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Don’t know about you but I
really look forward to watching The Apprentice on TV each
week. Because it almost always offers a lesson in online
marketing.
Take the recent episode
where the two teams were charged by The Donald with making
money any way they could selling services to dog owners.
Drama aside, the team that
lost was a so called "one trick pony". They
pinned their success on one thing - dog washing. A good
idea but not quite good enough. Because the winning team
not only offered dog washing but dog massage plus nail
clipping too. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that by
offering a variety of services they earned three times as
much.
Income diversification is
also a winning strategy online. One I mention to all who
will listen. That’s because it’s dangerous to depend
on one product’s cash flow for your site’s survival.
So here are three ways to
avoiding the fate of most one trick ponies.
===== > Promote Your Own
Product
I strongly believe you
should have your own product to promote.
Ideally something digitally
delivered like an eBook or software? This way your
"bread and butter" can’t suddenly be taken
away from you should the product owner decide to no longer
use affiliates. Which happens you know?
Even better it’s smart to
develop a higher priced back end product that offers even
more help. Doing so knowing that if you offer a high
quality product a certain percentage will want even more
ideas and solutions from you. And these back end sales are
the easiest kind.
Oh and don’t think I
didn’t hear that groan two paragraphs ago. But anyone
can develop a starter info product in 24 hours.
- Develop a list of 25
pressing questions those in your niche want answered.
- Have a friend interview
you for an hour over the phone asking you those
questions.
- You provide insightful
answers while taping the call.
- Transcribe the audio
tape and convert the text into a PDF file.
There you go - nearly
instant product. If it sells flesh it out further and
raise the price to reflect the added value. If not try
again with another topic.
===== > Promote Related
Affiliate Products
But what if your visitors
don’t want YOUR product? Well, don’t let them slip
through your fingers without a fight. In this case
affiliate products ARE the perfect solution.
Because a site focusing on
weddings can not only sell a wedding planning book it can
also offer one on how to throw a bridal shower. Or another
how to get the best deal on your honeymoon.
Now to find such related
eBooks available at Clickbank I use Affiliates Alert.
It’s time saving software that runs from your desktop.
With it you can find top selling products by keyword or
commission payout by searching the entire Clickbank
Marketplace or just a selected category. Best of all you
can download it for free from www.AffiliatesAlert.com.
===== > Cash in on Waste
Traffic
Still not every visitor is
going to buy from you no matter how many tempting
solutions you dangle in front of them. In fact the vast
majority won’t. But that doesn’t mean you still
can’t make money off them.
The most common way to cash
in on waste traffic is to use Google’s Adsense. That’s
where you display Google Adwords ads on your site for some
unspecified cut of the action.
The nice thing about
Adsense is you can be up and running in no time. All I do
is incorporate the Adsense code in my page templates using
SSI or server side includes. That way every new page added
gives me more opportunities to make money.
Now if the mystical and
magical nature of Adsense is a turnoff, there are other
services that offer similar revenue sharing programs. Even
better some, unlike Adsense, let you specify the keywords
you wish to target. Here's a short list of them.
Of course maybe you don’t
want to settle for pennies and would rather shoot for
dollars? Okay so what if the ads served up were for
ClickBank products? Here are several ways to do that.
The thing to remember about
Adsense, or any of the alternatives, is visitors can’t
click on the listings if they can’t see ‘em. So make
sure you display the listings front and center. In the
visitor’s face. If at all possible within the actual
page content. For sure not at the bottom or below the fold
somewhere lost in the recesses of the web page.
So there you have it. Three
ways to diversify your online marketing efforts. Play your
cards right and you won’t end up washing dogs for a
living.
Copyright 2004 John Gergye
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