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.

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’m assuming anyone who reads this blog is familiar with Travis Sago and his Bum Marketing Method. What he does is provide some EXCELLENT value by teaching people a free way to make money online. Then, at the end he shows a video that advertises Wealthy Affiliate, at which he can be found and, naturally, since the content he gives is good, more can be expected from Wealthy Affiliate.

It’s crazy… it only occurs to you what he does when you become “one of them”. =p But yeah, ingenious really… I mean, if you go to Google’s External Keyword Tool and look up “Bum Marketing”, there’s like 5400 hits a month! He’s AUTOMATED the affiliate marketing process! And all he’s done is write 3 pages of content (and got it ranked of course) but it’s so useful that it’s gone VIRAL and people know about it.

I’m building up my right own little list of marketing methods, aren’t I? I wonder how many I’m actually going to use… I bet if I actually used these methods and made a video out of them, that’d make my rankings shoot up ey?

Anywho, for now I’m going to call this method, the “Free Taste Method”. As in, a taste of what’s to come. A taste of the real thing.

He’s one of those rare kinds who possessed the grit, determination and natural talent to start off with to be a marketer. You know, someone who is good at connecting with people. I just looked up “Bum Marketing” on Google… like, 5400 hits/month! How’s that for a heap of awesome affiliate sales for Kyle & Carson?

Anywho…

I just got one of his emails. Yeah, I’m subscribed to his list. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the guy’s alright. But I’m sure it’s not just me who gets tired of his constantly happy tone in his emails. I don’t know… how many people actually feel appreciated when he finishes off his emails with, “Hope you know how much you mean to me!”

Yeah, that’s what they teach to you to be a better list marketer, but I’m not biting, you know what I’m sayin’? Sorry, I just watched “Take The Lead” with Antonio Banderas. =p

I’m not a fan of gurus. Not saying that Travis is one but yeah. Anywho, back to the email. How many people just received one called, “YOU may be in VIOLATION…” I’m sure a fair few number of you. He talks about three things in there.

Well let me backtrack a bit first. He says this: