Gather Success

Today is a holiday here in Canada – Victoria Day.  Funny thing.  Every day of the weekend they have been predicting rain.  Every day of the weekend, the morning overcast turned to sunny.  Today appears to be a repeat!

What are some of the outstanding moments in my blog life this past week?

Well for one thing, the blog life has had to make way for a non- blog life and that may be the case for the next few months but it is all good.   To maximize my efforts and put some efficiencies into play I have made the following decisions regarding my Blog Income Life:

• Focus on the “income” in Blog Income Life.  To that point I will be looking at my aggregate internet marketing income as my Blog Income Life.   I am giving myself the balance of Q2 and all of Q3 to ramp this up.  My first report will be published in October. 

 

•  As the focus shifts to income, I have decided to concentrate on affiliate marketing.  Affiliate marketing has paid me in dribs and drabs, but nothing sustainable and no plan in place for sustained results.  I am currently looking at all the programs that I am affiliated with a view to begin to marketing  them – beginning with one.  Reviews on these programs will be posted here.  In the meantime, any advertising banners on Blog Income are those of products that I personally have bought and am pleased with … I know, none here right now, but there are quite a number and I’ll put them up soon.

There is plenty more on the horizon which I will share with you as time, plans and results unfold.  I am excited.

Now for the week that was – summary of new posts since May 16:

Gather  Success Challenge III – Affiliate Marketing :
As a contestant of Alvin Phang’s Gather Success Blogger Reality Show I “attend” the weekly call-in and take notes to both apply to my own efforts and to post here so that you can take away a gem or two that  may be helpful  too.  Lots of gems on this call.  Read them here.

sidenote:  this is the call-in that made the penny drop for me re affiliate marketing and earning a sustainable online income.

Gather Success Challenge IV – Retweet Challenge
My bête noir!  For some reason I have been dragging my feet when it comes to social media, particularly when it comes to Twitter.  Alvin  makes it clear:  we need to become more familiar with Mr. Twitter!   This week I have been reluctantly visiting Twitter and making a few tweets here and there (not enough I am sure to garner me in the top three, but ok, it’s dipping my toes.  This post is all about me being a shameless hussy and “chirping” for RTs … that would be “retweets!”  (I think).  

Sunday Morn Musings: Learning to Dance in the Rain
A very short post – I give deference to the video, which is (I think) profound.  I couldn’t say it better.  Enjoy the video!

Earn Money with Affiliate Marketing

Tonight was call-in number 4 for Gather Success’ Blogger Reality Show.  Our challenge for the last week as centered around affiliate marketing, we were to promote, market, and ideally make a sale of Atomic Blogging 3.0 system.    At least one challenger had a sale.

I did not even attempt this challenge.  Last week was crazy busy with non-IM type of stuff.  So of course I did not get any points awarded.

Speaking of points,  Alvin made some good ones on how to choose your affiliates.  For the purpose of the call he used Clickbank as a good example of an affiliate directory.  Here is a step by step process on how to find a good affiliate:

1. If you don’t already have an account set up go to Clickbank.com and set one up.  It’s easy and its quick

2. To select a product click on Marketplace.  It seems that many of the challengers are in the make online income niche, which is very competitive and even though Alvin makes good money in that niche, his suggestion is that it is much easier to make money promoting affiliates that are not in the  blogging for money business.  The competition is significantly less

3. Clickbank is really good at giving statistical information on the affiliate program.  One of the statistics that Alvin likes to look at is the gravity.  Gravity tells you how popular a product is so the higher the number, the more popular or demand there is for it.  There are several factors that contribute to the popularity of an affiliate program:- collateral support such as banners, sales page and ongoing marketing  including but not restricted to emails.

   -  conversion
   -  commission

4. After selecting a program, check out the sales page and any other promotional material the affiliate publisher is offering.

5. Where do all the screenshots come from?

6. Transaction records

7. Be sure the product has testimonials

8. Get your link, button or banner and test it.

9. Try the buy button to see whether it works or not

10. Check the bottom of the page to make sure that the affiliate link is the same as your Clickbank ID.  If its not then don’t promote this product.  Go through the process with another.

From the submissions it seems that many of us have our own challenge with affiliate marketing.  How many times have you been told to promote a big ticket item because the amount of time and effort spent is  the same as for a small ticket item but the financial rewards are much greater even if you sell far less.

That might work if you already have your affiliate marketing chops down pat.  You really need to build your affiliate marketing muscles before going for the big game.  Alvin’s suggestion is to challenge yourself with small weekly goals, something like “… I am going to earn US$200 this week selling product XYZ  at $20 each…” and then set your whole campaign up for the week.  See what results you get at the end of the week.  Make small adjustments to the campaign for week 2.

Track everything.  You may hit your $200 mark the first week, maybe not.  The thing is now you have a goal and a method and as you continue to improve your marketing skills, the sales will begin to come in.  This takes practice.  As you get better you can start marketing higher priced products.

Affiliate marketing when mastered  is an easy  way to earn an online income.

That was just one of the nuggets I took away from last night’s call-in for Super Blogger Reality Show. Actually it was the first call-in and with just 16 of the 100 plus registered reporting in, it was like a private chat with Alvin of Gather Success in a cozy online living room.

The challenge was to post daily from May 01 – 04 inclusive.  That was an easy gimme for 10 points and all reporting got the full 10.  But things are heating up for the coming week and getting very interesting.  The curve just took a sharp uptick.  More on the details later – suffice it to say that we’ll be raising dollars for charity and I’m hoping that you’ll respond to the tap on the shoulder.  A few things need to ironed out first.

Alvin went over a few of the blogs.  Yup.  Blog Income was one of them.

Alvin is using UStream so it’s like a classroom tutorial – you get to see exactly what he is talking about.  Here are just a few of the gems I took away and want to share with you:

CONTENT LEFT THEMES

No contest here.  Look for themes that have content to the left, sidebars to the right.

Reason?

Google reads left to right (whod’uv thunk!) but only the first 50 words.  What that means to those of us who have sidebars to the left of content is that we are wasting a lot of precious real estate on items such as, for example on Blog Income, social media chicklets, archives, blogrolls, tags, and other minute type stuff.

The default to this is that when writing include your keyword(s) in the first 50 words if you can – this is something I struggle with.  First I don’t get keyword obsessed when writing, sometimes the keyword(s) don’t show up until several sentences later.  But now that I know the 50 word rule, I’ll try and play pretty with Google without sounding stilted.

OPT-IN BOX

You have to have a way to collect names to create a list.  I know it sounds trite.  We have heard it sooooo many times, yet it is an oft overlooked item. Most of the reviewed blogs fell down on this one.    Make a free offer.  Make it a call to action.

Something like

CLICK HERE FOR FREE WEEKLY BLOGGING NEWSLETTER
AND GET MY ABC’S OF BLOGGING FOR MONEY EBOOK (VALUE $47)

I did have an opt-in for my ABC’s of Blogging for Money up as a banner and yes, it did generate signups. Huh!  Wait till I get my new theme up!

AFFILIATE LINKS WITHIN YOUR ARTICLES

Unless you are blogging as a charity case with no intention of making money, you have to sell.  It doesn’t have to be salesy, but you should have affiliate links within the body of your article.  It doesn’t have to be every article and go light on the links, which should all be anchor text.

Just about all of us who had our blogs reviewed fell down on this one too.  We had banners up but any content linking was geared towards reference rather than product.

Here’s a sobering thought:  On average your product needs to get 100 click for one sale.   Track, track, track.  Use Google’s Analytics “Goals” to get metrics on impressions to conversions, for example how many eyeballs have to fall on your article/page for the affiliate to be clicked once?

Of course there was more.  You can still register and participate in the challenge.  Each week appears to be a standalone but the longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to catch up.

Stay tuned for the details of the Gather Success Charity Drive …

To earn a substantial blog income you need to define your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).  If you did not include this part in your original plan development this is a good time to revisit the process.

What is the feature of your blog?

What is the benefit?

We know the importance of USP when it comes to selling tangible items, but when it comes to the non-tangibles the lines begin to blur.  Consider:

Car
Feature: Heated/cooled seats and back rest in car
Benefit:  instant body comfort no matter what the temperature is outside.

Restaurant
Features:  authentic home-made Italian;
Benefits:  better tasting than others

A blog by definition is not a tangible, you can’t pick it up, package it and deliver it to someone.  But it is a product. To uncover the USP of your blog ask yourself these questions:

1. BENEFITS
   What are the benefits of the blog?
2. NICHE APPROPRIATE
   Are the benefits appropriate to your niche?  i.e.  does it solve a major problem?
   Helps people eliminate debt?
   Improve self esteem?
   Shows how to plant patio gardens?
3. MEANINGFUL SPECIFICS
   What are the action steps
   What are the best tools
   What to look for when purchasing equipment
4. EMOTIONAL TRIGGERS
   Whom do you appeal to and why do they keep coming back  time and time again?
   You can get a profile of your visitor at Alexa.  Alexa is not just a ranking system but is a good source of info on the type of traffic you attract.  So if your traffic is made up of mostly 50+  women, who have a college education, are empty nesters and looking to retirement in the near future, what are some of the emotional triggers that would keep them engaged with your blog?
5. TIED TO MARKETING SALES PROCESS?
   Is it tied in to a marketing sales process?  i.e., do you offer products, either affiliate or your own that would be of interest to your niche?  If your blog is all about patio gardening and you attract women in their fifties who are empty nesters, what could you offer as an affiliate?  Videos on how to plant in planters, how to choose planters.  How to position them.  Outdoor living room. Show off your green thumb without spending hours of backbreaking work.   Maybe you are a horticulturalist.  Have you thought of making your own videos or DVDs and marketing  them to your traffic
6. WOWFACTOR
   After your visitor finishes reading your latest post, is he intrigued?  Did he feel that you gave value for the 2 – 4  (or more) minutes it took him to read it.  So what do you think your WOW factor is?  AHA!  Could that be your blog’s USP?

I think that what each blogger brings to the net is their unique voice and that is difficult to define in a USP – unless the “voice” is a dog that publishes a blog, or a celebrity or a well known personality, but other than that, how do you try and differentiate your blog from that of your competitors?  Or do you follow the successful ones and use their formula with your own spin on the topic?  What has worked for you.  The comment section below is all yours.

How, you ask, do you network online?  Networking has spun a whole new business model –daily there are several networking events held throughout any major city at venues as diverse as the people who attend them.   For a small entrance fee and the cost of a wallet full of business cards you can attend these well orchestrated functions where it goes without saying that the reason you are there is to make connections and so is everyone else.  No need to chit chat about sports, kids or the last adventure down the Amazon.  Cut to the chase and go for the jugular:  What do you do?  What are you looking for?  How can I help you?  No fit, no worries, move on no offence taken.

But how do you do that on the internet?

There is no virtual room that you can enter, tap someone on the shoulder and exchange  URLs, contact info and other bits of   critical information about each other’s businesses.   But …  develop online  relationships you can

First off I am not a great fan of the organized network functions.  They are too frenzied for my liking.  Long before someone came up with the idea of throwing a party for no other reason than to facilitate encounters of the business kind, networking was alive and well.  Have you ever moved neighbourhoods or cities, perhaps even countries.  How did you meet your new neighbours ?  Chances are that you joined some associations,  societies, private clubs and extended and accepted invitations to social gatherings.

If you are new to internet marketing think of it as a new neighbourhood.  How might you meet others on the internet and more importantly how do you meet the right crowd?  Here are a few suggestions:

1. FORUMS:
   Search for online forums that are either complimentary to or the same interest as your own. Register for an account and start visiting.   There is usually an introduction thread going, do that.  After that just hang out a bit, read what others are saying and if you like the tone and the content, participate.  Best way is to be helpful.  When someone is looking for an answer to something and you know it, supply it, or weigh in with your opinion or suggestion.  The key is to make your responses of value. Get noticed.
2. BLOGS
   Find blogs in the same or complementary niche as yours.  Visit the blogs – some you’ll like some you won’t.  Bookmark the ones you do and make a habit of dropping in and not just reading the posts, but commenting as well.  Think of yourself as a guest and what is the role of a guest?  To enjoy oneself of course but also to add value to the host’s party.  The blog is the party. Be gracious, read the whole post and make a comment, either by complimenting the host on the article or suggesting something that may extend the value of it.
3. TWITTER
   Twitter is a great place to socialize and is perhaps the best gateway to online relationships.  Done with an end purpose in mind you can develop strong relationships with others of a similar industry or common goal.  Most people go about “meeting” people on Twitter the wrong way – they immediately start following people without any thought as to whether they should.  I mean when you think about it would you go out on the street and tap people on the shoulder to say that you are new in town and want to get to know them?  Of course not.

   Similarly with Twitter.  Ideally you should start by only following people you already know, but if you are completely new to this scene and you don’t know anyone – or at least, you don’t know that you know anyone  –  you start with a simple search.  Look for people in your profession or industry, similar hobbies or common goals.  Select no more than 10 to start with and before you follow them, visit their profile.  Do you like what you see and read?  If you do then go ahead and follow.  Be sure to log in once a day to see what your new online compradres are tweeting about.    Follow the thread.  If you like what you are reading,  stay a follower and begin to engage in the conversation, if you don’t, then simply unfollow.

4. FACEBOOK
   Similar to Twitter but different.  Matt Astifan likens it to the next step after Twitter.  Twitter is where you meet someone,  get to know a bit about them sort of like doing due diligence, and then if you decide that this is a keeper, invite them to your Facebook.  Facebook is a slower pace where you can get to know your new online friend a bit better – it’s like slow dancing vs rock or hip hop –   perhaps even give a referral or two.
5. OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS
   Twitter and Facebook are the two most popular social networks out there, but you may want to look for specialized social networks – you know, something like where all the medical doctors hang out if you’re a doctor, or a neurosurgeon  or where budding authors exchange good tips on editors, agents and publishers.

Do all of the above without expectations.  You will find that visits will be returned, tweets will be forwarded, invitations will be given.  Not only will you be joining a community of like minded people but  people who are willing to support each other’s endeavours, perhaps even signing on as affiliates and even joint venture partners in the future.

Now doesn’t that look just like offline networking?  Have you in fact been doing online networking without knowing it?  What have you done that has grown your community?  Can you suggest other ways of online networking?  Have you benefitted from online networking?  How?  Don’t be shy, post your comments below.

In three weeks and a day the first quarter of the year will have come and gone.  If you are serious about your blog income business this is the time to take a quick overview of where you’re going, where you are and where you’ve been so far this year.

Reviewing your progress in anything that you do is critical to success.  Goals drive success.  So you need to review the progress of your goal for the year.  I review by day, week, month and quarter.  I don’t spend a lot of time on all the details, but come the end of a quarter,my blog income business undergoes a microscopic review. Year to date results are tallied  and adjustments where necessary are made.

This is a good time to take a quick overview of the current situation vis a vis your blog income goal.  With three weeks to go there is still time to save the bacon.

Am I on track?

NO!

Do I know how far off track I am?

YES!

Here is a quick way to review your progress and maximize your internet marketing performance:

1.  Goal.
You can do this for any part of your life, but for the purpose of this blog and post let’s stay with your blog income business.  What was your goal for the year?  .

A common annual goal is to achieve a certain income.  Assume that your goal is $100K  for all your internet marketing streams.  A very simple plan might look like this

1Q = $10,000
2Q = $20,000
3Q = $30,000
4Q = $40,000

Total = $100,000

2.  Progress to date:
What is your year to date income?  With three weeks to go, if you do not make some quick adjustments will you achieve $10,000?  If not how far off the mark are you?  If the shortfall is just a projected thousand or two, what can you do to turn up the heat.

3.  High Gain Activities
A quick review will tell you what in your marketing mix has worked the best and brought you the money to date.  You will notice that every time you took action there was an upward  spike in the results.  Very quickly identify the action that brought you the most income.  Take that model and ramp it up for the rest of the month.  If it is affiliate marketing that is the major contributor, see which affiliate product contributed the most to your bottom line.

4. How Many Sales Needed?
If your current track projection shows that you will be $2000 short of your 1Q goal, what are the steps that will lead you to reaching $10K?  Ask yourself these questions:

a)  What is the commission for each sale?
b)  How many clicks to reach one conversion?
c)  How much traffic  per click?

For ease of calculation:
commission per sale:  $100
clicks to make one sale: 10
traffic to generate 1 click: 10

Armed with this information you come up with this formula
2000 visits = 200 clicks
200 clicks = 20 sales
20 sales @ $100 commission = $2000

5. Which Piston Is Firing  The Traffic Engine?
Look through your statistics to identify which marketing action drives the most traffic.  Isolate it and increase that marketing action in direct proportion to meet and deliver the additional numbers.

This is also a good time to look at your second quarter.  Based on your 1Q results what are the action steps for the coming quarter.  What adjustments do you need to make?

Look at your business as sailing.  When you sail you know what your destination is.  You have a mapped out route.  Depending on how the wind is blowing, how the currents are running and daily weather changes, you need to continuously tack your sailboat to reach your destination.  A review of your  results is just tacking your internet marketing business to success.

In short:  review, correct, continue.

Did get some blogging done.  Here is the Review of the Week that Was , a summary of the the new posts published here since February 14.

Sunday Morn Musings:  Valentine’s, Gung Hay Fat Choy!  The Smell of Gold – 14/02/10
A potpourri of topics:  St. Valentine and valentines and China and Valentina (yes, me!) and the welcomeing of the year of the tiger, an animal that is lucky, vivid and incredibly brave.  Talked about Chris Farstad a former Olympian and what he told us about athletes and how he figured that this year the Canadian athletes would fare far better and why … they have.  Hop on over to Sunday Morn Musings and read the full article.

Affiliate Marketing:  Write the Ad 15/02/10
This post takes you through a five step process of writing an attention grabbing ad that will have your visitors clicking and buying your affiliate products.  Nothing like the sweet  sound of a click to enrich your blog income bank account.

Affiliate Marketing:  Plan Your Campaigns 18/02/10
The nine steps to a successful campaign – from inception to fulfillment including time lines and a little known marketing ploy that will take you from obscurity to success with direct financial benefits to you.  The starting point for your passive income.

Yes, I did work on my own campaign to start March 01.  This is the first time I will actually be promoting one of my affiliate products not just on an ad hoc basis, but according to a plan.  I will establish my first “control”

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life.

Valentina

One of the easiest ways to plan affiliate marketing campaigns is to center them around events, seasons, celebrations etc. The obvious are Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s, Mother’/Fathers’s Day … and so on.  No matter what your niche is one you can definitely work one or two of these special days into your marketing campaigns.

But why not separate yourself from the pack?  Everyone is selling at Christmas and it’s not to say that you shouldn’t, but did you know that there are dedicated “days” or months to just about anything  and everything under the sky?  The narrower your niche, the more bizarre the relevant topic day, the more attention you can draw with your advertising.

An example might look something like this:

Niche:  Left handed people
Domain:  LeftHandedPeople.com

Is there a Left Hander’s Day? Yes.  August 13.

Now is the time to start preparing for an all out campaign that should launch sometime in July.  But you need to start to have all your tools in place and there is no better time to start than now.

1.  Do you have a mechanism to capture leads?
If not think about what it might be that would entice your blog reader to register and leave their name and email.  Here are some possible options:

- weekly or monthly newsletter
-  e.report on being left handed: 17 – 20 pages on what it means to be left handed
-  e.book on famous left handed people – write one yourself, or check around to see if there is one that is available for PLR(Private Label Rights): 50 – 70 pages.

2. Decide what your offer is going to be.
What about left handed mugs – message on the mug appears to the right of the handle.  Or left handed scissors?  Left handed golf clubs.  The list is endless.

3.  Dedicated domain name.
You do not need to buy new domain name, you can have a sub-domain that would look like this:

LeftHandedPeople.com/August-golf
LeftHandedPeople.com/August-mugs
LeftHandedPeople.com/August-scissors

4.  Contact your affiliate vendor.
See if you can work out a one time offer for their top selling product.  Now you have a special price  for your unique market: the lefties.  It is estimated that 7% – 10% of adults are left handed.  That is a narrow niche yet a significant market.

5.  Write your ad:
Write your copy for the sales letter – this is the long sales letter telling your prospects why they need a new set of left handed golf clubs. Check and see if your affiliate vendor already has one.  If you are going for more than one item have a separate sales letter for each one, as in example  #3 above, it should be a different sales letter and domain for  golf clubs, the mugs and the scissors.  Not everything has to be different, just a few words and phrases to reflect the offer.   Have these ready to go for first week of August.

6.  Marketing blueprint:
Decide how you are going to market this.  Start warming up your prospects.  Pre-write a set of autoresponder messages that will start going out mid-July.  Space the messages by several days, decrease the spacing as August 1st approaches.

7.  D-Day
August 01:   the mass promo goes out to everyone on your list. Put up banners on all your relevant sites.  Put out a press release :  “Lefties Rule August 13″ and submit to all press release directories.  If you have the budget by all means submit to those that are fee based, but if dollars are scarce use the free directories service.

8. Daily Activity:
Have something happening on the net every day until the 13^th – newsletters, blog posts, forums, see if you can get guest blog space on some of the more popular blogs.

9.  August 14:
Tally up your sales.  You may still have some straggle in after the date but the majority of your sales should be in by the 14th.  Review everything:  what sold, what promo delivered most traffic, what venue converted most, which gave the biggest return on your time/investment.  Make immediate notes and make the tweaks to next year’s promotion while they are still fresh in your mind.

File away till January or February of the following year.  Dust it off then, make changes, add new things you may have learned in the interval.

For a list of holidays/bizarre dedicated days etc. go to:

http://www.brownielocks.com/month2.html

For example, did you know that February is National Start a Business Month?  I didn’t either.  This morning I was pleasantly surprised when while  doing  my blog rounds I read this post on Pat’s  Smart Passive Income blog.  The article is on whether you should form an LLC for your business.    You will notice that this is part I.  Now Pat is a real savvy blogger who pulls in significantly more than just coffee change from his blogging.  Dollars to donuts he has shingled several posts and put a small campaign together that will garner him some extra sheckels, I mean, who isn’t interested in starting a business these days?

Chances are that the first year you do this, the results may be less than sterling. Here is what you will have achieved:

-  an affiliate marketing model centered around specific holidays
-  established control(s) campaign for your left handed market niche

For a list of holidays/dedicated days etc. go to:

http://holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/index.htm

Don’t go hogwild now.  You probably want to mix them up – you know, the odd ball days with the more mainstream ones, don’t forget Christmas or Mother’s & Father’s Day!

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

Growing

-

But first Today’s Olympic Moment! Brought to you by Blog Income!(another benefit to owning a blog – being your own sponsor!) – Smell of Gold Turns to Taste of Gold!

Canadians across the nation are doing the rain dance, whooping, hollering and stomping it up as they celebrate  “Alexandre the Great” in winning the first gold for the host nation at Vancouver’s Olympics thus ending the country’s drought of winning gold on home turf.  I mean Canadians are known to be nice and hospitable but we have to draw the line somewhere!   Sweet!  Congratulations Alexandre!

Now to the topic at hand: 5 steps to a successful ad.

1.  CREATE OFFER
What is the offer?  Speak Spanish in two weeks!  Travel in luxury on a pauper’s budget!  Whatever your offer is you need to capture the interest and curiosity of  the viewer so that the ad is clicked on.

2. WRITE THE AD
Obvious as it seems I have seen in the offline world where people just throw something up without giving much thought to what they are saying.  I suspect the same happens here in the online world. The shorter the ad, the more important it is to fine tune it as much as possible.  Good ads come in three parts:

The Headline.  Lets see what we can do with traveling in luxury on a pauper’s budget.  Here are some options:

- Broke Student Travels in Style:
OK.  Nothing terribly compelling but the general idea is intact

- Luxe Travel on Student’s BudgetGetting stronger. But what about

- Luxe Travel on Pauper’s Budget
I like the word  pauper more than student, I think it is stronger and more likely to arouse the curiosity.

The Body. This is where you write about the offer in two to three sentences at most.  Make it interesting and compelling.  Punch it up.

Call to Action: Download your free report now.

3. PLACE THE AD
Another obvious.  Look at your options.  Do you have a budget?  If so look at Google Adwords, Ezines and Newsletters that take advertising.  If you are new to affiliate marketing chances are that the budget is slim to none.  The first place is to put it up on your own site or blog.  A banner is more likely to attract attention than just text.  You can design a cool ad for free at http://www.addesigner.com/

4. TRACK RESULTS
There are lots of ad tracker services on the internet, many for free.  Just do a Google search for “free ad trackers”.  One that looks good to me is http://www.clickaudit.com/ .  Wordpress also has some free plugins that can help you track your ads.  I use Pretty Link which is proprietary to WordPress Direct.

Track your results. Congratulations, you have now established your first control.

5. REPEAT
Repeat the process.  Make a few small adjustments.  Don’t revamp the whole ad and its process unless it gave you zero results.  Success comes in fine tuning and fine tuning is not a re-haul.

To Your Success in Affiliate Marketing!

Valentina

This was the last week of my Internet Marketing Bootcamp.  Learned a bit more about Wordpress which I will be putting to use within the admin area of my Wordpress Direct program.  Polished up a few things on this site and I just might start a site on Wordpress.org, just to put into practice the whole meal deal.

Participated in some Olympic revelry – planning on more over the next two weeks.

The week in review:

Musings On a Sunday Morn:  Done? Never! 07/02/01
Carlos Velez posted a comment which prompted a rebuttal and I had a bit of fun on how dishes never get done!    This was strictly off the cuff but apparently I hit on something somewhat accidentally: linking to comments!  Full Musings on a Sunday Morn reading

Affiliate Marketing:  Establishing a Control 11/02/10
What is a control?  In its simplest form a control is that system, process or campaign that produces the desired result; in affiliate marketing that result is sales.  The campaign that delivers the best sales results becomes the control. In this article I write on how to set up your first control.

The Mitts That Were Seen Around the World: 11/02/10
Went off topic – had a good time!  Actually, what was not off topic was how “co-incidences” happen.  I believe that  “coincidences” are not accidental at all and had alluded to that in a previous article when I wrote about my friend and author Wendy Atkinson. Back to the mitts … read how the lowly mitten has become the fashion item of the season & more.

Coming up:  This week nose to the grindstone – err… fingers to the keyboard. Setting up my affiliate marketing campaign so that I can establish a control for it.  Target date is to have it up and running March 01.

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina