Online Marketing From Home

What do all of the top gurus such as John Reese, Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Mike Filsaime and Rich Schefren have in common, apart from the fact that they have all made millions of dollars with massive product launches?

Yes, they all help, support and promote each other. In fact, many of them share close friendships going back several years…

How did it all start? In most cases it all started by meeting at an internet marketing conference and by sharing ideas over a couple of drinks at the hotel bar.   

I spent many years in the corporate world during which time I held various senior sales and marketing positions. I have always believed that face-to-face contact is the best way to establish not only business relationships but also friendships.

Furthermore, I also believe that if you want to take your online business to the next level you have to network with other marketers. There is only so much you can do on your own. Working together with like minded marketers is a great way to leverage your efforts!

One of my goals is to attend at least one internet marketing conference every year. This year it will be Bali. I may attend another conference later in the year but I have not made any plans yet.

Why Bali?

Well, unlike many internet marketing conferences this one has not been scheduled to coincide with a new product launch that the one or other marketer is planning. In other words, it is not just another self promotional conference with a couple of guest speakers. 

There won’t be any over-hyped wallet lightening sales pitches. It is really a conference that has been put together by internet marketers for internet marketers that will include some great presentations by…

* Lee McIntyre
* James B. Allen
* Dr. Mani
* James Brown
* Kevin Riley
* Rama Raju
* Willie Crawford
* John Delavera

Guest speakers will include…

* Ian Del Carmen
* Edmund Loh
* Paul Kleinmeulman

Important: This event is only for marketers that are really committed to succeed online and is not suitable for beginners.

If you would to take your business to the next level this may be the conference you have been waiting for! There will be many opportunities to meet the coaches and you can even discuss your JV proposition or enquiries with them over dinner or cocktails!

For full details visit: Bali Rendezvous

The conference will be three full days commencing on the 06th of June and will end on the 08th of June. Personally, I have always loved combining business with pleasure! I shall be arriving on the 05th of June and leaving on the 10th of June.

Please let me know if you are going to attend. I would love to invite you for a drink!

Here is the link again: Bali Rendezvous

To YOUR Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit

Every week I receive several questions from new marketers relating to various aspects of online marketing. Most of these questions are about specific details, such as “I am a complete newbie. Do you think I should join the following membership site…?”

What I have observed from many new marketers is that they often get so caught up in specific details concerning a very small element of online marketing that they completely miss the bigger picture.

Based on the above I have created a new video that covers what I believe to be the four basic pillars of internet marketing:

I know many people have a slow internet connection so I have included some notes below in case you have any problems viewing the video…

The four basic pillars are:

* Product
* Medium
* Traffic
* Monetize

I believe that in order to build a strong foundation for your online business you need all four of these pillars…

1. Product

It can be your own product, a product you are promoting as an affiliate or even a product that you have acquired rights to.

2. Medium

You need a way to showcase your product. Your medium can be a website, blog, Squidoo lens or even just writing and submitting articles to article directories. 

3. Traffic

Let’s face it… Without traffic you do not have customers and without customers you do not have a business.  

4. Monetize

Having traffic is great but unless to can convert that traffic into cash it is pretty meaningless.

Only once you have your four basic pillars or foundation in place should you start getting into specific details. For example, what is the point of improving your sales copy or adding adsense to your website when you have no traffic? Why focus on getting more traffic when you know your website is a mess?

There are two other factors that I have not included in the four pillars but which are very important. I have not included them because you can make money online without them but I consider them critical long-term success factors. They are:

* Goals
* Niche

Goals

Your goals will have a direct impact on how successful you are!

For example, do you want to make $100 a day or $100 a week? How much money do you want to make and should this be a recurring monthly income?

Let’s assume your goal is to make $10,000 every month and you are selling an ebook for $10 a copy. This means you need to sell 1,000 copies a month, every month!

Assuming you are selling the ebook from your website and your sales copy converts at 2% this means you need 50,000 targeted visitors a month to gross $10,000 a month.

You may need to adjust your plan, for example establish an affiliate program, add a One Time Offer, add some affiliate products, or revise your goal…

What I find strange is how some people complain they are not making enough money online but when you ask them what their current income streams are you find out they don’t really have anything in place, are doing nothing to promote their product, or are trying to make a fortune selling a cheap $5 report that they have resell rights for that everyone else is giving away for free and that is completely outdated.

Niche

Niche discovery and research is one of the most important but often misunderstood or neglected concepts in online marketing.

You need to find a niche that is right for YOU and take the time to research the niche to ensure that it is viable. I have covered this important topic in great detail in my book Niche Marketing Uncovered and there is no need to elaborate on this point.

Just one comment… There are several membership sites that will provide you with 5, 10 or 20 niche markets on a monthly basis. I honestly don’t think this is a good approach. Trying to make money from a niche that you have no interest in is not ideal.

One example… Article marketing can be a good method to drive free traffic to your site. However, how many articles can you write on a topic that is as interesting to you as counting the warts on your average warthog?

Yes, you can pay other people to write the articles for you. But, it is going to cost you money and may not necessarily be well written.

In order to succeed to need to plan and take massive action!

Here are some steps that will help:

Step 1 – What are my goals?
Step 2 – Find the right niche for YOU.
Step 3 – Decide on your product offering.
Step 4 – Develop your medium.
Step 5 – Drive targeted traffic.
Step 6 – Monetize your traffic.    
Step 7 – Continuous improvement.

So, before you start wondering if it is a good idea to spend $47 a month on Mr. Marketer’s private label rights membership site remember there are no short cuts to building a profitable online business. 

Tip 1 – Use leverage!
 
Leverage basically means getting more done with the same effort. A good example is setting up your own affiliate program once you have developed your own product. Why try to go it alone when you can have hundreds of affiliates promoting your product?

Tip 2 – Over deliver!    

The internet can be a very crowded market place. You need to stand out from the crowd and one of the best ways is to over deliver. Work on exceeding your customer’s expectations and this will set you apart from the vast majority of online marketers.

Tip 3 – Focus on helping people!

Many marketers only focus on how they can stuff more money into their pockets instead of how they can really help people. You will make a lot more money in the long-term if your key focus is helping other people. And, it is a great feeling knowing you are making a difference!

Trust you have enjoyed this post. I am sorry it is a bit long… I tried to keep it as short as possible but did not want to cut out too many important points.

To YOUR Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit 

I have been taking things pretty easy the last couple of days…

Last week Tuesday was my birthday (I turned 38 ) and I decided to take a couple of days off to spend some quality time with my family and to take a step back from my business to gain a fresh perspective on things.

I was planning to start working again yesterday morning but an electric sub-station close to my house exploded and that left us without electricity for the whole of yesterday and a big part of today…

Anyway, sometimes it is good to take a bit of a break from the pc!

I really need your opinion on something…

Let me explain…

It is not always easy to produce a high quality newsletter that will satisfy all the members on my list. Some members are, for example, mainly interested in getting information on PPC while other members may only be interested in getting information on affiliate marketing.

It is nearly impossible to write a newsletter that caters for everyone all the time, unless I start bombarding my list members with daily emails trying to cover everything under the sun, and that is not an approach I feel comfortable with.

My approach up to know has been very simple, namely to use my newsletter and blog to:

1. Provide quality free content.  
2. Recommend good products that I have personally reviewed.
3. Stay in touch and help my highly valued list members.

Personally I think this approach has been working very well. But, I am always looking for new ways to improve what I am doing.

One of the things I would like to focus on more in the future is to post regular “how to” videos and audio messages on my blog. In some of these posts I may decide to promote a specific product, if I feel it can benefit my list members.

However, the majority of these posts will be pure content posts. In other words, posts where my only aim is to help my list members and where I do not stand to gain anything financially.

In case you are wondering… I love helping other people. Yes, even for free. Obviously I have a family to feed so I cannot only focus on helping people for free. But, even when I promote a product as an affiliate, my main criteria is not how much commission I can make but if I feel the product can really help my list members.

Fact of the matter is that there are many good products that can be obtained for free but there are also many good products that cannot be obtained for free. My aim is to recommend both paid and free products, on condition that they are really good and helpful.

I know there are many marketers that will never promote a product unless they can benefit from it financially. In fact, many marketers even publicly state that unless they can get at least an affiliate commission of $20 per sale that they will not even bother looking at the product. I don’t agree with this approach…

You see, I always believe in putting the interests of my list members first. I believe that in having an attitude of first of all helping people my business will outlast most other online business that only focus on milking people.  

Okay, back to the above point about using audio and video…

I have added two posts recently (directly below this post) and would appreciate your feedback.

How To Find Your Own Voice Doing Online Marketing From Home

What I have done is to record and post an audio message of the post. My reasoning is that some people may prefer listening to an audio message instead of reading a post.

What’s your opinion?

How To Embed Audio In A Wordpress Blog
   
The most recent blog post I made (apart from this one) is a “how to” video. I know that some people are not crazy about listening to videos, especially long ones. However, I also know that many people prefer learning new stuff by seeing how it is done.

What do you think? Would you like to see regular “how to” videos? (By the way, I will keep the videos short, say between 2 minutes and 10 minutes)

Lastly, please let me know how I can help YOU. What type of information are you interested in (please be as specific as possible). Is there anything you don’t like from my email messages or blog that I can rectify?

I cannot promise to give you exactly what you want but I can promise that I will do my best to help you. I know that a large percentage of people do not even open up the email messages to which they have subscribed, and my newsletter is no exception. However, I am prepared to bend backwards to help the people that actually take the time to read my messages and blog posts. So, if you are reading this I would love to hear from you.

To YOUR Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit

P.S. Please simply post your comments to this message or feel free to email me. I do reply to all comments and emails.

Trust you will enjoy and benefit from this short little video I just uploaded on YouTube showing how to insert mp3 audio files into your Wordpress posts and pages.

Please let me know if you have any questions and what you thought of the video.

I am planning on adding several more “how to” videos in the future dealing with various aspects of online marketing. If you have any special requests please do not hesitate to let me know.

To YOUR Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit

One of the things that really baffled and confused me when I first started doing online marketing from home, several years ago, was trying to figure out the “right” way or the “best” way to operate.

Like many new marketers I would jump from the one thing to the other looking for the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow… Experience taught me that there is no best way to make money online, there are many different ways!

There are also many different ways of getting your message across to the market and that is what I would like to focus on today.

I am subscribed to many different newsletters and spend a lot of time every week visiting selected forums and blogs in the online marketing niche. Why? Well, first of all, I like to keep up to date with new developments. However, the main reason is not really to learn new stuff but to observe marketing techniques that I can apply in my own business.

I believe in the theory of the “golden thread”. What this means is that I believe no person knows everything and that real wisdom is right in front of us all the time but it is up to us to recognize and apply it.

For example, assume I get an email from a marketer called Mr. Know-It-All. I don’t only look at what he is trying to sell or promote, if anything, but how he goes about it and if there is anything I can learn from his approach.

Very often I will read a long and boring sales pitch and while wondering why I am torturing myself reading such dribble I will stumble upon one sentence that gives me an idea. That one sentence is the “golden thread”, something that can help my business.

The same happens in many forum posts. Mr. Know-It-All will make a new forum post telling members how they can make money doing say article marketing. Some of these posts are too basic or even downright inaccurate. However, I have picked up very valuable bits and pieces of information by looking for the “golden thread”.

Why am I sharing this? Well, we may all be online marketers but we are not all the same. What works for me may not necessarily work for you. However, this does not mean you cannot learn anything from me that will help you. I learn new things every single day, even from complete newbies. And, I am proud to admit it!

Too many marketers try to copy other marketers that they perceive to be successful. Very few of them are ever able to reproduce the same results. Very few!

What is important is not to try and copy other marketers but to learn from other marketers and to apply various bits and pieces of their techniques in your own business.

Let’s take email marketing as an example. Most successful marketers agree that building a list can be your most important asset in internet marketing. However, very few marketers follow the same approach when sending emails.

Let me explain…

Here are a couple of different approaches I am sure you have also observed:

Send your list an email…

- Every single day promoting a different product.   
- For seven days in a row promoting the same product.   
- Only when you have a new product out, for example a WSO.
- Once a month, for example a monthly newsletter.
- Once a week, for example a weekly newsletter.
- etc. etc. etc. 

I see a lot people that work very hard on building a large list but once they have a large list they simply do not know what to do with their list. Often, they don’t do anything!

The same problem applies to nearly every single aspect of online marketing… There are so many different ways, techniques and strategies on how to build a successful online business that it is no wonder new marketers get totally confused.

You have to do what feels right for you, and works for you. It makes no sense to do something just because someone else said you should.   

I believe that learning is an ongoing process. Learn from the experience of others but don’t try to copy a specific model just because it has worked for someone else. Your whole model will fall flat as soon as you have a problem because you do not have the background knowledge and understanding on how to fix it.

It is much better to take what you can from other marketers and to develop your own marketing model. Try different techniques and strategies. Test everything based on your own personal experience. Work on improving your business model all the time and look for “golden threads” of wisdom from other marketers.     

In order to become really successful in your niche you need to stand out from the crowd. You need to find your own voice. Successful marketers like John Reese, Mike Filsaime and Frank Kern understand this concept very well. There are many marketers that make the mistake of trying to copy them but will never achieve the same success these guys have achieved.

Do not try to become the next John Reese. There is already a John Reese and the world has only got space for one John Reese. His business model has worked very well for him and has taken him years to refine. Yet, I am convinced he will agree that it is still far from perfect and that he also learns new things all the time on how he can improve his business.

Rather strive to be the best YOU can be instead of trying to be someone else. Take what you can from others. Experiment with different marketing techniques.   

By the way, a guy like John Reese was not born successful. He had a very difficult time when he just started online marketing. It was not a smooth road at all! He made a point of learning from other people by listening if he could hear any golden threads. However, he became successful because he found his own voice.

There is nothing stopping you from achieving massive success doing online marketing. Nobody can stop you. There is no reason why you cannot become an internet marketing legend in your own right and watch as thousands of others try to copy you. If that is what you want it is within your power to achieve it!

To Your Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit

A couple of weeks ago I posted a very positive review of Kevin Riley’s new step-by-step blueprint for creating video commercials, called Recipe For Shooting And Distributing Sales-Pulling Video Commercials.

You see, I really believe that videos can be a very powerful marketing tool, especially when they go viral. Today I came across an excellent case study of just how powerful and profitable videos can be…

The following video, made by Len Foley, called “The World’s First Bionic Burger” has already been viewed close to 1 million times!

According to Len Foley the video is still being viewed between 1,000 and 10,000 times every single day! You would have noticed in the video that he is promoting his website called TheBestDayEver.com – A membership site that currently has about 1,000 members paying $29.95 per month. That is about $30,000 per month!

Although not all of the members joined his site thanks to the “Bionic Burger” video, the video earns him about $11,400 per month in passive, residual income. Not bad when you consider that it did not even cost him $82 to produce the video…

Many people will argue that the conversion rate (views that result into sales) of viral videos are very low, and they are right. However, it is an excellent way of gaining publicity at hardly any cost. Just imagine how much money you would have to spend on Google Adwords to get 1 million clicks!

Now for the best part…

Len Foley and his partners produced an ebook called “Viral Video Secrets” that is currently selling for $47 on ViralVideoSecrets.com. However, you can get this 86 page ebook for free by visiting http://www.viralvideosecrets.com/free/ (Not an affiliate link)

Trust you have enjoyed this case study! If you enjoyed this post and see the benefits of using videos I highly recommend you get your hands on a copy of Kevin Riley’s Recipe For Shooting And Distributing Sales-Pulling Video Commercials (334 pages and nearly 500 screenshots!). You will not be sorry!

To YOUR Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit