Friday, March 10, 2006
Making Money by Doing What Others Aren't
I hadn't even considered this angle when I started this series on different ways to make money online, but news about my son's latest online business reminded me of an essential aspect of online success:
Creativity
Creativity is key to making your business stand out. A few months ago, a college student got a brilliant idea to sell advertising by the pixel and The Million Dollar Homepage was born. The novelty of it got worldwide attention and he has long since reached his goal of selling $1,000,000 worth of ad space on his site.
The success he had inspired thousands of copycats to try the same thing. But none of them, to my knowledge, have had anything near the success of the original. The idea of selling pixel advertising was fresh and interesting, but the novelty of it has long worn off.
In fact, the people making money now off of the pixel advertising craze are the ones selling hosting and template packages to the dreamers who think that using the same idea will automatically generate the same money for anyone.
But my son developed an interesting and original twist on the business model with—guess what—creativity.
Jon has started PaintMyPixels.com as "The World's First Internet Painting." For $1, anyone can choose a 100 pixel block and have it colored any color from the predetermined color palette.
The block will have a link to the site of the buyer's choice. But unlike the old pixel advertising, the final result will be something more than just a random clash of tiny ads. Buyers have a chance to influence the direction of an actual artwork that will be painted on canvas at the end of the project and auctioned off.
So anyone who takes part in this collaborative artwork will be part of a historic piece of art—the first of its kind—that will be displayed as fine art in somebody's home. And perhaps they can even have it in their own.
It's a clever twist that stands out from anything that's been done before on the Web. Whether it generates the kind of attention The Million Dollar Webpage did remains to be seen. But its use of creativity is something worth noting.
Nobody gets ahead by FOLLOWING the pack. You get ahead by finding a way to LEAD it. And that means being creative.
Jeff
I hadn't even considered this angle when I started this series on different ways to make money online, but news about my son's latest online business reminded me of an essential aspect of online success:
Creativity
Creativity is key to making your business stand out. A few months ago, a college student got a brilliant idea to sell advertising by the pixel and The Million Dollar Homepage was born. The novelty of it got worldwide attention and he has long since reached his goal of selling $1,000,000 worth of ad space on his site.
The success he had inspired thousands of copycats to try the same thing. But none of them, to my knowledge, have had anything near the success of the original. The idea of selling pixel advertising was fresh and interesting, but the novelty of it has long worn off.
In fact, the people making money now off of the pixel advertising craze are the ones selling hosting and template packages to the dreamers who think that using the same idea will automatically generate the same money for anyone.
But my son developed an interesting and original twist on the business model with—guess what—creativity.
Jon has started PaintMyPixels.com as "The World's First Internet Painting." For $1, anyone can choose a 100 pixel block and have it colored any color from the predetermined color palette.
The block will have a link to the site of the buyer's choice. But unlike the old pixel advertising, the final result will be something more than just a random clash of tiny ads. Buyers have a chance to influence the direction of an actual artwork that will be painted on canvas at the end of the project and auctioned off.
So anyone who takes part in this collaborative artwork will be part of a historic piece of art—the first of its kind—that will be displayed as fine art in somebody's home. And perhaps they can even have it in their own.
It's a clever twist that stands out from anything that's been done before on the Web. Whether it generates the kind of attention The Million Dollar Webpage did remains to be seen. But its use of creativity is something worth noting.
Nobody gets ahead by FOLLOWING the pack. You get ahead by finding a way to LEAD it. And that means being creative.
Jeff
Thursday, March 09, 2006
More on Monetizing Your Business With Affiliate Programs
Last night I talked about how doing nothing but sticking affiliate banners on your site is a sure way to fail with affiliate marketing. I suggested instead that you write articles about the problems that people want solved and then mention those affiliate products as helpful solutions.
But there's a problem related to the stick-up-a-bunch-of-banners approach that I want to focus on today. It's a mistake that many new affiliate marketers make. It's the problem of trying to promote too many affiliate products.
The temptation is great to sign up for any and every affiliate program you can find, pepper your site with affiliate promotions, and assume that the more promotions people see, the better chance you have of SOMEBODY clicking on SOMETHING. It seems logical, but the opposite is actually true. The more you focus on a smaller number of affiliate products, the better chance of success you have.
Think back to the situation I described yesterday: you come to a site that is covered with affiliate banners. Do you even look at them? No.
You barely notice the banners. Your visitors react the same way. But the problem is more serious than simply one of them ignoring your promotions.
An overabundance of banners on a page can hurt the credibility you're trying to build with them. If they perceive your mindset as, "Buy from me! Buy from me! Buy from me!" they'll give less credence to anything you recommend.
But again, if you give them content that helps them solve their problems, they're more likely to respect any specific recommendations that relate directly to their problem. Limit the products you promote on any given page to just those that directly help with the problems you're solving. By doing so, you actually increase the possibility that they'll click on your link and buy it.
This approach of weaving recommendations into content is totally different from the way most people think of promoting a product. Most copywriting resources focus on how to write a sales page that stands alone and makes the sale. In affiliate marketing, you're trying to drive people TO that sales page, and let the sales page do the actual selling.
In other words, you need to put readers in a favorable mindset so they want to visit those sales pages and consider those products. But that kind of writing is a skill that most copywriting ebooks or courses completely overlook.
That's where I've found Make Your Content PREsell! to be so valuable. It was written primarily to help affiliate marketers create that kind of mindset in their readers and increase their affiliate commissions. It helps you to write in a way that breaks down your readers' natural skepticism and warms them up to considering your specific recommendations.
Naturally, when you're doing this, you can't bring out a long list of products. The key is to focus your readers on one or two products that can help them with the specific problem you're writing about.
It comes down to this: do you want your pages to focus on guiding your visitors' to specific affiliate sales pages with a positive impression of the product already in mind? Or do you want your pages to present them with a confusing and contradictory array of competing products and trust to luck?
Jeff
Last night I talked about how doing nothing but sticking affiliate banners on your site is a sure way to fail with affiliate marketing. I suggested instead that you write articles about the problems that people want solved and then mention those affiliate products as helpful solutions.
But there's a problem related to the stick-up-a-bunch-of-banners approach that I want to focus on today. It's a mistake that many new affiliate marketers make. It's the problem of trying to promote too many affiliate products.
The temptation is great to sign up for any and every affiliate program you can find, pepper your site with affiliate promotions, and assume that the more promotions people see, the better chance you have of SOMEBODY clicking on SOMETHING. It seems logical, but the opposite is actually true. The more you focus on a smaller number of affiliate products, the better chance of success you have.
Think back to the situation I described yesterday: you come to a site that is covered with affiliate banners. Do you even look at them? No.
You barely notice the banners. Your visitors react the same way. But the problem is more serious than simply one of them ignoring your promotions.
An overabundance of banners on a page can hurt the credibility you're trying to build with them. If they perceive your mindset as, "Buy from me! Buy from me! Buy from me!" they'll give less credence to anything you recommend.
But again, if you give them content that helps them solve their problems, they're more likely to respect any specific recommendations that relate directly to their problem. Limit the products you promote on any given page to just those that directly help with the problems you're solving. By doing so, you actually increase the possibility that they'll click on your link and buy it.
This approach of weaving recommendations into content is totally different from the way most people think of promoting a product. Most copywriting resources focus on how to write a sales page that stands alone and makes the sale. In affiliate marketing, you're trying to drive people TO that sales page, and let the sales page do the actual selling.
In other words, you need to put readers in a favorable mindset so they want to visit those sales pages and consider those products. But that kind of writing is a skill that most copywriting ebooks or courses completely overlook.
That's where I've found Make Your Content PREsell! to be so valuable. It was written primarily to help affiliate marketers create that kind of mindset in their readers and increase their affiliate commissions. It helps you to write in a way that breaks down your readers' natural skepticism and warms them up to considering your specific recommendations.
Naturally, when you're doing this, you can't bring out a long list of products. The key is to focus your readers on one or two products that can help them with the specific problem you're writing about.
It comes down to this: do you want your pages to focus on guiding your visitors' to specific affiliate sales pages with a positive impression of the product already in mind? Or do you want your pages to present them with a confusing and contradictory array of competing products and trust to luck?
Jeff
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Making Money With Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the first (and often one of the only) monetization methods that comes to mind when someone wants to start a business online. After all, what Internet user hasn't clicked on one of those links that scream, "Make Money from This Site" that appear all over the web?
Where most people struggle with affiliate marketing comes in overly optimistic expectations. Those "Make Money" links make it sound like all you need to do is stick a bunch of banners on a page and the money will come roaring into your bank account.
Ahem. There's a little more to it than that.
First, you need to get people to your site. That means you need something that will attract visitors, namely, good solid content that helps people find what they want.
And taking it even one more step back from that dreamed-of flood of sales, it means you need to find a topic that people are actively searching for information, answers, help—you name it—on. And you need to help them find partial answers to their questions.
You notice I said partial answers. You need to offer them enough of what they're looking for to establish that you have expertise in the field, that your opinion means something. Then for the answers that are too big or too involved or too tangible for visitors to reasonably expect you to solve on your site, you can refer them to sources that can deal with their specific need.
That means you refer them—as part of content—to sources that can provide exactly what they're looking for. And those sources will likely include affiliate programs that meet your visitors' needs.
In the case of monetizing a business with affiliate commissions (like I'm doing right now) I tell you to check out the two best resources I've found for taking you step-by-step through setting up an affiliate business: James Martell's Affiliate Marketer's Handbook and Michael Campbell's Clickin' It Rich. Both men have made millions in affiliate commissions with businesses in a wide range of fields. Either ebook can successfully walk you through the process of setting up your new affiliate business.
Am I being dishonest in referring you to them instead of simply telling you everything you need? Not at all. There's no way a blog entry can go into the level of detail they do in a complete ebook. Hey' Martell's ebook is over 200 pages and Campbell's is close to 100!
What you do in affiliate marketing is serve as an expert, giving visitors enough of what they're looking for to get them started and then guide them to where they can find more complete solutions.
"But can't I just stick up a bunch of banners on my site like the signup pages say?" I've never had much success with banners. Hey, do you surf around simply clicking on all the banners you see? No. And neither do other people.
You have to give people something more than just banners if you want to make affiliate income. My most successful affiliate products are in the areas where I have the greatest amount of experience. The more confidently I can recommend something from experience—complete with the results I've achieved—the more comfortable my readers are checking into it.
Overall, the affiliate business model is an easy one to start in. It requires the least amount of resources to set up. But you need to get beyond the quick-and-effortless illusion that many affiliate signup pages suggest.
Like with any business, you need to find a target audience that needs solutions, and you need to learn how to guide them to the solutions you've found.
Jeff
Affiliate marketing is one of the first (and often one of the only) monetization methods that comes to mind when someone wants to start a business online. After all, what Internet user hasn't clicked on one of those links that scream, "Make Money from This Site" that appear all over the web?
Where most people struggle with affiliate marketing comes in overly optimistic expectations. Those "Make Money" links make it sound like all you need to do is stick a bunch of banners on a page and the money will come roaring into your bank account.
Ahem. There's a little more to it than that.
First, you need to get people to your site. That means you need something that will attract visitors, namely, good solid content that helps people find what they want.
And taking it even one more step back from that dreamed-of flood of sales, it means you need to find a topic that people are actively searching for information, answers, help—you name it—on. And you need to help them find partial answers to their questions.
You notice I said partial answers. You need to offer them enough of what they're looking for to establish that you have expertise in the field, that your opinion means something. Then for the answers that are too big or too involved or too tangible for visitors to reasonably expect you to solve on your site, you can refer them to sources that can deal with their specific need.
That means you refer them—as part of content—to sources that can provide exactly what they're looking for. And those sources will likely include affiliate programs that meet your visitors' needs.
In the case of monetizing a business with affiliate commissions (like I'm doing right now) I tell you to check out the two best resources I've found for taking you step-by-step through setting up an affiliate business: James Martell's Affiliate Marketer's Handbook and Michael Campbell's Clickin' It Rich. Both men have made millions in affiliate commissions with businesses in a wide range of fields. Either ebook can successfully walk you through the process of setting up your new affiliate business.
Am I being dishonest in referring you to them instead of simply telling you everything you need? Not at all. There's no way a blog entry can go into the level of detail they do in a complete ebook. Hey' Martell's ebook is over 200 pages and Campbell's is close to 100!
What you do in affiliate marketing is serve as an expert, giving visitors enough of what they're looking for to get them started and then guide them to where they can find more complete solutions.
"But can't I just stick up a bunch of banners on my site like the signup pages say?" I've never had much success with banners. Hey, do you surf around simply clicking on all the banners you see? No. And neither do other people.
You have to give people something more than just banners if you want to make affiliate income. My most successful affiliate products are in the areas where I have the greatest amount of experience. The more confidently I can recommend something from experience—complete with the results I've achieved—the more comfortable my readers are checking into it.
Overall, the affiliate business model is an easy one to start in. It requires the least amount of resources to set up. But you need to get beyond the quick-and-effortless illusion that many affiliate signup pages suggest.
Like with any business, you need to find a target audience that needs solutions, and you need to learn how to guide them to the solutions you've found.
Jeff
Monday, March 06, 2006
More Choices Than You Think for Making Money Online
When most people decide to start a business online, only a limited number of ways to make money come into their head. That's unfortunate, because there are many more options than most people think.
And many times people think they can't build a business around something they love because the few options they're aware of don't seem to fit with that field. They don't realize that there are ways to monetize a business on just about any subject.
Join me in looking at some of them, starting this week and going into the next. I can't say exactly how long I'll cover these, but I'll definitely cover the most obvious ones:
Jeff
When most people decide to start a business online, only a limited number of ways to make money come into their head. That's unfortunate, because there are many more options than most people think.
And many times people think they can't build a business around something they love because the few options they're aware of don't seem to fit with that field. They don't realize that there are ways to monetize a business on just about any subject.
Join me in looking at some of them, starting this week and going into the next. I can't say exactly how long I'll cover these, but I'll definitely cover the most obvious ones:
- Affiliate income
- Auctions
- Web stores
- Making money off of information sites
- Selling your services
- Selling e-goods and other intangible products
- Referrer or finder's fees
- Multi-Level Marketing
Jeff
© 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Jeff Baas, One Stop Web Support
