Make Money Online Archives - Page 5 of 12

Podcast: Why Affiliates Need Blogs

December 1, 2009 By Rosalind Gardner

Shawn Collins, Lisa Picarille and I got together awhile back to discuss the benefits of affiliate blogging.

About the interview, Todd Farmer commented:

I've listened to this about 6 times, and I keep getting more value from it each time. You guys really outdone yourselves with this podcast. It really is amazing.

Thanks again for your participation and insights. I can't wait for
people to hear this.

The podcast has just been posted to Affplan at “Strategies Session #8: Why Affiliates Need Blogs“.

It's 24 minutes long and a worthwhile listen, even if I do say so myself. 🙂

Make Money with YouTube: The Rules

November 30, 2009 By Rosalind Gardner

I just went through the process of submitting my video for revenue sharing consideration and discovered the rules and process for making money with your YouTube videos — and I LIKE them considering how much time I spent dealing with copyright infringement issues…

Here are some of the basics.

It's NOT OK to use someone else's material even if you…

edit together or “mash-up” other works.
alter it by 10%, 20%, 30%, etc.
only use 30 seconds of a song or video clip.
found it on the internet.
nobody sent you a copyright notice.
paid for it.
give proper attribution (credits).
are only singing the words of a favorite copyrighted song.

This is copyright infringement and your video will be deleted!

How to monetize your video

After reviewing the Agreement you will be asked for some information about your video.
Any information you can provide about the source of the music or visual images used in your video — and whether they have been included in your video with the permission of the source or person appearing in your video — will help the process move faster.
DO NOT submit any TV shows, music videos, music concerts, or commercials without the express permission of the producer, unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself.
Only eligible videos in your account may be invited for revenue sharing.

Processing your video can take time. Please be patient!

Once processed, one of the following will happen:

If approved, advertising will appear with the video.
If rejected, the video will be deleted from YouTube. You will receive an email notification if your video is rejected.

How and when you get paid

After you link your YouTube account with Google AdSense you will be paid through your AdSense account
You'll be paid when
Your earnings reach the payment threshold
There are no holds on your account
You remain in compliance with AdSense policies, YouTube policies and Community Guidelines

Simple, commonsense stuff — for MOST of us! 🙂

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Why Haven’t I Sold Any _____?

November 16, 2009 By Rosalind Gardner

Have you ever wondered why you haven't sold even one of a specific product from your affiliate site in a very long time?

This video might explain the reason…

For those who have watched the video, I only have 95 more to go…

10 Ways to Sell More this Christmas Season

November 2, 2009 By Rosalind Gardner

Is your site ready for Christmas shoppers?

An Accenture survey forecasts that folks will be shopping for Christmas earlier this year, with 69 percent planning to complete the bulk of their holiday shopping by Dec. 7th. Too, consumers are more deal-oriented than ever before, with 25% of them expecting at least 50 percent discounts before they buy.

According to a Gallup survey, the Christmas spending forecast is down slightly this year, with consumers planning to spend $740 on gifts compared to $801 as per surveys taken at the same time last year.

With more merchants competing for fewer dollars, the deals are going to be phenomenal. In fact, merchants have already started to lower their prices to get a leg up on the competition.

Sears launched a campaign on October 31st, called “Black Friday Now” with deep discounts happening every Saturday from now until Christmas.

Saturdays???

‘Black Friday', which falls on the day after American Thanksgiving (November 27th) is the first day of the Christmas season and is usually the busiest shopping day of the year… offline.

‘Cyber Monday' is the Monday after Thanksgiving. The term was first used by Shop.org, whose research showed that 77% of online retailers reported a significant increase in sales on that day.

So what does that tell us?

That we'd better plan to get our affiliate sites and PPC campaigns ready for the Christmas shopping rush earlier than ever. I've noticed that folks are talking about Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals on consumer sites already. In fact,

So, although the big Christmas shopping days are still almost a month away, you need to get your site and PPC campaigns ramped up now.

Start checking the networks now for Black Friday deals. Here are 2 examples … Black Friday at Overstock.com and Big Savings, No Blarney: Book a Black Friday Round-Trip Flight to Ireland from $278 on Aer Lingus! (Expires 12/31/09)
Make sure that you are receiving merchant emails. Many merchants have their 2009 holiday shopping catalogs online and are already pumping out Black Friday and Cyber Monday ‘deal' notices to their affiliates. Unless you are in the habit of checking each network's interface daily, turn on email notifications or you may miss some really great deals that you could be passing on to your customers.
Contact your affiliate manager directly. If you have a working relationship with your affiliate manager, phone him or her and get the low-down on the best seasonal deals and best-converting offers.
Decorate for Christmas. Pretty up your site with holiday graphics and pictures of happy shoppers. Just acknowledging the season with a ‘Happy Holidays' header or a “Your One-Stop Christmas Shop” graphic will show your spirit and get your customers in the mood to shop.
Put up a ‘Black Friday Deals' page… or pages. Draw visitors deeper into your site with the promise of special savings opportunities.
Do the legwork. Compare and contrast the deals that your merchants are offering. Sifting through a myriad of sites and offers is time-consuming. Save your potential customers time and effort by explaining the difference between offers on the same product. For example, show how that company that charges slightly more for a product but offers ‘free shipping' will save them money in the long run.
Create urgency. Let your visitors know that these deals will not last by including offer expiry dates in your copy. Put up an “x number of Days ‘Til Christmas' countdown ticker on your site. You can find the “Till Christmas” code at Javascript Made Easy
Set up your PPC campaigns well in advance. Drive targeted traffic to your Black Friday deals pages with pay per click advertising.
Touch base regularly. Now's the time to put your autoresponder to best use by increasing the frequency of contact with your subscribers. Let them know that you're doing the legwork to find them the very best deals of the season. Let them know what's new and hot in your niche and tell them to stay on the lookout for more notices from you with sizzling deals.
Seal the deal with great copy. Go beyond price points and convince your visitors that the products you're promoting make great gifts with tantalizing copy. For example, when describing spa or jewelery gifts for women, use words and phrases such as, ie. pamper her, soothing, relaxing, unique, innovative, hand-picked, romantic, heart-touching, romantic and indulgent. Be sure to stress the benefits to the gift-giver as well, eg. “she'll thank you again and again for…“.

Keep these suggestions in mind as you prepare your site for the 2009 holiday season – and you'll thank me for your increased conversions this year! 🙂

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Hey Dude! Quit Calling Me “Dude”

October 26, 2009 By Rosalind Gardner

I recently received a joint venture invitation from a Internet business products merchant that suggested I should ‘grow a pair‘ and promote their upcoming launch.

To sweeten the pot, affiliates could win an XBox or a collection of cool videos that included “Dumb and Dumber”. (Oh goodie!)

Oh… and the email addressed me a ‘dude',Â as have so many others that I've received in the past year or so.

If you don't see the humor in that, let me share something with you — I am a woman fast approaching the big 5-0H.

Would you call your mother “dude”?

If you have, you might recall the ‘what planet are you from?' look she gave you.

That's because we hear the word “dude” according to its original meaning (and official definition as per the Oxford English Dictionary) – an American slang term which refers to men – despite the fact that Wikipedia states that the word “dude” has evolved to become more unisex.

Do you understand then how I might think that your JV invitationÂ wasn't really meant for me?

Or, are you thinking “go with the flow, dude”?

I could, but your unisex argument completely fails with the ‘grow a pair' remark and toys for boys prizes — and having seen “Dumb and Dumber” once is more than sufficient.

OK, I do get where you're coming from.

I know that the vast majority of affiliates on your JV partner list are young men like yourself. You want to motivate them to promote for you and challenging them in a manly way really gets their juices flowing… especially the drool over the prospect of winning a toy with which to play.

But don't you care if one or two Super affiliates who don't fit your mold choose not to promote on that basis?

If that's the case, consider this…

The market in which you play is HUGE, appealing to all regardless of race, creed, color, age or gender. By encouraging sales by a specific demographic who might take your tack and appeal to the sameÂ demographic, you might be limiting availability of your product to a smaller, less affluent market.

When you exclude one or more Super Affiliates with wider audiences, you could be tossing 10% or more of your possible revenues. Ten percent of 50K will get you a BOSE(R) Lifestyle Home Entertainment System or all the Xbox goodies your little heart desires. And 10% of half a mill is what — a downpayment on a house?

It PAYS to learn to write copy that addresses widest possible audience.

Take tips from the copywriting giants, such as Dan Kennedy, Yanik Silver and Joe Vitale — guys who know how to make each reader feel like the email copy was written just for them.

Or check out this great little ebook “Confessions of a Copywriter” by Lenny Eng and endorsed by Joe Vitale. One of Lenny's points is that “Nothing increases conversions like your offer”… and when you send a JV invite, you're making an OFFER.

50 Most Influential Bloggers of 2009: Who’s on the List?

October 21, 2009 By Rosalind Gardner

Just got a nice surprise from Kit Elliott who commented that I made Michael Dunlop's '50 Most Influential Bloggers of 2009′ list.

Cool – especially considering Arianna Huffington is also on that list.

Who is Michael Dunlop?

Now 20, Michael launched his first profitable website when he was 16 years old and has been blogging himself rich — making between Â£1,000 and Â£1,500 a week according to one newspaper.

By result, Michael says he's been “fortunate to hang out and interview some of the biggest names online”, people such as Mark Victor Hansen, Yanik Silver, Craig Newmark, (founder of Craigslist.com), Bob Parsons, (Founder and CEO of GoDaddy), Matt Mullenweg, (founding developer of WordPress) and more.

Michael says:

The opportunities with blogging are endless and I hope todayâ€™s post of the fifty most influential bloggers of 2009 will inspire you to follow in their footsteps.

Find out who the ‘other 49' are on Michael's ‘50 Most Influential Bloggers of 2009‘ list. 🙂

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