Marketing No Brainers » 2006 » July| Cost Effective Internet Marketing |

Diversify Your Internet Marketing Income Sources

July 28th, 2006Internet Marketing, Strategy No Comments

I received a couple of emails in the last couple of days that got me to finally write this post.

Two separate events in separate markets have left a lot of online marketers shell-shocked.

One is that Google’s Adwords has gone off the wall, and are applying all or some (who knows - Google doesn’t say) of the relevance issues that they apply to normal web pages to their PPC service Adwords. So many marketers’ Adwords campaigns are getting hit with the “$5 to $10 to reactivate bid” Google blackmail to turn a keyword bid back on. I hope you don’t fall for that. Just shut your campaign off and go over to Yahoo search marketing and get treated like a human being.

Two is that eBay has raised their store fees astronomically. eBay’s stores have long been a poor stepchild of eBay, but I found as a buyer it was a great place to find low priced yet obscure, hard to find items. eBay sellers can’t afford to place a listing for an item that might only sell once or twice a month in the regular auction scheme, as the expenses soon overtake the gross price of the item. So yet again, many eBay sellers have yet another hurdle to jump to try to eke out their living at Meg Whitman’s sweatshop.

The lesson in both of these events is an old investment and business nugget. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If your online profit model depends on just one way to make money, you are eventually doomed. All it takes is some change of policy at Google, eBay, MSN, Amazon or Yahoo, and if you are solely dependent on any of them for your income you are instantly hurting.

At one time banner ads were a great way to monetize your site, just as Adsense is now. Yet we laugh at the idea of banners being income producers for our sites now. Will Adsensego the way of banners? Time will tell, but one thing for sure is that something else will come along for ad revenue. It always does. It may just be an evolvement of Adwords as it exists now.

Just be ready. Have your income based on sustainable models. That way the latest twists at Google, eBay, Commission Junction, Clickbank, etc. won’t hit you like a freight train.

But the best ways to avoid having this problem are:

1. Have your own product.
2. Build your own list.

See this site for a fast way to learn about getting your own product.

And of course this one to learn about building your list.

A true Marketing No Brainer: Don’t put all your marketing income in one basket.
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Starting All Over Again

July 27th, 2006Blogging, Strategy 1 Comment

Over at Problogger.net, Darren Rowse has an interesting writing project going on about “what I’d do differently if I had to start my blog again”.

Hindsight is 20-20, but I’d thought I’d give it a shot. First I would have started sooner. Second, I would have gone to my own hosted domain sooner. Third, I would have spent more time thinking about the SEO effectiveness of my Blog titles.

One of the great things about Darren’s Problogger.net is that he is always coming up with interesting projects and twists to make blogging more effective, more social, and more of a community.

Darren’s blog has a great reputation in the blog world. It is a lesson in itself in how to make a site sticky, magnetic, whatever you want to call it. Go on over there and see how he does it.
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Audio Marketing Archive

July 26th, 2006Internet Marketing, Reviews No Comments

Here’s a great resource for any Internet Marketer. Michael Senoff has a site that offers dozens of recorded (many with transcripts) interviews with such marketing greats as Mark Joyner, Jay Conrad Levinson, Joe Vitalie, John Carlton, Dan Kennedy, Gary Halbert, and many more.

Michael Senoff’s hardtofindseminars.com has over 117 hours of recorded content with some of the greatest marketing minds on the planet. Best of all, it’s free.

This is the best site I know for marketing information “to go”. Download some of these and listen while you work or drive.

Michael Senoff’s Hard To find Seminars is a Five Star Marketing No Brainer.
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The Twelve Minute Internet Marketing Audio

July 21st, 2006How To Courses, Internet Marketing, Strategy No Comments

Can a twelve minute audio tell us all we need to know about Internet Marketing? I know this question may make you think I’ve lost my mind, but bear with me.

This is Ewen Chia week at Marketing No Brainers. I didn’t plan it that way, but he gave me so much good content to talk about that it just turned out that way. If you haven’t got the ugly but simple diagram it there is a download link to it in the transcript to the Twelve Minute Audio.

Once again there is a simple diagram of the essence of marketing ANYTHING online. So many times I hear from people who are discouraged by their lack of progress with Internet Marketing. But most of them have thrown up a website or blog, and then just waited around for the world to find them. they’ve done one or two of the steps, but never completed the process.

It doesn’t work that way.

Get the twelve minute audio. If you’re not on broadband, just download the transcript, and make a list of the steps, or print the download page. Tape them both up where you can see them. Then whenever you are working on something, ask yourself if it fits into one of the simple steps.

And don’t forget to head on over to Ewen’s Secret Affiliate Weapon and check it out. There’s so much value there, really all you need to get started with affiliate marketing.

Is the less than $10 price tag for Secret Affiliate Weapon holding you back? If so, maybe you need to find another type of endeavor. I don’t know anywhere you’ll get so much for so little.
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