The Newbie Marketer

The Winds Of Change

2004-10-05T19:13:00.000-04:00

Hey All!

Yeah, I know...I've been late in getting back here again...so shoot me :) Preferably with a big dose of cough syrup and orders to sleep for 12 hours straight...but enough of my pity party for one!

So what's new on the marketing front...well...I'm hatching a plan (and let's hope it's not a goose egg!) Seriously though, over the last few months I've had a blast learning the ropes of internet marketing and all the many techniques one can use to increase their business profits. Now it goes without saying that I've only learned about as much as the big gurus forget in a day :) but I have to admit that I'm really itching to try out some techniques on my own business. I don't mean opening up another internet marketing website....there's far too many out there who give more info in their title tag than I could in my whole site. I mean a built from scratch business where I produce, market and sell my own products.

Granted, this isn't as "hands off" as affiliate marketing and will in no way be able to be confused with "passive income" but it's like an itch I've just got to scratch! I've been in the customer service business in one form or another since I was 14 years old (and I'm gonna leave you guessing as to how many years ago THAT was!) and I'm really eager to use my customer relations skills and team them up with some marketing tips to give my customers what they want while maximizing my sales.

I'm not going to reveal just what my business will be just yet, but I will shortly...as soon as I do a little more research on the market.

Hey...read something very cool today. It seems there's a "new gun" in the town of Search Engine-ville. The newbie goes by the name of Zabang. Apparently there's a lot of buzz going around about them so I checked out their website to see what the fuss was all about.

They claim that they are the newest one tier search engine to hit the market and apparently they plan to make a pretty big splash in the search engine ocean.

So why the hell should we care?

Well...Zebang puts it to us like this...."What if you could have had a piece of Google"?

Well, I don't know about you...but if I could have had a piece of Google I would have snatched it....ran like a bugger and found the nearest vault.

Zabang is scheduled to launch on or about November 10th and they will be offering targetted advertising like Google but the difference here is that Zabang is giving us a chance to get a piece of their "profit pie".

By pre-registering as an affiliate and letting others know about Zabang you have the chance to make some nice profits with their two-tier affiliate program.

Hey..the way I figure it..all us interent marketer, affiliate marketers and business owners are always looking for new places to advertise. So why the heck not get in on some of the booty should this Zabang thing hit the big time?

Check it out...the Zabang thing might just be the next Google!

Check Out Zabang

That's it for today!

Until next time...go out there and learn something new!

Not Dead...Just Regrouping

2004-09-22T22:05:00.000-04:00

Hey All,

Well.....you now have proof of life! No..I am not dead and I swear I didn't mean to abandon my blog :) I got caught up in having family visiting and getting my oldest daughter ready for her first day of school...and now Mommy is still trying to recover from that one!

Anyway....what a wonderful surprise to see so many comments in my blog...and here I thought I was just talking to myself!

I see that Lynn Terry stopped by and left a couple of comments and suggestions (as always...much appreciated Lynn!) For anyone who doesn't know who Lynn Terry is...you're missing the boat!!! Lynn is one smart cookie ( I say that with the upmost respect!) when it comes to internet marketing. You can check out her blog at http://clicknewz.blogspot.com/ or you can become addicted to her self starters weekly tips forum at http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com or...if you are serious about making some money on the internet then you can join the private forum http://www.turningideasintodollars.com run by Lynn and Andre Chaperon. I may not be making a mint on the internet yet...but I'd be a liar if I said that I could have earned any of the money I have so far if it wasn't for Lynn and Andre and their forums. And just in case you think I'm promoting the above resources because they are affiliate links...nope! I don't get squat if you join...but since I decided to write down everything that I'm doing on my road to internet marketing enlightenment....I would be remiss if I left out those three important resources.

OK..what's next here? Oh....If the Marie that left me the comment about having only a few subscribers is reading this....I'd love to contact you and chat! But can't because I don't have your email addy :(. Post me another comment and tell me how to contact you and I'd be more than happy to put our heads together and figure out how the heck we reel in more subscribers!

Well...just so you don't think I've been totally lazy in my absence, I'll now tell you what the hell I've been up to for the last couple of weeks.

Number one....my Adwords campaigns have not passed go..they have not collected $200 and they went straight to hell in a freaking hand basket! So where does this leave me...besides with a hefty Adwords bill? Well..it leaves me back to the drawing board with this particular project. When I first started out my intentions were to begin an Adwords campaign with various keywords, see which ones pulled in the sales and then create a website with the goal of optimizing the website with the "paying keyword phrases" for search engine optimization.

I began the process...the website is built, and it is optimized but I fell short on the all important phase of getting good back links so that my site could be indexed and hopefully rank well in the search engines for said keyword phrases.

Yes, I admit, I strayed and deserve to be flogged, but I think anyone whose played with Adwords has to admit that in the beginning Adwords can be an addictive "toy". I had so much fun checking my click through rates and sales that I forgot my goal. Naughty, naughty me!

So I am now at an impasse. Since my keywords are no longer performing well do I still go on with my seo plans? I'm going to have to have a good think on this one and I'll get back to ya on it. But I definitely learned a lesson in that if you take the time to make a plan...then for the love of Pete..take the time and stick with it! Sure..the "plan" may not pan out but at least you took a project and went from start to finish with it...a very good habit to get in to and one that I need to get more acquainted with myself! If I'd followed through with this plan I'd already have a good deal of back links by now and would probably have a pretty good clue as to whether or not my website would be profitable via seo. Now that I wandered off the path chasing the "pretty Adwords butterfly" I'm scrambling to decide what to do. So there...let that be a lesson to you. If you start something...stick with it and finish it up as quickly as possible!

On another note- I checked out a really cool website while I was playing hookie from my blog. It's called the Copy Doctor. The man behind the website is Michel Fortin and he is known as one of the "big guys" in the world of copy writing. In fact it was this guy that wrote the sales copy for John Reese's Traffic Secrets which broke a few records for sales I believe.

Anyway, the premise behind this website is that you can join as a member and each month Michel will use someone's sales letter (he chooses from his site members so if you're one..it could be you)...rips the poor, pathetic thing to shreds, and transform it before your very eyes to a sales letter that sells.

If you want to see a demo of what he does I recommend visiting http://thecopydoctor.com and signing up for his newsletter. When you do you get a 15 minute sneak peek of one of his 4 hour critiques where Michel brainstorms and changes fonts, wording and delivery while all the while explaining why he does it. Very cool! Once I get my act together...and knowing my ability to write ad copy that both sucks and blows at the same time...I think I'm going to have to join Michel's site. So check it out...at the very least the 15 minute video is a learning experience and, for that matter, so is just reading his sales copy letter!

Well...that's it for today. I promise not to be such a slacker and get back to my blogging routine.

Until next time...go out and learn something new!

Cindy McKie

It's Elementary, Dear Watson!

2004-09-03T14:36:00.000-04:00

Hey All!

OK..so I missed posting yesterday and I'm late today. But it's not my fault...the dog ate my homework :) Just kidding. But I did end up playing Sherlock Holmes yesterday. I know that as an internet marketer we wear many hats- web designer, researcher, advertiser...but a detective???

The mystery arouse when I received a notice from Google that one of my ads had been rejected due to the fact that the offer in my ad couldn't be found when clicked through.

What the...????

It was the same destination url that I'd used before when linking straight to the company website. So I did my own click through and wouldn't you know it...the company had up and changed their landing page! You'd think they could send a freaking notice or something! Geez.

Anyway...was I going to take this sitting down? Not this feisty red head! I immediately emailed my affiliate manager and politely explained that not only had this new landing page crashed my sales but now I couldn't even advertise on Google. I kept the tone very nice and asked if there was a way to change it back. I did, however, also add at the end that if something couldn't be worked out that I was going to have to stop promoting their program. Hey...their little presto chango had been costing me a whack of sales..so I figured I was justified in playing a little hard ball.

Well, to my delight I received a quick reply and my affiliate manager was more than willing to change over any of the ads I was using back to the old landing page. And as if that wasn't good news enough....I also got a hefty raise in my per sale bonus! Wooooohoooooo!

So, lessons learned by this experience- always check your links regularly (my bad that I didn't check them for a while!) because you can't always rely on the company to update you. And the most important lesson? Don't be afraid to ask for what you need to make your campaign work. Hey...they need to work with you in order for both of you to make money. If you've got a system that's working for you and they screw with it, or if you want to try something new and need them to change something...don't be shy in asking! Company's want affiliates that go that extra mile and give a damn about their conversion rates and sales. So speak up and be proactive....it definitely pays in the end!!

OK...on another note of good news, my other program has risen from the grave and made a sale! I'm hoping this is the first of many to come. Also, I just picked up a new campaign in a niche market. I got great Adwords placement by researching keywords through Wordtracker's free trial and getting in on some well searched terms that had little competition. So far my click through rate is outstanding...let's hope it converts into some sales or it's gonna get booted right in its niche butt (trying that hard ball tactic again...hey, it worked the first time!)

Well, that's about it for today. Going camping with the family this weekend so hopefully I'll have a nice surprise of lots of sales when I get back :)

Until next time...take care and go out there and learn something new!

So..Do I Buy 'Em Or Bribe 'Em?

2004-09-01T08:32:00.000-04:00

Hey All!

OK..day two of the "back to grass roots" campaign with my affiliate programs and still no sales. My click through rate is going up and I'm getting hits but it's just not converting worth beans. So I think it's time to start with the small tweaks. I'll post here on the results.

Before I get on with today's ramblings I thought I'd comment on something I found interesting. Lynn Terry, owner of one of my favorite online forums - self starters weekly tips -
made a really interesting comment in her latest newsletter about the sudden end to the Traffic Secrets roar. For a while you couldn't click without hitting some promotional tool or email regarding the highly anticipated course...and then only a few days after its release all went into "dead calm" mode. I have to agree...very strange. Now I didn't purchase the course as the sticker price of nearly $1000 US was just a little to steep for me at this time, so like many of us I can only guess at what's inside. My current theories are that because it's so massive people are still digesting it like a python who just caught a goat or...perhaps the "secrets" are just so amazing that the owners don't want to reveal just how great the course is. Can't you just see it..." Nope...nothing good in here..nothing to comment on." Meanwhile all Traffic Secrets owners are huddled under the bed covers at 3 a.m. , flashlight in hand, petting their Traffic Secrets CDs and mumbling in a Schmeegle like voice " My preeeeecious." Who knows? I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what develops :)

All right..on with today's ramblings. Well...the newsletter got written and it's pretty decent. Not terribly long but I think my subscribers will find it very useful. I will send it out today and hopefully see some results. I gave them one free resource, told them what's new with the website and put in one promotional review on one of my affiliate programs. Let's hope I kept my 10 subscribers happy lest they turn into an angry mob (are 10 enough to make a mob?) I shall post my results...good or bad...at a later date.

Now I just need to focus on getting more subscribers to my newsletter. So what are my options here? I could list it in a newsletter directory (not usually terribly effective), find something like an ebook to give away( fancy term for "bribe") to potential subscribers..something I could definitely check into, swap newsletter ads with other complimentary newsletters, and I'm also wondering if I could use Google Adwords to get subscribers (better known as buying them)...hmmmmm. I'll check into all of these today..pray for divine inspiration...and get back to you on what I decide.

Well...that's it for today.

Go out there and learn something new!

I Have Subscribers...Now What?

2004-08-31T11:33:00.000-04:00

Hey All!

OK..well apparently the ghosts of affiliate screw-ups past still feel I need to learn my lesson. I had mentioned yesterday that I had gone back to square one with promoting my two programs. Well..so far I'm still in the dog house because there's still no sales. But that's ok...deeeeep breaths...must...resist...the...urge..to..tweak. Nope- not going to do it. For all I know everyone who clicked my ads is just holding off a day or two waiting to see if I crumble like a burnt cookie. How's that for conspiracy theories?

But I shall resist the urge for another day or two and then I plan to do some split testing. This is always a good way to see just how much better your small improvement stacks up against its older counterpart. I plan to have one ad still point to the company website and my other shall point to my site with what I hope will be a simple but effective sales copy page. Wish me luck...apparently I need it!

One more quick thing before I get on with today's ramblings. I just listed my blog at this great blog directory called getblogs.com . They are the best rated blog directory on the web. If you don't believe me just check out their blog (imagine that...a blog directory having a blog. Some things just make sense huh?) where they show the proof. So if you're reading this and you have a blog that you'd like to get more exposure for then I recommend high-tailing it over there and getting listed.

All right..on with today's show. I have a dilemma (you're probably thinking "just one?") OK..I have a dilemma that needs to be addressed right now..the rest can wait :) You see, I have a newsletter and I have subscribers- 10 to be exact. Now I can hear you rolling your eyes (don't ask how I can hear that...just nod slowly and act like that made sense). Now I know 10 subscribers isn't much but its all I've got for now. One might be tempted to just hold off until they got more subscribers before taking the time to publish a quality newsletter but I think a different approach is needed. See, even though I'm only sending out my newsletter to a handful of people I want it to be the best newsletter I can create. After all....if I can't keep 10 subscribers happy how do I ever expect to keep my subscribers happy when I have 100 or even 1000 (hey..it could happen!)

A newsletter is your connection with your customers, so I'm told. A chance to strengthen your relationship and build trust. Take the time to give them quality information and hopefully I shall appease the masses...or in my case the small group milling around. But give them crap and chances are my flock of ten are going to sprain a finger in their mad dash to hit the "unsub" button.

So I need to make it good..the pressure is on. This is my mission today- gather my thoughts ( I know I left them around here somewhere!) and give it my all to create the most informative newsletter I can. I shall keep you posted on how it went.

As an "end note" I guess it goes without saying..so I'll say it anyway....that only having 10 subscribers means that one of my next projects is to focus on promoting my newsletter and getting more subscribers. But more on that another time.

Well...that's my ramblings for today.

Until next time...thanks for reading and go out there and learn something new.

Ack! I've "Tweaked" Myself Into Oblivion!

2004-08-30T11:54:00.000-04:00

Hey All!

Here's a hard lesson learned today. Ever heard the term "If it ain't broke don't fix it?" Well..in the case of internet marketing this philosophy usually doesn't apply. In fact one of the rules of this type of marketing is that you always have to test, test, test...tweak your approach in hopes of better results. I've been told this by people much more successful than I and I believe them.

But, as with anything, there are right ways and wrong ways to tweak. Guess which one I used? Yeah...the wrong way. You see, when you're promoting a product you always want to strive to get the most out of your advertising dollar and efforts. If you're using PPC (pay-per-click) advertising like Google Adwords then you want to constantly try and improve your ads in order to improve your click through rate and hopefully increase sales. If your working on a sales letter for said product that your visitors will read and hopefully be inspired to buy because of then you need to slowly change the wording over time in order to hopefully appeal to your customers in the most effective way. It's all about testing, testing, testing...notice a theme here? :)

OK...So I'm currently promoting two separate but closely related products. I started out using Adwords with some pretty swell keywords that I'd researched via Wordtracker. In the beginning I simply linked the ad right to the company's website. I did this for two reasons. 1) I didn't have a website yet as I wanted to see if this product would sell and 2) If it did sell..I wanted to see which keyword phrases would convert the best and use those keywords as my main phrase(s) for SEO purposes when I did build a website.

At first all was rosey and the internet gods were smiling upon the ignorant newbie. I split tested with my ads (used two separate but similar ads) for each product and constantly made small improvements to the weaker ad. The results were that my ads did well and, even though I was only paying .05 cents a click my click through rate continued to improve with each little "tweak" until my ads climbed from the #5 and #6 position to the #1 and #2 position.

Yippeeeee! Can't you just see the headlines now?

Newbie Does Good And Takes Internet By Storm

Yeah...right!

So with my newfound skills (I can hear you snickering you know!) I decided to become what I now affectionately refer to as the "tweaking queen". Nothing was safe! I would tweak and tinker like a mad woman until I had these campaigns raking in the dough.

And this is where the internet gods quit smiling and just fell down in a good 'ol belly laugh.

I decided to try my hand at sales copy. I figured if just sending my visitors to the company website could get me some sales then building my own web site and making some killer ad copy...you know the kind that the gurus like John Reese pump out that makes you want to flip out your wallet quicker than a gunfighter reaching for his pistol at high noon...then I was going to be an over night success (is that more snickering I hear???)

So I built the web site...bought a domain name using my most profitable keyword phrase (thank God for an awesome SEO course that I took!) and created landing pages for these products.

At first it wasn't bad..still getting good click throughs and still making sales. Then I decided to just go nuts and change everything that was working all in one fell swoop (in case your wondering...this would be the part where the "big screw-up" begins).

I attempted some flashy "look at the amazing product I have for you" copy writing and you could literally hear the wheels of progress screeching to a halt. I'd done a bad, bad thing and needed some help fast.

I called upon the expert advice of a guy I know, Andre Chaperon, who is amazing with internet marketing and sales copy. He helped me out big time (bless you Andre!) but even with his help I still managed to screw it up! Hey..what do you want from me...I said I was a newbie!!!

Still "tweaking like a mad woman" I have now managed to tweak my campaigns...and my sales..into oblivion. And why was this so horribly wrong? Because I broke the golden rule of testing and tweaking. Baby steps people..baby steps. Sure you always want to improve your results but if you do it in leaps and bounds how are you going to know which change worked and which just sent your visitors away shaking their heads and thinking "this must be that website that the newbie owns".

So what does a newbie do whose just "fixed it until she broke the danged thing herself" do? Yup...start back at square one. I'm back to pointing my ads directly to the company's websites while I try to figure out this "kiss of death" sales copy that I created.

The moral of the story? Make your changes small. Change a headline..change some phrasing..change a graphic or two. But for the love of Pete don't do it all at once!!! Tweak a little and then walk away for a week or two and see what changes. If it works, great, move on to the next small tweak. But if it doesn't then you can just reverse that one small thing and go back to where you were just successful instead of back to square one like me!

Well...that's my screw up of the day. I'll keep you posted on how it progresses from here.

Until then...go out there and learn something new!

The Newbie Starts Blogging

2004-08-30T00:06:00.000-04:00

Well, hello out there! So this is what this "blogging" thing is all about. Every marketing forum I've visited over the last few days seems abuzz with talk of people starting their new blog or switching from a newsletter to a blog format. So, I figured I'd try this bad boy out and see it first hand for myself.

Anyway, a little about me and the "direction" of this blog (gee..Doesn't that sound official!) My name is Cindy McKie and I am a newbie internet marketer (makes sense considering the title huh?)

I became fascinated with the possibilities of affiliate and internet marketing about 3 months ago. Before that I had spent 3 agonizing years scouring the internet for a way to be able to make some money...any money...from home. If any of you out there have ever tried to land yourself one of those elusive "work at home jobs" then you probably know all too well that about 60% are scams and the other 40% get snatched up quicker than a half price Hermes bag on eBay.

The alternative of becoming a "rep" for a direct sales company seemed like my only other option. So I bit the bullet (and let them take a bite out of my wallet) and signed up with a candle company. For some people this is an option, I suppose, but it didn't take me long to get sick and tired of trying to compete with hundreds of other reps and find new ways to flog these "amazing natural candles" when a person can just mosey on down to Wal-Mart and pick up a candle for a third of the price.

That's when it dawned on me (insert the "light bulb over the head" image here) that if I wanted to really be my own boss, and make an income on the internet I had to start hanging out with people who were actually doing it. So I changed which forums and message boards I was hanging out at and that's when I was introduced to two simple words that would change my outlook on working on the internet. Those two words were "affiliate marketing".

Over the last three months I've been toying with Adwords and SEO and have had some minor successes with my affiliate programs. A pretty good start, I'd say, for a person who is basically at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to internet marketers, but hey...even those stinking rich gurus had to start somewhere.

So that's where I am now....On the path to becoming a successful internet marketer. This blog will serve as my online journal to record my failures (ya gotta know there's going to be lots!) and I'll detail where I went wrong, as well as my triumphs (ya gotta hope there's going to be some) and I'll share what I did right.

Well, that's about it for my first blog. It's been a blast and here's to hoping I do something right tomorrow!