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a newbie

scoop33

New Member
affiliate
For a newbie on an online business I feel there is to much info but not enough REAL information... Additionally the information offered is based on making money for the person offering the information. ?Sure, its business ? However, I feel many are missing an important thing.
You MUST feed the cows before you milk them.
What do you think?
Scoop33
 
Not only feed

Good morning,

You should also make friends with them first. 'course, that kinda sorta gets away from the 'cows' analogy.

At this stage of my business, I think one makes the most with affiliate marketing (and remember, your mileage certainly may vary) if one first builds a relationship first with the folks who are considering buying the product.

I no longer look at affiliate marketing (making money in general) as a one-shot sale to a customer. Instead, I'm working on generating a rapport first. From there it depends - if folks are on my products mailing list, I build the relationship via a free eclass over the next few weeks. If they're on my website, they'll have a free resource center from which to browse (hopefully I'll be done with that soon!)...each link (which includes a target=_new so my original site is still on the screen) either goes to a free resource, an affiliate resource or one of my book resources.

Back when I was marketing dating and satellite programs, I created an optin autoresponder series that gave satellite/dating tips as well. Again, the best sales were generated after the relationship was built...and I had demonstrated my usefulness to the potential customer.

Finally, my mantra of this moment in time is, always have an optin autoresponder for any time of sites you build. You will then be able to market at a later date to the folks who sign up.

Hope that helps,

Barbara
 
Scoop and Barbara, really good points you both bring up.

BTW building my opt-in list is something I've gotten really lax about. I need to do a better job of it. Thanks for the re-inforcement.
 
Scoop33, you raised an interesting issue and I would like to dig a little deeper into it.

I think you are saying you are new and trying to operate an online business. There is too much information available to ever read all of it but very little of the information that is available is very helpful to the newbie, and the people making the information available are trying to make money off the information. Is that what you were saying?

I am going to respond based upon that assumption. If that isn't what you are saying, then perhaps someone who might be thinking that will read this and possibly get someting out of it.

If you are saying what I think you are saying, I assume you are talking about books, ebooks and sites promoting helpful information that they are trying to sell.

A great deal of information contained in books and ebooks is information that the author obtained for free by doing some reading on the Internet.

You can learn a lot by doing this also. In addition you can read forums such as this one and pick up some valuable information, and you can do it free of charge. Best of all, if you have particular questions that you want answered you can ask them here at 5 Star and many of them will be answered. The people will answer them without trying to make any money. It is just simply people helping each other.

Can you give some examples of REAL information you would like that isn't being made available? If you do, some 5 Star members might post that information.
 
Make 1000s

Hi Larwee.
What I?m saying is this.
Most info offered has no REAL instructions how to make a living on line. People sell you products that promise a lot but deliver BS. The evidence? The same product will be offered in a short time somewhere else for free or as a bonus to entice you in buying the next product. I have approached several people, such as affiliates, etc that offered me a HOT e-book, a software or other product, to make me 1000s, to produce some evidence. Nobody ever responded. The point is. I don?t mind buying products, and I often do so.. However, unless you make some money first, from REAL info, from good people that believe in their product, sooner or later you will be in no position to buy any longer. It means it has to be a two-way road. You help me with your info I come back for more.
Regards
Steve

PS I do read Forums and have joined a couple of private membership sites. Is it a good chance that I have the right one here, this time.
 
Permit me to offer another viewpoint

scoop33 said:
Hi Larwee.
What I?m saying is this.
Most info offered has no REAL instructions how to make a living on line. People sell you products that promise a lot but deliver BS. The evidence? The same product will be offered in a short time somewhere else for free or as a bonus to entice you in buying the next product. I have approached several people, such as affiliates, etc that offered me a HOT e-book, a software or other product, to make me 1000s, to produce some evidence.

What works for one person, might not work for another.

Allow me to present evidence. NOTE - the following is from 4-8 years ago, when I was active in the quoted industries...I've since retired those books because I'm focusing now on something else.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/19980801/984.html - only 5 star resource in that field.

http://www.realtor.org/tr.nsf/06256...27e0faa7375a66a28625683b005d3414?OpenDocument
Product Pick - Realtor Magazine

Both of the above products resulted from not only writing comprehensive books, but also taking the time to find mentors, get advice on how to position, market market market, etc.etc.etc. And yes, I did write a book on how to do exactly what I did to achieve the above.

But! Many people will drop the ball on those oh-so-critical stages of publicity...and many more will give up after only a week or a month or 3 months etc. of intensive marketing effort. The fact is, sometimes it does take longer to make it big online!

I can easily give you the step-by-step instructions on how to craft the above....but then again, I can also easily give you the step-by-step instructions on how to climb Mt. Everest. Those are at
http://www.ehow.com/how_17485_climb-mount-everest.html . But even intellectually knowing what is required...do you have the physical/mental/emotional stamina in place to actually make it happen?

I'm NOT saying that making money online is as difficult as climbing Mt. Everest, no no no! I AM saying, however, that just because someone offers you directions....does not mean that you possess the required abilities to implement them....yet.

My point is that there is no one-size-fits-all way to succeed online. For example, there are some folk online who swear by face-to-face selling. I'd rather teach my preschooler Calculus (and would probably have far more success!) than do face to face selling. I don't care if I can make meeeeeyons of dollars doing that...it's just not my cup of tea. But I won't discount the fact that it can work for other people.

Any product that says, you can make $1,000s, will ALWAYS always always require skills you must possess...and steps you have to take. Sometimes those "skills you must possess" means "already have in place a list of thousands". Sometimes instead they mean "must be able to tweak templates and build hundreds of portal sites automatically." Sometimes they might require "must be able to research for hours on end to determine high-demand-yet-hidden-from-theSEs products."

The good news (my, I'm on a role here) is that many of the skills are not that difficult to obtain (even for free). It does require an expansion of your comfort boundaries, of course.

Let's take building your own resource site where you can list affiliate products. How do you feel about crafting HTML to actually build a page or 3? Many people shy away from this...but just look at:

http://www.lissaexplains.com/basics.shtml

http://www.pagetutor.com/html_tutor/index.html

The first one is geared just for kids!...and yet gets the job done. Grammar school children are learning this technology at school....you can too, if you give yourself permission to explore it.

You can find tutorials on just about anything online by searching for

topic tutorial

ie,

http://www.google.com/search?q=internet+tutorial

http://www.google.com/search?q=css+tutorial

http://www.google.com/search?q=adsense+tutorial

In closing, it's the marketer's job to make things look so appealing that only a sullen pet rock would ignore it....it's the consumer's job to cut thru the smoke and mirrors and find out what money making path would really work for them.

Yes it takes time...but then again, so does everything thing else that's worth your while.

Data points,

Barbara
 
scoop33

Hi Barbara,
You have a good informative post for me here, even when at times it states the obvious. Thank you for taking the time.
I?m well aware that it is impossible to master IM in a day, a month or three.
Furthermore, I never thought that I would be making 1000s in a month or three (it is possible). I do understand the need for skills, time, money and patience to succeed. I?m a newbie not stupid. I don?t feel lost. The opposite. I?m looking for good practical information to go on with my plan.
In my previous post I was just stating my opinion for some peoples attitude, (don?t buy those scums by mine kind of thing) and my experience so far.

Regards
Scoop33

P.S. For the short time of 3 months that I have been on line I have managed a Blog with a PR4 and a website that ranks #1 for the keywords in MSN of 300.000 results. It has Alexa 324 000 and a PR3. Everything on both sites is hand written.

P.P.S. Barbara, I do appreciate taken the time to write of your opinion and experience, it does help.
 
Thanks everyone for the great tips and helpful sharing.

I'm going to say something outright that some may not like, but I believe it to be true. Scoop it sounds like you may have been exposed to lots of the ebook types and Internet marketing types that try to capitalize on all those that want to learn to make money online. IMHO there are lots of info product type gurus that sell the same fluff and regurgitate it. Sounds like you may have run into some network marketing folks too that promise the world to get you in their downline and then leave you high and dry to figure it out, after they have your money. They are all trying to make money off of Internet marketing wannabes, but as you said many times the info they offer falls short and doesn't deliver real step-by-step info, just lots of hype.

Note: I'm not saying all ebooks or full of it or ebook marketers are bad per se, it's just that I see lots of hype and what appears to me to be people trying to take advantage of newbies in that space.

The majority of affiliates I deal with are more retail type affiliates that want to promote real products and provide a real value to customers. So with us, at least the regulars here, you won't get the hypey get rich quick pitch, but you will get real info. (Note: some people do drop by and post hype but they don't usually stay too long.)

One good source of affiliate training that you can try out for free or almost - I think the 2 week trial is $1. www.affiliateclassroom.com I would join and grab all the info you can. If you like it, the training is more step-by-step and is only around 29 a month - well worth it I think. But the key is you can try it 1st to see if it suits you. Hope this info was helpful.
 
Linda Buquet said:
...I believe it to be true. Scoop it sounds like you may have been exposed to lots of the ebook types and Internet marketing types that try to capitalize on all those that want to learn to make money online. IMHO there are lots of info product type gurus that sell the same fluff and regurgitate it.
AMEN Linda. As usual you're on my wavelength. Marketers who peddle that regurgitated garbage are the scurge of the industry. :D
 
Scoop33 I am afraid you are right. There is too much information on making money on the internet but very little on how you can in reality make it. As linda and others have pointed out most of the self-proclaimed gurus do not give their "students" a step by step system that the latter can easily duplicate. What I would like to see is a guru who tells me that I do not need all that other information and instructions out there and demonstrates this through his or her teachings. The few who try to do this unfortunately end up piling so many to buy resources overhelming their recruits even before they make any dime. What I would therefore look for is a system that gives step by step instructions combining different techniques of success and which makes me money with my upfront massive action. Does such a system exist or do we need to create one? Perhaps that should be a topic in another thread where we could have a chance to demonstrate and test the sytems we are working with and see which meet some of the criteria being pointed out here.
 
scoop33

Thank you Linda, StephenR and Goldline for your response.

I feel better to know that other people have a similar opinion on what is going on with some marketing areas.
Linda, I will take a close look at your suggestion with the affiliated course and yes, I agree with you Goldline. This could or should be a topic for another thread to demo systems we work with.

Regards
Scoop33
 
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