Johnson.

Just a quick post for you all. I found this last night when I was looking for Travis Sago’s Bum  Marketing Method on Google. It was a Lens ranked number 1 and was quite long winded, but some bits and pieces caught my eye here and there. It’s actually a service that Travis Sago uses himself so if he uses it, it can’t be half that bad can it?

The guy that owns the site, Ken Leatherman, keeps things simple: one article a day in several of the most common niches online:

• Internet Marketing
• Fitness
• Relationships

You can basically submit it as a PLR or use the article directly yourself by submitting it to EzineArticles.com, putting it up on your own site, or using it as filler content for your email marketing, etc.

So yeah. It’s 30 or 31 articles a day for $19.95, which translates to about $0.67 per article. I haven’t tried it yet, but am really contemplating it, so check it out and tell me what it’s like if you want. If you’re wanting to buy cheap articles, you really can’t get much cheaper than this.

Click To Automate Unique Content Creation –> 1ArticleADay.com

So I’m out tonight right having dinner with some mates who I’ll be going to camp with next Monday-Wednesday. It’s the holidays and I’ve got a fortnight (2 weeks) of time to catch up on university work. Basically, I’ve got to get a 65% GPA to maintain my government-subsidised place at uni. It’s doable, but I’ve got to work my arse off for the remainder of the semester. Just as I was about start this post, I thought of an idea to help keep me more motivated to study:

Just as you have the number of days in a row that you’ve abstained from something, something that’s useful, especially for something like Engineering, is counting the number of days in a row that you’ve studied. I don’t know how this’ll work in practice, but yeah, it’s worth a try. Like I know now, you just can’t cram Engineering. Anyway, enough rambling.

On the way back home, I was waiting for my train at Melbourne Central. There was 7 minutes until the train was coming and I was contemplating whether I should go back to the ATM to buy some credit for my prepaid phone. In the end, I didn’t, which was stupid since that meant I had to call reverse back home again in the sam week. It’s like $5 a call or something like that and because I don’t pay the bills, this isn’t good.

So this is the niche I’m talking about. Let’s see if it satisfies Travis Sago’s criteria in his Bum Marketing Mindset:

1. Mind Share: People are desperate to call home, they’ll be thinking of ways to call back somehow.

2. Emotional Temperature: Again, desperate to call back, dreading walk back home in the dark (fear of darkness/being jumped). Or dreading walk back full stop (fear of exercise).

3. Talking about it: Not sure about this one, but the service in Melbourne is 1800Reverse and it’s pretty much the go-to service if you’re out of credit or whatever. As the ad first showed, I’m sure it took off in popularity and it spread by word of mouth.

4. Paying Money: People who are desperate to get home will pay a reasonable amount to make sure they can do so. What’s better, a $20 taxi fare or $2 for a reverse phone call that you might not even pay?

5. Who else is promoting it?: Are there affiliates promoting this offer around? For something like this, there’s probably no affiliate program. I’d say they focus more on word of mouth. But I think there’s a similar thing on Clickbank which has affiliates swarming all over it.

6. Disposition: Will they resort to a higher authority? For this sort of service, it doesn’t really matter for a few reasons. They are pretty desperate. A call is a call and if it means that they can talk to the person they want to talk to, that’s all that matters. 2: there is not much competition for this over here in Australia, so as far as we’re concerned, 1800Reverse is the “official” reverse phone call service.

The purpose of this post is primarily for me to start getting my marketing mindset in the right gear so I can find more desperate niches to work with. Hopefully this has helped you too if you’ve read this post to the very end.

I’ve been pretty flat out recently at university. A lot of stuff being happening relationship-wise and just study in general. Still, hasn’t stopped me from thinking about Affiliate Marketing and dreaming.

Of recent, I’ve developed more of a “just do it” attitude. I day dream and usually succumb to short-term, quick fix sort of pleasures, but for the greatest rewards in life, I’m going to have to hold off for a bit and exhibit some self-control and discipline.

I’ve appreciated the time off I’ve had from affiliate marketing. Oh and another thing, one of the blogs that I’d set up earlier last year officially hit one year old! I checked my bank account and lo and behold, no cash increase… though I was short about $115 from the automatic GoDaddy hosting renewal.

I considered maybe stopping the hosting or even trying to sell it at SitePoint.com, but then I realise how valuable it actually is… I wrote a hell of a lot of articles and put them onto EzineArticles.com, pointing towards that blog and, like half a year later, it’s still getting a decent 250 hits a month. I mean, nothing special by anyone’s standards, but that’s free traffic that I paid for simply by putting in effort to writing article after article (I was trying to promote Vince DelMonte’s No-Nonsense Muscle Building. Look it up on Clickbank).

I’ve got to think of an extremely hands off way to monetize this traffic, since I’m a busy full-time university student. I can’t help but feel it’s all going to waste as I leave it there.

Anyway, just some more random thoughts about desperate niches.

The problem with most forms of Internet Marketing is that they lack the Marketing. Gurus and whatnot use flashy graphics and stuff to promise them the world to leave them nothing but a lighter wallet. The reason why it’s so hard for noobs to start making real money is because they don’t know enough about the market or marketing in general to start with an easier market that will give them a consistent but perhaps smaller income flow.

The first step is finding the desperate niche. You’ve got to understand why that niche is considered desperate.

The second step is identifying keywords that that desperate niche might type in with the intention of purchasing something. Besides the obvious words like “review” and so forth, most people, including myself, can’t tell a profitable keyword from one that may only be used for informational purposes.

The third step and last step is monetising that keyword by writing an article or advertisement that utilises the keyword so that it shows up in search engines. Of course, if the keyword is geared towards an extremely desperate and starving niche that is not being served, how well the article/ad sounds is negigable, supposedly. I’ve yet to prove this myself though I remain hopeful. =]

If you haven’t checked it out already, check out Travis Sago’s InstaCashKeywords.com. Corny name, but something worth checking out if you’re a fan of his Bum Marketing Method. Basically, what he does is send you a list of pre-researched profitable keywords that desperate consumers will type into search engines with an intention to spend money.

$4.95 for a one-week trial and $97 recurring per month. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ve been meaning to. It’s just with uni and stuff I haven’t been able to. There’s not much to lose and you can do a lot in 1 week with material from Travis Sago. Perhaps someone can try it and report back to this blog to tell me how it is?

Well, that’s my ramble for the evening. It’s currently 8:42 pm, the eve of September 11 down under.

I read an article in today’s mX on the ride back home from dance rehearsal. It was something about the big companies like Microsoft and Amazon and another one signing some sort of alliance that protects their right to sell digital products.

Apparently Google is trying to make the hugest digital library ever and make them all free, if not at a predetermined super-cheap price discussed with the author.

Should us Affiliate Marketers be nervous? Could this mean the end, if not a substantial reduction in commissions from digital products?

I haven’t really been doing much Affiliate Marketing at all recently. I’ve been busy as at uni, what with Flare Dance rehearsals amongst study and assignments. It’s Week 6 next week, which means there’s a lot mid sem tests and and assignments due. All in the life of a university student I guess.

The frequency of my AM epiphanies has dropped somewhat I guess as I result. AM is still on my mind a lot of the time; it’s just mainly things like how much I’d rather be doing that than what I’m doing at uni atm.

I can’t really remember where I had today’s epiphany. I was reflecting on a recent email I received from Colleen Slater, aka 60 Minute Affiliate. She’s started promoting her own get your ex back type product. If you’re familiar with the industry, you would know one of the undisputed leaders of this niche in particular is Travis Sago, the original Bum Marketer. His product, The Magic Of Making Up, dominates Clickbank and has a huge as gravity, mainly because he helps affiliates make their first sales or a decent income supposedly with it.

The main epiphany was in the fact that there are several products on the market that are successful and that will help people solve their problems. Why are AMers wasting so much time and effort competing with each other, trying to get their product on top? If it works, it works. The main thing is to help people. I guess that was a more holistic and humane epiphany.

The more marketing related epiphany was the fact that there is only one audience but several products. You shouldn’t let yourself get caged into only promoting one product. Start off with one to test the waters and acquaint yourself with the niche. Once you get it  going, look for subniches that might branch off your niche that need their problems solved and address those problems.

It should never be about the product. It should be about the problem and the people. That’s why people can just create a product like Colleen Slater has. I guess my first epiphany is helpful in putting your head in the right place when you’re going about promoting your stuff on your blogs and what not. Don’t promote the hell out of a product. Focus on the people, focus on the problem and let the vendor’s sales pages do the talking.

I guess I really do need this break away from AM, just because it’s helped me to greater appreciate Marketing in general. I love seeing things from a new perspective.

On one of my Clickbank review blogs, GoSleevelessReview.com, I’m promoting a product, Go Sleeveless. I’d planned to automate it to for at least 15 sales a month by the end of the holidays but due to being disorganised, that never happened. At any rate, I changed it back to how it was before I’d tinkered with it. It got max 4 clickthroughs a day, which although wasn’t much, was something. I haven’t gotten one clickthrough for a couple weeks now.

I currently don’t have an answer on how to get more clickthroughs, but it’s going to be a question at the forefront of my mind. Any help or feedback I’d welcome; I realise it’s a pretty hard question to answer and there’s no set formula to getting more clickthroughs, but anything that stimulates some thought and discussion would be beautiful.

I actually googled the term, “how to get more click throughs” and the first thing that came up was a Copyblogger post. Love ‘em. They say that writing “click here” is a waste of anchor text but as I continued scrolling down, I came across a “click here” of their own and being aware of myself at the time, I smiled to myself when my first reaction was actually to click. I guess it does work. In fact, I might try it out now on my blog.

In terms of what I’m doing now, since uni’s started, my life’s become a juggling act once again. I want to continue doing my IM, but I’m limiting myself to 2 hours a day and only on weekends. I know it’s not much time, but at least it’ll allow me to focus when I’m doing it instead of ending up on Facebook or something like that. Of course, university is priority however and I’ve got to make sure that I get what I’m aiming for: a H2B average (75%). I need to start being more decisive and disciplined.

I am an overthinker at heart but I know it’s something I can conquer, since I’m aware of it. I’ve got wonderful, caring friends who help me and I’m thankful for that, but it’s still up to me to set up my Internet Marketing businesses once and for all.

It’s currently 12:03 am, Monday the 27th of July. In about 7 hours, I will have to get up to go to uni.

I never did actually do anything that I set out to achieve over these holidays. In terms of my goals, my holidays have been a completely failure. I was more reactive than proactive and I unfortunately, sleep was again the thing I valued most.

I want to have an automated income from Affiliate Marketing by this time, but yet again, here I am typing with no change in status quo.

If I sound a bit disappointed, I guess I am, but I’m not letting it get to me, because it’ll feed of itself and make me feel worse. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on certain things, especially marketing in general and for that, I’m happy. I also know that as long as I don’t give up, there is always a chance, a glimmer of hope. All I have to do is reassess my priorities and really find out why I am an Internet Marketer and why I want that automated income.

Because until I do, it won’t come and other things like sleep and being lazy will get in the way.

I’m always someone that puts a lot on my own plate and it’s something that I won’t think I’ll ever change. What I can change about it is my attitude. I guess I fancy myself as a multi-tasker. The only problem is, I can’t multi-task. This is what’s going to happen at uni.

I’m going to start later today and be all relaxed and still on holiday mode. I’m going to be more reactive than proactive again and only get whipped into a frenzy of hard work by a due date. I’m still going to try and get my IM campaigns up and going, but because there’s so little time, I’m not going to get anything done again. I’m going to end up with poor results and not a sliver of profit to my name, all because I was disorganised.

The first step I guess is addressing my habit of going from zero to hero. I have to take things in baby steps. I can’t set up crazy goals for myself and expect myself to achieve them. The things I do everyday have to be measurable and achievable and achieve an ultimate aim in the end. I have to plan out my days and make room for unexpected surprises and stuff. And most importantly, I have to take everything in good spirit. I know my capabilities as a pessimist. Already, I’ve put on my stinky face about this semester at uni. My reaction to that? I am different from everyone else. I’ve found my direction while being at uni and I’m pretty sure that everything I do, I do for my parents. They’re my #1 priority. I only want to help them live comfortably. I want to help them retire. My life revolves around them and honestly, if I had to, I would quit uni just to provide for them right now if I had to.

Anyway, enough rambling. These are my long term goals for this year:

1. achieve avg of H2A (75%) for all my subjects. This will require: planning, asking questions, being proactive rather than reactive and being POSITIVE. I can by just relishing the simple things: spending time with my new lady friend (you know who you are ), listening to music that makes me smile and dancing.

I want do to this to develop my mindset as something that is focused (and to make my parents proud)

2. have an automated income by the end of the year. This will require: planning, FOCUS and knowing my goals. Finding something that supersedes sleeping in. I’ve got to forget about the glamour and luxury of the Internet Marketing lifestyle and first have the mindset I need to succeed. I have it, I just need to take action. I have to remember, I’m doing it for my parents.

I’m far from being the man I want to be, but as long as I’m aware that I’m in control, everything will work out.

Today is Monday and the last week of my holidays before I start university again on the 27th. I guess I’m just a little bit disappointed at the way that I conducted myself over these holidays.

I had planned to do so much. There was so much growing I wanted to do and instead, I wasted my days sleeping in and “planning” marketing stuff to do. It started off with me wanting to do videos for my affiliate marketing blogs. Then I got bogged down in so many little, insignificant things, things like definitions of affiliate marketing and crap like that.

As I sit here writing this, I’m not sure if I’m able to achieve my goal of a new laptop by the end of this month. I want to get the Toshiba M700 Tablet PC, but it seems like I’m not ready for such a reward. I’ve hardly earnt it, having not really conducted myself during these holidays.

As I sit here writing this, I’m aware that I’m making myself depressed. Saying that I’ve achieved nothing during these holidays is stupid, because there are things that I’m glad that I’ve learnt. Just heaps of things about being happy, I guess. Knowing more about what I want in life. Knowing more about why I want to be an affiliate marketer.

All I want to do is make a sale a day of a Clickbank product. That’s all I need to suffice and be happy at university. And I’ll be damned if I don’t make it happen in these last 7 days of my holidays.

I was up earlier this morning, doing some pondering about Affiliate Marketing as usual. Before I hit the hay around 1:00 am, I had one of my mini-epiphanies about Affiliate Marketing. I realised the true reason that Affiliate Marketers need quality content on their blogs and what the content’s meant to do.

The epiphany came about when I was wondering why, on one of my other exercise-related blogs, a particular post about 3 exercises women could do to burn upper arm fat got so many views compared to my other posts. Taking a holistic point of view, that post actually gave USEFUL information that my niche audience could use right there and then, whereas my other posts were just me crapping on.

When everyone says you have to have quality content on your blogs, have you actually ever stopped to think what this means and why it’s so important? Again, let’s break it down logically…

Q1. What is content?

A1. Content is information.

Q2. What is quality content?

A2. Quality content is  good information.

Q3. What is classified as good information?

A3. Good information is information that is useful.

Q4. What sort of information is useful?

A4. Information that allows you to immediately address your problems is useful.

Q5. What sort of information allows you to immediately address your problems?

A5. Um I dunno, how about a post that’s called, “3 exercises to get rid of arm fat”?

Q6. Why would that post allow people to immediately address their problems?

A6. Exercise is an immediate solution (usually) and the results they get from the information allow the quality of the information to speak for itself.

Kapiche?

All the gurus always tell you to understand your niche audience and their problems and stuff. What better way to do so than to prove it by giving them an immediate solution to their problems?

And that, is the key. Content is used to give you expert status. If you give people content that helps solve their problems, they will see you as an expert, they will see you as someone generous who puts them before their hip pocket and they are more likely to trust you.

This is an interesting question if you think about it. When was the last time you bought something? Every decent Internet Marketer knows that people purchase with emotion and and justify with logic. But that doesn’t explain why people buy things. Without getting too entrenched into the economics side of it, let’s try and break it down logically.

Q1. Why do people buy things?

A1. People buy things because they want to own them.

Q2. Why do people want to own things?

A2. Because owning them means it’s closer to hand and easily accessible.

Q3. What sort of things do people want to be closer at hand and to have easy access to?

A3. Things that they would use frequently.

Q4. What things do people use frequently?

A4. Things that address their most major problems. (Something that I have close to me all the time is my phone. My phone addresses the following problems: checking the time, checking the date, calculator, calls from friends and looking busy when I’m on public transport so weirdos don’t bug me. Something else that I have close at hand is my wallet, for obvious reasons.)

Q5. Is the thing that you’re promoting something that people want to have closer at hand?

A5. …

Q6. How can you make the thing you’re promoting something that people want to have closer at hand?

A6. By proving that it addresses their major problems.

Kapiche?