This is the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, Episode 5.

You want to build a business that you can call your own, but you can’t imagine abandoning the security of your day job. You are confident that you can find a few hours a week to pursue your dreams of creating a business on the internet, but you don’t know where to start. You’re looking for a plan.

Congratulations! You just found one. You are listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, with your host Mark Mason, building internet businesses one night at a time.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. I’m your host Mark Mason. It’s great to be back on the microphone. I hope you’ve had a fantastic couple of weeks since I talked to you last. I hope they were very productive for you.

I know I’ve been incredibly productive over the last couple weeks. In fact, in some ways a little too productive. I tend to get too many tasks going all at the same time. I don’t know if you have that problem. That’s a huge problem for a lot of internet marketers.

I was talking to Lynn Terry about this over in her Elite forum the other day. Her theory, she had a post in that forum about this, is that you really need to focus on something, one thing extensively until that thing is finished to really get the maximum productivity. I’m really going to need to look at that a little more carefully.

I’ve really been enjoying Lynn’s forum. I spend a lot of time over there. I’ve been getting to know Lynn, she’s great. Some of you saw the video on my blog of Lynn opening up the Elvis bobble head that I sent her. That was kind of fun.

If you get a chance to check out Lynn, I recommend that you do that. You can check out the information about her Elite Membership Forum at MasonWorld.com/recommends/lynn. If you just want to kind of get a taste of what that’s like, you don’t need to pay any money at all. You can go over to her blog at ClickNewz.com and check it out.

There are links to the forum over there, and she’s got a free side to the forum too and that’s really excellent. I’ve been having fun over there with Lynn. She’s got lots of cool peeps that hang out with her over there in the Elite Forum, it’s really good stuff.

The other thing that I’ve been working on this week is a site with my nephew. We’re going to talk about that a little bit in the interview. My nephew and I have been working on an affiliate marketing site for the last couple of weeks. I’ve actually got him on the podcast today as the featured interview as a new internet marketer.

He’s going to tell us the three things that he learned from me this summer working on an affiliate site. He actually cleared over 100 dollars on that site in the month of August, which was only one month after we really started working on it. So, he’s pretty pleased with that.

We’re using the phpBay plugin to work through eBay to sell some comic books online. We’ll talk about all of that in the feature interview.

Before we get into that, let’s take a look at the feature segment and see what we’ve got going on today.

It’s time for the feature segment.

It’s time for the feature segment today, and we’re continuing our discussion about all the different possible internet business models. We’ve talked about affiliate marketing, last week we talked about eBay, we’ve talked about information marketing.

One thing I wanted to talk about today, because it’s timely, is the idea of creating residual recurring income through membership sites. In order to understand why membership sites are important, you really need to sort of understand the idea of a sales funnel. So, we’ll talk a little bit about sales funnels, and we’ll talk about membership sites.

This, again, points to one of the resources that I’ve provided you for this discussion, and that’s Jimmy Brown’s excellent report, which is called 10 Proven Ways to Make at Least 10,000 Dollars Every Month. In Jimmy Brown’s report, item three in that report is tap into the back end automatically.

Jimmy basically talks about the idea that most marketers really are concerning themselves with the creation of the sales funnel. If you’re not familiar with a sales funnel, I can sort of explain it to you like this. When you have an initial contact with a perspective client, you bring that person in to your range of influence and you essentially get their permission to receive your message.

Now, if you’re a person who’s being effected by TV marketing, sometimes you barely even have permission, you just happen to be watching the channel and you see a commercial and that’s sort of your first contact into the sales funnel for whoever is selling something to you on television. In the context of internet marketing, this sort of thing usually happens when you sign up to an email list.

You’re at the top of someone’s funnel, they’ve gotten your permission to market to you, basically. So, you’re at the top of their funnel. Then you might at some point buy an inexpensive product from them. That moves you a little further down the funnel.

You’ll find that a lot of internet marketers spend a lot of time creating more and more products at higher and higher price points to move you further and further down the funnel. You see, there’s a big difference between someone you’ve never talked to before, at the top of your funnel or just entering your funnel, and someone who’s bought two or three products from you over a period of time, who trusts you and understands the quality of your product.

So, that sales funnel should be architected to move you further and further towards purchasing higher and higher end products. That’s a classic marketing strategy. It’s not unique to internet marketing, but it’s used very well in internet marketing in a variety of product lines.

One sort of special version of that, that can replace the sales funnel to some extent, is the idea of continuity programs. One way to implement a continuity program is through a membership site. Now, a continuity program simply means, you can think of it as monthly billing.

Continuity programs have gotten a bad rap over the years, because of various problems, usually having to do with them being deployed in a sneaky manner. You’ll recall that Joel Comm had a problem where he had a continuity program attached to one of his Adsense books, I believe it was, and it wasn’t clearly indicated on the order form. A lot of people were upset with Joel, because he didn’t make it clear that in addition to buying the ebook for 9.95, you were also signing up for his 27 dollar continuity program.

Now, I happen to know Joel, Joel Comm is a really good guy. I really personally don’t think that was something that he did maliciously, but he upset a lot of people. So, continuity programs in general have gotten a bad rap.

Russell Brunson and others, particularly Jimmy Brown, have been talking about several ideas around continuity that make a lot more sense. One of the things that they talk about is micro-continuity through membership sites. Jimmy has an excellent course on this that he calls Membernaire. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes.

Membernaire is an opportunity to create what Russell Brunson calls a micro-continuity program. The way Jimmy does it is he creates courses that are finite duration. It’s one thing if you tell somebody that they’re going to need to pay 27 dollars, or 67 dollars a month for their rest of their lives.

But, what Jimmy says is, “Hey, we’re going to have a continuity program with a finite term. It’s going to be 6 months long, or a year long, it’s going to be 27 dollars a month.” You know the cost up front. It’s spread out over time.

Jimmy actually implements all of his stuff completely automatically, which is really neat. So, if you’re the product creator for a Jimmy Brown style membership site. Then what you can do is you can create these sites one time, market them, and then they run on autopilot all by themselves. It’s pretty interesting.

Now, there really are sort of three kinds of membership sites that Jimmy points out. Maybe four, I would say, Jimmy points out three. The first site that Jimmy points out, or sites that offer a service, if there’s something that you need over and over again rather than paying for it piecemeal you can create a membership site that offers that service over and over again or on a monthly basis. Web hosting is a really good example of that, that Jimmy offers.

There are other kinds of membership sites you can imagine. Help with homework would be an excellent example, or tutoring. Those kind of things you can offer in the form of a membership site. Related to that can be a site that offers lessons on a topic.

You could have 6 month, 12 month, or 3 month courses on how to get an online business up and running. That’s the example that Jimmy offers. How to start a restaurant, how to do home repairs, or how to do whatever it is that you know how to do.

That’s one of the exciting things about the idea of a membership site. If you’re an expert in something, and you can break it up into 48 or 50 or 100 easy lessons, then you can easily create a membership site that just drips those lessons out to your customers at a fixed rate. You just tell them up front, “You’re going to get one lesson a week, and here they come. As long as you keep paying, you keep getting lessons.”

The other kind of membership site that you hear about a lot is a site that offers a new product each month. So, each month you get a new PLR product or each month you get a new something that you need, new templates for a website, new content, new something, new cross stitch patterns, whatever it might be. People subscribe because they want that new fix of whatever it is that they need.

The other kind of membership that I think Jimmy didn’t mention, but he certainly knows all about this, because he does these sorts of things, are coaching programs. I think those are a special kind. They’re sort of like offering a service, but basically you’re paying to have some person on retainer to help you with whatever your problem. Usually those are implemented as a forum.

That’s just a few ideas that Jimmy covers in his book. He says, basically, you need to choose a niche, find out what they’re buying, and what they want, and then go build a membership site around that. I think that’s a really good idea.

The reason that I bring that up in this podcast is two fold. One is these are very, very important. In fact, I had a graphics guy tell me today that I was talking to by email, he’s over in Europe and is the guy who does most of my graphics for my sites, he told me there are four weeks out on graphics because of all these micro-continuity sites they’ve been doing based on Russell Brunson and Jimmy Brown’s sort of programs. So, they’re just swamped with work over all these membership sites that are being created. That’s one reason why I bring this up to you.

The second reason that I bring this up to you is if you’re interested at all in this, Jimmy is offering a webinar, and I’m going to give you the details on that at MasonWorld.com/jimmywebinar. That webinar is currently airing this Thursday. If you’re listening to this in a time shifted manner, go ahead and go to the link, it will give you the current next time for the webinar.

Basically, it’s an hour long tutorial from Jimmy on webinars. I’m going to see it for the first time tomorrow. I can tell you that I can recommend it without seeing it, because Jimmy is just a fantastic guy. If you don’t know Jimmy, it’s worth going over to the webinar just so you can get a sense of what he’s all about.

He’s really a fantastic marketer and somebody that I’ve really enjoyed getting to know over the last year or two. His stuff is top notch. He knows what he’s doing. He has personally created, I know for sure of two, but maybe it’s six of these sites, where he has over 1,000 members in each site. You go do the math. If you had 1,000 members in a membership site, each paying you 27 dollars a month. I think you might like that result.

That’s the main segment for today. I just wanted to tell you about that other income model, which is membership sites. The bottom line is if you know how to do something that people want to learn how to do, and you can figure out how to bust that up into courses, kind of like a Dummies Guide to Tennis, or a Dummies Guide to Fitness, or a Dummies Guide to whatever it is that you’re interested in, you can make that into a membership course.

You can recruit people into that course and have a recurring stream of income. You can set the whole thing up automatically, and Jimmy Brown is the guy to teach you how to do that. So, that’s another way you can make money online, and that’s well covered in the 10 Proven Ways to Make at Least 10,000 Dollars Every Month. That’s Jimmy Brown’s ebook, and that’s available at MasonWorld.com/10ways.

Thanks. That concludes the feature segment.

And now the feature interview.

Okay. Now it’s time for the standing interview segment that we’ve been having for the last couple of weeks. What I’ve been promising you is that I’d interview successful internet marketers and ask them the three most important things that they wished they had known about internet marketing when they first started.

This has been very exciting. But, recently I’ve been working with my nephew on his first website. He has an affiliate marketing site based around comic books, which is something that he is interested in. He’s a sophomore in high school, very intelligent young man, highly motivated, but didn’t really know anything about how money was made on the internet. Kind of like a lot of us when we first started.

So, I thought, “Wow. Here’s a guy who just learned how to make money on the internet.” He’s made his first 100 dollars, I think his site made 136 dollars in the month of August. He’s very excited about that. We’ve got big plans for the site, because we made that 136 dollars and we’re not even ranking on the first page of Google for our search term yet. So, we’re real excited.

I thought the interesting was 2 months ago he didn’t know anything about internet marketing. He’s done all the work himself. I’ve sort of led him through it, and helped him and coached him, but he’s done all the hard work, and he’s got a result to show for it.

So, I wanted to ask him what were the three things that he knows now that he didn’t know 2 months ago. The things that really stuck out for him. I got a very, very interesting answer from him and I wanted to share that with you.

Now, he’s a minor under the age of 18. Like I said, he’s a sophomore in high school. So, I’m not using his real name. we’re calling him Bob here for the purpose of this interview, which is really hilarious, because that’s not his name at all. So, you may hear us giggling a little bit in the interview about that.

The other thing I’ll tell you, I want to apologize in advance, this interview we did in my study. We had to move the microphone around, and I forgot to put the p-pop filer on. So, I’ve edited the interview to try and cut out the pops from articulating the letter P, which is the world’s most annoying sound.

I don’t quite have them all out of the interview, but I did the very best I could. I enjoyed the interview so much, I didn’t want to do another take. Here it is live, raw, and with the pops, my nephew Bob and our discussion about his internet marketing experience.

…

Mark Mason: Hey, this is Mark Mason. I’m actually in studio with my nephew today. A lot of you who have been following me over on Lynn Terry’s forum know that I built with my nephew a website about something that he was interested in, actually the website is about comic books. We built that website and in the first month were able to generate some revenue with eBay’s affiliate program. That was a very interesting process.

So, what I thought I would do is get some insights from my nephew, who is a sophomore in high school about what he’s learned from his experience making money online. I’ve been telling people, “If my nephew who is a sophomore in high school can make money online, you can make money online too.” I think that’s a pretty straight forward kind of way to think about things.

Now, I’ve agreed since my nephew is a minor under the age of 18, I’m not going to use his name. So, I’ve agreed to call him Bob for the purpose of this interview. Hi, Bob, how are you doing today?

Bob: Hi. Good. How are you?

Mark Mason: I’m doing great. Bob came over, he lives nearby. How long have we been working on this website together, Bob?

Bob: We’ve probably been working on it maybe since the beginning of last school year.

Mark Mason: Yeah, something like that. So, we worked on it for a couple of weeks, then we kind of dropped it, but then we hit it really hard this summer. Right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: So, my recollection was we didn’t make any money or really generate much of any content last year at all. We really started working on it about in July.

Bob: That’s right.

Mark Mason: We started making money on the website in August, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: Okay, great. So, the website sat idle for awhile, and after about a month we started seeing a little revenue. That’s been really exciting. I guess it’s been exciting for me, has it been exciting for you?

Bob: Yes. It’s very exciting.

Mark Mason: Okay. So, you’re actually in a very prestigious position. I’ve been interviewing internet marketers from all over the world on this podcast and asking them the three things that they wish they had known when they started internet marketing.

I thought I’d turn things around today and ask you what are the three things that you’ve learned over the summer with your first experience in internet marketing that you just didn’t know before, that you’d want to tell someone about your internet marketing experience?

Can you think of one thing that just occurs to you just right off the top of your head, Bob? That’s not your real name, I know, but it’s kind of funny. Something that you learned over the summer, that you didn’t know before.

Bob: Yes. First, is how easy it is to get a website going. If you use a website like WordPress you just pick a theme you like, get it going, and put it up. It’s just easy to make one.

Mark Mason: That’s right. So, basically, what we did was we just simply found a theme that worked well with our topic of comic books. We actually found sort of a play on Superman theme, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: We just used that on top of WordPress to create our little kind of ecommerce site. That worked out pretty well. It looked pretty cool?

Bob: It looks really cool, yes. A lot of neat features.

Mark Mason: I think, if I remember right, we asked a virtual assistant to make some small modifications to the site.

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: Right. So, we started with a theme that was pretty close to what we wanted, and we had a virtual assistant make some changes. Just a few dollars, literally a few hours work, someone offshore. It’s pretty much exactly the way you want it right now, right?

Bob: It’s perfect. Yes.

Mark Mason: Great. That’s the first thing. So, that point is a really good one. That is that basically anybody without a lot of technical savvy can have a website up and running very quickly by using WordPress. Is that pretty much what you’re saying?

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: Okay, great. That’s thing one. That’s an excellent point. What’s your second thing that you kind of picked up this summer working on your WordPress website?

Bob: Probably number two is if you want to get your website going, something very important to use is keywords through Google. Pick out a keyword phrase, get backlinks to your website to get viewers to come to your site.

Mark Mason: Now, before this summer, did you have any idea, you’ve always used Google, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: But, did you have any idea why pages came up on the first page of Google? Did you understand any of that before this summer?

Bob: I had no clue. I just thought it was random.

Mark Mason: So, we basically spent. I don’t know, about an hour? So, we got you started with the Easy SEO report from Josh Spaulding,that was really cool. Then we picked a keyword with some traffic. Where are we now with that keyword?

Bob: Just by using that one keyword we’re almost to the first page of Google. We’re kind of floating back and forth between page one and page two.

Mark Mason: So, we’re down kind of at the top of page two. We’ve got some tricks up our sleeve, maybe we’ll talk about that at the end of this, where we think that’s going to get us to page one.

Basically, pick a keyword that people are searching for and get backlinks to the website. That’s the offpage SEO part, getting the backlinks, but we also optimized the homepage for the keyword. Right? We’ve got it in there.

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: Kind of in a natural amount of time. So, that’s just kind of common sense SEO, and you were able to pick that up pretty quickly, right?

Bob: Yes, sir, I was.

Mark Mason: Okay. So, the first thing that you learned this summer was that you can easily build a site with Wordpres.

The second thing that you learned is that once you build a site with WordPress, you can optimize it, both on the website and off the website, so that you’ll get listed in Google for a keyword that’s getting some traffic.

What’s a third thing that you learned this summer?

Bob: The third important thing I learned was if you can get traffic to your website, you can send them to other websites and earn commission off their views.

Mark Mason: Yes. We talked about that quite a bit this summer. That’s affiliate marketing. Of course, for our website, because we’re dealing with comic books, that’s just a perfect fit for eBay, right, because that’s where comic books are being sold.

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: And you knew that already. You’d already been buying comic books on eBay. That’s in fact, how we got the idea.

Bob: Yes, I had.

Mark Mason: So, Bob is into comic books a little bit, and knew that there were transactions going on at eBay. All it took was for me to explain to you that you could build a website that drove traffic to eBay and get commissions, and we’re off to the races, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: What we really want is to be on the first page of Google. So, why don’t you tell everybody what you have planned for, I guess we’re hoping to get the first draft of it done this weekend, you’re doing all the work. What do you have planned for this weekend?

Bob: We’re planning to write a press release to put out there to get our website on the first page.

Mark Mason: Yes. We’re following the Google First Page Formula, that’s the ebook that I’ve shared with Bob. He’s going to write a press release according to the Google First Page Formula, and we’re going to see if we can get the same results.

I’ve actually got a special link for that ebook, where I’ve got a discount available for the listeners in honor of Bob, since he’s going to be doing that this weekend. You can pick that ebook up for a 20 or 30 percent discount. I’ll be sure and put that link in the show notes. In fact, that will be at MasonWorld.com/press.

That’s great. Bob, I really appreciate you being on the show tonight. Tell me what you’re thinking about doing next. Are we going to build some more sites? How many more are we going to build or what are you thinking?

Bob: We’re just going to keep going until there’s nothing left to do. For all those people that are doing websites, don’t give up. It takes time, but it pays off.

Mark Mason: That’s excellent advice. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming over. Have a great day.

Bob: Thank you very much.

Thanks for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. For more information about this program, and to get the show notes, be sure to visit our website at MasonWorld.com/podcast. Follow @MasonWorld on Twitter.

Have you got a question or comment for Mark? Let us know by leaving us a voicemail on our digital recording line at 214-444-8655. We may use your message on a future episode of the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.

Did you like our podcast? Help us out by telling your friends and leaving your review on iTunes by going to MasonWorld.com/iTunes.

Finally, always remember that all business involves risk. Internet business is no exception. Your ability to make money with the concepts discussed in this program and on MasonWorld.com depends on many things, including your effort and capability. Since these factors according to individuals, we cannot guarantee your success or income level, and we are not responsible for any of your actions.

Thanks again for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, building internet businesses one night at a time. Have a great day.

I'm not done for the year yet, but I thought I might share my thoughts on progress at MasonWorld for 2008 with you now (before I get stuffed with egg nog and fudge.)

It's hard for me to believe that it was just over a year ago that I really got serious about Internet Marketing as a night-time hobby, prompted by a love for computer technology and a 5 minute segment on NBC's Today Show.  A lot of water has gone under the bridge since November of 2007, and I am proud to count myself as one of the small percentage of Internet Marketer that have not tried, failed, and quit.

In Internet Marketing, Failure Is Progress

Now, don't get me wrong.  I have failed over and over again.  I have lost money toying with PPC (that is a rite of passage, I think), I have posted blog posts that I later decided to take down, I have launched products that did not do very well, and I have spent time on lots of things that did not pan out.  I even launched MasonWorld.com on the "wrong blogging platform" and had to migrate to WordPress.

But learning and progress require a certain amount of failure (ask Edison).  So, one thing that I plan to do in 2009 is actually "fail faster."  Get out there, try stuff, and move on (keeping the stuff that works).

I also spent lots of time and money reading Internet Marketing stuff.  I have a sub-directory on my hard drive in my "Internet Marketing" directory that is titled "Courses and eBooks."  As of this writing, that folder has 474 files (91 folders) containing 4.96 GB of Internet Marketing eBooks, audio and video that I have downloaded for free or purchased.  Amazing.

With Failure Comes Success

Most important to me, I have learned a ton about Internet Marketing.  I am really not interested in working on things that don't allow me to learn.  The cool thing about Internet Marketing is that it is a nice mix of technology, marketing, small business, and people skills.  Lots of varitey.

Of course, I have had more than my fair share of successes.  I also have some profitable niche AdSesne sites, MasonWorld.com is growing, I have some affiliate products that are making money, I released a couple of profitable products, and I have a nice start on an email list.

My tip for you in 2009:  Take action and don't be afraid to fail.  The only path to success is through action.  With action comes risk.  So, take some risk in 2009 -- you'll like the results.

So, The Bottom Line Is Thanks!

Most of all, I have been able to make some great friends on line (you know who you are), who have helped me get up to speed.   And, I have a great following of MasonWorld.com regular readers.  I really appreciate those relationships -- so thanks to all of you.

I hope you have a great Holiday Season and get everything that you wish for in life in 2009.

Best regards,

Mark

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

The Money Is Still In The List

Well, you know I believe that (I have certainly said it enough).

This week I am offering a free report on email marketing by Ryan Ambrose.

In this report, Ryan covers some of the basics.  So, if you are just thinking about starting a list, this is not a bad place to get started with the basics.

Enjoy.

Check it out. You'll like it.

Join My Mailing List And Get Free Stuff

As always, opt in to my list to get access to all the free stuff (opt-in box in the right hand sidebar). As soon as you opt-in and confirm you subscription, you'll receive instructions on how to log into the members area.

Thanks,

Mark

If you follow my blog, you know that Internet Marketing is a hobby for me.  Admittedly, it has evolved into a very serious hobby, but it is still a hobby.  I do most of my Internet Marketing work under cover of darkness -- late at night after my family is asleep (like they are right now).

During the day, I work on the very integrated circuits (computer chips) that make this blog (the internet and other communication platforms) function.  In fact, if you talked on a cell phone today or are reading this blog post on a portable device like a laptop, there is a pretty good chance that something that I had a small part in building in my day job touched your life.  Pretty cool (I work for a cool company).

Time To Set Goals For 2009

I've been going through 2009 goal setting at my day job for the last several weeks.  In fact, big companies all over the world are making plans for 2009 right now.  Some companies are probably already done.  The point is that serious people are making serious plans for next year right now.

This stuff going on at work has made me consider what my Internet Marketing goals are for 2009.  In the past, I have published my goals in the MasonWorld Roadmap page -- and I will do so again in January.  Basically, I will have some goals in four major areas:

• Growing this blog and my list by helping people with Internet Marketing
• Hitting some AdSense site targets using FirePow and other automation
• Creating some new Internet Marketing products
• Create some successful PPC campaigns

Now those aren't my goals really.  Those are just the focus areas for my goals.   A good business goal needs to be measurable and specific.  It should also have a due date.  Sure, goals like "Be a better husband" are nice, but they are hard to measure, and are almost never good as business goals.  It's hard to make progress on a goal like that, because "better" is not well defined.

A better business goal would be something like one of these:

• Reach 5000 subscribers to my email list by 12/31/09
• Get 50 AdSense sites up with some content by 04/30/09
• Launch 3 new Internet Marketing products by 12/31/09

You get the idea.

What Are Your Goals?

When I meet with my employees at my day job about annual goals, I always as "When we are sitting right here having this conversation next year, what do you want to be able to say you accomplished in 2009?"

Let me ask you the same question.  What do you want to be able to claim in 2009?   What would get your really excited?  What motivates you?

Sometimes, being held accountable for your goals helps a lot.  I'll make you a deal.  Document your goals here in the comments of this thread and I will check in with you in July and December 2009 and ask you about your progress.   Don't publish your secrets here -- just tell the world what you are planning for 2009.  You will be amazed how public accountability will help you reach your goals.

Need some help setting goals?  Here are two cool resources:

myGoals.com -- Goal Setting For Everyone
GoalsGuy.com -- Helping You Hit Your Goals Is Their Goal

Regards,
Mark

I hope you had a great week, especially if you were somewhere in the world where you were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with your family. I am personally stuffed to the rim with turkey and other traditional holiday food -- it's back to the gym for me on Monday.

I just got off the phone with Internet guru Aaron Abber. He had to call me because I am at my parents house with no high speed internet access (yikes) -- so I am sending this through my laptop via cell phone (a neat trick).

I have been told again and again that it takes days for a new site to get noticed by the internet and that it takes weeks or even months to get a new site ranked well on Google. After that, many people will tell you that it takes months to make money on line. In many cases, that is all completely true.

But it's not true in every case... especially if you know what you are doing.

To prove it, I agreed to let Aaron guest post on my blog so you could see just how Aaron Abber and Joe Swopes have just blown these ideas out of the water, and made some serious cash in the process.

This is a guest post by Aaron Abber of http://www.ListedInstantly.com. Aaron is a niche marketing pioneer, having earned over $323,165.05 in niche marketing alone. Visit http://www.ListedInstantly.com for more tips and tricks to make your niche sites profitable.

Derrick and I had been friends online for about a year. We both owned internet businesses and were discussing our biggest triumphs and failures online. I guess I was feeling a little cocky and I made an offhand comment: “I'll bet I could start from scratch on a Friday morning and make $10,000.00 by Monday.”

As soon as I said it I knew it was a mistake. Derrick immediately called me on it: “Prove it! Prove that you can start from scratch—without using your email list or your existing site—and make $10,000.00 by Monday.”

So, with under Derrick's watchful eye, I started on the next Friday morning at 8am. To say I was nervous was an understatement.

I took all day Friday preparing a new website then launched it at 5pm. By Monday (evening—he hadn't given me a time so I stretched it out as far as I could) I had $8,516.25 in sales. Not $10,000.00, but a nice chunk of change.

(To see a screenshot of my merchant account, go to http://www.ListedInstantly.com )

Now I'm not trying to tell you that anyone can start out from zero and make $8,000.00 in a weekend. What I am telling you is this: You won't know how much you can make until you try. What if you only made $1,000 this weekend? Or $500.00? or even $100.00? Is that such a bed thing?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

To get a complete plan on how you can imitate my success, go to:

http://www.ListedInstantly.com

Phew.  Yesterday's launch of First eBook Now was crazy.

Now, it's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie. Last night I celebrated the launch of my latest eBook with Hot and Sour Soup from a new place. I had never eaten there before. The soup was good, and it struck me that sometimes you have to try something new to find something good.

The Cookie Speaks The Truth

As you know, everything you need to know about running an internet business can be learned from fortune cookies. Luckily the Cookie knows that this week we are talking about the importance of mailing lists to your online business, and was kind enough to serve up an appropriate lesson. This week's cookie actually hits right at the heart of getting started online:

"Reach for your dreams. Start with the Spring Rolls"

Of course, the fortune cookie is obviously referring to the fact that many people who are trying to make money online fail because they are overwhelmed by their own goals -- completely paralyzed by the seemingly enormous nature of the task before them.

Many people have lofty goals like replacing their entire income or "escaping the 9 to 5 routine" of their day job or making $15,000 per month on line. Those are both great goals, and it is important to have the big picture. But at some point you have to get started.

It reminds me of the answer to an old question: "How do you eat an elephant?"

Of course, the answer is "One bite at a time."

The Cookie Speaks About Lists -- Follow The Cookie

Let's say that you have decided that you need to make $5000 per month on the internet, and you plan to do that with a email list. How big does the list need to be?

Well, let's say that you have been careful to cultivate trust with your list, and that every time you send out an email to them, an amazing 10% of your readers click the link to go see what it is that you are talking about. And, let's say that the members of your list really trust you, and that an equally amazing 10% actually buy. This seems possible since you only promote products that you actually believe in to your list. That means for every message that you send out, 1% (1 of every hundred) of the people you send to will buy.

Now, let's say you are really smart and you follow Spaulding's New Age eMail Marketing strategy. This means that you value your list and you only email an offer to them about once a month. The rest of the time, you are emailing your list helpful information.

Since you need to make $5000 per month with only one offer, you need to make $5000 every time you send out an email. Sounds scary, doesn't it?

Remember, 1 of every 100 people you mail to will buy. Let's say you are promoting $100 products, and that the commission is 50%. That means that for every 100 people you mail to, you make $50. Since you need to make $5000, you need to mail to 10,000 people. You need a list of 10,000 people.

Question: How in the world are you going to do that?
Answer: One subscriber at a time (Start with the Spring Rolls).

The Cookie Knows Best

Build trust and give people something in exchange for their email. There are 365 days in a year. That means that you only need 30 subscribers a day to hit 10,000 in a year. This is exactly the kind of thing that can be accomplished with viral eBooks using Leger's $7 Secrets formula. Actually, it can be done much faster than that if you can ad some real value and do something viral (but that is for another post).

So, listen to the cookie. Don't focus on the 10,000 subscribers -- you will freak out and give up. Focus on the the next several dozen subscribers instead. Set some goals for this week, or for this month. And focus on keeping the subscribers that you have. Keep adding value. The subscribers will come.

Take some action like writing a report that people will value. Use some cool technology like $7 Secrets to get people to help you build your list. You can do it -- just Start with the Spring Rolls.

Planning on taking some action as a result of this post? Let me know what it is by dropping a comment. Publicly declaring your intention to make progress is a great way to hold yourself accountable.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

Announcing First eBook Now

An eBook about creating your first eBook.

Since last Thursday, I have been blogging like a madman about the importance of lists, and how I have changed my entire list strategy based on Josh Spaulding's New Age Email Marketing Report.

This caused me to start work on an experiment with $7 Secrets (which I described Saturday).  Yesterday, I demonstrated how you can build you list using other people products (Master Resale Rights).

As we discussed yesterday, that can work great, but what works best (in my opinion) is having your own products.

So, I am happy to announce a product that will help you with your journey to build your own information marketing business.

First eBook Now

You Need Your Own Products

If you look at all of the really successful email marketers, they have their own products.  It's a very satisfying thing, really.  You create something that has real value - something that helps people.  Then you sell it at a price that leaves people delighted with their purchase.  What could be better?  It's the true definition of win-win.

The customer gets a great product.  What do you get?  You get the sale, of course.  But you get something much more valuable -- you get the trust of a happy customer.  You can work to grow that trust and provide more to that customer by using email lists to stay in touch with them.  You can sell them other products that they need (and that you also value), increasing the investement in your relationship.  In the end, everybody wins (especially the customer).

You Have To Start Somewhere

The thing is, if you look at these guru email marketers, they all have tens (or hundreds) of thousands of people on their lists and dozens of huge products.  How in the world can you compete?  Simple answer:  don't compete.  Start small and build from there.

See, I believe that everyone has at least one good eBook in them.  Probably more.  The thing is, people are reluctant to start.  Either they don't know how to start or they are afraid to fail.   Either way, they forget that the longest journey begins with the smallest step.

Take A Small Action Today

Are you interested in starting your own information marketing empire?  Why not take the smallest step today?  Check out my latest eBook -- I wrote it for you.  It gives you a great overview of how to get your first eBook off the ground, and includes information about everything from finding a topic to outsourcing a salespage.  If you have ever wanted to get started, this is the resource for you.

The best part -- it's only $7.   Get First eBook Now! today.  You'll be glad you did.

Regards,
Mark

Today, I show an example of how to use Master Resale Rights content and the $7 Secrets Script to build your list.  You can see the offer for PreSelling Secrets here.  Read on to learn more.

On Thursday, I talked about the importance of lists, and how I was rethinking my entire list strategy thanks to Josh Spaulding's New Age Email Marketing Report.  This caused me to start work on an experiment with $7 Secrets (which I described Saturday). Committing to a $7 secrets approach meant that I needed a new eBook to sell -- something that people would really want that was worth a lot more than $7.  Well, I went ahead and wrote one that was appropriate for this experiment. It's all about how to write your first eBook, and I am launching the eBook (called "First eBook Now!" tomorrow.  Stay tuned and you will be among the first to know when it goes live (hint -- around noon CST Tuesday).

But I Don't Want To Write An eBook

One thing that I hear from time to time from people is that they "can't write an eBook" or "don't want to write and eBook."  Now I personally think that everyone has at least one great eBook in them, especially if they already have a website full of content that they can draw inspiration from or perhaps even re-purpose.

I'll admit, however, if you have never written an eBook before it can be a little intimidating at first.  Based on that revelation, I will be releasing my own $7 eBook tomorrow about how to write your first eBook.  I think it will help get you over the hump.

Of course, there are other options apart from writing your own eBook.  You can purchase Private Label Rights content (discussed in my post on Friday where I give away some Weightloss PLR) and put that content together into an eBook.  Sometimes, you can find entire PLR eBooks that you can purchase and put your name on.  Or you can hire a ghostwriter.  Still another option is that you can purchase Master Resale Rights to a eBook and sell that.

Using Master Resale Rights With $7 Secrets

If you are not familiar with Master Resale Rights (MRR), you should know that when you purchase MRR with an eBook, you usually get permission to resell the eBook and keep all of the profit.  Sometimes, the MRR package even comes with a sales page and graphics that you can use.  These restrictions can vary from package to package, and you should always check before you make your purchase.

Honestly, I don't usually use MRR content for anything.  However, in support of this blog post I decided to find some quality content so I could demonstrate the idea for you.  I happen to own Master Resale Rights to Johnathan Leger's Preselling Secrets - an excellent eBook that my audience should value.  Since it is one of Jon's books, it happens to be set up for use with $7 Secrets - so it was really easy for me to set up.  You can see PreSelling Secrets here.

In fact, you can even buy the Master Resale Rights to PreSelling Secrets in a one time offer that is available to you after you buy the report.  That means that if you buy the Master Resale Rights you can use Preselling Secrets for your own $7 Secrets experiment (while you are writing your own eBook).

The Bottom Line

There is no substitute for having your own product.  But in certain situations, it can make sense to find quality MRR products that people will value and promote them using $7 Secrets.

Regards,
Mark

Hey -- hope you are having a great day, and are enjoying my daily post frenzy that I started on Thursday with my post on the importance of lists.    I'll be posting daily for the next few days (possibly longer) and then it will be back to my normal 3 posts per week (Monday, Wed Friday).  We'll see how that goes in November.  So much to do, and so little time.

October Was A Crazy Month

If you have been following my over the last month, you know I am working on three main projects at the moment.  It can be a bit confusing at times, so I wanted to update you on the status:

1. Build 30 quality "AdSense sites" in a variety of niches. This whole thing was motivated by my post about how to make $5000/month on line.  Now, I am calling these AdSense sites, but, in reality I have decided to add a variety of monetization options including eBay links (using the phpBay bay plugin), some ads through the PepperJam affiliate network and other affiliate offers.  Instead of 30 "AdSense sites," this will result in 30 "mini-authority" sites.    I call them "mini-Authority" because they will not have high frequency original content.  Rather, there will be a mix of content from a variety of sources presented in a useful way.  Status:  all 30 domains are purchased and up and running.  About 15 sites are actually running and some are generating a little revenue. I think I sould be able to "finish" them and drip back to 1 hour of work per site per month by December.  We'll see.
2. Full evaluation of Firepow. In building these sites, I realized that Firepow might be just the tool that I need to make this happen.  I have been helping Andrew's team beta-test Blog Import into Firepow (which is working for me in most cases).   Now that that is complete, I plan to get back to blogging about Firepow late next week.  Don't forget that I have arranged for a $300 Firepow discount for you if you cannot wait for my complete review and recommendation.
3. Build my email list using $7 Secrets. This is the big distraction for me at the moment.  I was so impressed with Josh Spaulding's New Age Email Marketing report, that I decided to move the management of my email lists to his "formula."  Part of that experiment involves growing the list, and that means I needed to write a great ebook to offer for sale for $7 as recommended in $7 Secrets.  That eBook is complete, and will launch Tuesday here on MasonWorld.com. If you have not read Josh's report, I recommend it (it is only $7, as you might expect).

So, that is what is going on at the moment.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

By the way, things are likely to get worse before they get better.

I have learned a lot of tricks building these 30 sites (and others before them), and before the end of the year, I will be launching a new Niche Site Building service. If you are interested, you can see the current sales copy at http://www.nichesitenow.com.

Also, am hoping to do a PPC experiment with one of my internet marketing buddies before the end of the year.  As you may remember, I purchased Commission Blueprint, and I am itching to try out PPC.

So, hang in there -- lots of stuff to come before the end of the year.

Thanks,
Mark

I hope you survived Halloween. I simply cannot believe it is November. Where did the year go?

Over the last couple of days, I have been on a posting rampage about the importance of lists in Internet marketing.  Yesterday, I told you about how you could build your list buy giving stuff away.  This works well, but fills your list with "freebie seekers."  Wouldn't it be better to have a list full of people who had already trusted you enough to give you money?

The Magic of $7 Secrets

What seems like a long time ago (2007), I remember hearing about Jonathan Leger's magical $7 Secrets report (complete with scripts).  There was a lot of buzz about it at the time.  But back then, I had never worked with Jon Leger, so I was not sure if I could trust him.  After all, I did not know him at all. I sort of forgot all about $7 Secrets.

Since that time, I have come to know Jon as a trustworthy Internet Marketer (and a really smart guy).  I read his blog, exchange email with him, interact with him on forums, purchase many of his products, etc.  I've even recommended some of his stuff (like IAW Pro) to my readers.  Bottom line, Jon is a good guy who works very hard and has lots of good ideas.

I was reminded about $7 Secrets when my friend,  Internet Marketing Coach Josh Spaulding, told me he was writing some $7 reports.  That got me interested in Leger's 7$ secrets again.  (Note that since then, Jon sold the product to Don, who is doing a great job supporting it).

What is Seven Dollar Secrets?

Simply put, the $7 secrets approach takes a high value item (a small eBook) and offers it for sale at a price that is way below the percieved value.  $7 is typically used as a sales price because it is widely reported that prices that end in "7" convert better on the internet.

The key piece of the $7 secrets approach is the viral marketing part.  The $7 script that comes with the $7 secrets report is set up so that people can make money selling the report that they just purchased -- and they can do it instantly.  By simply adding their paypal address to the URL for the product, new affiliates can instantly make 100% commission on sales.

The checkout part of the script even has a "tell a friend" area where people can make commissions as they complete their purchase by sending a promotional email directly to their friends.  Pretty slick.

The $7 script also allows you to make money on the back end of your sale by supporting "One Time Offers" for higher priced products.

So Why Offer 100% Commission?

If you are selling an eBook with the $7 Script, you are doing it because you are wanting to collect emails.  The script is set up to collect emails once the purchase has been made.  You don't care about the $7 -- you want the email.  So, if someone is willing to promote your report to their list, you will happily trade them the $7 commission for a chance to get the prospect email.  It is as simple as that.

Affiliates love it because it is usually easy for someone to decide to spend $7, especially if the content is great.

My $7 Report

The best value that I have seen lately for $7 comes from Josh Spaulding.  He recently released his New Age Email Marketing report under the $7 Secrets script.  You can go check it out to see what a great $7 Secrets promotion looks like.

My $7 report will be coming out on Tuesday, so stay tuned.   In the mean time, I recommend that you seriously consider getting yourself a copy of $7 Secrets (complete with the script) for $7 and writing your own eBook.

Regards,

Mark

Hey -- Happy Halloween!

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

As I promised yesterday, we are spending a week blogging about lists. The problem is that it is also Free Stuff Friday, and I know how you love that. So, I am combining Free Stuff Friday with a post about lists.

If you read my blog, you already know that you can use "free stuff" to get people to sign up for your list.  This is a good approach because it provides value and builds trust.  A better approach is to get people on your list by selling stuff (as done with $7 Secrets), but giving stuff away is a great place to start.

You can give away information, software, content, merchandise, discounts, you name it.

In this example, we'll talk about giving away PLR content.

What Is PLR Content?

One thing that you hear about a lot in Internet Marketing circles is content that comes with "Private Label Rights (PLR)." Typically, if you buy content with PLR you are licensed to use that content in various ways. Things that you can usually do with PLR might include use it to make eBooks, publish with or without modification, combine it into longer content, split it apart into shorter content, use it in an autoresponder series, put your name on it, etc.

I say "usually" because PLR rights are almost always given specifically for the content you are buying, and restrictions can change depending on the authors wishes.

One thing that you usually cannot do is resell unmodified PLR to other people.

What are Master Resale Rights?

Master Resale Rights (MRR) usually gives you the right to resell something and keep all of the profits as long as you make no modifications to the content. MRR does not usually give you the right to reuse the content for another purpose (like re-publication under your name).

To illustrate all of this for you, I bought Master Resale Rights to a package of PLR articles on weight loss. I am making these articles available to you these articles as this weeks Friday Freebie.

Specifically, when I bought this PLR with MRR rights, I got the rights to:

(Yes) Submit to article directories
(Yes) Can be offered as a bonus with other Products - if changes are made to the articles
(YES) Can be edited completely and your name put on them
(YES) Can be used as web content
(YES) Can be used as a blog post
(YES) Can be broken down into smaller articles
(YES) Can be combined to make larger articles
(YES) Can be used as an e-mail/auto responder sequence
(YES) Can be added to a membership site
(YES) Can be Sold at any Price

I am NOT giving you MRR.

I am giving you PLR rights to these articles.

This means that you can:

(YES) Can be used as web content
(YES) Can be used as a blog post
(YES) Can be broken down into smaller articles
(YES) Can be combined to make larger articles
(YES) Can be used as an e-mail/auto responder sequence
(YES) Can be added to a membership site
(No) Can be Sold at any Price (Unless completely edited)

As usual, all you need to do is join my email list (see the opt-in box at the right) to download this report and other free stuff. Why not sign up today!

So How Can This Help Me With My List?

Now, I don't use a lot of PLR -- but here are at least 3 ways you can use it to help build a list.  Note that I always recommend that if you do use PLR that you rewrite it completely, adding your own voice and augmenting it with your own experience or research.

• Give PLR (when you have MMR) away to your readers as an opt-in gift (like this post)
• Use PLR on a blog as posts to attract readers to your opt-in box
• Send PLR content to your list as valuable content after they opt in.
• Use PLR to write an eBook for use with $7 Secrets

Enjoy.
Mark

P.S. -- If you really want the resale rights to this package of articles, you can have the resale rights for $5 by purchasing through the paypal button below.  Your paypal receipt with the title "Weight Loss MRR" will serve as your license to resell these articles (or use them as you see fit).  Note that you will still need to opt-in to the email list to get them, as I have not set up a separate download just for MRR.

List, List List.  All I ever hear about are email lists.  Are you sick of hearing about email lists?  Oh, I hope not, because as they say, the money is in the list.

A Week Of Posts About Lists

As I mentioned to you a few days ago, my buddy Josh Spaulding recently released a new eBook about how he manages his email list.  It is excellent, and I recommend it highly.  It's so good, in fact, that it has motivated me to take some serious action.

Starting today, I am posting a series about building lists -- here is what you can expect:

• Today (Thursday) -- This post about the importance of lists
• Tomorrow (Friday) -- A post about how you can use free stuff to build your list
• Saturday -- A post about Jonathan Leger's $7 secrets formula (for building lists)
• Monday -- A post about how you can use quality Master Resale Rights products to build your list
• Tuesday -- A post announcing my new eBook about writing eBooks ($7 secrets style)
• Wednesday -- See what the fortune cookie says about lists

The Purpose Of A Mailing List

If you spend much time around internet marketers, you’ll hear them talk about “the list”.  That term refers to their mailing list, which is made up of people who have requested to receive information from them, usually in the form of email newsletters.

For many internet marketers, the bulk of their income comes from marketing to the people on their mailing list.  A person’s list can truly be their key to success.  I know of several examples of "normal" people making a living on line using their list.

As Josh points out in New Age Email Marketing, some people mistakenly believe that the bigger list they have, the more successful they will be.  This is not necessarily the case.  There are a lot of ways to “get” subscribers, such as contests, list swaps, and even through list purchasing.  It is possible to achieve a high number of subscribers through these methods... but that doesn’t always guarantee success.

Instead of focusing on the number of people on the list, focus on the quality of the list and how interested the people are to receive the information.  A list of 1,000 very interested people will bring in much more money than a list of 10,000 uninterested people.

More important than that is trust.  Are you offering something of value (usually free information) to your list, or are you just asking them for money all the time?  Do they look forward to getting email from you, or do they hit the delete key without reading your mail?

While you think about those questions, here are some tips to help you build a great list:

Easy sign-up process

If signing up for your newsletter is a complicated process, many people will simply click away.  It’s also important to make sure the sign-up box is easy to see.  You'll notice that my opt-in box is at the top of my sidebar.  The graphics are professional, and I am asking for a minimum of information.  Some people place it at the bottom of their sites and if the visitor doesn’t scroll all the way down, they’ll miss it.  Many studies suggest that placing your newsletter sign-up box on the top right portion of your website will yield the best results.

Here is an example of easy -- an opt-in box right in the middle of a post:

Promote your list to your target market

Knowing your target market is another big key in creating a great list.  The more targeted the people on your list are, the more likely they are to purchase your products or services. That is one of the reasons that blogs are so great for list building.  People are visiting your blog because they are interested in the information there.  In that case, your target market consists of the people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.  This is important.  Obviously, if you sell natural baby care products, you probably wouldn’t want to promote your list by purchasing an ad on harleydavidson.com.

Offer a freebie

Many people offer their subscribers a freebie in exchange for joining their mailing list.  I'll talk more about this on Friday, but that is exactly why I offer the Friday Freebie on MasonWorld.com.  This freebie could be in the form of an ebook, a special report, an audio recording of a teleclass or some other information product.  When doing this, it’s always best to stay close to a topic your target market would be interested in.  Going back to the example of someone selling natural baby products, a great freebie would be a small guide filled with natural baby food recipes.

Stay At It

Building a great list, full of targeted readers, will take some time to develop. Don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen overnight.  Over time, the list will grow and it can develop into one of your best business assets.

Did you like this post?  Why not sign up to my list?  That's the point after all.  You'll receive lots of helpful content and notification about new blog posts.  You'll get the occasional special offer.  You will never get SPAM.

Sign up today.

Hey -- It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

Affiliate marketing is an important revenue stream for a lot of marketers on line today.

The Friday Freebie today is a mediocre report on affiliate marketing that is completely loaded with affiliate links. If you are new to affiliate marketing, then you can skim this report to get a decent introduction to affiliate marketing. If you know what affiliate marketing is and are looking for advanced strategies, this is not the report for you.

In that case, you might check out the Secret Affiliate Code, which I bought myself and recommend.  Also, there is a new version of Secret Affiliate Code out -- Secret Affiliate Code 2, which I have not looked at yet.

Note that this "60 Minute Affiliate" report is loaded with affiliate links (that is why it is free). Some of the products recommended in the report are OK -- but I do not necessarily endorse the products mentioned in the report.

If you have specific questions about products mentioned, please drop me a comment.

Hey, you get what you pay for. As usual, if you are interested in downloading the report, just opt in to my email list in the right sidebar, and download instructions will be yours.

Have a great day.
Mark

60 Minutes To Affiliate Marketing

Greetings!

Except for a brief time when I went shopping with my two daughters this weekend, I have been knee-deep in Firepow doing an in-depth evaluation (as promised). Right now my plan is to blog about it several times over the next week. I have gotten permission from Andrew Hansen (the creator of Firepow) to include some screen shots from deep inside the software -- so stay tuned. Bottom line is that I am really impressed with Firepow. It's not perfect, but you can see perfect from there -- a comment that I will explain in detail all next week. I hope that when I am done with you next week you will be able to tell if Firepow is for you without even reading the sales page.

Why Am I Telling You This?

Like I said, I am busy with Firepow, but I got interrupted today.

Josh Spaulding just sent over a pre-release copy his new eBook product. He is launching it Monday, and it is called New Age Email Marketing.

Now, on Monday, I will be talking about Firepow, and will not be able to help Josh promote his report (which is killer -- read on). So, Josh gave me special permission to let my readers know tonight, ahead of the launch.  The ink is not even dry on the sales page.

You need to know something -- Josh is one of the very few people that I both trust and respect in this business. I read the report (26 pages), and I was amazed. The report is about exactly how Josh manages his very profitable email campaign. It's all the details you need to build and make money from a list, even if you are a beginner.

The crazy thing is, it is only $7

(with a money-back guarantee, no less).

Why Is Josh Doing This?

Well, he tells you right in the sales letter. He has created an incredibly valuable report and it selling it at a really low price as a way to grow his list. He explains all of this in the report -- and tells you how to duplicate his approach.

So, if you are interested in making money from your email list (even if you don't have one yet), I recommend this report unconditionally. Josh is a great guy. He shoots straight, and will help you make money online.

Get New Age Email Marketing for $7 today.

You will be glad you did.

Hey -- It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

I talk a lot about Article Marketing -- but the challenge with article marketing can be writing the articles.  I totally get that.  Sometimes it is hard to come up with topics to write about or strategies for writing articles.

This free report will help you get going.

As usual, all you need to do is join my email list (see the opt-in box at the right) to download this report and other free stuff.  Why not sign up today!

Enjoy.

Mark

Hey, It's Free Stuff Friday time again.  This Friday I am adding an eBook about Resale Rights to the arsenal for free goodies that you can download just by signing up for the MasonWorld Internet Marketing newsletter.

You may remember several months ago when I got really excited about a new site by Mike Filsame called ButterFly Reports.  The ButterFly Reports concept is a viral marketing strategy.  In the strategy, a report author writes a report (eBook) on some topic.  The report contains affiliate links.  Users of the site are able to rebrand some (but not all) of the affiliate links in report and distribute it.  This gives people an incentive to promote your reports.

I really felt this concept would explode and be incredibly popular.  As far as I can tell, it has not exploded, but it is growing steadily.  And, as a result, there are some pretty decent reports on the site.

So, for Free Stuff Friday, I am adding a pretty decent report from Mike's site -- How To Make Money with Resale Rights Products.  To get the report, and all my other Friday Freebies, all you need to do is join my email list below. I'll send you download instructions immediately (even if it is 2AM).

Sign up now! I hate spam as much as you do!

Mark

photo credit: moonrat42

Man, Time Flies....

Well, it has been almost a month since I did a trial launch of my first product, Niche Adsense Themes for WordPress.  Two weeks ago, I started a post series talking about the lessons learned in doing my first digital project launch.   A few days later, I offered a free copy of the product to anyone who asked the best question that I could use for a future post.

The Big Winners Revealed

I am happy to announce that i really liked two of the responses, so I have named two winners.

• Kent made a comment that reminded me that I was thinking about doing a step-by-step explanation of how to create an AdSense mini-site.  I had actually started something like that a long time ago.  Some of you may remember my series of posts on my mini-site the History of Elvis.  Anyway, I never finished that post series or that site.  I need to do that, and I would like to do a post series for beginners on starting an AdSense mini-site.  So, Kent, thanks for that.
• Alex commented that he likes lists and checklists.   That was a great comment.  It applies to the current task of posts about my digital product as well as the coming posts on AdSense sites and Elvis.

So, both Alex and Kent will get free copies of Niche Adsense Themes for WordPress.

Lesson Learned 2:  Good Sales Letters Are Hard

OK -- so here is the next lesson that I learned regarding my digital product.  Of course to sell a digital product properly, you need a mini-site.  The setup of that mini-site is a big deal.  If you want a great free tutorial on that topic, you can take a look at Michael Rasmuessen's free Mini-Site video tutorial.  It is outstanding.

Anyway, inside this mini-site, you need a sales letter.  That sales letter is this only thing (besides possibly a pre-sales endorsement from an affiliate) that a customer will see before they decide to buy your product.  This is important to understand.

A customer is not making a decision to buy based on your actual product.  They have not seen the actual product.  And, they will not see the product until they buy.  Rather, they are handing you their credit card based on the claims in the sales letter.

So what about the product?  Well, the quality of the product (specifically, whether or not you live up to the claims of the sales letter) impacts returns, repeat purchases, and referrals (I call these the three Rs).

Good Sales Letter Need Basic Things

Now, I am not a sales letter expert (yet), but I can tell you that sales letters need basic things to be successful.

• A killer headline.  You have about 10-30 seconds to capture someone after the page loads.  If they do not see something that captures their attention, they will hit that stumble button and never return.  So, you must grab them.
• A USP -- Ultimate Selling Proposition.  Why do they need what you have?  What is the value of it to them?  Why are the benefits that you are describing obviously worth ten or 100 times the price you are asking?
• Risk Reduction/Reversal. Why is a decision to trust you (buy the product) completely risk free?  Or better yet, is there negative risk (If you are not completely satisfied, keep the free knives as our gift just for trying the product).
• Urgency. Be careful with this.  Act Now! can be a real turn off if not real.  Digital products do not run out of stock, so artificial urgency can be dangerous as it feels sleasy.  Instead, consider offering your product at a discount for a limited time. (Be sure to raise the price as promised later).
• Call to action. It is an old truth in sales.  You have to ask for the sale.  Ask them to buy your product.

My Sales Letter Sucks

OK, so my first attempt at a sales was not so great.  Here are my stats:

• 3.5% conversion for highly targeted email list promotions from an expert in the field with an "email list that converts well."  This is OK, but not great.  A %10 conversion rate (or higher) should be possible.
• Very low conversion rate (less than 0.5%) for somewhat targeted email list traffic from an MMO blogger.  I expected 3-5% conversions.
• Almost zero conversions from random ClickBank affiliates.

What does all that tell me?  It tells me that my sale letter needs work.  So, I am working on it.  I am in the process of gathering input on how to make it better.

• I posted to 5 forums asking for comments and help on the current sales letter (including the Warrior Forum and DigitalPoint Forums.)  Man, you want some criticism, just ask for help over there.  It helps to have high self esteem.  All the comments I got were quite helpful.
• Phone consultation from Aaron Abber at FullTiltBlogging.com (I belong to his mentoring program and to his membership site).
• Private consultations from Garry Conn and Josh Spaulding via email.  I am also a member of Josh's coaching program.
• Reading lots of sales stuff by guys like Dan Kennedy.

So, in the next post, we can look at the old sales page and the new sales page, and I will summarize the changes.  We can also talk about split testing.

Regards,

Mark

P.S.  What do you think of my first sales page?  Be honest.  I can take it.  Leave your comments here.

photo credit: TheTruthAboutMortgage.com

Well, it has been about two weeks since I did a trial launch of my first product, Niche Adsense Themes for WordPress.  As you may know from reading my about page, I started working on internet marketing in November of 2007 as a part time hobby.  The goal of this blog is to tell people about my experience.  So, I think that it is important to let you know what I learned launching this first product, and how it went.

There is a lot to say, so this will be delivered in several parts.  This is Part 1.

Where Digital Products Fit In MY Plan

The first important question to address is why I am interested in digital products.  So far, my internet-marketing strategy has been to work on four things:

• Passive AdSense mini-sites following Josh Spaulding's $5 Formula
• Affiliate mini-sites using phpBay and other affiliate offers through CJ and Pepperjam, etc
• Building email lists for direct marketing
• Creation of digital products.

As a part time internet entrepreneur, I am very interested in creating streams of income where I can scale revenue without significantly increasing the time needed to support that income.  That why passive income streams like AdSense sites and think affiliate site are so attractive.

Once the sites are set up and marketed, the only remaining issue is traffic and some low-touch maintainence.  For traffic, long-term strategies like SEO and article marketing can be used in combination to drive traffic over the long haul relatively easily.

If you work hard at AdSense sites, for example, you can earn high four (even five) figures per month just like Tim Gorman.  It is reasonable to expect to make a few dollars per day from a passive AdSense site - so you can do the math.

Why Sell Digital Products

Digtal products are different, and a lot more exciting.  If you can create something digital that someone might want (an eBook or software for example), you can then create a sales page and sells that product and start taking orders.   In some sense, this is similar to AdSense sites and thin affiliate sites:  you are converting traffic to dollars.  However, there are some critical differences:

• Revenue per action can be very high with digital products.  While an AdSense click might get you a dollar, the price of digital products can range from free to thousands of dollars.  A typical price for an ebook might be $27.
• You can have an army of affiliates.  This is not actually unique to digital products, but it is different from AdSense and affiliate sites.  With those business models, you are the affiliate.  When you own your own digital products, you can have affiliates working for you.
• You can upsell.  There is no better time to sell someone something than when they already have their credit card out and have decided to trust you with it.
• You can capture email addresses and sell on the "back end".  This is perhaps the most powerful idea.  Once someone has purchased from you once (and has given you permission to contact them), you can sell to them again.  In this case, they already know that you provide quality products, so trust as high.  This relationship can last a very long time.

Most of the truly rich internet entrepreneurs have digital products as a central part of their business strategy.

Selecting The Product

There are lots of things to consider when selecting a digital product.  Most guru's will tell you identify a market first, and then build a product.  You need to do market research and lots of other things prior to launch.  Honestly, I was much more random about my product selection.

During my work on AdSense sites I heard a lot of people say that WordPress was not a good choice for AdSense mini-sites because of two issues:

• The resulting sites looked like blogs and not "information sites"
• It was hard to control the placement of AdSense ads

I wanted to use WordPress, however, for lots of good reasons

• Speed of deployment (easy to crank up a new WordPress mini-site
• Lots of good plugins for things like sitemaps, SEO, analytics, etc.
• Easy to update with fresh content
• Support for pinging, etc.

So, I did the obvious thing -- I worked with an AdSense min-site guru to understand a perfect site, and I built a WordPress theme that copied the layout of that exactly.  In fact, I actually hired out some of the theme code and the graphics.   More on this later this week.

Then, I put myself in the place of the customer.  What would I want in a package if I was trying to get started with AdSense and WordPress?  I settled on the following five things

• Several themes -- not just one -- with good generic graphics that could apply to lots of different niches.  For example, a medical graphic could apply to any mini-site on any medical topic.  I thought that these "specific" graphical templates look more authoratative than generic templates like ProSense, for example (I love ProSense, by the way -- I just think my stuff is better).
• The same templates in HTML. I wanted to get past the "what if I don't like WordPress" objection that people might have.  Many gurus recommended static sites.  I think WordPress is a better answer.  Including a static HTML version of the templates reduces the risk of trying WordPress for the customer.  If they don't like WordPress, they could still use the HTML templates.
• Some free reports about how to make money with AdSense.  For the complete new person, I wanted to include instructions on how to use the themes to make money.
• Some free content. Again, for someone getting started, having some PLR content that they could "slap" into their site allowed them to get going quickly.

So, I now had a digital product.  I needed a mini-site to promote it, a price, affiliates, a way to take money, a way to handle support, etc.  More on all this later this week.

Best regards,
Mark

I thought that I would take a moment this morning to welcome myself back from vacation. I just returned from a great few days in Galveston, Texas. Now admittedly, Galveston is by no means the most beautiful beach in the world, but it is really close to my parents. We actually stayed at Moody Gardens, which is a cool resort complex on the back side of the island. The complex includes an aquarium (complete with Penguins), a rain forest, an IMAX theater, a water park, and a man-made beach. Really neat. As fun as it was, I think it is better to stay closer to the beach (especially from the point of view of my children).

Before I left, I intended to get several posts queued for release during my vacation using the cool "future post" capability found in WordPress. If you are not familiar with this neat feature, drop me a comment and I will post a tutorial on how to use it. I think it's pretty obvious, but I am happy to help if I can.

Well, I obviously failed to get posts scheduled for release. I got completely distracted with other projects that I am currently working on and will be discussing here this week. Some distractions include:

• New Experiment with Jonathan Leger's 3-way Links Product. I'll be blogging about this in the near future, but basically this is a subscription-based service that gives you one-way back links. Your subscription allows you to get 250 one-way back links per site for 50 sites. On the sites that I am testing, I am seeing immediate results for targeted keywords. More on this later.
• Redefining the MasonWorld Roadmap. It's mid-year 2008, and I a revisiting my "Internet Empire" goals to be completed by the end of the year. I have a much clearer idea of my long-term goals now, so I will be sharing those with you as well.
• Continuous learning. I have also been participating in 2 mentoring/coaching programs. I work with Josh Spaulding for learning related to SEO and traffic, and I work with Aaron Abber for learning related to direct response internet marketing (email lists and products). Cool thing is that both guys actually know a lot about both topics, so there is a llot of synergy. My goals for 2008 include having several profitable adsense and affiliate sites, as well as a couple of product launches.
• Speaking of product launches, I will be launching my first product at the end of this month (target launch date is June 30). I have developed some niche adsense themes for WordPress that are designed for high CTR mini-sites, and will selling them along with a subscription for future themes and an install service. More on this as the launch date approaches. There will be a very generous affiliate program, so stay tuned.

By the way, one thing that I missed while I was on vacation was Aaron Abber's weekly mentoring class teleconference (mentioned above). This a very cool thing each week that I always look forward to (Aaron is entertaining in addition to being well qualified to present the class materials.) There are lots of cool things on Aarons blog for free (in addition to his free mentoring program). One of my favorites is his humorous 101 Ways to Grab More Blog Subscribers. So if you want a laugh with a bunch of great ideas mixed in, check that out.

OK -- that's all for now. Look for more sunstantative posts from me later this week.

Best regards,
Mark

I am actually on a plane to California from Texas this morning. I am on my way to a conference to speak on Design For Manufacturability in the Semiconductor Industry. But that is not what is on my mind this morning. In today's article, I am going to BLOW THE LID off of Aaron Abber's BARELY LEGAL Super-Secret "Free" Mentoring Program. His program is not free at all. I'll expose the HIDDEN COST.

I'll also be offering a BIG TIP (you heard it here first) about keeping your email list subscribers.

And I'll tell you about an ALMOST SNEAKY way to further reduce your UNSUBSCRIPTIONS (unsubs).

Keep Your Email Subscribers With Content

Here is the BIG TIP - and it is a revolutionary idea.

Content is King. (OK, maybe not revolutionary, but true).

If you send useful information to your list between promotions, AND the promotions you send are for things that are also useful, you will keep the subscribers (subs) that matter. Let's face it, some of your subs are "freebie people" -- they subscribed just to get a freebie, and they will unsubcribe (just as they planned) right away. That's OK. Keep them if you can, but let them go if they want to leave. If you have great content, it will be their loss. Don't sweat it. The biggest mistake I see people make is that they promote to their list too often and too much. You need trust before you sell. Treat them with respect. Underpromise and Overdeliver. Promote selectively.

Aaron Abber EXPOSED

I have been talking a lot about how much I am getting out of Aaron Abber's Free Mentoring Program. All that is completely true. Aaron is a great guy and it's really a great program. But let me tell you something -- Abber is FULL OF CRAP when it comes to the "FREE" part. You cannot get ANYTHING IN LIFE for free. To get things in life, you have to take action. For example, if you want to learn from Aaron, you need to get over there and subscribe to his program.

Now, here is the other part that is not free. If you want to stay in his program, you have to take action and do the work that will help you make money online. What are you waiting for? (See what I mean?) People fail on line because they fail to take action. Don't do that. Don't be that person. Do something. Now.

One of the advantages of being partnered up with Aaron is having his permission to reprint some of his content. This is also encouraged as a way to help him grow his mentoring program (see, you need to take actions -- nothing in life is free).

Barely Legal Email Subscriber Tip

The following is a reprint of a post from FullTiltBlogging.com, posted with Aaron Abber's permission (he is a fool for telling you this information, so pay attention).

“I Am Tempted to Not Share This Tip”

At least, not publicly.

I don’t mind my subscribers having it–after all, they see it all the time and some have even started copy-catting me already.

But I don’t want my competitors to start using it. If they do, they will be putting to work one of the most powerful email marketing strategies I have come up with.

“Imagine If No One Ever Unsubscribed”

You work hard to get people on your subscriber list. You work hard to put together sexy content. You craft your promotional emails carefully, doing all you can to convince your subs to visit the sales page with an open, positive mindset.

You hit “send” and your carefully crafted, compelling email goes out to your loyal subscribers.

When you check with Aweber the next day you discover you have made some sales–Whoopie! But they you notice something else–3% of your subscribers hit the UNSUBSCRIBE link.

You just lost 283 subscribers. That sucks. Those people will never buy from you again–even if you recommend the perfect product for them.

You’re about to discover a simple way to change all that.

In the next two minutes you can take the unsubscribe rate for your next promotion to just a fraction of what it was on your last promotion.

“Unsubscribing is NOT a Thought Out Process”

The vast majority of unsubscribing is done almost unconsciously. You do it; I do it; we all do it. You are going through your emails, see a bulk email you aren’t interested in, scroll down to the bottom and hit the unsub link.

It’s almost automatic.

And that’s the problem. Your subscribers aren’t thinking of you. They aren’t remembering that great article you sent them last week. They don’t remember that you are pro-kitten (unlike kitten hating Darren Rowse). They just automatically unsubscribe.

“You Have to Jump In There and Say STOP”

The key to stopping them from automatically unsubscribing is to interrupt their automatic brain function and get them to think.

One way to accomplish this is to hire The Amazing Kreskin to send out powerful brain interrupting neural thought waves each time you send out a mailer, telling your subscribers not to use the link.

Of course, that might get a little cost prohibitive.

An easier way is to create a

WARNING MESSAGE

just above the unsubscribe link. (Man, I think that friggin’ flashing is going to send me into a seizure.)

“Warnings Are Poweful”

You only have to overcome the slight automatic response in order to keep those subscribers. Just create a brief message urging caution. Make them think: “Wait, do I really want to do this?”

Just making them pause for a moment will eliminate most of them from clicking on the good-bye link.

“But Wait, There’s More…”

Not only do you want them to not click the link, you want them to think about the past and potential future value of their subscription. That makes them more likely to open, read and respond to the next email you send them.

So, now that I have whet your appetite, here is my personal anti-unsubscribe message:

*CAUTION*

Using the unsubscribe below will
PERMANTELY block your email address in
our system. Use with caution.

Now, go put this at the bottom of all your emails. It will make you money.

I just put up a new report you will want to pick up.

“101 Ways to Grab New Subscribers”
84 GREAT Ideas,
11 CRAZY Ideas,
5 ILLEGAL Ideas and
ONE MARKETING BABE

http://www.FullTiltBlogging.com/101ways

Just wanted to give you a heads-up regarding Monday's post.

In Monday's article, I am going to BLOW THE LID off of Aaron Abber’s BARELY LEGAL Super-Secret “Free” Mentoring Program. His program is not free at all. I’ll expose the HIDDEN COST.

I’ll also be offering a BIG TIP (you heard it here first) about keeping your email list subscribers.

And I’ll tell you about an ALMOST SNEAKY way to further reduce your UNSUBSCRIPTIONS (unsubs).

So, check back on Monday. I'll be posting early in the morning Texas time on Monday.

Have a great weekend,

Mark

Earlier this week, I talked about Lead Blogging and I proclaimed that "Lead Blogging is the Answer." In that post, I introduced you to Aaron Abber over at the make money blogging site FullTiltBlogging, and promised a reprint of one of his posts on Lead Blogging. In this post, Aaron show you a screen shot of his 60,000 subscriber list over at Aweber.

Lead Blogging: Turning Opportunity into Leads

Luck and leadblogging favor the prepared.

Last week I noticed a new blog post over at Aweber.com. Nothing earth shattering, but it dealt with a topic I am intimately acquainted with—getting people to subscribe to email lists then confirm their subscription. In fact, before I sold my online business last year I had captured almost 60,000 double opt-in subscribers (click here for screen shot of my account.)

So I went over and left a comment about how I get over 15% of first time visitors to subscribe and over 90% of those people to confirm their subscription.

I figured making that comment would generate some visitors and subscribers.

But then I had a brainstorm—why not put the actual codes into an eBook and offer it for download? I figured I could capture more subscribers.

So that’s what I did. I created this “subscriber trap” to capture email address from my visitors:

http://www.FullTiltBlogging.com/submagic

All in all it took about two hours to set up and has resulted in 183
email submissions (so far) on 312 visits—for a whopping 58.7%
conversion rate from visitor to subscriber.

That’s pretty cool.

In next week’s leadblogging
post I will tell you about how I got a 95.2% confirmation rate from
those visitors, and how I will turn those into $4,209.00 in cash. That
means it it paid me about $2,104.50 an hour. Stay tuned.

This post is by Aaron Abber. Aaron is the owner of http://www.FullTiltBlogging.com where he teaches bloggers just like you how to make money blogging. Go there now to pick up his latest book “How to Retire on 200 Blog Visitors a Day” free.

RSS feeds are cool, but to be honest with you, there are times when I get so busy it is hard for me to get to my reader. This, coupled with the fact that I am often mobile and don't have a great RSS reader for my BlackBerry means that I am never completely up to date with my RSS feeds. So, for blogs that I really care about, I subscribe by email. Email is great because I get it wherever I am -- in Outlook, on my BlackBerry, in GMail, etc. I "live in my email," so an email subscription is just the ticket for me for important things.

Now, one of the things that you always hear about email lists is that they are the most important cornerstone of an internet marketing business. Guys that are famous for information marketing will tell you that their lists are the real asset in their business. They document cases where businesses have fallen apart (due to partnership or other troubles), but were rebuilt later based on the strength of the surviving email list.

These ideas -- that email lists are part of the core of a legitimate and successful internet marketing effort and that they provide a convenience service to readers -- are why I started my own list. I have not done much with it yet, and I have no intent to monetize it any time soon. Still, I am convinced that lists are an important part of my long term strategy to provide value to my readers.

Now, you can imagine that as I am learning about internet marketing, I am paying attention to people that I have come to respect who are also successful. Note that there are many people who are sucessful that I do not respect. I have mentioned some of my favorites here before. When people I respect do things that make sense to me, I try to learn from them.

So, when Garry Conn decided to (finally) add an email list to his GCDC blog, I really paid close attention. I was one of the first people to sign up. Why? First, I am sure that the content in Garry's list will be great. Second, I expect Garry to be successful with his list, and I want to learn how to be successful with my own. Since Garry announced his list a few weeks back, I have been waiting patiently to see what he would do.

Yesterday, the wait was over. Garry published his first email to the list, entitled Blog Tips During Softball Practice. As a special treat for his blog readers, he made the first post public. The great thing was that it exceeded my expections. The bad thing is that I can already see that using Garry as a mentor for emails lists is going to be setting the bar really high for me. Maybe that's a good thing.

Anyway, I recommend that you check out Garry's post, and if you like it, I recommend that you Digg it.

Thanks,
Mark

There has been a cool contest going on over at Caroline Middlebrook's blog. I really like her stuff, so I am playing along. From an internet marketing standpoint, this is very clever. This contest causes you to do two things -- dig through all of Caroline's old content and create links to that content. This is a really great example of what is called "linkbait." Caroline has basically set up a contest that generates deep links back to her site. This will improve the value that Google places on her content as Google considers inbound links as "votes" for the importance of stuff. What's cool about this contest is that it is pretty classy.

If you are interested in participating, the contest ends soon (tomorrow UK time).

If you are reading my post -- no cheating. You have to find the eggs yourself (he he).

This is my favorite egg location: Caroline's Case Study of a Niche WordPress Site

You should read these posts anyway:

Twitter-Stumbleupon Deadly Combo
My Favorite eBook: Zen to Done

Doubling Subscribers to You Blog
Stats, Stats and More Stats
Keywords Will Set You Free

Others include:

101 CSS Galleries Backlinks

Focus or Deversify
Grow Your Twitter Audience
Caroline Who?

Cats Need Pagerank Too
Embedding Youtube in Your Posts
Blog HTML Validation
About Caroline
Niche Site Creation with WordPress

Warrior Forum Tour (great post)
Do Follow Please

Thanks to all the Stumblers

Pointless Blog Posts
Products that Sell (like teaching)
Building Assets, Skills, Wealth, Happiness and Harmony
Marketing Email Lists
IM Ebooks
PLR Content

Writing Ebooks Is Not So Easy
Ebook Project, Torrent File
Yaro Rocks!
Link Lovin
The Prize -- Email Course Project

Successful Blogging Secrets - Where's Your Head?

Regards,

Mark

I have mentioned how much I like Caroline Middlebrook's blog before. Caroline's eBook on building niche sites in WordPress inspired my current "Niche Super-Site case study." It's inspiring to watch her progress because she is doing what I want to do -- having success making money on line without going down the "snake oil path." A lot of people refer to Caroline as "the honest blogger," and that is about the highest compliment that can be paid in my book.

So, I was surprised and excited to hear that Caroline is finally working on an email-based StumbleUpon course that will result in her building an email mailing list. I was surprised because she has resisted this in the past. She finally settled on this project because it focus on delivering valuable free content, and not on selling. In fact, she has no definite plans to sell any specific products right now. For now she is happy to add value and learn about building lists. The press was stunned and amazed, and as you can see here, the story was instantly picked up by Net Money Daily.

I also said I was excited. I was excited because I have wanted to start working on my own list. Jay and Sterling over at Internet Business Mastery are always talking about the value of lists. Like Caroline, they focus on real businesses (not snake oil). They also happen to have the best Internet Marketing Podcast on the internet. Anyway, as usual I will be able to leverage off of Caroline's excellent work. This is great for me. As a part-time internet entrepreneur, I need all the help via mentoring I can get.

See, even though this is not Caroline's focus at this time, mailing list are important for sales. I heard once (from Sterling?) that studies show that it takes an average of 7 contacts before someone buys something. The cool thing here is that Caroline is not all about money - and she will build a list of people that know that about her. I expect that if she tries to sell me something from the list, it will be something that she really believes in. Why? Because that is her behavior. So, let's forget about internet marketing for a minute. What if one day Caroline's becomes aware of someone in her community that needs some help? She can use her list to ask for some help. It's permission marketing. People on your list have given you permission to talk to them. Lists are powerful -- they are the asset in an internet marketing operation.

Now the cool thing is that Caroline is introducing the project as a contest. The winner gets the privilege of having Caroline use their Aweber Affiliate ID to sign up for Aweber's excellent mailing list management service. This is an excellent prize as the affiliate commission is paid each month for the life of the subscription. Very cool. Aweber is really supposed to be the best, and if it's good enough for Yaro Starak, it's good enough for me.

So, I knew right away, I had to try to win.

But, Caroline has thousands of readers. No telling how many entries there will be. It's all very brilliant really -- a viral contest about mailing list to get mailing list opt-ins. I love it. Anyway, I was immediately worried. See, Caroline lives in the UK, and I live in the US. I was scared to death that she might still be pissed about that whole taxation without representation - tea party thing. Then I thought that maybe she is already over that. Phew. (God save the Queen and all that).

So, I settled on a multi-part entry. Here is my entry to Caroline's email course project contest in multiple parts:

1. Appeal to her European heritage. I've never been to Stratford-upon-Avon, but I suspect quoting William Shakespeare could have some positive effect. As it happens, much like Nostradamus, Shakespeare predicted the arrival of Web 2.0. "Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast." Of course he was talking about the dangers of quick love in Romeo and Juliet -- or was he?
2. Buy her a word. I actually bought the word stumble from The Big Word Project and pointed it at yet to be defined page on her site. (Caroline, you need to make a landing page. You now own the word "stumble". This is a big responsibility). The Big Word Project allows you to purchase a word from their list to represent a site. That site will then represent stumble in their list and when people click on it, they will be taken to Caroline's site. The project is aimed at changing definitions and creating a new tapestry of words, meaning altogether different things.
3. Write poetry. Women love poetry. I wrote a haiku:

Web two-point-oh comes

In it's wake, some will stumble.

Some will be stumbled.

4. Digg and Stumble her contest announcement. OK, that was shameless, I know. But, I did it. I'm not proud, but I did it. I really want to win. I need to win. Winning is everything.
5. Find a cool graphic for my post. Boy, I sure did that. The above "stumbling down the stairs" graphic is from All Sux dot Com. I have given them a backlink, so hopefully they wont be pissed that I used their graphic without permission.
6. Long sales letter. Caroline loves long sales letters. I suspect she will be using a lot of long sales letters in her email list. I could add testimonials and yellow highlighting. There could be bonus video and free ebooks if she picks me. It could be a limited time offer. I would win for sure then. Strike that. Just kidding Caroline.
7. Redesign my blog.  Sure, it's a big expense and a lot of work.  But if I really expect to win this contest, I need to go all out.  So, a blog redesign may be just the ticket!

8. Call on a higher power. Looks like some local advertising might be just what I need to win.

That about does it for my entry. If you like my entry, please leave a comment here for Caroline to see, stumble it, and then go visit her blog. Note that I reserve the right to augment my entry before the deadline...never know what the competition will bring.

Thanks,
Mark