Start Testing the Market

1. Make a list of as many "name" brand products as you can in a market place. You want to promote EVERYTHING.

If you were to target people interested in buying real estate in Mexico, then you want to find directly related products first - ie, "How to Buy Real Estate in Mexico". Then you want to promote those products using, first, the name of theproduct or company selling them.

IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE CONVERTING . . .

First off, if you're having trouble getting people who are SEARCHING for a product, by name, to buy that product then you've got a snow balls chance in hell of selling that product to people who ARE not searching for the product specifically.

So . . .

A. Evaluate if the sales process being used is simply a poor process that you can improve on. This is especially recommended if you're confident in your ability (or someone you can hire) to write good copy.

Creating your own sales process is highly recommended - I don't hit on this as hard in the DVDs as I did in the Adwords Black Book, but most merchants know zip to nada about how to sell online.

This is a huge advantage you can EXPLOIT - even the 'newbie' marketer who's read a few high quality IM ebooks (or my blog) knows more than the average business about how to sell online.

See yourself as the MARKETING EXPERT. You know more than 99% of business owners (or their insultants).

What's an insultant?

A consultant who insults people by claiming to know what they're doing even though they don't do it. If they were good at DOING what they tell people to do, then they'd do it for them self - like you and I do - and not deal with pain in the butt clients who just want something pretty to look at.

.X.

Undercover Profits - More on Niches

X has been having a lot of fun playing with Undercover Profits -

No this isn't a sales pitch; I expect this software is going to be expensive and I don't recommend it for everyone.

Following up on the last post on selecting a niche, or target market, I've been playing around with a bunch of niche topics that I know very little about (at least as far as selling in that market).

What's cool about Undercover Profits is that I would normally advise you do A LOT of research into a market before you start investing time and money to promote products on terrain you don't KNOW. That would mean definite failure in war - and you need to think of the PPC as that; war.

Entering a new market, you're like the guy charging the enemy who's already entrenched on top of a hill - he's looking down on you. He knows the terrain and he can see more of the picture than you can. Plus, it's tougher to run up hill than it is to fire down.

With Undercover Profits you can get a satellite image of the terrain - you can see what's working and who it's working for - because in PPC, the people consistently promoting in the same ad spots are probably on to something.

If you find a set of keyword phrases where affiliates are consistently promoting a product by sending searchers direct to merchant (the least profitable way of playing the game), then you know you've found an easy money market.

And, you can EASILY destroy that affiliate by employing Black Book techniques.

So after just a few days, I'm selecting the "guitar" niche.

I am not going to reveal to you the products I'll promote, or the keywords I'm going to use to promote - not until a while down the road. While I love playing guitar, I know nothing about marketing in this niche.

Here's my plan:

1. I already know which affiliate programs are making money - I can see that by looking at my Undercover Profits data.

2. I need an enticing offer to gain subscribers. I'm going to hire a friend of mine to record 10 short 3-5 minute guitar lesson videos. The first five videos will be used as an enticement to subscribe. The second five videos, plus guitar tabliture, will be used on the backend as an enticement to recommend the site to five friends (I'll use Scott Boulch's "The List Virus" to manage this process).

Getting these videos done will probably cost in the range of $500-1000 dollars, but I'll have a KILLER optin offer that will be difficult to beat. I could probably get cheap on production and do a lot of this job myself, but I have other things to focus on so I'm betting it's worth paying for.

3. Once I've achieved a level of conversion I'm happy with, I'm going to put a link on my site for "affiliates" - one of the really cool features of The List Virus software is that it allows me to build a squeeze page that any affiliate can send traffic for a Clickbank product to - and that affiliate gets paid for the sale (while I build my list).

The advantage to the affiliate for sending traffic to my site instead of the merchants? Most of the time I'll be able to outconvert the merchant by a lot - which means more sales to the affiliate for sending people to my site instead of the merchant's.

And the merchant? Don't feel sorry for him - he's also going to make more money.

4. My follow-up emails will continue selling a variety of guitar related products - from guitars to amps to instructional videos.

5. Maybe I sell this site up the road.

You can follow the exact same process as above. You don't need Undercover Profits - or The List Virus to do any of this, but they're definitely tools to consider when you start making some money - LEARN TO VALUE YOUR TIME APPROPRIATELY and buy only tools that fit with what you're already doing.

I only recommend software and info products that directly complement or add too my own way of doing things.

Oh - and of course, I'll be using Keyword Xray to track all of my keyword phrases so I know exactly which phrases are converting (and if not, then I'll either cut those terms or revise my landing page to get more out of that traffic).

X

Keyword Xray

Yes, I think this software is absolutely a tool that if you use it you cannot help but make money. Right now, I'm sure your inbox is filling up with bonus offer pitches for Keyword Xray from everyone in IM.

Instead of guessing at what I can add to the mix to entice you to buy through my link, you tell me what you think is a killer bonus - post it here as a comment.

This doesn't mean I'll go for it, but I'll consider everything.

X

http://xrayx.xraydomination.com

To Get Rich, First You Must Commit

A lot has been written about selecting a niche, but it's the most consistent place people get hung up and fall down.

First off, if you're having trouble picking a niche, recognize and admit your phobia to commitment. You're not ADD - you're putting crap in your body and you're mentally driven by the lust for greener grass somewhere else.

It's weakness; "ADD" is nothing to wear proudly as some kind of badge of honor. Meet someone who proudly proclaims they're ADD and you've just met an info-crackhead.

NOTHING in life happens until you commit to something - and you're always committed to something so if you don't like your results then start looking at what you ARE committed
to and recognize you can make a new choice at any moment.

You're never stuck - commit - if it doesn't work, uncommit and find something else to commit to.

But you must COMMIT.

OK . . .

Some of this you've heard and some of this you haven't - and some of it probably has the unique twist you need to really make a difference.

Let's go -

1. Select a niche or a target market to focus on.

I distinguish niche from target market in this way; a niche is an area of interest, such as model cars, frisbee golf, plate collecting, or labrador dog owners.

A target market is a group of people who share similar traits and have common needs.

A target market will be larger, but less focused.

You will need to work on segmenting the target; for example, you may have 'homeowners', but people who own a ranch/farm have very different needs than people who own a
condominium (yet they also share some similarities).

I recommend Undercover Profits as a way of quickly finding and evaluating a niche or target market based on keyword profitability probabality - ie, if affiliates are successfully making money then it is a good place to explore further - if not, then you better have a high level of passion for the subject to make it work.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Just because affiliate's aren't making it work doesn't mean it can't work. Because most affiliate's are only focused on making a one-time sale on a low-cost front-end product, they can't afford to spend what a 'real business' can.

If affiliate's are making it work, then that means it's an 'easy money' market. If you start employing Black Book tactics, you can EASILY kick ass on the existing affiliates - put in a back-end of your own, and you can kick ass on ANYBODY.

OK . . .

You can also do this research by hand, though it's time consuming. Print out a spreadsheet and start recording, daily, which ads are showing consistently and in which position.

There's a good video demo of this here:
http://www.undercoverprofits.com/adwordsblackbook

This is basically how I've learned many of my innovative tactics over time - by doing searches on specific phrases day after day after day and watching what changes are occurring.

It's amazing to me how people will see a product in a market they know nothing about, write an ad, and hope for the best.

That's like going to the horse track once per year, placing a bet (when you know NOTHING about horses) and hoping you'll win.

Trust me, it doesn't work - and if it does it was a fluke; don't expect it to work consistently.

So go find something to commit to - by the way, to commit means to "cut off all other options".

Choose a path and stick with it long enough that you give yourself a SERIOUS opportunity to succeed.

X

Products and Paradigm Shifts

It's not all peaches and cream sitting atop
Mount Olympus with the other Gurus.

You can laugh now - I am.

The toughest part of this gig is trying to
satisfy people's unquenchable thirst for
"The Big Secret".

I have secrets, sure.

But excellence isn't as much about the "how
to" secrets as 'they' want you to believe.

As marketer's we're expert (to some degree)
at poking and prodding people's lust button.

EVERY time you buy something, your desire
button has been poked.

This is reality: Until you've rid yourself of
desire and you sit along side the REAL gurus,
you're always exploitable.

It's not that someone's going to convince you
to spend a few bucks that soothe your desire
for a day or two - in fact, that's not bad - it's
just "what is".

It's that when you get stuck in this desire,
you don't take action with what you have.

It has NOTHING to do with HARD WORK.

Please, somebody put a sock in that guy's
mouth already - the more he talks, the more
I'm convinced he's living on fluff.

That's an insult to anyone who's ever dug a
ditch for a living - that big guru doesn't have
clue one what REAL hard work is . . .

Back on topic:

My Black Book owners last week asked me
to setup a real campaign this week to show
how I do it.

There was a common "problem" with my
workshop attendees and I'm finding it with
my DVD customers too - so I am assuming
this is a widespread symptom of
miseducation.

People don't buy keyword phrases - they
buy products that satisfy a desire that is
symptomatic of an underlying feeling of
not being fulfilled (and that feeling never
goes away unless the person recognizes
and resolves it - and 99% of people
don't).

Over and over I read in forums about how
somebody is getting Google slapped, not
making Adwords work, etc.

Their approach?

They pick some random product, build the
biggest keyword list they can and place
the cheapest bids possible.

That's marketing?

All of the above . . .

WRONG

WRONG

WRONG

Yes, that approach can work. So can
hitting the bullseye on a dartboard,
blindfolded.

But it fails 95% of the time. Not just
for newbies - for me and for everyone
else I know.

That's why I say "Think product
specific". Look for where the hungry
crowd already exists - take a small
group of hungry people over the great
hoard and you'll win.

Forget about how much search volume
there is - well, there needs to be some
demand - but one of my best affiliate
performers of all-time only generated
about 1500 clicks per month. And that
was enough to earn tens of thousands
per year - FROM ONE PRODUCT I
promoted with a keyword list of FIVE
terms.

Paradigm Shifts . . .

I love them. When I have them, I make
more money.

They usually occur when I start to
question conventional wisdom and DO
the opposite.

The ugliness of Adsense and page
generator sites has had a far greater
impact on Internet marketing than I
think anyone realizes.

It created BAD habits. It created BAD
paradigms. It created a lot of faulty
reasoning that has resulted in failure -
and that failure rate is going viral.

"They only thing I know is that I know
nothing." - Socrates

My hunch . . . there isn't an Internet
marketer alive smarter than our boy S.

Question your paradigms - because no
matter who's mouth it comes from, the
only constant here is change.

CLOSED: Seeking Apprentice(s) CLOSED

Hey Xster -

I'm looking for someone to work with
who can put together sites, install
scripts, etc.

I need to get out of the technical part
of my business - maybe you want to
help.

There are two things that are essential
to me:

1. You must have a high level of integrity -
you must do what you say you're going
to do, when you say you'll do it.

If it doesn't get done - no excuses; either
you're going to get the job done or not.

2. A sense of urgency. I cannot deal with
people who drag their feet and just can't
get it going.

What's in it for you . . .

a. A modest wage, with potential for
more up the road - in your response,
tell me what you're willing to work for -

b. A one-on-one relationship with me;
I don't have much time for conversation,
but you'll be a part of what I'm
developing and learn first-hand from
what I do and how I do it (more on the
site development side than from the
Adwords side).

c. You'll have access to all kinds of
scripts and tools - many before they
hit the market.

Tell me why . . .

If you're interested, then post a
comment and tell my why you think
you're right for this opportunity.

(Comments will be reviewed by
me, but NOT posted to the blog -
anything you share WILL NOT
be seen by anyone but me and my
assistant. Be sure to include an
email address and your name, so
I can contact you).

I DO NOT want to hear any hard
luck stories - I want to hear the
positive and the proactive reasons.

Show me actual work and be as
specific as possible about what you
can do - in as few words as are
necessary.

Writer's - you'll get your chance
next.

X