaining it may be. You do not want to go more than 30 seconds.

If you decide to use an internet advertising agency, they can keep track of the amount of customers who view your video and make sure that they are placed in the proper venues.

The cost is not that much more than banner ads and may be well worth it. Banner ads are sometimes clicked on by accident, giving false stats. A video ad, however, can be managed where the person has to click on to the “play” button to view it. Once they begin viewing, chances are that they will continue to do so. Either way, at least you will have an honest count of viewers when it comes time to pay Google or whoever you are using for your internet advertising. In a way, the difference in the quality of the views more than makes up for the price difference in advertising.

Chapter 4 – What About Video Promotion?

Perhaps, by now, you have already decided to join the 21st century and become part of the video advertising on the internet world. Just like many other smart business people and other individuals. We have gone what video advertising is, the types of businesses and individuals who use this media and the benefits of entertaining potential customers with this type of product.

You have now realized that video advertising is not only more effective, but may end up costing you less money in advertising in the long run. We have also talked about different ways you can do your own marketing using video advertising for free.

If you have decided to contact an advertising company about using video advertising on the internet, such as Google or Microsoft, which is now coming out with a new program, you will have many different options as to where your videos can be placed.

Just like television advertising, you will want to reach your target audience. This means that a video advertising a rock band will not be promoted on a website that deals with travel. The wonderful thing about using a professional service is that they know exactly what websites are out there and where to promote your video.

Costs for using a professional advertising agency will depend upon how often you want the video used, the sites you want it to be used on, and the length of the video. Naturally, if you want your video splashed across Yahoo’s front page, it is going to cost you a lot more than if you want it on a blog that accepts google ads.

The choice will be up to you. Perhaps you own a travel business and are promoting a tour to Cancun. This is a tour that will be all inclusive and is a great deal. Where will it be promoted?

The video can be promoted on websites that are upscale and perhaps designed for either families or couples. For example, if you are advertising a romantic getaway to Cancun, this can be placed on a variety of websites. Dating sites may be one. Websites for jewelry companies can be another. Any site that is designed for romance or married people or couples is a target. Certain travel magazines have websites, this may be an excellent place to advertise your romantic getaway.

Perhaps you are offering a three day stay in Disney World. You will want your target audience to be people with children. There are many different family oriented websites on the internet, parenting advice websites and so forth. The advertiser will know where to find them and how much it will cost to advertise. This is what you are paying for - their expertise of knowing the best websites on which to advertise on the internet.

If you do not want to spend a lot of money but have a quirky type of ad that can generate business and maybe has a little humor to it, it may be advertised on someone’s blog. Many people have discovered the joy of blogging and certain internet blogging websites offer google ads for bloggers. The ads are free and the person who blogs gets a little bit of money every time someone clicks on your ad. The advertisers know the blogs that get the most traffic and your quirky little ad might just start making the rounds all over the internet.

If you want to place the video ad on your website or on free internet websites that allow videos, you will have to make sure that your contract stipulates that you have the right to do this. While some advertising companies will allow you to promote your own ad, others will not. Some want exclusive rights. If the advertising company actually developed the video ad for you, they will retain exclusive rights and you will not be able to use it anywhere without their written permission.

Video ads can go just about anywhere banner ads go. The beauty of the video ad, however, is that it is more closely paid attention to than a banner ad and you do not run the risk of someone accidentally clicking onto it.

There are literally millions of websites on the internet. Web advertisers are familiar with the traffic that these sites generate. Your fee will be based upon the amount of traffic the website expects to see.

In addition, the length of your video matters a great deal in video advertising. It is best to keep it short. Not only is it cheaper to run the video ad this way, but people generally have a short attention span and something that is too long generally bores them.

Take a look at television commercials prior to embarking on your video ad venture. See which ones you pay attention to and which ones you can’t even remember. See which ones you get bored of and dread every time they come on. Your video advertising is similar to this. No one wants to constantly see a long, boring video all over the internet. A short, entertaining video that is used sporadically, however, will generate more interest and may even develop a cult following.

People are crazy about Internet videos. They use them on their personal internet community pages such as MySpace and Facebook and often e-mail them to their friends and relatives. This can happen to you. You may come up with an advertisement that is clever, entertaining and brings you instant internet notoriety.

If you decide not to use a professional agency, you will be able to put the video anywhere that is free. You can also act as your own advertising agent and make deals with certain websites yourself. This can be difficult and you should have some knowledge about copyright laws and legal contracts before doing this. And unlike the professionals, you may not know much about the website. Unfortunately, on the internet, websites come and go. You would hate to make a deal and pay money to advertise on a site that closes within the next week.

If you use a professional internet advertising agency, chances are that you will hit your target audience with your video ad and will find it more successful than a banner ad. Your video will be able to go just about any place on the internet that your banner ad can go, or your word ad. The difference will be that more people will pay attention to what you are trying to sell.

Chapter 5 – How Do I Begin?

Now that you have learned the many benefits of advertising using videos on the internet to generate more business, you are probably asking yourself how to begin using this new media. This depends upon whether you want to self market your video on your website or if you want to use an internet advertising agency to self market for you.

The one way a business knows if its advertising is succeeding on the internet is through statistics. If, for example, you are advertising on Google, you will be notified of the amount of times a person clicked onto your ad each month and will have to pay accordingly. Google will then share some of that revenue with those websites that allowed them to place the ad on their site. This is the way that internet advertising works.

It is important for you to know how many people click on your ads for many reasons. First of all, if you are advertising on several different sites, and the stats for one site are much higher than the others, you may want to consider changing advertising strategies. If Google is using your ad on a blog and it is getting no activity, this may mean that you owe them no extra money, but it also means that no one is interested in your ad on that website. By keeping track of your statistics regarding ad views, you can ascertain which sites are worth more advertising and which sites are not.

If you are planning on self promoting your own video on your website, you most likely have a stat counter that tells you how often people visit your site. After you have added your video, see if there is a difference. Chances are, there will be. There are also software programs that allow you to find out how often your video is viewed on your site. If you see that it is being viewed over and over, but your site stats do not reflect the number of video viewings, chances are that you have a clever ad. You may want to market it elsewhere. If you see that very few people are bothering to view your video advertisement on your website, you may want to try a different video that will attract more attention. This is one way you can ascertain how good your business video is.

If you decide to promote your video on a free space such as You Tube, you will be given statistics. Each video shows the public how many times it has been viewed and they are even rated. People may even make comments on them. If you come up with something truly unique, you may find that your video gets featured as “most popular” and gets something like 10,000 views a day. This does not necessarily mean that you will get 10,000 new customers, but chances are that you will get a few new people at your website.

So where you begin is up to how much money you want to spend, if any, and how much advertising you want to do. If you have a large company and have a substantial budget for advertising, you may want to begin by hiring an agency that specializes in video ads to come up with something clever for your video campaign. If you hire someone to make a video for you, you can purchase the rights to the video so that it cannot be used elsewhere without your permission. Some companies will want to retain the rights. This is something that should and can be negotiated with whatever company you decide to hire to create your video.

If music is played in your video that is not within the public domain, you may have to pay for a license to use the music. This is called a synchronization license and can be obtained from the publisher. The publisher will charge by the amount of seconds the song is used in the ad as well as how often the ad is used. This means that in addition to paying your internet advertiser each time someone views your video, you will also have to pay the publisher. The amount of such a license generally depends upon the popularity of the song. You can either try to negotiate this yourself or have an attorney knowledgeable in copyright and licensing laws to negotiate the fee for you.

Once the video is completed to your satisfaction, you will present it to your internet advertiser who will advise you on where it should be featured and how often. If you are currently using an internet advertiser such as Google, and are finding some success with banner ads, you may want to continue with the same websites. You will want to find out the difference in how many people view your video ad as compared to your banner ad to see how effective this advertising is.

There are different types of video ads. Some pop up and just start playing the minute you hit on the ad, and others have a “play” button. You may want to set up the option to have the potential customer play the video instead of it just playing to see if they are truly interested in the video and the ad.

You will still have to have some sort of written advertisement so that people know what your video is. You can have a video still and something that says “If you want to learn more about how to get designer shoes at the best prices on the internet, click here.” At that point, the video will play. The good thing about video advertising as opposed to print advertising on the internet is that the customer will most likely not hit the ad by accident.
Many websites, in order to gain profit from ads that they receive from Google and other sources, use little tricks to get people to hit on the ads. This is not what you want. You are paying for the advertising so that you can continue to develop your business and increase your profit, not support various websites. Make sure that the websites that you are advertising on are not doing this. Such tricks include moving objects that get close to where the customer is trying to click to see information. They click, go into the ad and get annoyed. This does nothing for your business.

If you want to start just by putting a video on your company website, just do it! You can either have an ad agency that specializes in this to create a video for you, or you can make your own video. Again, this depends upon your advertising budget. But there are many companies out there that are hungry for this sort of work and you may be surprised that the cost is not as high as you may think.

Depending upon your website, you may want to make a home made video. Sometimes these can be more entertaining than the slick, professional videos and people generally like to watch them. Consider the popularity of YouTube, which features many home made videos as well as the old program “America’s Best Home Made Videos.” There can be something more refreshing in a home made video and may actually generate more trust within your customer.

Still, another way is to use a clip from a film. You may not want to go as far as the “Psycho” clip that the shower filter company used, but there are thousands of films in the public domain that are available. If you can find something appropriate that advertises your company, why not use it?

Come up with a plan on how much you want to spend, whether or not you want a professional to make the video or you want to make it yourself and where you want the video to be placed on the internet. This all depends on budget. But even those companies with a low advertising budget will benefit tremendously from advertising by video on the internet. It is just simply more entertaining

Chapter 6 – What About Video Content?

Now that you are ready to begin using video advertising on the internet, you are probably wondering what type of content you should put in your video? How long should it be? Should it be funny? Should it feature people or just items?

The one thing that you want to make sure that you express in your video is what you are selling. This seems like common sense, but advertising executives in the 1980s often came out with “clever” ads that did not exactly represent what their client was selling. These ads were mostly for upscale products that were supposed to appeal to “intellectuals” and not to the commoners. The ads were mostly pretentious and not successful.

While you do not want to be obtuse about your product, you also do not want to keep hammering the name of the product throughout the ad as if the client is either demented or deaf. Keywords work well with SEO articles, but are not necessary in a video ad. You want to make sure that you mention the name of the product at least twice, the benefits of having the product and where to get it. You can do this quickly, but must make sure that the name of your business and website is clear.

If you hire someone to create your video, they will most likely present you with several ideas. Advertising people are experts in marketing and very creative. They may come up with the perfect ad. But it is going to cost you. They will, however, be able to come up with the right way to present the product and your business with the right amount of information, without overdoing it. You can choose one of their ideas if it is something that suits you.

Suppose, however, you want to make your own video ad? This is relatively easy to do as camcorders are easily accessible and relatively inexpensive. With some imagination, you may be able to come up with something creative that will be remembered.

Sometimes, the best known commercials on television are those that featured interesting characters that were difficult to forget. Those of us in Chicago know the “Empire Carpet Man” and would probably recognize him more easily than we would the Vice President. The Empire Carpet company began filming their commercials in the early 1970s using an actor. People assumed he was the owner of Empire Carpets, and he became so popular that they have continued to use the actor since. This was a low budget commercial, but it made the carpet company a household name in Chicago.

There have been others who have stood out as well. “Crazy Larry” in New York. He owned an electronics store and used to shout and scream like a crazy man. The commercial was very well known, not only in New York City, but across the country. And it did wonders for his store. This was another low budget ad and no actors were needed as Crazy Larry himself did his own advertising.

There have been others who have done this with much success. In just about every city, there is a commercial character that people remember. Even today, most of us know the Bob Evans’ “Sun” man. These characters stick in our mind because of one thing - they are people.

People relate to other people. Particularly those who stand out. This does not mean you have to act like a lunatic or dress like the sun to perform in your own video. But if you have a pleasant appearance, a good voice, can appear before a camera without being nervous, you may have what it takes to perform in your own internet video ad.

If you add a bit of humor to your ad, you can generally get more attention and publicity. Remember that you want to make sure that your ad is entertaining. This is the key and the entire purpose of video advertising on the internet. Just as a film producer wants their film to be entertaining, so does an advertiser. And if you are creating your own ad, you have to make sure that your ad not only gives the viewer pertinent information about your business and products, but also entertains.

Which type of advertisement on television sticks out in your mind? Chances are, it is either those you remember from your youth, those with interesting characters, or those interesting commercials shown during the Super Bowl.

Some of these advertisements cost quite a bit of money to film and even more to broadcast during the Super Bowl. Others cost very little to film and were only on local channels but generated just as much publicity.

Many of the most successful commercials and advertisements contained quite a bit of humor. Americans love humor and funny videos are often passed around the internet through e-mail. Most people get several of these types of funny videos from their friends and relatives in their e-mail each week. Again, Americans love to be entertained.

So if you decide to act in your own video internet ad, be sure to do so with a sense of humor. No one will want to watch someone drone on in a monotone voice about how great his website that sells discounted DVDs is. They will be bored quickly and press stop. If you have an outgoing personality and pleasant speaking voice, you may be able to manage your own video ad.

A video ad featuring a person is more effective than one that just features an object. Even if you have a real estate brokerage website and want to feature virtual tours of homes, be sure to put a little human quality in with the video. Humanize your video for your audience.

You do not have to be Cecil B. DeMille to come up with a good video for your website or as a way to generate business over the internet. You simply have to have a bit of an imagination and a way to come across as honest and a person with whom someone would want to do business.

As much as you want your video to stand out, you also do not want to make a video that is so entertaining that it detracts from your purpose. Remember that the purpose of video advertising on the internet is to draw more customers and business. You want to use this as a way to add to the revenue from your business, not to become an internet star.

No matter whether you have a professional create your internet video or if you decide to do this to it yourself, you want to make sure that your audience knows the name of your business, what you are selling and how they can contact you so that you make a sale.

You can also use your video, if you decide to create it yourself, as a marketing tool to advertise specials and sales by e-mailing the videos to your regular customers. It will seem more personal than a standard e-mail and is also another effective marketing tool and yet another bit of content you can add to your internet video ad.

Chapter 7 - How Effective Is Internet Video Advertising? Ask Henry.

So just how effective is using video advertising on the internet to generate more income for your business? Ask Henry.

Henry purchased a bed and breakfast in Massachusetts a few years ago. It was a charming old Victorian home that needed quite a bit of work. He invested most of his savings into fixing it up and getting it ready for what he was sure to be a bevy of guests. Unfortunately, after a few months, Henry found he was not getting the guests that he needed to make a profit, let alone do the continued repairs on the old home.

A friend who was computer savvy, helped Henry by creating a website for him. The website was done in a professional manner and featured photos of all of the rooms in the lovely old home. His friend showed Henry how to try to promote his website on the internet. He invested more money into making sure that his bed and breakfast was listed in certain websites that featured bed and breakfast inns as well as Massachusetts hotels. This did manage to generate a bit of business for Henry. He found that he was getting more business by way of the internet than he was through the many travel agents with whom he did business. And definitely much more business than the print ads that seemed to cost a fortune in travel magazines.

Business was getting better, but it still wasn’t as good as Henry had hoped. Although he wasn’t a greedy man and not out to make a fortune, he wanted to earn a decent profit. Henry was a widower and he had invested most of his savings in this business. He had always wanted to run a bed and breakfast establishment. He had a pleasing personality and the customers liked him. In addition, Henry liked the idea of having people in the building. He was lonely since the death of his wife.

Henry was always a fan of television and he had seen the short BBC series “Faulty Towers” a number of times. It was a funny English program that featured John Cleese as a rude proprietor of a bed and breakfast. Unlike Cleese’s character, Basil Fawlty Henry was amiable and went out of his way to treat his guests with respect. He made sure the meals were good and he was hospitable and friendly to all of his guests, Still, he was rarely ever filled. The “Vacancy” sign was usually lit.

Henry began using the computer a bit more often as well. His friend instructed him on how to navigate the internet and with his friend’s help, Henry began expanding his web page. He included letters from pleased guests and a message board.

Another friend who was even more savvy with the computer was familiar with the new trend in video advertising on the internet. She thought that she could do wonders with Henry’s website and make it even more interesting. While Henry’s website certainly was professional and pleasant, it feature only photos of the building and the rooms as well as the rates. There was no photo of Henry on the site.

Henry’s friend, Joan, was inventive and had a camcorder. She often filmed videos for different websites where she was paid for tutorials. She was also an active participant on You Tube. She thought it might be fun to film a video ad for Henry’s bed and breakfast. It could easily be added to the website and may even bring in more business.

When Joan approached Henry with the idea, he was a little reluctant. He didn’t want to be shown in front of the camera. He was an elderly, kind looking man with a nice grin, but didn’t feel like “movie star material” as he put it. Joan explained to him that it was better to be an average person with a pleasant demeanor and honest face in advertising.

Henry agreed that he was no “Basil Fawlty.” Joan had never seen “Fawlty Towers” but was curious. Henry loaned her a copy of one of his tapes so she could watch one of his favorite programs.

That is when Joan got a wonderful idea.

Joan knew that in order to get permission for a clip from Fawlty Towers, she would have to get permission from whoever owned the rights of the show for a license to show a clip. She had an attorney friend who was able to work this out. The rates were negotiated and were within Henry’s budget.

She then came up with a brilliant idea for a video featuring Henry’s Bed and Breakfast. Henry was a bit apprehensive, because he would have to appear in the video, but Joan assured him that he would be a natural.

Joan was good with editing and filming. She began the advertisement with a very short clip of Basil Fawlty telling off some of his guests. Then the ad for Henry’s hotel appeared on the video. The over voice, which was Joan’s said “You can settle for less in a bed and breakfast, or you can visit the Massachusetts Willow Inn. She then featured Henry, who was more comfortable seated than standing. He was pictured in front of a warm fireplace and several guests were sitting in the main sitting area sipping drinks. Henry said that although “Fawlty Towers” was very funny, it was not funny to be treated poorly when on vacation. He then went on to explain that his guests enjoyed clean, cozy rooms, good food and a hospitable environment.

The video then featured some of the guest rooms and the dining area. It ended with a video shot of the outside of the inn with the voiceover saying “Instead of staying at Fawlty Towers, enjoy real bed and breakfast comfort at Massachusetts Willow Inn.

Henry was thrilled with the video. Never a technical whiz, he was surprised to see how easy it was for Joan to complete such an advertisement. And she did it all on her computer. Then she uploaded it to his website.

The results were immediate. People loved the advertisement. The idea of comparing Henry to Basil Fawlty proved humorous and entertaining. Henry began to receive a lot of calls from people who wanted to visit his bed and breakfast. The video advertisement, although simple and not very costly, had certainly done wonders for his business.

But that wasn’t all. Joan wasn’t finished with trying to help her friend Henry. She put the video on You Tube. It began to get a lot of views and soon became very popular. People started commenting on the humor and copying the video to send to their friends by e-mail. Some people even portrayed the entertaining video on their blogs.

Soon Henry’s phone was ringing off the hook. He had more business than he could handle. He had money to fix up two more rooms in the attic that he had neglected and was able to take in more guests. Before long, Henry had one of the most popular Bed and Breakfast establishments in Massachusetts.

Henry was always a good proprietor. His bed and breakfast was always clean, he was kind to his guests and the establishment was lovely. Even the food was good. But because people didn’t know about it, he wasn’t getting the guests he could have.

Because of the internet website and video advertising, Henry’s business, that was once just getting by, was now bustling. Bookings had to be made months in advance. The video still circulated for a while on the internet. And because Henry was such a good host and ran such a good establishment, he had many customers who came back over and over again.

This is just one example of how a little bit of internet know-how, a video camera, a bit of the knowledge of what you can use on the internet in your ads and a little imagination saved a business. It began with the website and ended with a very successful ad campaign. And it saved a retiree’s business.

Do you still wonder how effective internet video advertising can be? Henry’s story is just one of many. Many businesses are discovering the importance of advertising on a media that 82 percent of Americans use. Many of them are realizing that entertaining people with clever video ads are more effective than word ads. Video advertising on the internet is the way of the future.

Henry’s story is not unique. It is a true success story and amazing because it was done by an amateur. But there are thousands of businesses who are discovering that video advertising on the internet is not only drawing more attention to their business, but increasing their sales and adding to their revenue.

Chapter 8 - What Other Visual Methods Can I Use?

You have now probably decided to implement the use of video technology to not only draw customers to your website, but make your site more appealing and increase your sales. But that is not all that you can do to increase sales on your website.

Remember how we talked about that people are very visual. This means that you want to show not only videos on your website but other photographs and visual products as well. This ranges from clip art, cartoons, photographs and even animation. There are certain software programs that will allow you to create an animated character that can “walk your client through” your website. You want to make sure that this character that is small, does not overpower the website, it pleasant and harmless looking and that the customer has the power to turn the little animated guy off. While this may appeal to some people, some might find it annoying.

Also, you have to remember that some people will be perusing your website while at work. They probably will not be supposed to be doing this, but they will be doing it anyway. Many people are getting fired for “internet abuse.” As a matter of fact, it is one of the leading causes of people losing their jobs in the United States. You will want to make sure that both your video and your animated character have a volume or mute control.

Clip art is always fun as are funny cartoons. You will have make certain, however, that the clip art that you use is public and free. There are millions of free clip art products both available over the internet as well as in software. These are all within the public domain and free to use. Why not use them?

In addition, there are hundreds of photographs and cartoons that lie within the public domain that you can add to your website. If you can find a cartoon that pertains to your business that is a free cartoon, why not use it in your website? You can even get a little creative and edit the cartoon to mention the name of your business.

Still another way to increase sales using visual elements on your website is by the use of coupons that can be printed by the customer and used. People love coupons and many websites are using this marketing method to not only attract new sales, but also to gauge how many people are visiting their website.

If you are not an expert at setting up a website, and few of us are, why not have a professional create a website for you? There are many companies and individuals who do this for businesses. If you have a small budget, you can hire a person who is attending technical college to learn how to set up a website. You will be surprised at the knowledge this young person will have and they will charge you much less than a professional company. You may even get more innovation; you never know. The kid that you hire to create your website might be the next brightest new talent.

Once you have created your website, get some opinions from friends and colleagues on the site itself. Remember that you will want to make the website easy to read, easy to understand, easy to navigate and above all, attractive and entertaining. This means using any visual means that you have at your disposal, including video, you will have a website that will appear professional and you will be using all modern means to attract customers, generate new leads and increase sales and profits.

Chapter 9 - Some Video Marketing Tips

By now you realize just how much videos added to your website can do to not only improve your website, but generate leads and sales. The type of video that you use will have to depend on the type of business you have. You can use video in many different ways. The examples given of Henry’s bed and breakfast and the shower filter company both used humor in a positive way to attract customers.

There are other ways that you can use video as well, without having to pay any fees to producers who may own the video. Remember in the last chapter how we talked about coupons? People like to save money. They like to feel that they are getting a deal.

Observe commercials on television. They will often say that if you call within a certain amount of minutes, you will get an extra product or discount. You can do this as well. Either on your own website, through e-mail or even on a free video site, such as You Tube.

For example, suppose you have an excess of a certain product you would really like to move. One way to do it is to introduce the product in your own home made video. Tell people how wonderful this product is, and that it is now available at a special rate. And if they call or order right away, they can get free shipping. Make sure that this is cost effective to you. If you have your own business, you probably already know about different ways to market certain products. One method includes marking the product up a bit to cover the “free shipping.” You do not want to lose money on this promotion. However, this will only work if it is a new product that you have not previously advertised on your website. If you have this product on the website for $24.99 and suddenly you are sending out a video that it is now “marked down” to $29.99 including free shipping, your customers will feel cheated and you will lose your credibility. This method only works with overstock that you cannot move or a brand new product that has not yet been advertised.

So you make your video and put it on your website. Is that good enough? No. You want to make sure that you send your video to all of your customers through e-mail, particularly those who have purchased the product in the past. E-mail is free advertising, it doesn’t get any better than that.

You can also advertise your product on You Tube or other free avenues. This is not going to cost you a dime and may generate much income, as well as rid you of some products that you are dying to get rid of.

Another way to use video to market your product would be if you had a restaurant of some sort. Again, you advertise a “special” on your site that will be good on only a particularly day. For example, on Tuesdays during this month, pizza will be 20 percent off. Restaurants often get business through word of mouth, but if one person sees the ad, they will tell others. Be prepared for an onslaught of customers on Tuesdays and make sure you have plenty of ingredients to make a lot of pizza.

If you sell strictly over the Internet, you should have a database of all of your customer’s e-mails. If you have not done this, begin doing so immediately. You can easily send them a video advertisement each time you have a special. Make it short and sweet and give them an incentive to ‘act right away.” People often purchase on impulse. One example would be to simply advertise that you are giving free shipping on all orders that are placed on the website within 24 hours. See how well that does for you. It will give the customer an incentive to act quickly and you will make a sale. The longer you give them to act, the better the chances are that they will not act at all and talk themselves out of making the purchase.

If you have a car dealership, you can take tremendous advantage of such a video ad. “From now until Friday, prices on all new models have been slashed!” You can even offer a free gift for those who visit the showroom before the deadline. Car dealers often do this just to get the customer in the door. Once the customer is inside the door, the objective is to not let them leave until they buy a car. Some dealerships take this approach a little too far, such as the example of the car salesman who threw my father’s keys to his old car on the roof of the showroom. This was not good salesmanship and car dealers seldom behave this way anymore. But they still want to get you into the store so they can use every tactic, short of kidnapping, to get you to purchase a car. Because they know, once you walk out of that showroom, they have lost a sale. People seldom come back.

Another way to keep people interested in your website and keep them coming back is to use the “progressive” ad. Do you remember the old “Folger’s” coffee commercials? They were popular on television in the 1990s. It featured a man and a woman who were flirting with each other throughout the commercial. Each commercial became a bit more progressive, it was like watching a soap opera. People enjoyed seeing these commercials because they wanted to see if the man and woman would ever get together. This advertising campaign was very popular not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, where it was first conceived. The same actors were used and they used different accents in the different series of ads. The Folger’s progressive commercial was one of the most successful marketing campaigns of its time.

Why not do that on your website? It doesn’t have to be a soap opera format, but as videos are easy to continue to create, upload and delete, you can keep changing your video from time to time and make it a progressive commercial. The soap opera theme always works. A murder them, while macabre, may work on certain websites, depending upon what you are selling. People will continue visiting your website to see if the love affair works out or if the murder is solved. And if you can manage this yourself, it won’t cost you anything. Much less expensive as the Folger’s coffee ad, but just as effective.

No matter what type of business you own, use marketing techniques combined with video in your sales. Sure, the videos on your website can be entertaining and make your site more attractive. These alone will generate more sales. But when you combine them with old fashioned marketing techniques, you’ve really got is a winner.

Chapter 10 - Move Into The Future

By now you should know all about how video advertising on the internet can draw more people to your website, give you new leads on customers, and increase your sales and revenue. By now you know that people are visual and like to be entertained. You have been given a number of examples on how you can use video in your website and internet advertising to your advantage.

You know the difference between hiring an advertising firm to create your video. You know that you can easily create your own video and easily add it to your website. You know the difference between advertising via video on other websites, which will cost you money, as well as implementing this technology on your own website.

Advertising has always been with us. Prior to television, advertising was seen in print. In the newspapers, magazines and on billboards. Prior to that, they had metal signs to let people know about their product. Anyone who is in business knows that in order to sell something, you have a better chance of making a sale if people actually know about your business and what exactly it is that you are selling.

After print ads came radio ads. Then people began watching television and it became necessary for commercials to be filmed. Early commercials on television were often very crude, but somehow, people still remember these old ads. It became apparent to companies that in order to keep up with the competition, they had to have a good advertising campaign. They hired the best advertising executives that they could find to come up with slogans, gimmicks, print ads, jingles and commercials. Many of us still remember the commercial jingles from the past, which do not seem to be used that much anymore. Television ads have, like television, become more sophisticated.

The internet has also become more sophisticated. You now know that most people in the United States use the internet. Some people use the internet a little too much. Internet addiction is beginning to become a problem. People use the internet all the time, even at work when they are supposed to be doing their jobs. For most of us in the United States, the first thing we do when we get up in the morning is check our e-mail.

Camcorders, once an item people used to film their children, have come down significantly in price since the late 1980s. They are small, easy to use and the videos are very easy to upload onto the internet. So easy, as a matter of fact, that people are using videos for just about everything. Writing sites that used to feature only text media, now offer creative types to submit videos as tutorials for money. They realize that many people learn better by seeing how something is done rather than just reading about it.

Musicians promote their music on MySpace with ease. There are any budding talents who have their own, home made music videos on MySpace so that they can promote their music to their target audience, free of charge. Gone are the days of spending thousands to record a demo and then having to send it out to producers and radio stations in the hopes they will like it and play it on the radio. Now they can just cut to the chase and give their audience a chance to “discover” them before the radio stations or producers.

Just about anywhere you can ad text on the internet, you can ad video. Most online communities allow videos on their website. They cost nothing. Dating sites are using videos as a form of “matching” people. There is much competition between online dating sites, and many are realizing that those that feature videos instead of blurry photographs are becoming more popular and getting more members.

Websites for businesses have evolved from simple sites that offered an array of products to those that feature flash videos, music and entertainment as you shop. Banner ads that people click on accidentally that end up costing companies money are soon to be obsolete. There is a new technology, a better technology, to advertise your business. Video. And it is just as easy to use and more effective.

The way you use video on your website is limited only by your imagination. You can use it to depict a peaceful scene that is pleasant to view and soothing to sell your aromatherapy products, or you can use it to depict scenes from a travel spot that are just breathtaking.

You can also implement humor to make people want to stay on your website. You can change the video periodically to keep them coming back. You can do anything you want.

By now you have realized that sending an e-mail that says you have a sale on shirts is not as effective as sending a video e-mail that really grabs the recipient’s attention and makes them look. You know that when you combine this form of media advertising with marketing tools, you can mix the old with the new and generate a lot more sales on your website.

You know that there are many different free outlets that will enable you to upload your video for free. While you should not depend solely on a website like YouTube to promote your business, particularly because you cannot really target your audience, you can promote the name of your business and if your video is funny and clever enough, this free form of advertising may draw people to your website.

Video advertising on the internet is not very new, but is still at the beginning stages. It has proven to be very popular and effective. Internet advertisers are reporting that video ads are much more effective than print ads and many are trying to get their clients to switch to this media.

More companies are coming up with different ways to continue to improve video technology on the web, including Microsoft. They realize that video advertising, particularly on websites, is now imminent. More websites are now beginning to add videos to attract customers and boost sales. Those who will cling on to the past will soon be left in the past. Just as the businesses once were that refused to advertise on television.

Now that you know all there is to know about the different ways you can use video advertising on your website to generate leads and sales, you should be eager to begin. Whether you hire an outside company or film your own video is up to you. Either way, now is the time to pull yourself into the future of this brilliant technology.

Targeted Traffic Guide

Exponential resource management isn’t just a fancy name. It’s a really underestimated, under used marketing method that works incredibly well. So much so, this section is one of the main reasons we’re only letting 500 copies of this go. I don’t want my competition to be able to manage their customers correctly if it means I’m going to get them instead.

What we’re looking at here are your five primary resources, the lifeblood of any online business. That’s your affiliates, your list, your customers, long term customers, and joint venture prospects, all of which we’ll refer to from this point onwards as your resources, or your promotion power.

Each one of the big five have the power to make you sales, and thus big profits. However, imagine being able to take those five and manage them in such a way that you never have to carry out the expensive act of paying for new customers, a bigger, list, more affiliates or JV contacts ever again, but still having countless thousands of them flowing into your lap.

It sounds unthinkable, but with the right management of your resources, you’re going to be seeing their usefulness double, multiply by three, four, sometimes even five. What does this mean for your profits? Well, have you ever worked it out in your head how much you’d make if you doubled a penny every day for a month or two? The principal here is the same, but instead of money, you’re using your resources. The more you have, the faster they build each other. The true power of real exponential growth is at every marketer’s fingertips. They just have to know how to realize it’s there and understand how to use it to their advantage..

Part 1

Overview of Resource Management

• To demonstrate how to take your existing resources and cross them over in such a way that they begin to build themselves. The ultimate in marketing strategies allows you to boost your promotion power exponentially when others are having trouble even building a list that makes a single sale.

• To display a diagram to demonstrate this method helping you commit this to memory and act on your knowledge.

• To discuss each resource in depth and to define specific roles for each one, opening up the ability to cross your resources and to start the snowball effect rolling.

• To avoid the pitfalls that other marketers are making as we speak with their crossing of resources, if they've even discovered such a method in the first place.

• To inspire and to demonstrate ideas for the crossing of your resources, both enabling you to follow the examples we've laid out for you, and to come up with your own as your resources start to flood in when you launch your products.

Exponential Resource Management 1

Greetings, and welcome to the manual entitled exponential resource management and treating your customers right. As well as a selection of literal ways to get the most out of your customers without giving them the earth for free, we'll also be taking a little bit of a lateral detour here.

You see, when I say treating your customers right, I'm not just talking about how to keep your customers happy. Although this is important, what I'm going to show you is much more important, and much more beneficial to you, and it should alter the way you think about what you're doing and how you're doing it.

Your five main resources: Joint Ventures, Affiliates, Standard List, Standard Customers, and Long Term Customers. That is exactly what this section is about. Not just being nice to people so they trust you more, we're going deeper than this to start with. We'll leave the easier stuff until afterwards.

The Working Concept - An Overview

The whole idea of this section is based around kind of a cross promotion strategy, which is nothing new products wise, but when we look at it in terms of the five main resources you've been gathering it becomes a different matter entirely. What we're planning to do here is take the whopping promotion power of the big five, tie them together and double what they're doing for you without bringing in anyone new. We're simply referring each type of member to different sections.

Now, you may have seen this circle of five before when talking in terms of website promotion, using the site itself as a base to launch each resource onto the next stage in the ladder where possible, whilst at the same time bringing in new blood. This time around, we're taking that circle, and moving people around so that they can reside in multiple places, which in turn, can double, or even triple your promotion power simply because one person becomes two, three and up to five different resources on their own. Powerful stuff. For quick reference, here's that basic resource circle that we’re talking about. We’ll be adding to this in a moment.

Now, this is going to become a big part of the circle, because it's going to add to it internally, as we're moving people around here without bringing in new people, increasing the productivity of the people we already have, so please do take a careful look at it right now, or the rest of this section won’t make any sense. The main thing I want you to keep in mind is the above diagram, as that will form the basis of your whole web based marketing outlook. It will however be added to at the end of this manual, so that you have five large diagrams at the end of the course to base your marketing off of.

What we're going to do now is go through each resource, and look at the most effective ways to cross them over to another resource, whether it's worth doing, why you should or shouldn't do particular things with each section, and most importantly, which ones are going to make you the most cash.

Even if you don’t have all of these resources at your disposal yet, don’t worry. The aim here is to show you what’s going to go on when your promotions do go out and be prepared. Let me assure you, the speed that the five main resources come in may turn around and surprise you, It’s going to come in very handy, very soon.
 

What to Do with Your List

So first up, lets start with your list. Think first about what your list is. It's your first contact, and it contains pretty much everyone that's passed through the system you've set up, from the freebie hunters, to the people that didn't know what they signed up for, those who had friends that signed them up for a joke, and of course those who are going to progress through the circle and make you a whole load of cash in several different ways. It's the most numerous of all the five resources, and is also in this instance of the lowest quality compared to the other four, however is essential if you want to fill the higher ranks.

An Important Tip

Keep in mind that it's not always possible or even in your best interests to subject a particular resource to this type of cross promotion. This is especially true for your more valuable money-makers. The reason being is that they can be lost, just like any other resource, but when you take the regular customers who have spent many thousands of dollars on your products in small numbers, compared to a large list that have yet to spend, it's much more devastating to lose one or two percent of your big spenders than it is to lose one or two percent of your freebie seekers.

What to Do with Your List - Continued

So, getting started here, what do we want to turn your list into? Well, everything really. Your lists are there for one thing, and one thing only, and that's to act as your own media outlet, and increase your other four resources (something that many businesses miss). Turning your list into customers and long-term customers is quite straight forward. You'll be sending them announcements relating to your new products and services. It's as they should be used, and most often are.

Two more extremely profitable things that your list can do that people rarely ever seem to catch hold of (even more profitable than making direct sales) is build your affiliate base and on top of that build your joint venture base. First up, the affiliate building. Remember we talked previously about promotion to build resources instead of make the profits? Well this works in exactly the same way. The reason we don't see it too often, aside from the people that have been told about it, or sussed it out already, is who in their right mind would promote, and in fact spend the two most important things (their money and their time) on promotion when they're not going to make any cash out of it directly.

The sooner that you, as an business-person, online or offline can see how important it is to look beyond immediate profits from ad campaigns, the sooner you will start to make some real money. I guess it's overlooked by so many simply because in today’s age of the internet, everyone wants something right now, they don't want to wait. The longer it takes to carry out, the more they overlook it as something that won't be an immediate fix for their situation.

Building Your Affiliates From Your List

One thing I do want to say to you now is, if you have sixty five, seventy, eighty percent, or even more to give away through your products’ commissions, don't be afraid to tell people about it. Not so long ago in fact, maybe two or three years prior to writing this report, there was a spate of big affiliate commission sites popping up that offered anywhere from 80-100% commissions that did incredibly well on the resource building side of things simply on the basis of promoting their high commissions more than the product itself.

So whatever you do, don't think that gaining affiliates is all about that little button at the top of your sites with 80% for affiliates written in big letters. Hey, we spend money to promote free products to build our lists all the time, why can't we do the same for our affiliates? Well we can, and to be honest, one good affiliate is more valuable than a hundred subscribers, even a thousand subscribers in my eyes, for the simple reason that they may have an audience of tens or even hundreds of thousands on their lists that they're willing to give you access to. Imagine the resources that would land in your lap and the power you'll have for future promotion when a few ads like that start to go out.

So the rule here is just this. If you're following the charts we've put up for you, this guide or a modified version of it, built around your own needs, and your commissions are higher than the average fifty percent, go ahead and make sure people know about it through your promotion. Make it a prime concern of yours and you won’t be disappointed.
 

Turning Your List Into Joint Ventures

Now as far as turning your list into joint ventures goes, this is a pretty easy but also open ended and rather variable in results until you actually see what these people are capable of further down the line. Similar to previously, when we talked about gaining feedback from your list you can in the same way, gain joint ventures from your list, again, as in the above example with the affiliates, this is often far more widely used, and for good reason.

I urge you once again, not to relegate your joint venture prospects to those who visit your website, and the individuals you pick out through the top performing affiliates, but to actively seek them through your list. The reason we're doing this is simply because there's a good chance someone will be out there that won't progress down your line of resources otherwise. If they're experienced, have a big list of their own, or the ability to get in touch with your target market, you're going to miss out if you’re not telling them that you want their services.

For example, an experienced marketer that subscribes to a selection of lists to keep up with what’s going on around them, happens to subscribe to your list where you're selling an info product such as this. He or she won't buy your how to product, because they’ve got their system set up already and it just so happens, that they only promote their own stuff to their own lists, unless it's a joint venture (this is very common among the big guys by the way), they won't buy your big product for the same reason, and they won't be joining your affiliate program for the above reason. He or she is a heavy hitter with a big list, but you're missing out. These are the people you're aiming to cater for here. It's not good if you're leaving massive holes like this, because you're missing out on some massive profit potential. In fact, as we speak the majority of marketers out there are very obviously leaving these types of holes.

The problem with joint venturing through a list at this stage is it becomes kind of a lottery if you're not careful. You can't just send out a mailing asking for anyone with a list over ten thousand people to contact you for higher commissions, because then everyone else feels cheated and you may alienate some potential affiliates. In general terms joint ventures should be a private thing, the deal will also vary from person to person, depending on your product, their list size, what they want in return and what you can grant in return. The best way to go about this is to keep it that way. Don't do a mass mailing just requesting joint ventures for the reasons above, we can't do that for this particular resource.

What I'd suggest you do instead, which you should be doing with your list anyway, is carry on as your normally do, sending out your un-intrusive surveys to help with your research and find out as much info as you can about the people on your list, for something in return. For example a short valuable report that you've written on your area of expertise. In exchange you're getting vital info that not only allows you to tailor your ads to your list providing a better response rate, but at the same time you're building up a picture of who the good joint venture prospects are. Once you've done that, you can go through the results you've collected, and pick the top performers, the knowledgeable, and the people with the most resources, and contact them individually.

 What to Do with Your List - Summary

So you see, your list is your first contact that you have with your customers and the potential is there to turn them into the other four resources further up the food chain if done as above. If it's related to your business, and other people should be seeing, reading, using, buying or promoting it, your list should know about it at least once, in it's unspecialized, most basic and standard form. Leave them in the dark, and you’re missing out on potentially thousands, tens of thousands in profit, or more.

What to Do with Your Customers

Moving on from your list and your most general and untargeted form of targeted marketing, let’s take a look at the first specialized section here, your customers. The people that have either only bought low priced introductory products from you before, or have only purchased from you once.

What you'll start to see is as we get more specialized and move up the food chain in terms of profitability, things start to get easier to figure out what to do and when to do it when crossing your resources over. It's also important to note, that with paying customers, and them being lower in numbers than your list, it's easier to make a mistake and lose profit potential rather quickly if you're not careful about where you're setting foot.

When thinking about what to do with what resource, remember to always think in terms of where these people are going next in the standard form when setting orders in the way of importance. For example, with our short-term customers, in the standard flow of things, they'll be turning into your big buyers. The people that buy the most products from you at the highest price, so again, short term, they may not seem like much now, but in the future, this is where your big profits are going to be coming from, hence their major importance, and the general attitude is that you should give them something a little extra for their time. That’s not because they're more demanding than your list, but because the profit potential is much higher for you, their numbers are much smaller, and the margin of error also is much smaller.

Organizing is the Key to Success

Now, before we even start, we're seeing a new problem emerge. The organizing and managing of five different resources that all overlap can become a complex, time consuming and confusing task, and that's not what we want. I can rightly see why many just take all their five resources and just bundle them into one list. I'd highly suggest you avoid doing this unless you're just promoting other peoples stuff or very rarely create your own products. If your business is, and will in the future remain all about the products you're creating and selling, keep them separate. If you carry this section out correctly, it won't mean a huge amount of extra work, aside from five short mailings per product promotion drive or launch instead of one.

Back to Managing Your Customers

The reason I mention the above is that when you get to this stage, the people out there that do things this way and keep their resources separated, try to give them the earth. For example, if I told you how valuable these people are, and you wanted to turn them into affiliates, how do you do so?

The general answer would be to give them higher commissions. This however is not worth your trouble, because we're overlooking one serious flaw in that plan. Unless your product is geared to give higher commissions in the beginning to people who purchase it, these people aren't necessarily suited to affiliate material, and in my experience, it's best not to bombard them with affiliate signup pages and adverts about how much they can make unless that is a specific benefit of your product.

I'd suggest to you that the only way around this is not to do the above, because your main aim is not to make them promote for you, but to buy your higher priced products and move up the ladder. So the solution is treat them as such. When you're mailing them about a new product, include information about how much they can earn promoting for you. I highly recommend not deviating from the original plan and flow of the chart with these important people, especially when it comes to trying to turn them into affiliates. You'll gain plenty of them via the other resources, leave well alone trying to give them bonuses or bigger commissions at this stage, because otherwise you'll just end up with a big tangled ball of yarn and a headache. We'll get on to just how we make them valued in a moment.

But first, let’s look at turning your customers into your list. To start with, you'll find that most of your customers are on your list anyway. Not much needs to be said about this subject for that very reason. Any customers that aren't on your standard list will still be receiving ads for your products, high cost products and low cost products as part of your introductory series each time you launch something new using the backend sales flow chart. What they won't be receiving are the mails that you use to try and separate your list into one of these categories for the same reasons as with the lack of affiliate mailings as explained in the previous point.

Any of your customers that are not on your standard list won't be missing much in the way of making you money by not being there, because they're already where you want them, in a prime position to buy a premium product from you. In my experience, customers are more than ten times more likely to buy from you again than your standard list, and this is the reason I said that your list is the least targeted and lowest quality of the big five resources.

Customers to Long-Term Customers 

Moving on swiftly, lets look at the probably the most important part here, and that's turning your customers into long-term customers, or big buyers. Now just because they're in this phase and haven't bought your first high ticket item after standard follow-up procedures, doesn't mean they're useless, and will only ever buy the fifty dollar products from you. Far from it, but it does mean one of three things. Either there was a gap in your marketing system that they fell through, whether it was your intro product, your ad copy or your sales letter, or they couldn't afford to purchase the larger product, or finally they weren't interested in what you had to offer.

For those reasons, you have to make sure to cater to all of them when you launch your next products. They will receive your small intro product, and as a follow-up to this they will also receive your larger high-ticket product. This is important here, because if they didn't purchase your first high priced product, you'll want to get them in at the bottom again before you do anything else, and have them move through your intro product up to the bigger product. If your first time around was shoddy, they'll know your game, and not buy into the second fresh new product line you've set up, and never move through to buy high-ticket items from you.

Now as a follow-up to this, you'll want to also notify them directly about your high-ticket item some time after you notify them of the intro product. This way, you're again regenerating the trust and the familiarity of your brand through your intro product and at the same time, having those that didn't move up the ladder through your first product move up now. And of course don't go thinking that people will be annoyed that bought the intro product to receive a bigger, better product later, again for the reason that your intro product is a real, and helpful product, not just a cheap excuse to sell bigger stuff. It's ethical, it covers all angles relating to your standard customers, and what’s more, it works like a charm.

Turning Your Customers Into JVs

Finally, turning your customers into joint venture prospects works in much the same way that you carried out for your list. You'll also be pulling research numbers from these guys, and from that research you'll know who to pull up for joint ventures. This is the only way to effectively do this and keep the joint ventures personal, instead of just mass mailing a list. It keeps you in the driver’s seat. Of course, at this stage there's no other way to do this, chances are your list of customers who have purchased from you even though not as big as your list, will be too big to talk to all of them personally at this stage, which without this or affiliate stats, you have no other way of knowing who you want to make deals with.

What to Do with Your Customers Summary

Summing this up then, your customers are important to you and have a specific role. Changing that role at this all important stage can do more harm than good. If you're going to contact them about anything other than research or sales of your products, refer to your research first and do it personally and individually for joint ventures, and avoid it altogether for turning them into affiliates. If you really want your customers to become affiliates as to plug the gap, make sure you have a higher commission integrated into the products they're buying from you, so they can take this offer up as a benefit if they're interested in the first place, and not to do it as afterthought.

Right, we're going to stop this one here as not to give you information overload. In the next section, after the summary that follows, we'll continue looking at how to cross your resources to get more out of them when we take a closer look at what to do (and what not to do) with your affiliates, long term customers and joint venture prospects. We'll also be taking a look at a few of the generalized ideas about treating all your lists correctly.

You’ll see exactly what effect this has later, but I can tell you now, that when you launch into this type of cross promotion of your resources, you’ll be drawing on all of this knowledge without having to wade through a bunch of text when you’re busy launching your products and managing resources. It may seem a little strange right now, but I assure you, it’s for the best, which you’ll be finding out for yourself very soon. See you in the next section!

Summary

This whole section looks at cross promotion. Not as you may have been taught previously with other products, but this time, relating to the five resources you've been gathering. What we're planning to do now is quickly and effectively bring your resources together in unison, and use the big five to multiply your promotion power many times over without having to ever bring any new resources in at all ultimately demonstrating how even if you have a small amount of resources, you can outperform someone with the same number and quality of resources by up to twenty five times.

We're simply going to overlap each of them in a specific way so that each person becomes up to five times more profitable for you in five separate areas. What we'll also be doing at the end of the next section is providing you with an additional diagram that you can add to the previous one to give a more complete outlook of the whole resource movement and development process.

Lets begin by immediately looking at the pros and cons and the cross promotion of your list, turning your list into affiliates, customers, long term customers and joint venture prospects.

Your list. It’s your first contact and your base promotion power that contains everyone that's ever passed through your site that hasn't qualified for a specialty list (i.e. bought something and landed themselves on the customers list, or singed up as an affiliate and landed on the affiliates list).

They're all here, from freebie seekers to people that know what they've signed up for and those that don't, to those interested in your business, to those interested in following your progress and learning from you. It's generally the most numerous of all the resources and the lowest quality, but is an essential starting point for filling the higher ranks.

Keep in mind that it's not always profitable to expose one set of resources to another. This is especially true for your most valuable resources, for example, you wouldn't make a strong effort to make your affiliates buy your product, because that's not their role, and you'll end up losing profitable affiliates for the sake of a few thousands dollars of sales.
 
So, let’s get started with your list now. What do we want to turn your list into? Your list is there for one thing and one thing only, to increase the other four main resources. Turning your list into customers and long term customers is straight forward, and all it requires is simple list maintenance and regular promotion. Quite obvious this one, but there are a few more things that you can do with your list that many don't utilize.

The first: Build your affiliate base, and continue to build your joint venture base. Either of these that contain just one person that knows their stuff is more powerful than a list of ten or twenty thousand because of the power they have to make you (and themselves) profit compared to a lone ad of your own.

This is why many successful and clued-up business owners are willing to use at least half of their list announcements for building their other resources, simply because it's more profitable. The sooner you can begin to see that it's far easier to make a lot of money from building resources instead of making sales, and act on this information, the sooner you will begin to make the real money.

My point here is, especially with affiliate programs, if you have a high commission rate, (higher than the average 50-55% that is) and a worth talking about seventy percent plus, don't be afraid to tell your list about it.

So, whatever you do, don't think that gaining affiliates is all about that little button at the top of your sites with 80% for affiliates written in big letters. Hey, we spend money to promote free products to build our lists all the time, why can't we do the same for our affiliates? Well, we can, and we do for the reasons we outlined above.

So, the rule here is just this. If you're following the charts we've put up for you, this guide or a modified version of it, built around your own needs, and your commissions are higher than the average fifty percent, go ahead and make sure people know about it through your promotion. Even consider making it a prime concern of yours to get these affiliates instead of the profits through sales of your big product if you have the choice.

Now moving on and as far as turning your list into joint ventures goes, this is also very powerful but also open ended and variable, because it's hard to know exactly what people are capable of when they're approaching you from your mailings.

Try not to regulate your JV partners to those who visit your site and individuals picked through top performing affiliates, because there's a lot of potential elsewhere, namely in your other resources.

For example, an experienced marketer that subscribes to a selection of lists to keep up with what’s going on around them, happens to subscribe to your list where you're selling an info product such as this. He won't buy your small how to product, because he's got his system set up already and only promotes his own stuff to his list, unless it's a joint venture (this is very common among the big guys by the way), he won't buy your big product for the same reason, and he won't be joining your affiliate program for the above reason. He or she is a heavy hitter with a big list, but you're missing out. These are the people you're aiming to cater for here. It's not good if you're leaving massive holes like this, because you're missing out on some huge potential for profit.

The problems with JVs at this stage is that they become kind of a lottery if you're not careful.

You can't just send out a mailing asking for anyone with a list of over ten thousand people to contact you for higher commissions, because then everyone else feels cheated and you may alienate some potential affiliates. In general terms, joint ventures should be a private thing, the deal will also vary from person to person, depending on your product, their list size, what they want in return and what you can grant in return. The best way to go about this is to keep it that way. Don't do a mass mailing just requesting joint ventures for the reasons above, we can't do that for this particular resource.

What I'd suggest you do instead, which you should be doing with your list anyway, is carry on as your normally do, sending out your un-intrusive surveys to help with your research and find out as much info as you can about the people on your list, for something in return.

For example a short valuable report that you've written on your area of expertise. In exchange you're getting vital info that not only allows you to tailor your ads to your list providing a better response rate, but at the same time you're building up a picture of who the good joint venture prospects are. Once you've done that, you can go through the results you've collected, and pick the top performers, the knowledgeable, and the people with the most resources, and contact them individually.

As you can see, your list is powerful, but not in the way most make out. Always remember your standard list is there to build your other resources, and isn't only for making straight up sales, which is where most seem to misplace the power of this tool.

Let’s move on now to the less obvious resources beginning with your customers. Immediately we know from prior knowledge that your customers have bought from you before, they're more trusting of you and your products and are in my personal experience over ten times more likely to buy from you again than the standard list.

Be careful here. This is where we need to look hard at the role the customers play, because they're more valuable than your standard list in many ways, and often less numerous. For these reasons we have to get it right, because unsubscriptions are far more devastating here than for your standard list. You didn't spend all that time selling to them and building their trust just to scare them away again.

So, in the natural flow of things, where do your customers go next? Onto long-term customers. As we discussed the added trust and stronger connection and involvement makes it far easier to sell higher priced items to standard customers. When they buy a second product from you, they turn into long term customers. They trust you, they spend often, and are likely to buy your products with the aim of profit in mind. Often they'll stay with you for years buying again and again. It's immediately clear that the wrong move here can hurt your profits hugely, because is where most of it is coming from.

So, we already know the natural progression of things turns your customers into long term customers, but what about the other resources? Well for a start, I always find it handy to already have your customers on your standard list. You won't need to make much effort getting them there, because it's likely they'll have already subscribed to your stuff through your site, or the first product they purchased.

This is useful, though, because you can demonstrate to them through offers to customers only that later reach the standard list that they're also on. I like to do this to emphasize my special offers for customers that have bought from me before are real, and the others don’t get it, further increasing sales and enforcing trust. I would advise in addition to this to leave them on your standard list for this reason, as mailings to each resource should never be the same. Don't worry about making sure they're only on one list so you don't annoy them, they'll be happy to see they're special in this way of receiving offers in special mails that the standard list won't get.

Next up, affiliates. Don't mistake your customers for affiliates. Understanding their role is so important here. A mailing here or there attached to your offer mentioning commissions is fine, but remember their role. They’re here to buy your stuff and make you profit. More often than not they will either not know how to promote, or are more interested in buying than promotion. Keep this in mind, and always tailor your mailings to the role the customers play and concentrate on turning them into long-term customers. If you try too hard to direct their attention to affiliate programs and promotion, you're alienating the people who want to buy from you, and cutting off a main vein and one of the most important stages in actually making a profit at all.

Finally, turning your customers into joint venture prospects works in much the same way that you carried out for your list. You'll also be pulling research numbers from these guys, and from that research you'll know who to pull up for joint ventures. This is the only way to effectively do this and keep the joint ventures personal, instead of just mass mailing a list. It keeps you in the driver’s seat. Of course, at this stage there's no other way to do this, chances are your list of customers who have purchased from you even though not as big as your list, will be too big to talk to all of them personally at this stage, which without this or affiliate stats, you have no other way of knowing who you want to make deals with.

In the next section, we'll continue looking at these resources, and I'll show you how they begin to get even more powerful down the line compared to your list, often by hundreds of times.

You’ll see exactly what effect this has later, but I can tell you now that when you launch into promotion, you’ll be drawing on all of this knowledge without having to wade through a bunch of text when you’re busy launching your products and managing resources. You’ll be finding out for yourself very soon.

Part 2

Overview of Resource Management

• To continue to look at and discuss effective ways of controlling, and using the resources that you're building through the launch of each product in such a way that you never have to worry about your promotion power ever again.

• To look at the reasons why many people can't get such a system in place, and why it hasn't been working for them, and what you're doing differently to ensure it does work.

• To further discuss the specific roles of each of your resources, allowing you more control over how you cross them over and have them build each other.

• To enhance the resource management sections and complete the picture of list, affiliate, customer, joint venture and long term customer management in such a way that's going to be highly beneficial to both your contacts, your business, and your pocket.

• To complete the sales system diagram by adding to it the flow of resources that will occur within your business when using this method.

• To sum up with a few pointers on how to treat each resource in general. Keep them happy, and how they'll keep you earning.

Exponential Resource Management 2

In the last chapter, we looked at getting the most out of your five primary resources in such a way that they build themselves, but not just through other people promoting your stuff, but by the overlap of the resources through other means. We finished off talking about what to do with your standard customers, already having covered your list previously, so without further ado, we'll now continue further down the resources and talk about the remaining three and what you should or shouldn't be doing to make the most out of them. Please note, if you haven't read the previous section, you should do so, as this won't make any sense otherwise and you'll only get part of the picture.

What to Do with Your Long-Term Customers

Ok next up along the line of resources comes your long term customers. At this point I'd usually tell you about how important long term customers are over something else, but as you may have noticed, they're all as important as each other, and you'll have a hard time keeping the numbers up effectively without a nice selection of each of the big five.

Long-Term Customers Into Affiliates

So, let's take a look at what you're going to do with your long term customers in regards to turning them into affiliates. Understand that when we talk about this, it may not be suitable to do so depending on your product. Turning any one of these resources into affiliates is especially important in the world of online marketing software or info selling, because after all, affiliate marketing is at least 20% of the whole picture. That's a huge chunk.

Well, after telling you that I'm going to have to turn around now and tell you straight up that turning your long-term customers into affiliates, (or trying to) is a bad idea. Remember, these people have already spent their money with you, and have seen your affiliate offers several times. Many of them will be on your list receiving the ads for your affiliate program solely, as we talked about earlier. For this reason there is absolutely no need to hassle these people directly with anything unnecessary.

Remember, this group has already spent a whole lot of money on your stuff, and if you want to keep them coming back, every time you contact them it has to be your best work. You need to be giving them something that they want, not just sending them ads, ads, ads. Also keep in mind, this particular list of yours should be the least numerous, but the biggest spenders.

Some of these people may come along to you and buy two thousand dollar product after two thousand dollar product. You can immediately see how valuable they are.

You can also see through a little math how much more devastating it is to annoy anyone on this list or cause them to leave for any reason. Granted, you may argue there's plenty more out there, but this is where most of your advertising funds are going. Getting people to buy your products that are going to be bringing you in a mighty profit in the first place isn't a short or easy task. Be very careful what you do with this list. This is going to be the long running theme in this section about your long term customers.

Long-Term Customers Into Your List

So, how about turning long term customers into your list? Well, like I mentioned earlier, they are already on your list and most have generally followed the natural process of things, so there's no persuasion needed to that end. The problem comes when approaching them with your next products. What do you do? Remember in effect these people are a list in themselves. Just think of them as your super high quality list as opposed to your standard, high numbers low return one.

Again, be very careful what you do with these people, and if you do mail them, make sure they first know they're valued and give them something for free, also consider handing out discounts for future products, a reward scheme if you will, but remember to let them know why. Because they're valued. People like to feel valued, but if you don't tell them they are, then they're just going to assume you're another person, collecting more e-mail addresses, and sending them more ads.

Long-Term Customers -- Back Into Customers

When it comes down to sending them ads when trying to sell them something else, things get a little more questionable. Do you start them in a system again, from the very beginning, or do you get them right in at the high priced end? That's exactly what I want to touch on right now. Turning your long term customers back into customers that first will purchase an entry level product, then be sold onto the full product. Do you, or don’t you?

Well the answer is both a yes and no. I would suggest, for starters that you get them information out about your shiny new high ticket product. This is a great way to start getting some feedback before the masses start promoting and coming through the system onto this high priced product. Remember they've already spent their cash, and if your product was good, they already trust you and listen to you, and if your sales letter is good, you don't need to go through all that again, it serves no purpose.

The only time I would suggest that you start them from scratch all over again, is if it's been a long time since you've contacted them, or if you're going to be giving them something valuable for free therefore increasing the trust, and their feeling of special-ness further. For example, you've seen all those deals about people giving you bundles of stuff for free that's apparently supposed to be worth so much cash, so what's to stop you playing on that?

If you want to build trust with your long term customers further, if your intro product plays too bigger part in your final high ticket product further down the chain than you can’t afford to waive it, then give them your intro product. No, I'm not talking about something free that was free anyway, I'm talking take the $20-$60 out of your pocket that you're paying out in high commissions anyway from the intro product, and give it to them.

How often have you been given something for free by someone you bought something off of only to see them selling it later as a real product? How special would you feel as a valued customer to pick this up and watch another ad come through on a standard list the same day selling the brand new product you got free? Pretty special I'd imagine. I should say if you've succeeded in general in creating a form of bond with these people, then they'll start thinking you're worthwhile. It's not for us to decide who's worthwhile and who's not, it's the other way around. When this happens though, you'll find more people start talking to you, mailing you, calling you, and some pretty interesting stuff happens, in the form of...

Long-Term Customers to JV Prospects

Turn your long term customers into joint venture partners, small or large, long-term or short term. Keep in mind that this isn't by far your most effective way of generating joint ventures on a small scale, (ad swaps, list access, etc.) or even on a large scale (full blown partnerships of products, each playing a specialized role), however, you'd be surprised what happens when you start talking to people. This report for example wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for that factor alone.

While we won't dwell on this for too long, I do want to make sure you understand I'm not telling you to go out, and start spending your day talking to your customers, and as anti professional as that sounds, we can't strike conversations up with all these people, especially as your business starts developing over a number of products, the numbers can get a little overwhelming if you’re going to try and pull something like that out of your hat.

What I do want to make sure you understand though is to look for those signs that the long term customer that is contacting you would be a viable target for a joint venture offer, whether they mention they have a large list of their own, or on occasion you just get talking, and if it's with the right person, you might just find yourselves pulling some great ideas out of the bag together. Watch out for this, because it can, will and does happen more often than you may believe. I won't ramble on again at this stage about how important joint ventures are. Instead, lets move on to the next resource type in your arsenal.
 

What to Do with Your Affiliates

Now we're getting to the interesting stuff. Affiliates are up next, and after running through the do's and don’ts of your paying customer base, things start to get a little more flexible here again, for simple reason that the situation is clear cut, and affiliates are more numerous than your long term customer base for example. By clear cut, I mean you know what these people want. They're here solely to promote a good product, and make good money doing so. You don't need to carry out any research to confirm that one.

Now, as far as turning your affiliates’ attention to your list, I'm going to advise the same as previously just to make one hundred percent sure no one reading forgets that each of these resources should be a list in itself, with a clear goal, and a clear reason for being there. When you come to mailing them, you need to know what they want from you, as well as what you can give them in return. What we're not going to be doing in this particular case, is sending random adverts to your affiliates, not even for your products, because, as we learned earlier, they're more important than even your immediate profit, in fact, they're going to be the ones bringing in the majority of your new resources together with joint ventures (coming up next in the list).

We do however, get to send our affiliates ads of some sort, in fact very similar to the ads we talked about for your list, this time though, you're not trying to sell them on products to earn you hard cash, oh no, you're sending them ads to sell them on the promotion of you newest and latest products, not forgetting to mention to them how well your sales letter performs and giving them a nice visual picture of how much they can earn through your words. It might look different on the surface, but you're still selling them something, and all the rules you learn throughout this report apply to both monetary sales, selling free stuff, selling yourself and your products to gain joint ventures, or selling the potential to earn money through your affiliates. It's all about selling all the time.

That's enough covered to demonstrate my point, and we'll take it further in a moment when we go on to talk about joint ventures.

Affiliates Into Customers

Let’s wrap up with the final three resources in the affiliates section, starting with customers. How on earth do you get your affiliates to pay you as well as promote for you? Well there's plenty of ways to turn these affiliates into customers. The first you would think would be looking at the intro product, and having affiliates that buy from you earn a higher commission. There's one problem with that though, what did we say the main goal of our intro product wasn't earlier on? if you remember we said that it's goal isn't to make a profit, but to build your resources.

Charging affiliates cash to join up, whether it is single sale or membership using your intro product, is cutting off your nose to spite your face for this exact reason. This is especially true if you're attracting some heavy hitters and working in the online marketing info product world, not because they can't afford to buy your product, but because it's just a hassle compared to going in, filling in a quick form, promoting straight away. If you've been following us so far, and your affiliate commissions are nice and high to get lots of people promoting, you'll find that you won't be making much profit even if you did get them all to sign up. In any case, it's more likely you'll put them off promoting and lose some quick blasts to some of these peoples big lists if you go about this any other way. Steer clear of it, and remember the role of your intro products and the resource itself, your affiliates.

Affiliates to Long-Term Customers

Looking at affiliates in the light of converting them to long term customers, however, is a different story altogether, simply because that's what your long term product is there to do. Make you a profit, and if any of them sign up and buy this whilst promoting, while it'll be very unlikely it'll be the mainstay source of customers for your business, it can be a nice little bonus. How you do this is only limited by the system you have set up and your imagination, adaptation and implementation. There really is no right or wrong way, and to list every single method would be a whole encyclopedia in itself.

Let me give you some examples though so I don't leave you wonder what I'm talking about. First example, you want to make a profit out of your affiliates, so along with your next ad to them about the newest affiliate program you have released for your newest product goes an offer voucher for a discount, don't just want a boring old discount? Not a problem, how about the ticket only becomes valid when they've made five or ten sales.

Even better, instead of pushing affiliates hard, have the ticket only request one sale of your product before it becomes valid. It's very unlikely an affiliate with a good list is going to make exactly one sale when they blast an ad out. Easy they think, out goes the ad. Ten sales come in instead of the one that they needed. They get a discount or even a free product on top of their commissions. At the same time, you persuaded someone to get out there and promote, not only bringing in more sales, but a bundle more resources that are going to do the same again and again. Best of all you were sleeping at the time. (I love that part)

Now ok granted you might be cringing at me right now wondering why I'm telling you this, but let me say in my defense, first think about what you're selling. If it's a Sixty dollar product, who cares if you give affiliates an 80% discount on top of their commission if they make a single sale. Remember that's not what we're talking about now. We're discussing high price items, anywhere from $500 to $10k per product. Now that discount starts to seem a little more significant and worthwhile. If I gave you 2k off one of my products on top of a 4k commission for making a single sale, would you blast an ad to your private, targeted list about that? There's a whopping wad of cash in it for you, and potentially hundreds more people for me to sell my products to for me.

It doesn't even have to go that far, even if you're only selling a $1250 product. When was the last time you were paid $500 per sale you made? If you have been paid that much before, I bet the product you were selling was pretty successful. Why don't more people pull stuff like this off? Simply wait until you've sold as many as you can in a short period of time, then open it up for affiliates with a deal like this, while the buzz is still there about your product.

Affiliates Into JVs

Finally, in the affiliates resource crossing list, lets look at our final resource with a view to turn affiliates into a joint venture partners. This is real easy to do, and it's quick and painless for you. All it involves is either a simple phone call, or personal e-mail. Now we're getting into rare, doesn't happen every day, gotta make this meeting as personal as possible territory.

What you're looking out for is a high rate of sales through your affiliate software. A simple search should do that if you've chosen a good system. Pick out the top two percent that have really made a dent and will generally make up the numbers big time and keep them handy. Not only should you have already rewarded them, but you should keep them ready and waiting for your next product, especially if it's related to your previous one.

If they did a good job promoting your previous product, it generally means they have the resources and ability to continue. You should be there when they decide that with a pre-empted contact prior to the release of your shiny new product, offering first stab at promotion and higher commissions than the norm. You may even be able to figure something else out if they have something you want. I can't detail that here, every joint venture is different. Make of it what you need of it. The deal doesn't all have to be higher commissions and more money more money all the time.

If you could have anything right now that would move you towards your goals more quickly, or in an easier way, what is it? Does this person I'm dealing with have it? If the answer is no, a safe bet is always the standard higher commissions. And remember, why are you giving them a load of special-ness over standard affiliates? Because they're valued affiliates. They probably know it already, but it doesn’t half hit home when you say it, especially, as in the above example in the customers resource crossing section, when they see the standard offer going out to all the other affiliates (they will be on the same list still after all). That'll sure show them that you're for real, they won't forget you either. Treat them right and they'll continue to make you a whole load of money for many years to come, and provide some really fruitful joint venture proposals and deals.

What to Do with Your JV Prospects

Talking of joint venture deals, lets move on now to the fifth and final section on crossing your resources over and talk about the do's and dont’s of probably the most lucrative marketing method in the business. Of the big five, your joint venture prospects and partners will likely be the least numerous of all your resources, but with the most stopping power per person. When you think that some of your JV's might end up being seen by lists of ten to a hundred thousand or more, it suddenly becomes clear how important this is. Let’s look at where to take your joint ventures with regards to the other four resources, starting with affiliates.

Turning Your JVs Into Affiliates

First up, you should keep in mind that most joint ventures that you receive after launching your fist two products will come from your affiliates anyway. As far as those who don't, they’re really glorified affiliates only. As with the difference between customers and long term customers, you'll find that even with those who aren't your affiliates, you'll be in contact with them pretty frequently anyway, whether they're on your instant messenger list, or you just fire emails at each other when you each launch new products.

Building up a circle of contacts that act in this way is extremely powerful in itself. Just, it takes a little more time to set up when it comes to product launches. Maintenance won't be a problem if you're using good affiliate software so, in this respect, keep your joint venture prospects separate. They're something special, and you'll likely find yourself in contact with them even more so than your long term customers, and they will be your first line of attack when launching future products. So when it comes to turning JVs into regular affiliates, don't bother, because they're all that and more already.

Turning Your JVs Into Your List

Secondly, turning joint ventures into your list. Not something to dwell on, because your joint ventures shouldn't be a list themselves. They should be a selection of business people that have access to resources that are beneficial to your business, not a bunch of e-mail addresses that you fire out ads to. Some may be on your list already, those that like to see what you're getting up to and when, and some may not. Either way, it doesn't matter, and you should never be thinking of your joint ventures as just a list of e-mail addresses. Things should be far more personal than that, at a cost of set up time to you, but producing some major profits and massive resource building potential.

Not Turning Your JVs Into Customers

And now to the section I've been itching to tell you about, and that's moving joint ventures over to become your customers and long-term customers. It's possible that some may have bought from you before, or even learned how to promote from you if your products are geared towards that way of thinking, however, your joint venture partners are way too important to go advertising to unless it's in a 'hey check it out, thought you might find it interesting' kind of way.

Let me tell you a little story about how not to do this. I used to work with a few people when I first started, and we were getting along fine, we created a few sites, experimented and compared notes a lot, and things were going great until I decided to branch out on my own. At regular intervals over the next three or four months whilst I was working on building my affiliate software, I started to receive interesting e-mails and messages from these people. Now understand that we were business colleagues, kind of like the people you talk to and hang around with and take your lunches with and had a laugh with at work.

Unfortunately that all changed pretty quickly, and although I was still getting the personal one on one deals from these people, they were trying to hard sell me. You can imagine logging on to the net and receiving mails or Instant Messages from one of your old friends that contained sales letter patter and hard sell messages. This is not how joint ventures are supposed to be carried out. It's inevitable, once you've been in contact with people for a period of time, you find yourself more relaxed and chatting more like friends, even though you both know business is the underlying subject.

So here's the deal, no matter how short of cash you get, no matter how much you think they're going to spend, don't hard sell or give your joint ventures sales pitches. Remember what they're there for, mutual deals that benefit both your products and businesses. Remember, this doesn't necessarily mean you can't tell them about your new stuff or a new product someone has released, but watch the way you go about it.

It's immediately obvious once you've been around a while when someone you know is trying to sell something to you in this manner. Sure, contact me, tell me about your new stuff, and show me the new opportunity you joined, tell me how it's going and what the word is on the net, ask me if I'm interested in joining you, not a problem, but the moment you start talking to me about how much of a stunningly amazing deal I'm getting, and how it's going to EXPLODE my sales by 400% overnight, guaranteed! Expect me to raise an eyebrow at you, turn around, and walk away. Moral of the story, watch what you're saying and how you're saying it if you want to keep your joint venture partners close.

The Final Diagrams

Alright, do you now see how each resource can go on to become relevant in two sections, double the promotion power for you, but at the same time you have to be very careful not to go over the top, or make a wrong move when trying to cross your resources over. Some of the above are obvious, and will lose you your resources in a particular way, and some of the less obvious have time based constraints which as pointed out in the relevant sections, and will have you messing with confusing tangled balls of resources that aren't viable compared to the amount of profit they bring you. Before moving on to three general rules about treating your customers correctly, here's the chart to demonstrate in note form what we've just talked about above and the previous chapter for each of your resources.

Note: This is not some fancy marketing system that’s been created for the sake of doing so. It simply demonstrates one of the fundamentals of every manual I’ve ever written. Your resources, and how when they’re building each other, you can never say you have no one to promote to, no one to promote your stuff, no one to strike deals with, and no way to make profit, because you do have all of those things. It’s all here, ready and waiting.

3 Steps to a Good Customer Relationship

Ok, finally before moving on to the next subject, and wrapping up this section, I'd like to talk to you about three, very general concepts relating to how to and how not to treat your customers, with a view to getting the most out of each every one of them through your marketing. I'd like to start off by giving you a quick run down of freebie syndrome and giving away the world.

Freebie syndrome, as I call it, unfortunately seems to be almost incurable over short periods of time. This occurs when you give too much for to little to your resources. Generally, the people that do this are in the mindset that people will remember them, thank them, and like them for giving things to them. It's important, however, that no matter what resource you're dealing with not to do this too regularly for starters, and secondly don't give away anything worth more than around sixty dollars at the absolute max, especially when the product is new.

If you find yourself starting to do this, whether it's with affiliate commissions, mailings to your list, or being too kind to your customers or even your joint venture prospects and contacts, you'll likely see that they start to take it for granted and come to expect it, only to suddenly be offended when you don't keep up the pattern. Remember this if you're giving freebies away, make sure people know that it's a special thing that you don't do very often. This not only adds even more value to your words and products, but inoculates against freebie syndrome from the start, and you won't have to keep giving away the world to keep everyone happy.

Lastly, and quite simply, keep in touch. I'm not suggesting you mail your resources every day, or even every week, but I'd suggest keeping in contact at least three or four times a month minimum without making that fatal mistake of sending out e-mails when you have nothing to say. If you don't do this, gradually, over time, people will forget that trust you've built up with them, or even worse, forget who you are altogether, or not remember to update their accounts and subscriptions with their new contact details.

Wrapping Up

Generally they're more likely to remember you the further down the resource chart they are, and the more you should be doing to make sure they stay this way. That about wraps it up for how to treat your customers. I hope you'll agree that we've just talked through something far more important than customer service techniques here. We've just covered how to get your resources to build each other internally. Couple this with the external building and the influx of new customers you're receiving through your new products, and you'll find yourself in an abundance of promotion power.

Summary

Greetings, and welcome to treating your customers right part two, where we'll be looking at the final three resource types, and how to cross them over in the most profitable way, multiplying their profitability by five and potentially, massively multiplying your profits at the same time.

Let's jump in immediately, and having already talked about the list and your short term customers, let’s discuss your long term customers and the relationship they have with your other four resources.

The first thing I want to talk about is trying to turn your long term customers into heavy hitting affiliates. The best thing to do here is avoid trying to do that.

For the reasoning behind this, we first need to refer back to the role that long term customers play in your business. Couple your long term customers and place them in the same category as your standard customers. They're special, your money-makers, people who are purchasing your products.

For this reason we need to treat them as such. Trying to get the most affiliates as quickly as possible may seem like a good idea in the beginning, but when we take a closer look, we know that such actions can go towards removing the role of your customers especially, and when we do things that count towards unsubscriptions especially when looking at your profit pullers, this is not a good move.

If anything, leave them be, use them to promote your products and place the commission levels on a big red button on your site, as we discussed previously avoiding any unnecessary unsubscriptions through wrongly crossing your resources.

You can also see through a little math how much more devastating it is to annoy anyone on this or cause them to leave for any reason. Granted, you may argue there's plenty more out there, but this is where most of your advertising funds are going. Getting people to buy your products that are going to be bringing you in a mighty profit in the first place isn't a short or easy task. Be very careful what you do with this list. This is going to be the long running theme in this section about your long term customers.

So how about turning long term customers into your list? Well, treating long term customers is very similar to the way in which you're treating your first time customers, because they're so closely related and generally have the same role; to make you profit through the products they buy now and into the future, the reaction here is the same.

Don't worry about trying to separate them, instead use the fact that most will be on your standard list through your other subscription methods to your advantage to build trust and prove your special previous-customers-only offers really do mean previous-customers-only. Straight forward enough, but there is a difference here, and something that I'd like to talk about is what do you do with them after they've bought their second product.

Do you start them at an intro product and work them up again? Or do you sell them straight onto the follow-up profit making products? In effect, do you turn your long term customers back into customers through less expensive products, or turn your long term customers back into long term customers straight up?

Well, the answer is mixed. It's both to be exact. The general consensus on the matter is they should indeed receive immediate notification on the launch of your follow-up products. After all, they already have the trust factor three, so there's no reason that they shouldn't buy these high priced products from you. There's no need to demote them to standard customers again.

There is only one situation in which it's best to start them all over again, and that's if you haven't contacted them for a long time. This should be taken care of in your list maintenance however, as you should be in touch with your list, customers and long term customers at the very least once every two weeks to prevent the evaporation of this trust that you've worked hard to build.

There is another way to build trust further with your long term customers, that's to give them something free. Now I'm not talking the standard freebie with a made up price on it, but in fact your intro product that you're selling for sixty dollars or so to your standard customers. This is especially helpful as a booster after the initial ad for a high ticket item, because it allows you to convert extra sales through the intro product. You have nothing to gain any longer by actually selling these products to your long term customers, but everything to gain when you consider giving them your intro product further inspires trust when they see it come down for the other list members at a cost, and secondly, by converting those extra sales when your intro product is tailored to selling onto the higher priced product. Sales coming from every angle, just what we like to see.

Next, lets move on and talk about turning your long term customers into one of the most powerful resources you can have at your disposal, joint venture prospects. Many would disagree with me when I say long term customers are a good source of joint venture prospects, but through my personal experience, I have to disagree.

Now there isn't much that you actively have to do here aside from passively watching out for the signs. It isn't unlikely that you may have contact with some of your long term customers, more so than any of the resources we've discussed so far.

Even though this isn't the quickest or most effective way of pulling JVs from your resources, it's still quite possible. There's nothing much that I can say aside from you'd be surprised what happens when you begin talking to people, especially your long term customers, some of which I've now been in personal contact with since my first site back in '99/2000.

So, don't go out there looking, but look out for signs such as mentions of having large amounts of promotion resources themselves, or mentions of their previous experiences, or even if you just happen to get talking, which has happened to me on a number of occasions, more often than you might expect.

Lets move on to the next resource type and one of the most interesting and pliable of the lot, your affiliates.

This is where things begin to get interesting and flexible too. The reason being when looking out for affiliates and converting affiliates into different resources you have a lot more to work with as far as the numbers are concerned and it's much easier to pick out and approach them yourself safe in the knowledge you're approaching the best performers. It's clear cut. They signed up with you to promote your products and make a bundle of cash, making you a bundle of cash at the same time.

Beginning with the least effective, and that's turning your affiliates into your list. As far as affiliates go, they're the least likely to be on your list as well as on your affiliates list compared to the other resources, because a majority of them are there for the promotion opportunity instead of the products themselves unlike your customers, long term customers and standard list. The only time that this may not be true is when you're in online marketing to teach online marketing. Many of your students and purchasers may become your affiliates too.

What we're not going to be doing in this particular case, is sending random adverts to your affiliates, not even for your products, because, as we learned earlier, they're more important than even your immediate profit, in fact, they're going to be the ones bringing in the majority of your new resources together with joint ventures.

Remembering that each of these resources is a list of their own anyway, you will be sending out communications, jump starts and offers to get and keep affiliates promoting.

Before getting to the good parts, let’s take a look at turning your affiliates into customers and long term customers.

If you've been following us so far and your affiliate commissions are nice and high to get lots of people promoting, you'll find that you won't be making much profit even if you did get them all to sign up. In any case, it's more likely you'll put them off promoting and lose some quick blasts to some of these peoples big lists if you go about this any other way. Steer clear of it, and remember the role of your cheap introductory and purely resource building products, and the resource itself, your affiliates.

Looking at affiliates in the light of converting them to long-term customers, however, is a different story altogether simply because that's what your high-priced product is there to do. Make you a profit, and if any of them sign up and buy this whilst promoting, while it'll be very unlikely it'll be the main source of customers for your business, it can be a nice little bonus. How you do this is only limited by the system you have set up and your imagination, adaptation and implementation. There really is no right or wrong way, and to list every single method would be a whole encyclopedia in itself.

An example of this would be a discount or even a free product after making a number of sales. Remember not to substitute this for their commissions or any other special offers at any point, because it's extremely unlikely that this will be a large source of income anyway, and you have to be careful not to take away the number one reason they're your affiliates, and that's to make money for their pocket.

A good method to adopt is instead of pushing affiliates hard, is to have the ticket only request one sale of your product before it becomes valid. It's very unlikely an affiliate with a good list is going to make exactly one sale when they blast an ad out. Easy they think, out goes the ad, ten sales come in instead of the one that they needed, they get a discount, you persuaded someone to get out there and promote, not only bringing in more sales, but a bundle more resources that are going to do the same again and again.

Finally, in the affiliates section, let’s look at turning your affiliates into joint ventures. A very powerful technique indeed, looking back to what we approached earlier in this section when talking about the ease of this method due to your knowledge of their performance simply through their sales.

A really simple way to comb your affiliates for good JV prospects is, after a number of weeks of promotion, check your affiliate stats, select the top ten, and approach them. Tell them that they're in the top ten, and that your next product has just been released, and you want them to promote. Because of their past performance you have already raised the commissions on their account by ten or fifteen percent compared to the regular promotions.

This is also a very viable tactic after a few weeks of promotion for the same product, but remember to take your affiliates with you no matter what you launch, because wherever they go is where your ads will reach the most people, and also where your ads will pull in the most resources for future promotion further building your arsenal without pulling money out of your pocket for paid ads. See how easy this is once you've got started, and how important it is to understand already? Where others are spending all their time and money getting started again and again, you're here letting your resources build themselves. You may be giving away higher commissions but you're getting equals back in return through the gain in promotion power.

Remember also that just because your affiliates are not turning into other resources directly, they are indirectly building your resources through their promotions. This is the main importance of affiliates aside from making direct sales, and what makes them so powerful in building your resources for you compared to the standard list or your customers and long term customers.

Ok, let’s move on to the final resource, your JVs, comprised of all sorts of marketers that have come from every other resource, top affiliates especially. Some of which you approached and some who approached you, their promotion power is as immense as the affiliate, but on an even higher level, the least numerous and most personal of your resources. When you think that some of your JVs might end up being seen by lists of ten to a hundred thousand or more, it suddenly becomes clear how important this is.

First and foremost, we don't turn our JVs into our list full stop. Again, through their promotion they may build your list as a resource, and they may jump on it if they want to keep an eye on your progress and your business, but aside from that, we're never bulk mailing these people, even when making deals, because each one is tailored to each individual product and you and your JV prospect. It's simply different every time, and heck, most of these people won't need to be on your JV list anyway because they're going to end up working with you and communicating with you through more personal and direct means.

Next, turning your JVs into affiliates is moot because generally they are an extended form of affiliate-promotion for specific deals instead of the standard commissions. Due to their promotion power they always get something extra, so shouldn't be grouped in with your affiliates at any stage.

Ok, here comes the good bit, my favorite part of the whole lot that I've been itching to tell you about turning your JVs into customers and long-term customers. The number one thing that I can think of that in my experience many attempt, but attempt totally one hundred percent incorrectly.

It's possible that some may have bought from you before, or even learned how to promote from you if your products are geared towards that way of thinking, however, your joint venture partners are way too important to go advertising to unless it's in a 'hey check it out, thought you might find it interesting' manner.

Here's a little something that might get you thinking. Imagine you've been working with five people for a year or two on your businesses, JV’ing with them and such. Then one day, along comes four of them, up pops a message on your IM program. They do the standard meet and greet, and then comes the moment you've been waiting for. Along comes the hard sell, a corny cliché passage from a sales letter and a very obvious scripted sales process. Bear in mind these are the people you've worked with and talked to as if they were friends in a business sense for long periods of time and have already built a good business relationship with them.

What would your reaction be if your wife or your husband, or even one of your friends tried to hard sell you on something with typical sales patter? It's not very nice, I can tell you that. I should warn you at this stage, too, if you go on to take this information and be a success, some of the people you've been working with and have been friendly with for some time might even adopt a hard sell approach with you, when on a normal day they would have just said 'Hey, check out my new product' in a friendly manner. 'Are you up for a deal, maybe an ad to your list if I whack your commissions above the norm?' Or even, 'hey some guy sent me an ad for this yesterday <insert link here>. I thought it looked cool. Check it out if you have time'.

That's all it takes. A quick, straight up, not beating around the bush nor wasting time, non hard-sell like mention or offer. The moment you try to hard sell a JV, they stop being your JV partners and contacts and you demote them to standard list members. When you begin to launch your own products and this happens to you, you'll spot it a mile off.

It's immediately obvious once you've been around a while when someone you know is trying to sell something to you in this manner. Sure, contact me, tell me about your new stuff, and show me the new op you joined, tell me how it's going and what the word is on the net. Ask me if I'm interested in joining you, not a problem. But, the moment you start talking to me about how much of a stunningly amazing deal I'm getting and how it's going to EXPLODE my sales by 400% overnight, guaranteed, expect me to raise an eyebrow at you, turn around, and walk away. Moral of the story, watch what you're saying and how you're saying it if you want to keep your joint venture partners close, and your current marketing contacts would be wise to do the same for you to avoid negative effect. If you begin to get hard sells from your contacts, don't fret, just relax and walk away. If they're hard selling their close contacts it's likely they don't know what they're doing anyway and it isn't worth your time to worry about.

Much like affiliates, as you can see the higher we get up the resource chain, the more important the resource becomes, and the less you can actually turn your affiliates and JVs into, but the more of your resources they build for you through deals and promotion anyway.

We've just covered how to get your resources to build each other internally. Couple this with the external building and the influx of new customers you're receiving through your new products, while others are struggling to start again, spending loads of cash and time trying to get started each time they launch a new product, and you'll find yourself with an abundance of promotion power, now and far into the future.