Biz Op Niche Specialist, Back-Ending My Own Products! (33)
Hi there, thanks for checking out my journal. I'll be doing things a bit differently than many marketers on here, because I'm focusing on a single niche and not changing under any circumstance.
I'm doing biz ops, specifically the fundamentals of starting a business and growing through better marketing.
Basic Idea
There's a great clickbank product that really covers all the bases of the niche I want to specialize in, so I'm going to write a better sales page ( I do freelance copywriting so I'm fairly confident I can raise the conversions against the current page, which is awful). Then I'll direct link to the checkout to bypass the merchant's sales page.
That tactic is going to lose some sales from people who bookmark the page and return to purchase at a later time, because I don't get a cookie to set.
But I'm okay with that, because as soon as I get some good data to validate the feasibility of this vertical, I'm swapping out the clickbank product with my own.
The long-term plan
To push my own products to an email list I build up over time, mixing in affiliate offers where acceptable without overdoing it and burning my customers through over-promotion. I like the idea of building a prospect list and a customer list that I can keep taking money from with regular content updates and relationship building, which is why I'm going this route.
Also, as a merchant I can raise the EPC by creating new products, new services, etc. So my campaigns have a lot better chance of working once I'm built out with a backend of several high converting offers.
Of course the real killer is right at the beginning, when EPC's are low, potential traffic sources may be limited, etc. We'll see if I can cross the chasm to survivability or not.
The short-term plan
The big question on my mind is where to start? I have some background in PPC traffic, but largely I'm new to the game of paid traffic channels.
I do have an idea of my funnel:
1. The first page will be some kind of micro-commitment to get them to click through
2. Then I'll capture the email address on the next page by enticing them with a free guide, template, or something else they'll find valuable.,
3. On the confirmation page will be the free offer that I hinted at in the opt in page. It will double as a a sales letter disguised as information.
The goal is to convert high enough on the front-end to breakeven, or take a minor loss that I can sustain for long enough to develop an initial backend product that'll take me over the edge to profitability.
Initial traffic sources
This is where I have some more reading to do. I think I can start with media buying or PPV traffic. Maybe PPC, but my limited experience with PPC ads on Bing in Google has taught me that PPC traffic tends to be very expensive, though also high quality.
The critical weakness
I'm undercapitalized. I have a test budget of about $300 a month, or up to $1000 the first month if I can turn a profit faster.
But with my low budget I'm honestly not sure if I have the staying power that's required to work through the optimization process and turn a campaign positive.
I reviewed some old threads and recently discovered that lower payout campaigns are much cheaper to test.
So maybe I need start with a zip or email submit type of offer. I'd love to do email submits if I could capture the email for myself, but I'm not sure if that breaks the terms of service for these kinds of offers.
Also, I'm not sure if email submit offers tend to work for industry niches like biz ops, or if merchants are looking for more general traffic to them.
Next steps…
First order of business: look into media buying and PPV traffic as potential initial traffic sources, and figure out if I have the budget to make something work through one of them.
If not, then I'll start looking into lower payout offers to start with, and try to conjure up ideas to improve my EPC with my own products piggybacking behind an affiliate offer I promote on the front end.
Looking forward to sharing my triumphs and failures with you all, and of course I'd love your feedback as well.
Live long and prosper,
Sean (Pockets)
Very interesting follow-along!
You're right that higher payouts require higher budgets. Generally, to test a single Web offer I'd recommend 4x payout just to see if it converts at all, and then several multiples of that to optimise if it does. And don't forget, the first offer you try probably won't convert!
So what to do here?
I wouldn't recommend zip or email submits. They're pretty dire as offers go, and they have a very unpleasant tendancy to start scrubbing harder than a CDC shower the moment you run any kind of volume. By "scrubbing" here, I mean that they will tend to invalidate leads left, right and center before they're counted, artificially lowering your conversion rates. Bad news.
What I would recommend is to treat the list you're building as the product. Rather than aiming to monetise immediately, aim to build a targeted list of people interested in starting a business and growing it through marketing. Treat opt-ins as your "conversions", and rather than upselling them immediately, reel them in with solid information on the list first. Then, after a while, start testing affiliate offers on the list, or even your own.
That way, you can still optimise your conversion rates, you can still track lead quality (good leads stay on the list!), and opt-ins are much cheaper than sales - generally around $1 or less per opt-in is a sane figure to spend. And you're building a long-term asset - even if you run out of money to build the list, you can still maintain it and test offers on it free.
Does that make sense?
Hey Caurmen, it absolutely makes sense, thanks :-) I think I may just try that. We're already almost on the same page-- only recently did I think to swap out the PDF guide, and instead put a informational sales letter on the confirmation page that acted as both the guide and a soft upsell.
But you're right, it might piss people off and harm the key product/asset, which is the list. I think some funnel optimization testing is in order…
Revised plan: Niching down
So I've been consuming the forum like a madman. And one of Stackman's old posts really resonated with me.
Becoming A Mini Advertiser! - Make your own niche/enter small niches with a product
The paradigm shift I gained there, was just how much easier it is to drop down one more level, and carve out a sub niche where there's no competition.
I didn't think to do that before, because all I currently understand is PPC.
But these other unusual traffic sources that affiliates run seem to have great potential for carving out weird niches that have almost no search engine PPC traffic.
And once these subniche leads are in a sublist, no reason why they can't be sequenced into the main list down the line.
Sub-niche Ideas
After a quick brainstorm session, I've identified two potential tests:
Test A: Free business feedback survey:
Find out the business type and industry that you'll most likely succeed in based on your unique skills and talents
OR
Run your business idea through this online questionnaire to spot the strong points and weak points of your current plan
Test B: Stop working for someone else as a _________. Take control of your destiny and increase your pay by 30% or more by going off on your own.
In other words, a career specific biz op.
I'm leaning towards Test B because it feels like a safer bet.
I think I'll save Test A for later when I have more experience running paid traffic and have better intuition of how to properly hook interest using free offers on these unusual traffic sources.
The career sub niche
I think I'm going with nursing. At least that's the working plan.
- Nursing is one of the biggest career fields there is.
- I used to go out with a girl who wouldn't shut up about nursing, so I have a good idea of where to start from demographically.
- Quick demographic research shows that nurses have an average age of about 46 years old, are chronically underemployed or not employed at all due to being female dominated profession that plays a support role in the household.
- Unlike the big, obvious professions like law and dentistry, which have already been exploited, nursing still seems relatively untapped.
- The competition on Google seems to focus around licensing, writing a basic business plan, or pitching a franchise. I think I can beat them using a stronger appeal and hitting traffic sources that these other advertisers wouldn't think to use.
But is nursing a bad bizopp demographic?
http://i.imgur.com/jUHXYX1.png
In general biz ops seem to target younger males. Nursing demographics don't match up with that.
Hopefully biz ops have a fairly mainstream appeal that can overcome this issue. This is a speculation, and I'm going to have to test it and see.
Possible Exploitable Geographic trend: Philippines
One standout geographic market in traffic volume is the Philippines.
I've heard a lot of nurses from the Philippines come to the US because of the enormous difference in earnings potential.
Might have to think that one through, and figure out a good promotional angle specifically for that country. (Although their earnings are so low it may not be worth it)
Slightly mixed research results:
I'm noticing on the few, high-traffic nursing related websites, the age group skews young. Example:
http://i.imgur.com/vFmt81F.png
I saw several other profiles like that. My interpretation is that these websites draw more students than career nurses. So I'm placing my trust in the occupational statistics instead of the website demographic profiles.
Next step:
Time to find a traffic source.
I'm thinking either small media buys, PPV, or maybe Facebook.
The source I pick will most likely be the one I can most specifically target on. I'd love any recommendations you guys have on a good source where I can filter based on job type.
After job type, additional filters could be women 40 years or older with an Associates degree or higher level education.
Low job satisfaction indicators would probably also prove valuable.
Based on the website demographic profiles, it seems all minorities are also slightly over-represented.
I appreciate any suggestions and look forward to posting results on the first source!
There's a huge market for bizopps in the female market too - definitely don't rule it out just because of the sex you're targeting.
Given that you're targeting a market where there's a very significant gender skew, you're going to want to look for a source where you can target by gender.
If your LP ends up being Facebook-compliant, Facebook seems a very logical place to start.
You could also look at search traffic for this. You might need to build out your site a bit to get a decent quality score, but Bing or even (maybe) Adwords could drive very nursing-targeted traffic comparatively cost-effectively.
Direct media buys could also be a very good way to go.
Very interesting follow-along - looking forward to your next update!
Thanks for the direction! now that I know what sources to pursue, I spent a good chunk of today learning the basic Facebook process and I think I'm going to start with sidebar ads.
Although, this guy shows some solid evidence that newsfeed ads are killing the sidebar nowadays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k-uuS0N8g0 Still, over the years I've learned to be a bit cautious when presented with this kind of evidence, and based on what I've read on STM, sidebar ads are the bread and butter source on Facebook, so I will probably start with them.
Starting sloppy
I'm the type of guy who has to fight perfectionist tendencies in order to get stuff done.
After spending the day strategizing and laboring the point of how much research to do versus how much sequence to build out, I've decided that it's better to get up something quick rather than spend three times as long putting out my best effort in a completely untested area.
with that in mind, I present to you sloppy landing page number 1:
- I'm appealing to their sense of uncertainty. A lot of career nurses get locked into the mindset that the doctor runs the show, and I'm trying to interrupt that internal conversation.
- Assuming I see any life in this appeal, you can expect a more bold call out to put the doctor in his place, provide more compassionate care direct to the patient's, etc.
- What I don't like about this page is the lack of substantiation. So another test is going to make the point that 70% of self-employed nurses make $100,000 or more compared to a median employed salary of $58,000 (these are just example numbers--still have to dig up the real stats).
- By shotgun offering 3+ types of businesses that nurses can get into, I think the appeal loses some power due to a lack of specificity. So I'll try another split test that targets the most obvious startup for nurses: private staffing.
- The page is built on Optimizepress theme (on top of WordPress). I now know how important page load times are, so will eventually switch to something lighter weight. But learning Adobe Muse and the whole HTML game is just too long of a process to justify right now. depending on my results, this may be one of the first technical upgrades I make.
Next Steps
1. Figure out the right types of images to use I made a separate thread about that here: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...Ad-Text-vs-CTR . Stackman mentioned that bizarre WTF type images generate a higher CTR, and I'm not quite clear how to apply that idea to my niche, without going overboard in getting my Facebook account banned or harming my credibility and CVR, hopefully someone can chime in.
2. Modify the page for Facebook compliance I have yet to do this and I'm sure I'm breaking some rule or leaving out something that'll increase my CPC costs.
3. Create the free guide. I think I need about 2 to 3 pages of solid content to both inform the prospects of the possibilities and also wet their tongue for the next step, the paid solution.
Looks very good!
Where does the "No Thanks" link go? I'd normally recommend against including a link like that unless you have A Cunning Plan...
The RHS ads still work, but are brutal in terms of performance now.
Newfeed = high CTR, engagement and high CPMs. Bigger image = better for the marketer.
RHS = abysmal CTRs, but very low CPMs and tonnes of impressions + can reach audience more easily. Smaller image = harder to grab user attention, less real estate to work with and less 'social' context/actions available.
Originally Posted by caurmen
Here are my projections:
The goal is to get to break-even on the front-end. All the numbers above assume that there is no link to bypass the opt in and get to the sales page, so the only sales page visitors are also opt-ins.
But if I can get some extra sales page visitors on top of that, who would've otherwise bounced, maybe it's worth sacrificing a few extra opt-ins.
I can see that link dropping the opt-in rate quite significantly though. I'm not really sure what the best approach is to be honest, I think this is going to be one of my main tests.
Well I decided re-create everything in Adobe Muse. it took longer than I'd like but the funnel is done and has the following steps:
1. Opt in page
2. Hybrid resource/sales page
3. Thanks for your order/survey page
I'm tracking everything using Google Analytics and Clicky
It's been about one day so far and this is what I'm seeing on Facebook power editor:
Not shown there is an additional targeting criteria – Interests: nursing. I bid a $.13 CPM because Facebook recommended it. I wish it showed impression data. But without a single click I need to figure out how to generate more traffic from Facebook.
Any ideas what I should change? I plan on adding more ads now that the first one has been approved and I understand the whole process.
I think I will also try to run a newsfeed ad. On the initial set up I didn't understand it, but I've reviewed it and the "page post" makes sense – I have to post my squeeze page on my Facebook page, and then promote that as a newsfeed ad.
Facebook's bid recommendations are a work of fiction, I'm afraid. Try upping the bid significantly and repeat until you see traffic!
Originally Posted by pockets
1. Opt in page
2. Hybrid resource/sales page
3. Thanks for your order/survey page
I'm tracking everything using Google Analytics and Clicky
It's been about one day so far and this is what I'm seeing on Facebook power editor:
Not shown there is an additional targeting criteria – Interests: nursing. I bid a $.13 CPM because Facebook recommended it. I wish it showed impression data. But without a single click I need to figure out how to generate more traffic from Facebook.
Any ideas what I should change? I plan on adding more ads now that the first one has been approved and I understand the whole process.
I think I will also try to run a newsfeed ad. On the initial set up I didn't understand it, but I've reviewed it and the "page post" makes sense – I have to post my squeeze page on my Facebook page, and then promote that as a newsfeed ad.
As for impressions data, you need to select your columns appropriately in the reports section. Impressions/reach are most certainly there.
For news feed ads, use unpublished page link posts.
Okay thanks. I went ahead and adjusted the bid up and added a newsfeed ad as well:
I'm surprised to be paying such a high CPM on the newsfeed ad and yet such a low CPC. I mean, I'd like even lower than $.45, I just never thought I could pay that little based on the CTRs I was used to in the past.
One look at the ad image will show you why the CPC is so good:
Mr. Green gave me that image after I mentioned in another thread I was looking for bizarre images that female nurses would be attracted to. Needless to say, it seems to be a winner. Although perhaps it's too early to tell because I've only been testing two images, and not even on the same type of ad.
The statistics continue to be confusing. The facebook power editor is saying I have 10 total clicks, but clicky shows only two visitors and no opt-ins. Google analytics shows the same.
I know both of those trackers are wrong because I logged into ARPreach and saw 2 sign ups. after reviewing the pages, I can verify that the tracking code is in place. I think the way I set up my goals might have been incorrect. I've emailed clicky about this and will consult with someone who knows Google analytics better than I do to help me set up correctly.
The mysterious case of the missing actions
Facebook quotes 14 actions, but looking at the picture above you can see I have one like and one share. I'm not doing app installs or anything else, just trying to drive clicks to my opt in page.
Next steps
1. Until I solve my analytics problems, I'm holding down my traffic budget to five dollars per day. So fixing the tracking is priority one.
2. I'm going to start writing a autoresponder sequence now to attempt to get some quick sales from the people who didn't immediately buy. I'm not going to pressure them too hard because I don't want to burn my list, but at the same time it's very important that I get to breakeven as soon as possible given my budget restrictions.
3. I also need a more traditional sales page that will be a good fit for people clicking through from emails, so that's step number 2 or 3.
Sweet Jesus that RHS CTR is the lowest I have ever seen in my life! And $0.03 CPM...I just... I don't know.
The news feed CTR/CPM/CPC is all normal.
As for your actions vs tracked clicks, don't jump the gun like so many do - check your reports and understand how many instances there have been of every action. For example, page likes, which will contribute to your actions/clicks, you pay for them, and you can't see them from that ad image you showed.
Of course do get your other tracking stuff sorted.
Thanks and yeah, that sidebar Ad CTR is horrendous. I'm thinking of turning it off but if its low CTR doesn't affect the cost of my other placements, maybe I should leave it on to gather more data?
Here's what I've seen after checking my facebook ad reports:
I get what you (zeno) mean about the actions -- most of my actions are going towards people clicking my funky image to see what it's about. Power editor shows my current click count at 24, but this is misleading (to me) because because there are only 11 website clicks.
This makes a lot more sense because I've used my squeeze page format before and it consistently delivers an opt-in rate between 35 to 45%. With 11 website clicks and five opt-ins, I'm running at expectation.
This also means I have a CTR/CPC problem even for my newsfeed ad. My effective CPC for website clicks is roughly $1, which is more than double what I need it to be.
Fixing the CPC issue moves up to second priority after fixing the tracking.
Switch to page link posts and you will remove the photo view issue - in fact clicking the photo will instead take the user to your linked site.
I thought I already had it set as a "page link post", how can I tell if it's done correctly or not? Here are the settings I see through the power editor:
Are you using an unpublished post or promoting one that is live on your page?
You should create one through this interface:
The post you showed several posts above has lots of text + an attached photo. It is not a link post. If you promote that post in particular, people can click the image > view the photo in your gallery, as indicated by your page photo view stats.
Anatomy of a link post:
That baby image is disturbing. Shock always does well on Facebook. 'Targeted shock' is even better.
Looks good!
I'd definitely get going on the autoresponder sequence - my instinct is that you'll find with a good sequence you get a solid conversion boost.
I was having major issues with my tracking and my email script, but thankfully both of them have been solved now and it's time for an update:
Here's what my new unpublished page post ad is yielding:
I don't know why it says 109 registrations, because I'm counting about half that number of opt-ins in my autoresponder from the time this ad started. Maybe the conversion pixel is picking up noise from all the meandering around my analytics guy and I have been doing while trying to fix the tracking? Not sure...
At 3% CTR it seems my new "nurse being choked" picture is doing even better than the last ad. I have gotten a couple nasty comments, so I can tell a few folks aren't happy with it though. One lady thought I was promoting rape for some reason!
Ups and downs with the new ad
From my Excel snapshot a few posts above you can see that I projected paying around $.40 per click. But I'm actually paying $.14 per click, an amount that I just never could have guessed was possible on Facebook.
If you told me that in the future I would pay $.14 per click, I would've thought you were talking about a couple years from now when I was running media buys with optimized creative's.
But Facebook?! One month in?
The bad news: opt-in rate is down
I'm far below my expected opt-in rate. Here's about one day's worth of data:
If you take out the noise I'm converting at about 20 to 25%, and there have been no sales.
Not a good opt-in rate.
Sales conversion rate is still way too early to tell.
Opt in rate is much lower than my old "published post" that Zeno charitably helped me to improve upon by posting the ad correctly.
Even before I got the actual numbers I could tell conversions had dipped. Intuition tells me that the quality of clicks has gone down.
On my old ad, people had to click the link to actually go to my website. Now, they can simply click one of my shocker images to get to my landing page.
So I believe a lot of people who want to see the image end up on the landing page.
Fine by me, I'm not interested in vanity metrics. I just want a cheap cost per lead, and it looks like I have gained somewhat.
A big, obvious leak
That tiny, 8 point font "no thanks" link tucked under my supersized opt in button seemed so small and insignificant, design-wise at least.
But the analytics tells the real story. The "no thanks" link was getting about 75% of the clicks that the opt in button was getting!
I added it with the idea that it would improve my front-end conversion rate. More eyeballs on the sales page, more quick sales.
Since then my thinking has changed. I read another post on this forum from a veteran clickbank marketer. He said he always strives to capture the opt in upfront, because he gets three times more sales from emails than his sales page.
So following that advice, I'm removing the no thanks link and forcing the traffic to opt in from now on.
New tests
- To be an even harsher jerk, I might imply that the information is sent by email, Though if I did this, I would actually still put the info on follow-up sales page to try and capture the sale right away. (and also email it to cover my bases)
- I'm also replacing the one step form with a two-step: they click a button to get access to the offer, and then a lead box pops up asking them for their email. This is a tactic popularized by lead pages, which claims that it will bump the opt in rate somewhere between 10 to 30%.
30% is probably unrealistic, but maybe 10%.
Side project: Mobile lead generation
I'm also laying the groundwork for a mobile lead generation page. This is my pet project, the thing that I'll do when I need a break from my real work.
I've registered an account at Decisive and am putting together instructions for my web guy to create a mobile lead generation page.
Right now the goal isn't to seriously try and set up a new traffic source and get to a profit right off the bat. I just want to slowly dip my toes in mobile so that I'm not scared of the unknown like I am right now.
It may turn out that Decisive doesn't give me the right traffic for an email capture page. And I'll then have plenty of time to conjure up some weird app install or other thing that lead generates nurse entrepreneur leads like crazy in the future. Dunno, we'll see.
------------------
Next steps:
Since everything is working and I'm getting data, it's time to start revising and adding again.
Priority 1. Optimizing my email sequence. I did it in a haste and it's not very good right now, I'd be surprised if converted in its current state. So it's time to buff it up.
This whole plan really lives or dies based on email. So if I can't get my sequence to convert for some reason, then I have a potential deal killer on my hands.
This is perhaps the most important test for the entire project, so most of my free time this weekend will go towards it.
Priority 2. Split testing the opt in page. It actually doesn't have an urgent problem in need of solving, my CPL is fine as is. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved. So I'm going to give it some love this weekend if I can get through my client projects quick enough, and create a good B variant to test against.
Nonpriority: The mobile lead generation page. I think like many affiliate marketers I'm naturally drawn to the new and unexplored.
I won't lie, right now the whole mobile idea looks like that stunning Asian chick that gets a couple extra points just for being so sexy in an exotic way. But also completely impractical, given my other real-world commitments.
I'm going to have to hold back and actually put my time where it counts, and not get immersed in building a mobile lead gen page, exploring Decisive all weekend to see where I might be able to ferret out some low-cost nurse traffic, etc. Willpower will be tested.
Nice write up mate.
One thing - how big is the image you uploaded for the nurse being choked? That format occurs when the image is too small - try it at 1200x627 so it rescales down and renders at full size i.e. news feed width.
I would move your opt-in to the main lander so that people don't have to click a link to then get to the sales page/opt-in page. Capture the email asap.
Originally Posted by zeno
Email stats as of today:
^The initial email I sent is actually not on that list , so what appears as email 1 is actually email 2.
Email 4 (technically 5) had a rather embarrassing error. I forgot to put the subject, and received that email in my inbox with the subject line "Your subject here."
So the 0% open rate is not surprising, and should go up over time now that the subject is fixed.
CTR Problem
So far there has been only 1 click from a little less than 50 opens, and that click happened to come from India.
Far lower than what I was hoping for by targeting so specifically.
It could be an email copy problem or worse, a general of lack of interest/non-buyers.
Or it could just be overselling.
Right now I am dropping links in every single email, and although I feel like I'm doing it in a fun and friendly way, for this niche I still might be overselling.
I'm going to step it back some and stick to signature links only for half of the emails. Maybe even two thirds of them.
I'm also dialing down expectations. I don't expect to make any quick sales anymore. I'm going to change my mindset to one that expects the first sale to come no sooner than 30 days from the start of the sequence.
Not really what I was hoping for cash flow wise, but eventually if I stick to it, I know I'll cross cross over the hump and have cash flow to .back into advertising and grow.
Assuming of course that these nurses are in fact buyers...
Thoughts on continuing
I'll admit that the thought of dumping this niche and going back to general-interest biz op crossed my mind for a moment.
But despite poor CTR results, I still have a hard time seeing how these nurses wouldn't be buyers if sold to properly. So I'm continuing with them at full force.
Link in every email sounds like it could result in oversell fatigue to me. I'd usually avoid explicit sales links for the first few emails, and concentrate on building trust.
BTW, for email #4, you might want to split-test another headline to counteract low open rates. My guess is that not everyone in your target audience knows what an oxymoron is. I could be wrong, though!
Open rates low, link clicks very low.
Are you providing value to these users? Do they have any reason to open your email or listen to what you have to say?
The current metrics suggest to me that this is not the case - i.e. they have opted in but for whatever reason aren't that excited or interested in receiving your 'valuable' content.
Based on the numbers I'm probably not. Maybe you guys could tell me what you think? Any and all feedback would really help me make these better, because it seems I'm doing something wrong.
I'm posting my first 4 emails below (most of them cut off towards the bottom):
Email 1 –17.4% open rate
4 Free Resources & Tools for Starting a Nursing Business
Email 2 – 19.1% open rate
"Start a nursing business? I don't even know where to begin!"
Email 3 - 9.5% open rate (I attribute this to a lousy subject line)
Using the "2 heads" trick to outwit business failure
Email 4 – 0% stated open rate (I forgot to set this email to track opens)
Possible? Nurse entrepreneurs & "free time"
*Just by reviewing my own post I can tell there's a fair amount of typos. It's a pretty bad habit I have, so I'm going to go over my emails and fix them right now.
Some feedback on the first one:
- It feels weird to thank people for showing interest, on line 1. Makes it sound a lot like you're about to sell them something.
- I don't see the 4 essential tools that you mention in the newsletter. I'd be expecting something like "Tool 1: blah blah" as the first subhead.
- Don't introduce yourself and what you do so early, if at all. Make the email totally focused on the reader, and providing value to them. It should all be about them, what they can achieve, and how they can do it.
- If you had to pick it out, what's the one essential, unmissable piece of advice in that first email that they won't get anywhere else? What's the thing that will double their profits in the first year? If you can't find that, you need to add it in!
- Ask your readers a question! Ask them what they want advice on, or what problems they're having. That a) makes them feel valued and b) lets you tailor your advice for better list quality.
I think you've got a great idea here - some polishing could really make it work.
Thank you! Anyone else who's willing to take a casual glance over my other emails, please let me know what your initial impression is. I'm not asking for anything exhaustive, just your top of mind thoughts.
My main concern is whether the emails feel valuable or not. As Zeno pointed out, if the readers don't feel that they are, then they won't continue to open them. I'm ready and motivated to fix whatever issues you spot!
Update: I've had a change of heart for the short term
Making even $50 a day doing pure affiliate marketing would free up so much time spent copywriting for clients, that I could double my efforts on my info product business.
And pure affiliate marketing has so much fewer steps to profitability.
--I wouldn't have to figure out what's wrong with the emails (assuming there is something wrong)
-- I wouldn't have to dry test the sales page, I'd instead have a proven offer and a product already built out ( though of course it won't be my own)
-- There is still a potential risk that my market is no good, a bunch of non-buyers. Affiliate marketing on proven offers completely sidesteps that problem
-- Instead of looking at several months or longer before I make my first dollars, I have a real chance of turning a positive ROI within a month or 2. And with all the benefits of testing various creative's and landing page combinations, which I can reroute to my own offer later.
Dealing with clients sucks
My latest one asked for so many petty tweaks that the project took double the time I anticipated. Another one is not releasing half of the amount due, has poor communication, and it's been over a week since the project has been completed.
So unless everyone tells me it's a horrible idea, I think I'm going to put the current project on hold and come back to it when I have an affiliate marketing income to reinvest.
Any recommendations on affiliate networks with strong Biz Op offers (of any type/targeting)? I'm from the US but currently living in Thailand, if that matters.
Assuming that you have the money to invest, this is sensible thinking.
Product generation is, by and large, harder to turn an initial profit at than straight-up affiliate marketing. It's much more stable when you get it working, but initially AM is a truly excellent training ground for skills that you can subsequently taken back to product generation.
Thanks for the confirmation. So that settles it, I've began to apply to several affiliate networks that had biz op related offers on offer vault.
I'm surprised that I've been denied twice already, figured that affiliates would be free money for these networks but apparently they see things differently.
Max bounty denying me in particular is unfortunate, they had a lot of biz op type offers that I was interested in.
By Friday I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be accepted into at least a few more good networks.
From there the next steps that I've outlined for myself are:
1. Request EPC reports of the top biz ops on the network
2. Narrow to 3-4 offers, preferably mobile focused (since mobile tends to be lower payout/lower required testing budget)
3. Figure out what traffic source to use
I was really looking forward to diving into Decisive/mobile advertising a couple weeks ago, now it sounds like I'll have an opportunity to assuming I can find some good mobile biz op offers. I can't wait to get started!
Don't cross your fingers, take action.
Contact the forum AMs on Skype if they are listed here - http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...kype-Directory
Ring the affiliate network if they have a number listed and introduce yourself and say you are interested in joining their network.
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