Something is bugging me.

Basically, I just wanted to drop a quick note and apologize for my delay in finishing the Automatic Article Submitter tutorials.  I promise I do plan to finish it.  I had a couple of really upset readers that were frustrated that I have not been quicker to complete the series, and I wanted to apologize.  I have a ton of great excuses that I won't bore you with -- except maybe for one.

One of the parts components of the AAS tutorial was to show how we could use Article Marketing to send traffic to a colon cleansing CPA offer.  One possible side effect might be conversions of that offer, and I thought that would be a really cool result -- bum marketing in action.  Whoo hoo.  After all, if I could actually show you AAS making money, what better way to for you to get your money back from your investment?

Tutoral Problem:  Yucky CPA Offer

So, I picked a "colon cleansing" CPA offer that I thought looked profitable.  It paid out when customers ordered a free sample of a colon cleansing product, promising weight loss and all sorts of other benefits.  In fact, it paid way too much.  I looked into this a little, and realized that I have 2 basic problems with this sort of offer:

• In general they make claims that are way too good to be true.  Now, I am not saying that I have evidence that the offer that I was looking at was fraudulent in any way.  It just felt too good to be true to me.  Magic in a bottle.  I general, these offers try to take advantage of peoples emotional weaknesses.  I am not crazy about being part of that -- even if it pays $25 a lead or whatever.
• In general, these offers rely on the fact that people will accidentally get suckered into the monthly continuity back end.  There are lots of shady things going on with these offers.  They are generally hard to cancel and sneaky about the signup process.  Again, I am not speaking about the offer that I found -- I don't know much about it.  Just generally speaking, these offers are sleazy.

Obviously, I did not think this through very well.

Go Directly To Jail - Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

In fact consider what happened recently to an affiliate marketer in Illinois (Thanks to Michelle for bringing this to my attention):

In the third complaint filed today, Madigan sued Amirouche & Norton, LLC and Larby Amirouche, an affiliate marketer that uses Internet search engines, pop-up ads, Web sites, and advertising on social networking sites to drive Internet traffic to suppliers’ Web sites. Madigan’s complaint alleges that the marketer misleads consumers through false advertising and false endorsements. Affiliate marketers like Amirouche & Norton are generally paid by sellers for driving traffic to their sites. The affiliate marketers receive compensation when Internet users click-through to the sellers’ sites and commission for sales resulting from traffic that they route to the sellers’ site.

“We must hold these Internet scammers accountable for their role in a seedy marketing game that steers unsuspecting consumers to online schemes,” Madigan said. “We also need to send a clear message to other marketers and networks in the business of designing misleading, traffic enticing schemes.”

Madigan’s three suits ask the court to enter a permanent injunction barring the defendants from selling dietary supplements or continuing with misleading marketing schemes that impact Illinois consumers. The lawsuits also ask the court to order the defendants to pay restitution for consumers who have lost money and civil penalties of $50,000 for violating the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.

Scary, huh?

My Standard For Internet Marketing

I actually have a plan for my internet business documented.  In the plan, I specifically mention that I want to stay clear of stuff like this.  Here is an excerpt from my plan where I mention that my business "should not include things that I am embarrassed to talk about with my mother or my pastor".

Goal:  Build a robust internet business

* The Internet Business will
o have integrity and service to others as its core principles.
o leverage my strengths, including content creation and people skills
o clear at least xxxxxx month.
o require no more than 10 hours per week to run (2 hours per day in the morning)
o leverage outsourcing and automation.
o be diversified to include affiliate marketing, contextual advertising, automated membership sites and information products.

* The Internet Business will not
o be extensively based on things that do not scale or outsource well (consulting, face to face sales, etc.)
o include things that I am embarrassed to talk about with my mother or my pastor.
o include many things that I do not enjoy

The Bottom Line:

The bottom line is that I don't want that sort of offer to be part of my core business.  That is not what I am about.  So, I need to retool the tutorial to change that.  It will make me feel better.

So there you go -- one excuse of many.  I will re-tool the experiment and continue with part four of the Automatic Article Submitter case study as soon as possible.  Thanks for your patience.  And oh yeah -- next podcast with Andrew Hansen interview is coming soon as well.

Remember what Setphen W. Vannoy, best-selling author and founder of Pathways to Leadership Inc. has to say:

"Integrity is how you act when no one is watching,
when no one knows what you're doing."

Hello!

This is the next video blog post in the video series on how to use Automatic Article Submitter.  In the first post in this series, video one, I described an overview of this tutorial, and how we would use a bum marketing experiment to show the power of automatic article submitter.

Video 2a, which was released two weeks ago, I described the overview of that experiment and explained how you can use article marketing to drive traffic directly to a sales page with the goal of selling a product.  This is an important idea, because article marketing can be used to drive traffic to almost any location for almost any purpose.

Last week, I released video 2b, where I described an easy but effective way to do keyword research in any niche.  You can use this keyword research to form the basis for topics for your articles to be used with Automatic Article Submitter.

This is video three -- where I show how Automatic Article Submitter can take away the pain of directory registration.  If you have ever used directory submission before and struggled with registration, you need to see this video.

Be sure and check out a special guest appearance on the video at the very end!

Enjoy a video 3, and have a fantastic day.

Regards,

Mark

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfLSFJZEc_w

Automatic Article Submitter Tutorial #3

This is the next post in the series on how to use Automatic Article Submitter.  In the first post in this series, video one, I described an overview of this tutorial, and how we would use a bum marketing experiment to show the power of automatic article submitter.

Video 2a, which was released last week, I described the overview of that experiment and explained how you can use article marketing to drive traffic directly to a sales page with the goal of selling a product.  This is an important idea, because article marketing can be used to drive traffic to almost any location for almost any purpose.

As a matter of fact, I recently demonstrated this when I wrote numerous articles about the topic of chicken coops in an effort to show that you could drive traffic on almost any topic.  The result was that I was able to get hundreds of visitors to a sales page selling an e-book about chicken coops.  Unfortunately for me, that traffic did not convert very well to sales (but that is a whole another story about product selection, and we won't cover that here).

This video is video 2b, where I described an easy but effective way to do keyword research in any niche.  You can use this keyword research to form the basis for topics for your articles to be used with Automatic Article Submitter.

Additionally, this video is my first attempt to send a high definition recording to YouTube.  So, I will be very interested in hearing your feedback.  Not only about the content in the video, but about the video quality itself. The HD result in the embeded player on the blog page is not very interesting, but the HD version looks pretty cool if you watch it over on the YouTube site in HD.

Enjoy a video 2b, and have a fantastic day.

Regards,

Mark

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV-2snyteS4

Automatic Article Submitter Tutorial #2b

A few days ago, I started a five-part series tutorial on the article marketing software called Automatic Article Submitter.  In the first tutorial, I introduced the Automatic Article Submitter software and mentioned a bum marketing experiment that we would conduct as a part of the tutorial.

This video is part 2a of the tutorial.   Since the explanation of the bum marketing experiment turned out to be too long, I have divided video two into two parts (a and b), each less than 10 minutes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgoGrS1Lu3E

Automatic Article Submitter Tutorial #2a

As you will see in the video, I describe one method of bum marketing using article marketing to drive traffic.  Obviously, I want to use article marketing because  I intended to use the automatic article submitter software.

In the video, I also describe some fundamental considerations in selecting a product to promote, and I select the product that we will be promoting as part of this experiment.

When you are ready to get your copy of Automatic Article Submitter, be sure to go here for your purchase so you can take advantage of my exclusive bonus.

I hope you enjoy the video.  As always, I am very interested in your feedback.  please feel free to leave comments and questions below.

Thanks!

Mark

For the last several weeks I have been promising you that I would create a tutorial for Automatic Article Submitter (also called AAS).  You will recall that previously I posted that this is the best article submitter that I have seen or ever used.  In the past I have promoted other article submitters that were really good, but this one is just simply fantastic.

I have decided that the best way to do the tutorial is in a multi-part video series. I know that I personally can never find the time to sit down and watch a 45 minute video, so I plan to break the tutorial down into five or six episodes each less than 10 minutes.

In the videos, I plan to actually demonstrate the use of Automatic Article Submitter on an actual simple project. The video below is actually part one of the video series, and serves as the introduction.

The Experiment: Bum Marketing

The other day I finally got around to checking out the wealthy affiliate forum. I have always heard fantastic things about wealthy affiliate, and two people that I really admire her speak highly of it.  So, when the one dollar deal came around, I had to check it out.  One of the first things I saw in the forum was a post by Jennifer of PotPieGirl.com.  I am a big fan of hers, so I read it.

She was asked the following question: what would you do, if you had to start Internet marketing with nothing but a computer and no money. Basically, her answer was that she would create content like crazy, and use bum marketing strategies like article marketing to make some seed money that she could then use to create websites.

Of course, if you've been following me, you know that I subscribe to a lot of those same ideas, and that just about the first internet marketing product I ever bought was article marketing domination.  Bottom line, I am a big fan of article marketing.

AAS Demo and Bum Marketing Tutorial

So, I thought what better way to demonstrate automatic article submitter than to do a bum marketing demo. we will talk all about the bum marketing demo in video number two, but for now. Please enjoy video number one where I tell you why, article marketing is still important, and what automatic article submitter can do to set your article marketing campaigns on fire.

As far as the bum marketing experiment goes, the real goal is to demonstrate the software, not to teach bum marketing.  So, I am not going to do very careful research.  When I select the product, I am not going to be really careful keyword research, and I am not going to write fantastic articles that generate amazing results.   But who knows, even doing a mediocre job, we might get lucky. 

As always, I'd love to have your feedback about the video, this blog post, or the software, in the comments below. If you have tried Automatic Article Submitter and have some comments, I would love to hear them.

I hope you have a fantastic day.

Regards,

Mark

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc3m3djoM0U

Automatic Article Submitter Tutorial #1

Hey;

Just a quick note for you regarding some information that I just received.

Several weeks ago, I recommended a product called One Week Marketing in response to a question that I got about how to get started making money on line without a big investment.

I still think that is a great product, and the more I learn about the author (Pot Pie Girl), the more I like her.

I just wanted to let you know that Jennifer has a half-price sale on One Week Marketing.  Note that the sale ends tonight at midnight EST.

Here was my summary from before, in case you are interested:

One Week Marketing is a Squidoo-based Bum Marketing product.   There are four things about OneWeekMarketing that I like, especially for beginners:

• Nothing else to buy. It is a simple bum marketing plan without upsells and other junk.  The author does offer a membership forum for people that need extra help, but it is cheap and it is not required.
• Great step-by-step guides. The whole thing is built around a one-week action plan.  You just follow the guide each week, and then repeat the next week (you promote a new product every week).
• The approach is simple and proven. We know affiliate marketing works.  There is no magic approach in this course.  It's just simple proven techniques.
• Great case study. The author actually helped a person make money with this system, and recorded all of their communications.  Those are provided in the course materials for your reference.  Chances are you will have the same questions as others, so this is a really valuable resource.

So there you have it.  If you are interested -- you need to act before midnight tonight (3/31) to get a half-price copy of the One Week Marketing package.

Thanks,
Mark

I get this question all the time -- "how can I make a few extra dollars on line?" The other day, I saw a post on a non-internet-marketing forum that I frequent.  It was the same question again, only this time the scope was not limited to internet marketing -- but it immediately made me think of a product called OneWeekMarketing.  Here is the forum post:

Here is the background, and hope you can give some advise.

Married, 3 kids and I work full-time. The wife works part-time at the school, so she is off in the summers with no pay. Would like to earn an additional 400-600 a month to eliminate some bills and get out of debt.

Live in xxxxx xxxxxxx. My current job is technically 8-5 but about 3 times a year I have to travel for about 2-3 weeks at a time.

Thanks.

Now there were lots of replies.  Pizza delivery, house painting, lawn service, plasma donation.  That last one really got me, because I actually did that in graduate school.  But that is another blog post...

Internet Marketing Is The Answer

Of course, my answer to this is internet marketing.  Reading between the lines in the forum post and subsequent follow-up, it was pretty clear to me that the poster was looking for something that his wife could do (or that they could do together).   I am guessing that they do not have a lot of computer expertise (but they at least know how to post on a forum, obviously).  So, they need something simple with good support.

On the flip side, they are only looking to make a little money ($500 per month is not a huge amount for this sort of thing).  $17 per day would meet their needs.

Sounds like some form of Bum Marketing might do the trick.

So What Do I Recommend?

The other day I ran across a great Squidoo-based Bum Marketing product called OneWeekMarketing.  There are four things about OneWeekMarketing that make it ideal for this situation:

• Nothing else to buy. It is a simple bum marketing plan without upsells and other junk.  The author does offer a membership forum for people that need extra help, but it is cheap and it is not required.
• Great step-by-step guides. The whole thing is built around a one-week action plan.  You just follow the guide each week, and then repeat the next week (you promote a new product every week).
• The approach is simple and proven. We know affiliate marketing works.  There is no magic approach in this course.  It's just simple proven techniques.
• Great case study. The author actually helped a person make money with this system, and recorded all of their communications.  Those are provided in the course materials for your reference.  Chances are you will have the same questions as others, so this is a really valuable resource.

I corresponded with the author by email in some detail, and read every word of the package.  The author is a real person and was a pleasure to deal with.  While I have not followed her exact program myself, I did review it completely.  It is solid, and I think it is a perfect place for a brand new internet marketer to start (or even better, a frustrated internet marketer that wants a simple proven path to success.)

I love the author's motto:  "If you're willing to do for a year what others won't, you can do for a lifetime what others CAN'T!"

Best of all, there is a great 8 week money back guarantee.  If this approach is not working for you in 8 weeks, you get your money back.  You have time to go through the entire system 8 times.

Here is the magic. In seven weeks, you could easily promote seven products by following the system described.  If you had the simple goal of one sale per week with a $20 commission for each product, you could hit the goal described in the post above by Easter.   Of course, there are no guarantees, and your mileage may vary.

Best thing for them, since there is nothing else to buy, and the guarantee is 8 weeks (60 days) long, there is really no risk.

Check it out.  If you are wanting to get started in affiliate marketing on the interent, OneWeekMarketing is an excellent place to start!

Noob Disclaimer: One last thing.  This post may attract the attention of people that are brand new to internet marketing.  So, I want to make it extra clear that the links above to OneWeekMarketing are affiliate links.

If you are just getting started trying to make money online, you might not realize that if you buy the product mentioned above through my link, I get paid by the author as an affiliate.  Basically, the author is paying me for successfully promoting the product when you buy.

So, while I feel that my recommendation is unbiased, the fact is that there is money involved.  As it happens, I have a personal policy that I only recommend stuff that I use myself or that I have actually checked out.  (You will find this is not the case  for many other marketers).

In this case specifically, I have read the program from cover to cover and think it is an excellent product.  I stand behind my recommendation, and welcome your comments.

When I first got started in Internet Marketing, I ran across a lot of discussion about "article marketing."  Article Marketing is often confused with "bum marketing," but they are not really the same thing.  It all seems so obvious to me now, but I remember having a hard time getting a clear description of article marketing. So, I'd like to offer you what I consider the key ideas behind article marketing. If you want to know more about article marketing, I am going to point you to my five favorite resources at the end (which are great, but not required to become an article marketing guru).

So, what is Article Marketing?

Article marketing refers to a traffic generation method that depends on submitting informative "articles" to sites called "article directories." These articles generally consist of an article body that has generally useful information, and an article resource box that contains links back to the author's site. This technique is sometimes mistakenly called "Bum Marketing."   Actually, as pointed out by Josh Spaulding, Article Marketing is one of the tools that Bum Marketers use (so named since it is so easy even a bum could do it.)

Good article directories have great traffic and strong Google page rank, so publishing your information there increases the chance that people will see and read what you have to say. Additionally, article directories allow people to copy and republish their articles, provided the article is unchanged and the resource box is preserved. This means that your article with your links could end up on multiple sites with lots of exposure.

There are literally hundreds of article directories, the most famous of which is eZineArticles. (As an example, you can see one of my articles about Viral Marketing.) The fact that there are hundreds of article directories opens up the possibility of submitting your article to many directories and multiplying your exposure. (There can be downsides to this, however, as we will discuss below).

Two Sources of Traffic

The beauty of article marketing is the possibility of two complementary sources of traffic. This is a key point that is often not understood. When you initially submit your articles, if they are well written, you should expect that they will be spread and read. If you write an effective resource box, those same readers will want more information and click the links in the box.

This simple idea generates immediate traffic to your site. Eventually, as the article ages, it may fall lower in the article directory as it gets buried by newer articles on the same topic. This usually means that click-through traffic from articles will fall off as a function of time. Sometimes articles go viral and the clicks keep coming, but this is not usually the case.

Not to worry. Now your article has spread around the net with links to your site at the bottom. Google sees these (correctly) as backlinks to your site. Done properly, these backlinks can help you rank for the pages that the links are pointing to. So, while your direct click-through traffic is falling off, your organic search engine traffic will increase. Pretty cool, eh?

A word about content and keywords

There are lots of things to think about when you are writing articles for article marketing. Most importantly, you need to have a keyword strategy for the content on your site and the content in your article. It may not make sense to directly compete with your own website, for example. Rather, you may want to choose keywords for your articles that complement the content on your site.

For example, if you have a site on "blue soap," you may want to write an article on "green soap" knowing that people interested in green soap will also be interested in blue soap. You need to think about this carefully.

Earlier, I mentioned that you could submit the same article to multiple directories. You can, and I do. But you need a strategy for that as well to balance the effectiveness of the submission against the impact of duplicate content. Google expects syndicated content to be duplicated, but there are still tradeoffs that need to be considered (beyond the scope of this brief article).

Article Marketing Resources

As promised, here are five resources that I actually use for article marketing. I have purchased these tools myself. Don't misunderstand me: you can be successful in article marketing without any tools. These are the tools that I personally use to improve the quality and productivity of my article marketing efforts.

• Article Marketing Domination. This is an excellent eBook by article marketing guru Josh Spaulding. This eBook covers all of the details that i have glossed over above, and is a complete reference. You can do article marketing without knowing all the details, but you will get lot better results if you have all the facts. Most things in life are like this.
• Article Post Robot. A tool for submitting articles to multiple sites. It is really tedious and boring to submit the same article to 50 article directories. Article Post Robot automated this process. This is not the most elegant tool on the planet, but it works very well for me on over 50 article directories (the software supports many more).
• Instant Article Wizard Pro. IAW Pro is an amazing tool for article research. I just learned about this tool this week, and have used it a few times with incredible results. Basically it searches the web for research on your keywords and mashes the pieces together in reasonable sounding paragraphs. Cuts article writing time down by a factor of ten or more in my experience. Even if you have no intention of buying this thing, you have got to see the video.
• Micro Niche Finder. One of the most important parts of Article Marketing (not really covered well in this article) is keyword selection. I use Micro Niche Finder for all my keyword research.
• Josh Spaulding. OK -- he is not a resource, actually. He is a person - a really nice one. Josh is my "go to guy" and mentor for Article Marketing, and the author of Article Marketing Domination.

The Bottom Line on Article Marketing

Article marketing is a great way to promote your website, affiliate products or affiliate program. By writing an article that delivers value and offers a subtle mention of your affiliate product or critical keywords, you're well on your way to getting the proper exposure for your promotion (whatever it is). Simply put, Article Marketing is a great way to promote your business online.

Regards,
Mark