Let’s Talk About Commission Junction
Posted by Mitch on May 20, 2008
As you’ve noticed easily enough, with most of my posts I have some sort of affiliate link or product at the end of each one of them. Most of them come from Commission Junction, and that’s who I’m going to talk about this evening.
Commission Junction is one of the largest big name affiliate programs out there. There may be affiliate programs that have more products, but Commission Junction deals with some of the biggest name companies and personalities. For instance, I’m an affiliate marketer for products from companies such as 1&1 Hosting, Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Crayola, GoDaddy, Kodak, NBC/Universal and Time Warner Cable. They have almost 2,200 different companies that people can do advertising for, including the one at the end of this post.
Now, here’s the thing I’ve noticed about affiliate marketing thus far; I haven’t quite figured out what to do with it. I know we’re not really supposed to talk about things we haven’t done well yet, but so be it; the fourth wall is down, and I’m now George Burns talking to the audience.
I haven’t made a lot of money through CJ, their nickname. I’ve made some, enough so that I even got a check once. Truthfully, you don’t have to sell a lot of product in order to make some money. However, you have to sell some, and it would seem to be much harder than just putting up a link of some kind that looks pretty, possibly flashes, and hoping people will click on it. I know this because I check the statistics, and I see very few clicks on these bad boys ever. As a matter of fact, almost all the money I’ve made has come through 1&1, which probably means someone who knows me needed hosting and decided to help me out a little bit; thanks friends!
For one of my sites, I’ve created pages that highlight some of the products, and tried to show a nice range of prices. On another site, I’ve put a couple of products on one side of each page, hoping the picture might entice someone to click on a product to see what else a site might have. And here, as well as on other sites, I’ve posted the affiliate links with the company name, figuring one of them might click with someone one day.
Of course, sometimes CJ, or their affiliates, don’t help me much. For instance, companies are known to move around their images, and of course sometimes they discontinue a product, or a link. It’s easy to always check the links on your own website, but I don’t go around testing the links to the products on a regular basis because I don’t want to skew the numbers that tell me how many people are checking stuff out; not like it’d be all that many anyway.
Still, I can’t say any of this is Commission Junction’s fault. I know there’s a formula somewhere, and I’m going to keep trying to figure it out. However, I will say that CJ has some wonderful companies it represents, and if you’re a true affiliate marketer, and know better than me what you’re doing, you should check them out.
How Far Will You Go To Brand Yourself?
Posted by Mitch on May 1, 2008
Last week I went to this presentation which was the beginning of a local interview series with successful entrepreneurs in town. The first guy on the list is a millionaire many times over, but he’s done it the unconventional way. In his life he’s owned maybe 20 or so businesses, at one time 12 at once but now is down to “only” 4. He hasn’t known anything about a single one of the businesses before he bought them, but learned early on that hiring people who do know about those businesses and that he could trust went a long way towards making them successful. And he did all of this without a college degree, and he still shuns, as much as possible, computers; doesn’t even own a cell phone.
However, he said his biggest boost comes from self promoting himself as often as he can. To whit, one thing he does is hands out at least 500 business cards a month. Now, this works out better for him that for most of us because on all of his business cards are at least two pictures of these custom cars he makes for celebrities and rich people all around the world, with the least expensive being sold for $90,000, the most expensive going for $300,000. I’d be handing out my cards at a rapid pace if I had that as part of my legacy also.
He also has two other things that most people don’t. One, he wears an ascot and always wears very bright colors. Two, he wears an engraved gold name tag with his name and the name of his most visibly prominent business on his jacket at all times. He said this gets people talking to him instead of him having to open up conversations, which then gives him a reason to pass his card along to them, and because of the cars he knows people will share the cards with others, and it’s possible that they’ll end up in the hands of someone who wants to do business with him. It certainly makes him memorable; no one who meets him forgets who he is.
It’s all about branding, and trying to decide how far you’re willing to go to brand yourself. I think about myself when this issue comes up. Online, I have articles of all types all over the internet, I belong to a bunch of online networking groups, and I have 3 blogs, yet I’m probably still not all that well known because, after all, the internet is in this big place called the world. Offline, I belong to some organizations that have the same people there all the time, I’ve been in some specialty magazines but those people don’t really ever know who I am, I’ve given some presentations here and there, but otherwise I might as well be called Anonymous, just like everyone else.
So, the trick for all of us is to determine how far we’re willing to go, and of course, depending on our business, just what’s appropriate to help us stand out. For instance, if you’re a lawyer, walking around in a clown suit may not get it done. But we all have to find our way of advertising ourselves if we hope to make it big in this world, especially if we want to work for ourselves.
Trying An Adwords Campaign
Posted by Mitch on Apr 28, 2008
Trying to build upon my attempt at marketing my new ebook, I’ve decided to try to run an Adwords campaign for it. I’ve set myself up with the starter program, rather than the standard package, mainly because I’m not ready to deal with all the extras that the standard package gives you. I wanted to start slow, see what happens, and then see how I feel about it all.
This isn’t my first attempt at using Adwords. I first used this same program to market my first book, Embrace The Lead, where I had many clicks but didn’t make a single sale. Then I tried to use it to market my Evaluation Module, but got very few clicks. I ran each of those for three weeks, then discontinued it.
This time around, I’m not sure how long I’ll be running it. My first thought is that this may be more useful to more people, and therefore I might get more clicks on it. The second thought is that it looks like I’m being hit for $1.05 for each click, and with what I’ve budgeted, that’s not going to get me all that far. I know the ad is showing up because it tells you how many impressions there are, which means how many times the ad is showing up on their advertiser pages, so I know it’s showing up. And one of the difficulties you have is that you get three lines, the first line 25 characters, the next two 35 characters each. One really has to be creative about this sort of thing.
So, we’ll see how effective this all turns out to be. I’ll keep you posted.
It’s Launch Day!
Posted by Mitch on Apr 21, 2008
It’s launch day for my new ebook Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool, and the special introductory price is only $9.95.
Just so anyone who read the previous post on this topic knows, this link is different than the other one. It went to a pre-launch page that will be gone in a day or so; this one goes directly to the book.
And, because, for once, I want to highlight myself, no extra ads on this one.
Even The Big Time Marketers Make Mistakes Sometimes
Posted by Mitch on Apr 18, 2008
It would seem that, sometimes, even the big boys, the ones who really know what they’re doing, might make a misstep.
I subscribe to a weekly newsletter written by a lady named Lynn Terry called Self Starter Weekly Tips, which gives tips on internet marketing; I’m always trying to learn more from someone who’s already there.
A couple of days ago, she sent out a newsletter promoting the new book by Joel Comm (perfect name for an internet marketer, don’t you think?), a big time internet marketer who’s knows as the “Adsense Guy”. He’s known by this name because he is probably the first guy to become a millionaire by using Adsense.
Anyway, in one of her emails, she mentioned that he had a new book out, and that, instead of charging what he normally does, which is around $97, he was having a major league sale and only charging $9.95. Heck, this sounded like a great deal to me, so I clicked on the link and went to the page so I could check it out. And it looked pretty good, I have to say. However, I’d had an experience with something else I’d purchased from his site many months ago, where I had inadvertently been signed up for something on a monthly basis, and didn’t notice it on my bill until I couple of months later. Seems you get automatically enrolled in one of his special programs that they don’t charge you for in the first 30 days, then hit you up with the fee afterwards. So I went looking through all the add-on deals, and there it was, plain as day.
I decided to pass on the deal. Sure, you can cancel at any time, but I have all sorts of things going on, and I didn’t want to take any chances of something happening like it did the last time.
Yesterday Lynn sends out a follow up email mentioning this very thing, which she indicates that she herself had missed. And she had a link to her blog so that we could all read more about it. I decided to go there, and saw how some people had commented on the topic. I also noticed that Joel himself has joined in the fray, which I think is kind of neat because one wouldn’t expect a big time internet marketer to pop onto someone else’s blog to defend himself.
Still, he’s having to defend himself, and he’s taking a lot of heat because of the way he’s set this thing up. And I’m kind of surprised by it; not that people are complaining, but that this interaction keeps occurring, and that someone who’s supposedly as savvy as Joel wouldn’t just think about pulling that particular “offer” after seeing how many people are angry about it. Of course he has a defenders, people who have purchased other products and services from him, but they’re in the minority, and they’re also missing the part.
People don’t like add-ons that could possibly cost them money later on, especially when they don’t know about it. We don’t mind joining membership sites, but we really like it to be our choice. Also, the sales page is extremely long, and if you’re not someone who regularly reads all of the copy on pages like that, you’d have missed it because it was almost all the way at the bottom, the very last thing mentioned as a “giveaway”. It’s not in small print, but it might as well have been.
So, even the big boys make a misstep every once in awhile; I feel a little bit better this evening.
The Launch For My New Ebook Is Closer
Posted by Mitch on Apr 18, 2008
The last post talked about my new ebook, Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool. I’m now sending out the second letter, and I’ve added a little twist to the copy on the site, kind of a giveaway of service. If that doesn’t get more people to stop by, then I don’t know what will.
To be fair, the page has received a lot of hits, for which I’m grateful. But I want more, just like any other marketer. The initial week of the sale will show the price of the ebook very favorably; it will go up some after that.
I hope you take a quick look, and refer others; what can it hurt?
Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool
Posted by Mitch on Apr 16, 2008
I’ve written a new ebook titled Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool. Going to that page will allow you to put your name on a mailing list for the launch, which will be on Monday. Who’s the book for? Well, check out the page!
Actually, what I’m doing is known as a product launch sequence. You set up the first page, and then you try to build the interest after that. You also send out a series of letters, trying to build up momentum. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to make some kind of offer on the back end that will help encourage sales in some fashion.
In the book “Multiple Streams of Internet Income” by Robert G. Allen, he demonstrates the process by showing how, in his first letter, he mentioned the book he was marketing and telling some things about his background. In the next letter, he changed things up by making an offer for a lucky winner to get something special from him, with a few other prizes for runner’s up. In the third letter he set up a survey where he asked the people on his mailing list some questions to keep them engaged, then reinforced it in his fourth letter.
Letter five was launch day, and of course he made a lot of money. Well, I’m not going five letters, and though I’d like to make a nice bit of change, I’m no Robert Allen at this point of my career. Still, I figure I’ll do the launch tactic, and we’ll see where it goes.
In any case, please check out the link for the book, and pass it around to anyone you think might be interested. Thanks; happy marketing.
Rich Jerk
Posted by Mitch on Apr 10, 2008
Okay, my turn to talk about the Rich Jerk internet sales program.
Truthfully, if you’re just starting out, I would recommend your checking this out, and I’d also recommend spending the $10 or so for his ebook. It gives you a lot of information for a relatively small book, and it’s a nice start towards the process of making money online. Also, one thing they did that no one else has ever done is someone called me to ask me how I enjoyed the book and if I had any other questions regarding marketing. The guy spent 45 minutes with me; my friend actually got to talk to them 3 separate times. All for that small investment initially; couldn’t be mad at that.
Now the other side. The emails you receive are kind of rude; that’s where the jerk part comes in. It’s an interesting marketing strategy, and obviously not a bad one because this site has proven to be really popular. They also produce videos that teach you some interesting ways to make money. There was one that I didn’t particularly care for, but in general it’s pretty helpful stuff, and it’ll at least give you some ideas of other things to try.
So, check out the link, think about it, and, as I said, for the price of the book, it wasn’t such a bad deal. Give it a shot, and let me know what you think.
Excalibur Gifts & Cutlery
Posted by Mitch on Apr 9, 2008
Excalibur Gifts & Cutlery is a misnomer, of sorts. Sure, they have lots of cutlery, very fine kitchen items that would look great in any kitchen. But they have so much more; I guess that’s where the gifts part comes in.
Most of the items are geared towards men. There are fancy knives, lighters, manicure and pedicure kits, binoculars, flashlights, multitools (these are all-in-one knives that have other tools as a part of them) and game sets such as chess and backgammon. They even have swords; there aren’t lots of places that sell swords. And little miniature cars and flasks; lots of great guy stuff that we may not know what to do with, but we want it anyway.
Take a look at this sampling of products, and maybe you’ll find something you like. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Ultra Diamonds Follow Up
Posted by Mitch on Mar 19, 2008
Well, I did what I said I’d do a few posts back. I went online and did some research into Ultra Diamonds to see if I could find a bunch of complaints about them.
And I found something; only one online complaint. It’s at this site, where people can log complaints or positive statements about companies of all sorts. This page is for Ultra Diamonds.
I did learn some things about Ultra Diamonds the company. Seems they’re actually a chain of stores in the western part of the United States, with stores in, at least, California and Nevada. It seems that, overall, the company has a very nice reputation for quality merchandise.
Unfortunately, like every other company, they’re not perfect, and they don’t always hire perfect people. If there were more complaints about the company, I’m sure they’d be out of business, or at least on the ropes, ala Comp USA (don’t get me started with them). One would expect a complaint here and there (believe it or not, I have at least one client who’s not happy with me; yeah, I’m shocked also!), and I’m sorry for those of you who have had issues with them. The link above will give you an outlet if you do have a complaint you’d like to log against them, or anyone else.
So, please don’t hate me, or stay mad at me, for highlighting some Ultra Diamonds products at my other site, Services and Stuff, or for showing a product off their site every once in awhile, like the one below. I’m only the messenger, trying to make a buck.
I'm Just Sharing is a blog about sharing my thoughts about internet marketing and other things. Read, enjoy, and buy! :-)
