Associate Programs Newsletter #316
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my more than 10 years marketing online.
It was a struggle in the early years, but things turned out very well eventually.
If you want to use my hindsight as your foresight and save yourself a lot of heartache, read on…
CONTENTS:
1. If I were starting again…
2. A website owner who followed his passion
3. Best affiliate network in the world?
4. The suite of tools which keeps getting better
5. Thought for today: The winds of enthusiasm
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1. If I were starting again…
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The other day I was asked: “If you were starting an online business today, what would you do?”
Over the 10 years or so I’ve been marketing online, I’ve gradually refined my answer to this question. For the past week or so I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.
My wife, Joanna, and I and a group of relatives are house-sitting for friends of friends in Cromwell, in the lakes district of the South Island of New Zealand.
We’ve been lolling about, talking, reading, playing board games, and sampling some of the produce of the local vineyards and cherry orchards. (And occasionally logging on to check for urgent emails.) It’s a very pleasant way of enjoying the southern summer and it always makes me introspective – and grateful.
Internet marketing has changed our lives hugely in ways Joanna and I never anticipated, giving us the freedom of a lifestyle we never imagined when I built my first website in 1996.
If you’re starting a business online, here’s what I recommend…
1. I strongly urge you to spend some time picturing where you want to be in five years and what you’ll be doing. I didn’t realize this when I started, but you need to do more than design a business which generates revenue. You also need to design a business which allows you time to enjoy life. You must avoid creating a treadmill for yourself. So if your business is going to involve time-consuming, fiddly tasks which have to be done repeatedly, plan to delegate or outsource those tasks as soon as possible.
2. Design a business around your strengths and interests. This is hugely important. Life is short. Why on earth would you want to do stuff you don’t enjoy when you can design a business which you DO enjoy? If you don’t think you have any strengths or interests, ask family or friends for their views on what your strengths and interests are.
If you really don’t have any interests, for goodness sake… No, for your own sake, switch off TV and develop some interests.
3. If possible, promote products which pay residual or lifetime commissions. They’re not 100% essential, but they’re lovely icing on the cake. I like making one sale and then being paid over and over. For ideas, see reviews of lifetime and residual income affiliate programs at LifetimeCommissions.com.
4. Try to include in your plans products which people are very eager to buy. For example, people can become very passionate about their hobbies and eager to buy tools or books which help them with their hobbies. Also, you need to choose products you feel comfortable promoting. They need to be so good you’ll be genuinely enthusiastic about them. Enthusiasm sells.
5. Start a newsletter or have some way of collecting email addresses. A newsletter helps you earn people’s trust. If they know they can trust you, they’ll buy from you over and over again.
6. Look for opportunities to publish user-generated content. Many of the huge successes online involve content which has been freely created by website visitors.
7. Focus like crazy on ONE thing for at least six months – preferably a year – and learn all you possibly can about what your target audience wants. When you’re experienced, you can also look for opportunities to buy “failed” websites. Many people give up without realizing how close they are to success.
8. Have a long-term goal of eventually creating your own products and getting leverage by having thousands of affiliates promoting your products for you. Always look for opportunities to gain leverage, through other people’s skills, energy, traffic, whatever…
9. Start simple. Planning and research is good, but don’t overdo it. If you try to come up with a intricate 10-year plan, you’re likely to get so bogged down in planning that you never actually begin. So design a very simple business for your first one. The easiest way for most people is to choose a niche topic and generate revenue from affiliate links and AdSense.
Don’t try to run before you can walk. You may want to own the Next Big Thing on the Internet but don’t try to build it as your first project. Serve your apprenticeship first by creating a simple site in a not too competitive niche. With any luck, your first simple little site will continue to generate revenue for years while you experiment with bigger plans.
10. If you’re a perfectionist and you’ve been analyzing things to death without taking action, snap out of it. You don’t have to be perfect. Your business idea doesn’t have to be perfect. (Believe me, I’m a reformed perfectionist.) You’re allowed to make mistakes. Mistakes are valuable learning tools.
Procrastinators, here’s what to do… Write down your three best options. One by one, imagine yourself running each business, No.1, No.2, No.3. How does it feel? Are you enjoying yourself? Trust your instincts. Now START. Dive in. Do it. Later, you may regret not making the perfect choice, but you’ll regret it a whole lot more if you never actually begin anything.
11. Set lots of measurable, easy to achieve goals and reward yourself with every new achievement. My favorite reward is taking Joanna out for a meal at a nice restaurant.
Don’t for a moment believe that it’s too late to start a business online. New products, new niches and new opportunities are appearing all the time. Now is still an excellent time to start.
Do research and see what potential competitors are doing, but don’t be too scared of the existing competition. You can carve off a sub-niche and be the best in that sub-niche. You can put your own unique twist on a niche.
Here’s an article I wrote describing dozens of ways to get ideas for new websites…
Where to get ideas for a niche website
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2. A website owner who followed his passion
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Here’s an inspiring story about a website owner who followed his passion, initially struggling with a website on a topic about which he has a passionate interest.
Michael Sinclair, of New Zealand, runs a niche site called The Opera Critic – www.theoperacritic.com – from the spare bedroom in his home in Auckland, New Zealand.
As an article in New Zealand’s Sunday Star Times Magazine points out, Michael’s home couldn’t be more distant from the world’s great opera centers, but that hasn’t stopped him from building an international reputation.
With the help of contributors in several countries, he has collated a vast array of information on opera – news, reviews and images – attractive to any lover of opera. The site is updated every day.
He came up with the idea for the site in 2000 and in the early years worked part-time to support himself. He was affected severely by the dot-com crash when people lost interest in website advertising. However, he persisted, looking at various business models, and now earns a comfortable living from the site by charging a $35 annual access fee.
Whenever he can, he travels to Europe and North America to see productions and promote the site.
“For me, the satisfying thing is to have pursued a dream which is also a very viable business,” he told the Star Times. “I went through a period of wondering if what I was doing was worth while, but not any more.”
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3. Best affiliate network in the world?
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Panthera Network is worth keeping an eye on because of the bold claims it makes. It says it is the “best affiliate network in the world” and guarantees the “top payout” for any offer advertised. Even better, if you see a higher payout on any other affiliate network, Panthera Network offers to beat the listed payout by 5%.
Commission checks are consolidated and paid monthly. It has mainly pay per lead programs, and rather oddly calls some of its pay per sale programs “pay per lead”. Tracking is by DirectTrack.
You can choose from over 100 offers to promote, so you may be able to find something which fits your niche. Have a look here…
https://www.associateprograms.com/panthera
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4. The suite of tools which keeps getting better
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Fantastic news! The Site Build It 2-for-1 Holiday Special has been extended an extra day and now closes midnight January 4.
Don’t delay. You’ll kick yourself if you miss this.
The SBI suite of tools just keeps getting better and better. If you want to start a business online, there’s no better way than this. It’s the tool I’ve been giving my assistants for years.
To see why this suite of tools is so brilliant, take the video tour…
https://www.associateprograms.com/videotour
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5. Thought for today: The winds of enthusiasm
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“Today is life – the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.” – Dale Carnegie.
All the best
Allan Gardyne