You will have noticed this week we have learned how to reach out to brands for advertising and sponsorship on our blogs – and the best way to sell yourself is to have all your details in a handy, professional media kit. It shows that you’re serious about partnering up to create an both an income for you and awareness of brands, and gives potential sponsors all the information they need to decide that you’re the blogger they’d like to work with.

A media kit is a snapshot of your blog’s vital details, packaged up in a reader-friendly download. It provides potential sponsors a one-stop shop of information they use to inform their decisions about with whom they will partner. It not only has an overview of you, your blog, your reach, and your prices, but it is an essential selling tool for when PR representatives plead your case to the decision-makers in charge of their budgets. A media kit is like an extended business card you may send to anyone who needs to know more about you and what you do.

This can differ from blogger to blogger, so pick and choose how much information you feel you need to supply (less is more, ya know what I’m sayin’?). Often a one-page overview is useful, but there are times when advertisers or book publishers or other interested parties need to know more detail about your blog and what you provide.

The most common items are:

About you:

• Your name
• A profile shot
• Your blog URL
• Your tagline (if you have one)
• A brief introduction/overview of you and the blog. Keep it short and punchy. The likelihood is that the person you are sending it to has already looked at your blog and your About Me page. Keep this one down to a few lines.
• Regular post topics or features that would appeal to brands

About your readers:

• Statistics snapshot – unique browsers, monthly pageviews,
• Your demographics – who is reading your blog? Gender and age range is good to include here.
• Newsletter and email subscriber numbers
• Followers across social media sites – namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest (Google +, LinkedIn, and YouTube if that’s where your audience is at)
• Optional – Alexa ranking, Klout score, Google Page Rank, if you feel they will help your case

About your services:

• Advertising spaces available, and prices for each (including discounts available for longer-term packages, etc), not forgetting RSS feeds and newsletters
• Sponsored post rates
• Inclusions (extra incentives!) around social media for advertisers and sponsors. Do you offer shout-outs and freebies for advertisers? Let them know!
• Sponsored social media update prices
• Conference sponsorship packages and prices
• Ambassadorship packages and prices
• Affiliate details
• Giveaway or review admin fees
• Your policies on review products
• Advertising spots/options to sponsor podcasts
• Mention (if appropriate) that you are open to any ideas the brands or advertisers have for collaborations
• Payment specifics and terms

Your previous brand partnerships:

• Write a brief overview of the kinds of products and services you like to feature on the blog
• Link to a few of the larger campaigns you have completed that did well and you enjoyed
• Write a list of the other brand names that have been featured

Testimonials:

• Include a few carefully-curated positive reviews of your work, or a couple of lines from people and brands with whom you have worked
• Add your press features, or where you’ve been featured on other blogs

Contact details:

• Your name
• PO Box or address for people to send items
• Email
• Phone number (if appropriate)
• Social media links
• Skype details

By all means hire a designer to create you one, if you like – but it’s quite simple to gather your information, a few images, and make them look great on paper. You can make a very simple one using Word (and then converting to PDF), or use any one of the image-creation sites out there. PicMonkey is easy to use (here is a great PicMonkey media kit tutorial), as is Canva, and Ribbet. PowerPoint is quite user-friendly, and can turn out professional-looking media kits in no time, you can use Pages, Photoshop, or even google downloadable templates. You could also search Etsy or similar places for either a downloadable template you can buy, or have a custom one made.

Each person’s media kit needs are so different – you might find useful info at the following posts:

Tips for Creating a Media Kit for Your Blog // Amy Lynn Andrews

Blogger Media Kits: When You Don’t Have Much Traffic // Katy Widrick

How to Create a Media Kit that Rocks // The Blog Maven

Creating a Media Kit for Your Blog // The Well

And you can get inspired with these media kit examples:

ClickinMoms Click Magazine

The Art of Simple

Bloggers Bazaar Pinterest board of media kit samples

The Blog Maven – 20 Media Kit Examples

Best Blogger Media Kits – Katy Widrick

Before you go:

• Update your kit often. Every three months is average
• Make it customisable – especially if you get someone else to create it for you. Make sure it’s easy for you to update it on your own
• Make it easily accessible. Consider having it as a download on your “work with me” or “contact” page. It saves email back-and-forth, and makes it so much easier (and faster!) for potential brands
• Think of printing – ensure your kit is of a high enough resolution to look good when printed
• Think of collaborating – don’t be afraid to make a list of dream collaborators, and be proactive in approaching them. Offer your media kit as a simple start.
• Be positive. And remember, if your numbers aren’t anything to write home about yet, you might like to mention your growth instead. Something like “doubled twitter followers in a month” sounds positive and encouraging. And is true!
• Be consistent with statistics. There are many ways of capturing this information, but Google Analytics appears to be the standard, and is quite accurate.
• Watch your language. While it’s great you write your blog with your own unique voice, this is the time to be professional (and a little quirky, as needed!). Keep it slick.
• We are visual creatures – break up big chunks of text and eye-swimming numbers with bright images, easy-to-read but interesting fonts, and lots of white space.

Have you seen a great example of a media kit lately? What do you have in yours?

Stacey Roberts is the Managing Editor of ProBlogger.net, and the blogger behind Veggie Mama. A writer, blogger, and full-time word nerd, she can be found making play-dough, reading The Cat in the Hat for the eleventh time, and avoiding the laundry. See evidence on Instagram here, on Facebook here, and twitter @veggie_mama.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Partnering with Brands Theme Week: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Media Kit

@ProBlogger

Technorati Tags: Brands, creating, Guide, Media, Partnering, Theme, Ultimate, Week

So you want to create a product to sell on your blog, now you just have to make it happen, right?

If you have tried sitting in the local hipster cafe, coffee in hand and laptop at the ready,expecting to type with ease and whip virtual pages up into the glorious ether – you’ll know that it’s not quite this enjoyable nor easy! I’ve seen clients and friends become disheartened as they try to  get an idea off the ground. It’s hard work and can be just as challenging as it is rewarding.

Creating a product involves the selection of the perfect idea, finding the resources you need, creating content and then motivating yourself to the finish line . Each one of these steps presents its own challenges and may even make you feel overwhelmed enough to put your idea on hold. So how do you make a product happen?

Simplify, simplify, simplify!

A good product doesn’t have to be a complicated product. Some of our best sellers are PDF ebooks.

Start by making a list of all of your ideas for a product, including variations from the most basic idea you could attach in an email, to the million-dollar dreamworks crew creation.Next, in a second column, write a list of  as many challenges as you can for each product such as: time, budget, design, or development requirements.

Now, ready to get started? Be helpful to yourself and scale that long list right back!  Take out whatever you can until you are left with the most essential elements. Keep the focus on creating a useful product.

Chances are you can make a least one of your ideas happen by simplifying. And if you end up getting things done quickly, you can always add the bells and whistles back in later. Aim for excellence by all means, but don’t make it too hard for yourself or it might not happen at all.

Hint: just as a great home or outfit can be impressive without having every new trimming, the same rule of thumb applies to products!

Set a date.

If you have trouble with procrastination, find an event which will help motivate you to meet your goal, such as a competition, meetup or conference you are going to attend. You can also ask a friend or mentor to check in on you at pivotal milestones. Set a deadline and reward yourself.

Hint: pick someone who has seen results of their own as they will understand the fine balance of perseverance and inspiration 

You don’t have to do this all on your own!

Need content? Tap in to your social network for quotes, words and pictures. Just remember to be respectful, be clear in your request, and always give credit where credit is due.

Need direction? Use online surveys to refine your focus. And if you don’t get a huge response when you ask, don’t be disheartened. Try asking a different way…or find a sponsor to give you a prize as incentive for responses.

Refine your tone.

Your product will resonate with your audience if you have a distinct voice. For instance, we like the tone of writing for our dPS ebooks to be natural, authentic, friendly, personal, and accurate.

Regardless of tone, always use subject matter experts! Write about what you know (or ask others to contribute) and your product will stand out.

Hint: tone alone won’t impress, but set a style to share knowledge with integrity and ease.

Still stuck?

Don’t give up. Set aside time each day and keep trying. Remember to turn off all the beautiful and shiny distractions.

You might find it helpful to change your environment …even if it’s finding a coworking space, the library, or a cafe where you can unplug and write.

Very importantly, after you have done your research, make a start and don’t look back by comparing yourself with others. You have your own unique point of view to share, and worrying that you’re not as good as the next product  isn’t going to be constructive to the development process. Keep your focus by being helpful and creating value for your readers.

Hint:  you can experiment with what helps you to focus best, but don’t waver from the ultimate goal – make a product!

Read the rest of our series on Creating Products at How to Create and Sell Products on Your Blog.

Jasmin Tragas is the Producer of ebooks at Digital Photography School, SnapnGuides and Director of ProBlogger Training Event. She is currently working on her 24th product and sixth event since joining the ProBlogger team three years ago. She has experience creating products for small agencies, artists, large corporates and for fundraisers. 

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Creating Products Week: Making Products Happen – Getting Your Ideas off the Ground

@ProBlogger

Technorati Tags: creating, Getting, Ground, Happen, Ideas, making, Products, Week

Darren  says: Today is part 4 in our ‘creating products’ week here at ProBlogger and now that we’ve done a lot of the ground work and decided on what product to create, we’re moving onto the all-important challenge of actually creating the product that we want to sell on our blog.

This is a huge topic and one that we can’t possibly go into great detail on, as it really does depend upon what kind of product you want to make – but below Shayne gives a great insight on how we do it at ProBlogger.

As usual – I’ll chime in with my perspective along the way.

When I suggested this as a post topic to the ProBlogger team for product, I perhaps underestimated the true breadth of what I was saying. The reality is, to give you all the detail you’d need as a blogger to create a product of your own, it would be multiple books’ worth!

So what I’ll do today is give a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at the ProBlogger product-building machine – so you can then adjust what we do for your own specific circumstances.

I’m also going to assume that you’ve read both what to do before you create a product and what product should I create so we can focus purely on the construction side of things.

Think About ‘Selling’ First

When we agree on building a specific product (it might be an eBook, a service (like our SnapnDeals site), a private community (like ProBlogger.com, or even an event), the very first thing we do is: ‘sell it‘.

By ‘sell it’ I don’t mean to our readers, but sell it to ourselves.

This can either be in a team discussion or more formally in what I call a ‘sell sheet‘ – a document that contains all the vital information around the product (drawing on a lot of what you would have done in yesterday’s post).

The reason I like to sell first, build later is sometimes you can get so swept up in the romance of an idea that the practicalities and benefit to your readers get lost in the excitement.

Darren says: Today when we create a product, we go through a more intentional process as a team of ‘selling’ the idea to ourselves as a team.

However, for my first eBooks I didn’t have a team and the ‘sell’ was largely an internal dialogue that I had in my mind.

I remember for my first photography eBook I had three topics that I was considering creating an eBook on. I was tossing up between eBooks on landscapes, portraits ,and something more general on techniques.

I took myself through some of the things that Shayne talked about in yesterday’s post to help me narrow down on the one I’d choose, but also as part of that process, began to think about ‘benefits’ of each eBook and how I’d sell them.

I listed each of these on paper and found by doing so I not only worked out which one I thought we’d sell more of – but by listing how I’d sell the eBook, I was then able to go and write something that would fit those benefits (i.e.: doing this improved the product).

I didn’t know it but in many ways I created the ‘sell sheet’ that Shayne talks about above.

Learn more about how to create a ‘sell sheet’ in this video. It’s a short excerpt of a webinar that Shayne and I ran for ProBlogger.com members last week on the topic of creating and selling eBooks. The full webinar goes into more detail but I thought this little section might help you work out what to put in your sell sheet.

Planning

Once we’ve created our ‘sell sheet’ we lock in a date for launch.

These dates are not just chosen to be when the product is ready – we also take into consideration other factors such as what else that’s happening on the site content wise, what else is happening in the wider business and other seasonal factors. We typcially allow for 4-6 months for creating an eBook and much longer for things like the ProBlogger community.

One of us, depending on the type product we’re developing, will then start to plan out how to create the product.

We don’t over-formalize this process, but rather focus more upon identifying:

• the key stages of product creation
• the resources well need
• the costs we’ll incur

We know that having a plan is important, but also that plans change so we don’t want to be too regimented.

If you’re building your first product, you might not actually know all the different stages. That’s when I’d be going and looking for advice. Find a mentor or mentor group that’s got experiences with these types of products. Pull a favour with someone you know that’s some a similar thing before. Get them to go through all the critical steps and be making lots of notes.

Doing this might create more questions than answers, but a least now you know the questions!

Darren says: Our planning process today is more complex today than when I first started. For example when we create an eBook Jasmin (who manages all the production) will map out key dates and deadlines for all our different processes.

So ahead of time we know when the eBook outline will be completed, when the writing needs to be complete, when the content will be handed over to our designer, when we need to have a title and cover concept finalised, when we need to start creating sales pages, when we need review copies for affiliates, etc.

Having these dates in place even before we start creating the product is really important. We have multiple eBooks at different stages of production at any one time (plus other projects and events on the go) so without timelines like this projects stall.

For my first eBooks, I didn’t have quite so formal a process but I still created a basic timeline and listed out the things I’d need to complete. I also listed the things I’d need to research (eg. shopping carts), the help I’d need to find (a designer) and the skills I’d need to learn that I didn’t yet have (e.g. writing a sales page).

My list was basic and written on a notepad next to my computer. I had to add a lot to it as I went but by at least having something in front of me each day I kept momentum going.

Outlining Your Product

Once you feel comfortable with the plan, it’s time to start outlining your product in more detail.

If it’s an eBook, it will be your table of contents, if it is an e-course outline, the structure and modules, if it’s a community or service, start to map out and wireframe all the different sections and moving parts of the site.

Think of it like drawing up the plans to a house you’re about to build yourself, or hire someone to build it for you.

Now it’s time to build. This is either going to be yourself or you’ll give the green light to someone else.

If it’s yourself, you need to allocate some time. It might be a specific day you allocate, or one hour a morning, or you might be lucky and be able to just bunker down for a few weeks at a time to write.

Figure out an approach that you’re most likely to stick to, and make sure you block out that time in your diary. Once you have done that, it’s up to you to stick to it.

Whilst in creation mode, you should continually check in with your ‘sell sheet’, to make sure you’re still driving towards solving the same problem you set out to, but don’t let it slow your progress. We’ll have time to review later — just keep building and building.

When you get about halfway through the writing or building stages, if you’re anything like me you’ll get a case of the mid-build blues.

You’ll probably start to feel fatigued, disillusioned, distracted, and will wonder if anyone is going to buy what you’re creating.

This is the stage that a lot of great products die – and that’s a real shame.

When you feel those emotions creeping in, I want you to dig deep, find any motivation or inspiration you can, and keep going! Just push to that 60,70, 80% completion mark and you’ll feel closer to the end.

When it’s done you’ll be thankful you did!

From Darren: I won’t lie to you here… some of my least favourite moments in the last 12 years have happened midway through creating products.

The reality is that it is hard work to build something like this, and that to get it done, you need to find a way to focus and be disciplined (something that this blogger with a very short attention span and little will power struggles with).

For me it meant asking those around me to keep me accountable, setting aside time to focus (I’ve been known to lock myself in motel rooms for weekends) and setting myself little rewards for meeting milestones.

The other challenge that I often face mid-product creation is that of fear and doubt. How will people perceive what I’m creating? Will anyone buy it? Is it any good? Am I wasting my time?

I’ve written here about some of how I deal with these fears and doubts.

Lastly, try to keep the WHY of what you’re doing in focus (see yesterday’s post for more on why WHY is so important).

Polish Your Product

Just when you think you are finished… that’s when I can give you the bad news… you’re not!

It’s time to polish.

This is the final 5% that can really make your product stand up.

At this point you need to switch your mind from make mode to review mode, and I’m sure you’ll come up with a few small changes that will make things better.

Involve some of your friends, family or even some of your readers in this review process and you’ll significantly improve your product.

Listen to the feedback you get from and act on what you hear, but be aware that there is a trap.

The key is to remember that you’re ‘polishing’ not ‘perfecting’. There’s no such thing as a perfect product – you need to let that idea go.

There will be always things that you want to change and add to theoretically make things better. It will be never-ending and I can tell you with 100% certainty, you’ll never make a single dollar if you don’t finish your product, so loose ends or not — ALWAYS BE SHIPPING!

Darren says: I think most people fall into one of two categories when they’re at this point.

The first group ‘finish’ creating and never want to look at their product again. The result is they do little reviewing/polishing and ship products that could be better.

The second group spend so much time polishing and perfecting that they either don’t ship anything because the product is never ready or they end up with a product that is over engineered.

Identifying ahead of time which group you’re in and coming up with strategies to combat your weakness is important.

If you’re in the first group (like me) involving others in the review and polish can be helpful. Also blocking out time for this important task is important before you rush off to your next idea.

If you’re in the second group setting a deadline for shipping can be important too. There has to be a point where you stop!

My last advice for this stage is to echo what Shayne says about involving others. If you’ve authored your product yourself you are probably too close to it to be objective and will miss obvious errors and deficiencies – so whether it is by paying others for editing/proof reading or by giving a small group of readers free access in return for feedback – get others’ feedback before you launch your product.

Outsourcing

A special note for those using suppliers to create your product: for a lot of you, the biggest resource you’ll use will be yourself. However, technical services you might create, or online courses and communities, might involve a wider team.

Your choices on who works on your project can have a huge bearing on the end result. Don’t just pick someone at random, or the cheapest resource you can find.

Make sure they understand exactly what you are trying to achieve, make sure they have the skills and experience to deliver what you want, and make sure they have the commitment to see it to the end.

At the end of the day it’s your name attached to the product not theirs, so choosing the right person is so important.

Be Proud

Above all – be proud of what you create.

Even if the product isn’t as commercially successfully as you hoped it to be know that by creating it you’ve achieved something only a small number of people will in their lives.

For that, you get a hat tip from me!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Creating Products Week: How to Create Products for Your Blog

@ProBlogger

Technorati Tags: Blog, Create, creating, Products, Week

Darren says: It’s been a big week here at ProBlogger as we’ve worked through a series of posts exploring the topic of monetizing blogs through creating products.

I hope you’ve found it helpful and feel equipped to create your next product.

Today in a final instalment from Shayne and myself (we do have one more post in the series tomorrow though), we look at what to do when you’ve finished your product and move into launching it.

Without this final piece to the puzzle, we just have a great product – but nobody ever buys it. I hope you find this useful!

At a recent Problogger Event, I presented a session on how to launch product in the style of a ‘countdown’.

As it’s product week, and you’ve already prepared, picked, and constructed your product, it’s time to launch. So, today I’m sharing the countdown with you.

10. Practice Makes Perfect

I always suggest you do a mini-product launch on someone else’s product as an affiliate before you do your own.

Find a good affiliate product and revolve your practice launch around it.

You’ll learn a lot from doing this including:

• what strategies are more effective than others
• how much time you’ll need
• how responsive your audience is

If you want to be a bit strategic, pick the product of someone who’s experienced and successful with their own launches. Reach out to them and let them know what you plan to do and ask if they have any advice – they’re likely to give you some pointers that you can then fold into your own launch.

Darren says: Shayne is spot on with this tip. In 2009 when I launched my first eBooks I had never launched a product of my own before but thankfully I had already done a number of promotions of other people’s products as an affiliate.

For example: on dPS two months before I launched our first Portrait eBook, I did a campaign for another site’s photography eBook. I chose to promote an eBook on a different topic so as not to cannibalise my own sale. I arranged for a discount for my readers with the other site owner, and then ran a simple two week promotion that went like this:

• I emailed my list with details of the discount I’d arranged
• I blogged about the eBook discount (and shared the post on social media)
• I followed up a few days later with a blog post reviewing the eBook and reminding people about the discount (and shared the review on social media)
• 48 hours before the discount ran out I emailed my list again letting them know and also sharing the review I’d written

By doing this launch, I made some money from my affiliate commissions – but the real ‘profit’ in the exercise was that I learned more about how to run a launch for my own products.

I learned what marketing worked and didn’t work with my audience, I learned about writing sales copy, I learned a bit about the price point my readers would buy at, etc.

9. Pick a date

You need to set a date and try your best to stick to it.

Pick a date that works for you, but also your readers (think about things like holidays, seasonal activities and events that might take their attention away from your launch). Also, think about the time of day and choose one where most of your readers will be online (we tend to launch as our audience in the US are getting to work).

If you’re someone who needs some accountability for motivation, let you readers know the date ahead of time. This way if you don’t hit it, you’ll be disappointing them as well as yourself!

8. Lock your product down

When you go into launch mode, you need to shut off product creation mode.

Your product is done and finished and cannot change unless something drastic happens.

You need to stick to this, because if you are continually tempted to go back and change your product, your launch will suffer or worse – not ever happen at all.

It’s time to stop thinking about your product and sell what you have.

7. Know your ‘Angle’

With all my launches I like to pick the ‘angle’ I’ll take in my marketing nice and early.

By ‘angle’, I mean the one key point that I will emphasise in marketing the product throughout every part of the campaign.

Your angle should be a benefit (not a feature), and ideally it will encompass your unique selling point that we identified when you first decided to create this particular product.

Darren says: This is something worth spending some time on.

Every time we launch a product, this is one of the key things that Shayne and I debate and experiment with in the lead up to a launch.

Sometimes the angle comes to us really early and easily, but many times it only finally clicks as we start writing our sales copy – and only then after we’ve written a number of versions of it!

One tip that I’ve found helpful when looking for the angle to take is to think about how you can test it with your readers beforehand.

I’ve been known to ask questions on our Facebook page or Twitter to try to get inside the heads of my readers. I’ve also run polls on the blog at times that test two alternative ideas to see what connects most with readers.

Also sometimes the ‘angle’ comes simply by brainstorming with friends. For example when I launched our Travel Photography Ebook, I emailed a few friends for feedback on the sales copy that I’d written. Jonathan Fields came back with the suggestion that I think about that feeling of regret that people get when they come home from a trip and realise their photos don’t live up to the experience they had.

That idea led to the ‘angle’ I was looking for, and ultimately to the line that I used in every piece of marketing ‘Taking a Trip? You’ve Got One Chance To Get Your Pictures Right…’

Once I had the angle sorted, the rest of the sales copy flowed.  At the time, this eBook became the biggest seller we’d ever had.

6. Make a Plan

I’m not a super-detailed planning guy, I like to go with things as they come more often than not. However, I do make exceptions with new product launches.

Detail down all the things you need to do with your launch.

Your emails, your blog post, any advertising you might activate, guest posts you might do on other people’s blogs, affiliate communications, etc.

A launch that goes to plan is a busy time. A launch that hits it out of the park, or doesn’t go well, can be crazy time.

A plan will give you comfort.

Darren says: For me a ‘plan’ comes in two parts. Firstly there’s all the detailed things that need to be done. These logistical things might include setting up the shopping cart, writing sales copy, emailing affiliates, etc.

The other part of it is thinking about the ‘flow’ or ‘sequence’ of marketing communications you want to do.

Thinking ahead of time about the sequence is worth doing because it means you’ll create a launch that takes your readers on a journey and which creates momentum – rather than just sending out random sales communications.

When you do a launch it can be a real buzz and you can easily get very caught up in the moment and start communicating with your readers A LOT – too much, in fact.

Here’s a launch sequence that I put together for the Travel Photography eBook that I mentioned above:

This was only my fourth eBook, so the launch was quite simple. We’ve now evolved the process quite a lot, but you can see here that ahead of time I’d planned to take my readers on a bit of a journey.

I started off by surveying/polling my readers about their experiences with travel photography (I did this in a poll in a post in which I hinted there was an eBook on the topic to come). This warmed up my readers and also helped me to get inside their heads on the topic (which helped shape the sales copy).

I then featured two guest posts on the blog from the author of the eBook. This again got my readers thinking about the topic and more familiar with the author.

The launch post and sales email (which went up simultaneously) on the blog gave information on the product and mentioned the fast action special (a discount).

Next they got their normal weekly newsletter – which mentioned the eBook gently.

Through all this time there were a number of social media updates (on launch day there were a few but on other days no more than one a day).

Then I ran an interview with the author as a blog post – again to show who he was and show off some of his photography.

Then was another mention in our newsletter (not a hard sales email).

Then we did a blog post and final email telling readers that there was 48 hours left to take advantage of the early bird special.

This was a three-week launch. Readers got two sales emails and blog posts, but a variety of other less sales content as well.

Our launches today typically go for four weeks now, and we generally email 3-4 times in that period – but again we design the sequence to add value to readers and take readers on a bit of a journey.

5. Ready your Army and your Audience

Before you launch, you should start to get both your audience and your network ready.

You’ve hopefully been building them long before the launch to get them ready for what is to follow.

Give then sneak peeks, play some games, get them excited.

The general rule of thumb is give as much information to get them familiar with the product, but not enough as to allow them to make a decision on if they will buy it or not.

4. Make sure it’s Sellable

I encourage you to make sure your ability to both collect money and fulfil the product is rock-solid.

There is nothing more frustrating to me than having a reader who wants to give me money, and due to a technical break down, can’t. Worse still – they have given me their money and I am not living up to my side of the bargain and delivering the product!

So buy your own product: test it on mobile, on different browsers, and using all the payment options you have available. Involve others in this process too as they might find other issues than you.

3. Activate Tracking

Make sure you can track everything that’s happening on your product pages.

Get Ecommerce tracking enabled in Google Analytics, at a bare minimum.

This will feel like work for no reason at the start, but when you launch, and you’re trying to figure out what’s happening you’ll be glad you did.

You also might want to make sure you can quickly run some a/b tests if you need to change things up and that you can update your sales page at a moment notice.

Your launch will unfold in real time and delays will cost $ $ .

2. Put the writing on the Wall

Now it’s time to focus on your sales copy.

You’ve got your angle set above and you now need to start pushing that into copy for your sales page, blog posts, emails, affiliate communication, social messaging and advertising.

This is the one thing I’ll allow you to be a perfectionist with. Make sure you spend a good amount of time writing, editing and proofing everything.

Darren Says: While we don’t have the space in this post to go into depth on writing sales copy, Shayne has written a couple of great posts on the topic that I highly recommend you check out:

• 11 Ways to Convince Readers to Buy Your eBook
• Behind the Scenes: How a ProBlogger Product Sales Page is Made

Also note that Shayne’s Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing has more information on this topic including a number of sales page templates and example sales copy emails.

My last note on sales copy is that you’ll get better at writing it the more you practice. My first attempts at sales pages were pretty simple and not overly successful. As a result I involved others in the process of editing and shaping them – but in time you DO improve and you also begin to see what readers do and don’t respond to.

1. Get a green light from someone else

When I’m launching, I’ll tend to run someone else through what I’m planning to do for my launch. I get them to eyeball the sales page, do a quick test transaction, and collect feedback along they way. When they say “I think you’re good to go”, that’s when I hit the button.

Blastoff!

It’s time to launch and it’s all happening. You make your sales page live, and it’s all real. I tend to do some mild social sharing first (before sending an email or pushing out a blog post), in hopes of getting that first validating sale through, but once I have that, I pull the trigger on everything else.

Expect a whole raft of emotions, expect a sleepless night before, and a late night on the day. But get ready to have some fun, and of course, a whole heap of sales!

T + 1: Going into orbit

You’ve launched and it’s a great feat but it’s only just the beginning.

You should be thinking in terms of a “launch month”, not just launch day, and have a whole raft of activity planned to support your longer launch.

Darren has shared above some behind-the-scenes activity of a Digital Photography School launch that should give you some insight into what we do.

T + 2: Course Correct if need be

When you launch one of three things is going to happen:

1. It’s going to go crazily well, and you’ll be over the moon
2. It’s going to go just as you expected, you stick to the plan, and are happy with the result
3. It’s going to go horribly wrong, and it’s at this point you need to decide if you should give up, or pivot your launch to a new ‘angle’ to help it get some more cut through with your readers

For #3, I’ve been in both situations where we’ve either stopped a launch in the first week because we’ve missed the mark (and it was never going to change), as well as adjusted the messaging and completely kick started the launch again.

I personally hope it’s #1 for everyone, but if you do find yourself in trouble, you need to be prepared to do something about it.

So that’s my countdown to launch, I hope you enjoyed it as well as all my other posts for launch week

Keep on shipping!

Darren says: There’s nothing like launching a product to give you a roller coaster experience of different emotions and diverse set of challenges and experiences.

I try to go into a launch confident but holding loosely to expectations. The reality is that some work well, others exceed your expectations and others flop.

If you go in holding too tightly to your expectations you could be setting yourself up for a fall and then you’re not in a great place to ‘pivot’ as Shayne suggests.

If things don’t look like they’re going to plan I highly recommend giving things at least a few hours (if not 24 hours) to settle (unless you’ve made some huge mistake that you can fix).

I find giving things 24 hours means you can do some analysis of why things might not be working, some testing of the different elements of your sales process (checking if sales pages are loading, shopping carts are working etc) and also hopefully you’ll get some reader feedback too.

If you don’t get feedback – seek it out. Email some readers, get advice from friends or other trusted bloggers.

The other factor to keep in mind is that once you’ve got your product created you’ve created an income stream that hopefully will grow in time over the long tail. While you may not have had a huge rush of sales at launch hopefully you can continue to see sales for many months and years to come!

Lastly – if your product does go well, this is a great time to start thinking about your next steps (and potentially next products).

Pay particular attention to how your readers are reacting to the product. What do they like that you could perhaps build upon for next time? What do they keep asking for or say is missing that you could do as a followup product or add to it to make it better?

Numerous times we’ve seen something in launching one product that triggers an idea for our next one – so don’t get so immersed in your launch that you lose site of the bigger picture!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Creating Products Week: The Launch Countdown

@ProBlogger

Technorati Tags: Countdown, creating, launch, Products, Week

Subscribe to this Podcast in iTunes

In this week’s podcast episode on the Walter and Yaro show (still yet to be named!) we review Walter’s hectic weekend putting in long hours at a startup event. He was part of a team that came third in a competition to create a new product, pitch it and even find customers for it, … Read the rest of this entry »

The post Creating And Pitching A Product At Startup Weekend, Investing In Startups Via Angel List, And How To Gain Exposure For A New Project appeared first on Entrepreneurs-Journey.com.

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

Technorati Tags: Angel, creating, Exposure, Gain, Investing, List, Pitching, Product, Project, Startup, Startups, Weekend

Subscribe to this Podcast in iTunes

In this week’s podcast episode on the Walter and Yaro show (still yet to be named!) we review Walter’s hectic weekend putting in long hours at a startup event. He was part of a team that came third in a competition to create a new product, pitch it and even find customers for it, … Read the rest of this entry »

The post Creating And Pitching A Product At Startup Weekend, Investing In Startups Via Angel List, And How To Gain Exposure For A New Project appeared first on Entrepreneurs-Journey.com.

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

Technorati Tags: Angel, creating, Exposure, Gain, Investing, List, Pitching, Product, Project, Startup, Startups, Weekend

Have you ever experienced the terrible frustration of remembering you’ve had a great idea for a blog post or e-book you’re writing, but not being able to remember exactly what the actual thought or idea was? ‘

Don’t you hate that!

Every blogger knows that ideas are the lifeblood of a successful blog. But ideas rarely come all in one magnificent burst of inspiration.

They’re usually drip fed by your unconscious, one here, one there. And often at the most inopportune times: in the middle of a conversation, riding public transport, walking your dog, and, frequently, when you’re taking a shower.

So if you’re going to trap all those flashes of genius and store them for later use, you need to create a simple idea capture system.

Here are four of the most useful idea capture tools I’ve used, from low-fi pen and paper to cutting edge apps:

3 X 5 inch index cards

Cheap, convenient and effective, the “hipster PDA” is the simplest but possibly the most useful idea capture tool. To make one you just clip a bunch of 3 X 5 inch index cards together with a bulldog clip.

Whenever you have a great idea, jot it down on a card.

Restrict yourself to one idea or topic per card. That way it’s much easier to file your ideas, notes, and to-dos in the right spot when you’re back at your desk.

It’s also a good practice to create multiple hipster PDAs and put them in different places e.g. in your backpack or purse, your jacket pocket, your car, and one on the hall table next to where you leave your keys, so you can pick it up when you leave the house.

This way you’re more likely to always have an index card at hand when inspiration strikes.

Voice recorder

Nowadays almost every mobile phone has a voice recording feature. Which means most of us have an idea capture tool close at hand every waking minute.

The beauty of “talking” your ideas instead of writing them down is you can capture a lot of material very quickly. You can also use a voice recorder in situations where you can’t write e.g. while you’re driving your car or going for a walk. It’s also easy to record a brainstorming session with multiple people – even over the phone.

If you record a lot of ideas (or hate typing!) it may be economical to get your recordings transcribed. This is one of the easiest ways to go from idea to rough draft.

Postie WordPress Plugin

The beauty of the Postie plugin is that it allows you to capture all your ideas in the same place as you’re going to use them: your blog.

Once you set it up, Postie allows you post to your blog via email. Given how easy it is to compose and send email from your mobile devices these days, posting to your blog via email is often easier than logging in your dashboard.

When you use Posite to capture random ideas and links to research material you find on the web, and draft outlines and posts, you build a repository of raw material for your blog. When you next log in to WordPress, you can cut ‘n’ paste your snippets and polish up your rough drafts into finished posts.

Just make sure you set Postie’s “post status” setting to “draft” so you don’t inadvertently publish your brainstorming.

Evernote

Evernote is the Swiss Army Knife of idea capture tools. It allows you to write notes, snap photos or record audio and store it all in one place. You can even forward emails and save PDFs (e-books for example) into Evernote.

Because it’s a cross-platform app, all your notes are synced and accessible across all your touch points: your computer, smart phone, tablet and on the web.

The Web Clipper browser extension allows you to clip snippets of text, images or even whole web pages as you browse the web. These clips are permanent snapshots of the page that preserve navigation, text, images and links. You can then write you own notes right into the clips.

Evernote’s excellent search function means you’re always able to find your notes and ideas when you need them. With its OCR technology you can even search text contained in images.

You can also organise your related notes and clips into notebooks.

The “best” idea capture system

Ultimately the best idea capture system is the one you use.

So don’t get too hung up on finding the “perfect” tool – just start with something simple. Because the most important thing is to always have something handy to record your ideas when they arrive.

If there are any idea capture tools that you’ve found particularly useful, please tell us about them in the comments.

Charles Cuninghame is a freelance content writer and the author of the Website Content Cheat-Sheet. His favourite idea capture tool is the hipster PDA.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

4 Tools for Creating a Bulletproof Idea Capture System

@ProBlogger

Technorati Tags: Bulletproof, Capture, creating, Idea, System, tools

All these “existing realities” and “systems” that are put in place for us to follow are complete BS.

You’ve probably heard me say it over and over again…that YOU can create ANY reality you want. You…yes YOU have the ability and ultimate decision to create any kind of life you want. There is no reason to feel “stuck” or feel like you “can’t” do something because “stuck” and “can’t” should not even be words in your dictionary.

Over the last 33 years of my life…I’ve learned that life is not what we’ve been spoon fed our whole life…

We were all BORN to be LEADERS and break out of the “system”…because we are ALL great beings.

That’s why when we explore new things and try to break “existing realities” we open new paradigms of reality that we never knew existed…so essentially we turn into the “CREATORS” of life ourselves.

What does that have to do with YOU? Why do you even need to know this?

Because – YOU have something so revolutionary inside of you that you need to share with others and the WORLD… and when you conform and follow preset “systems” and “existing realities” developed by others you get comfortable and start following OTHER people’s visions (aka THEIR reality)…and when that happens…you will eventually lose sight of why you are here on this planet in the FIRST place!

It’s happened to me so many times I can’t even count (and still does)…but I learn very valuable lessons every time!

These “systems” created by “existing realities” are nothing but distractions in life that we all have to deal with…and for the most part all of them are just illusions. We live in a world where we think we HAVE to play by the rules…when in fact the thinking should be let me MAKE the rules.

Now I’m not saying go and break laws and fight the system…obviously there are certain things we have to deal with living in a modern society!

The problem is that we rarely “listen” to ourselves and think we “can’t”…because we feel we need to be a part of this “system”…

But YOU have the ability to change what you see everyday…to hear what you want everyday…to be where you want to be…EVERY DAY…

You just have to CREATE it.

So – “If you wish to CHANGE something…you must build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” -Buckminister Fuller

Amish Shah

Technorati Tags: Buckminister, creating, from, Fuller, Lessons, Reality

The inability to create traffic from thin air is a huge stumbling block for serious yet inexperienced entrepreneurs. The common “solution” offered to this is to leverage other people’s traffic through joint ventures – much easier said than done when you’re new and unknown.

Another key complaint is the difficulty in keeping up with all the new “must do” marketing gimmicks that come along month after month. Looking at Internet Marketing from a bird’s-eye perspective, one could easily get the impression that to be successful, it’s mandatory to become an expert at blogging, Twitter, Web 2.0, search engines, and a whole slew of other practices. Honestly, who has the time to become even basically proficient in a dozen different methods, much less develop genuine expertise?

Forget the 101 different marketing processes that you’re being pressured to learn; these are things you can outsource later on. For now, all you need is a small set of tactics that work well. You can build a lucrative venture from only a handful of effective methods, whereas you’ll only run yourself ragged trying to become an ace at everything.

I believe a single, simple solution can be applied effectively to these and other common problem areas. I call this solution Login Frequency Marketing, or LFM.

Create Login Power

It may surprise you to know that a login device is all you need to create extraordinary results. The very simple act of placing something people want in a secure member’s area, hence requiring them to log in and get it, opens the doors to a whole range of powerful, profitable strategies.

Contrary to popular objections, membership sites don’t all have to be based on monthly recurring subscriptions. Nowhere is it written that you must convince people to pay you every month, and that you must come up with new material on a monthly basis to appease your customers. The membership model is the most surefire way to go from struggling and confused to profitable and confident and, I promise, setting up and running your own great member site is nowhere near as difficult, costly, or time consuming as most people think.

For that matter, you don’t even need to sell anything to succeed with a member site that uses LFM. You can give away a free report, free software application, or free e-course and simply require prospects to register a member account and then log in to obtain their gift.

The point that I’m in danger of laboring is that creating and running a membership website need not be a lot of fuss and hassle. Now let’s get to the point: How can an LFM membership strategy level the playing field for a marketer that doesn’t have an established reputation or a ton of cash?

The Traffic Myth
The concept of creating traffic is a myth. You may think of this as merely a semantic distinction but it will open your eyes to the reality of internet activity. The truth of the matter is that to create traffic you would have to contact a person offline and then convince them to power up the PC, connect to the web, and then visit your website. Even direct marketing and telesales operations who aim to accomplish traffic creation in this way won’t usually convince someone to drop everything and go online that instant. In practice, all they can hope to do is plant an idea in someone’s mind so that the next time they log in to check their email, they remember to visit the promoted website.

When marketers say they create traffic, what they really mean is that they direct traffic. At any given moment in time there exists Internet traffic made up of millions of people that are either surfing randomly or online for a specific purpose. Don’t try to do the impossible and manifest visitors from the ether. Tap into existing streams of traffic and divert some of them your way.

Think like a hot dog vendor for a moment. Does a hot dog vendor set up his cart in the middle of nowhere and then send out leaflets hoping to attract visitors? Of course not! He goes where there is ALREADY an abundance of people, establishes a visible position, and starts redirecting traffic. To begin with, people just stop to grab a hot dog before continuing on their journey. Eventually, some of the regular foot traffic in that area will start to go out of their way to buy their lunch.

There’s a very good chance that you’re not in business online to sell hot dogs but the principle is the same. Find places that already enjoy a large volume of regular visitors and convince some of that traffic to make a stop-off at your website.

Joint ventures and cross-promotions are a consistently effective way to accomplish this. People go online to read Marketing Joe’s emails and he recommends they take a trip to your website. Or they go to a download page after making a purchase and see a message by the product creator, recommending your website. How do you convince product and mailing list owners to join you in a joint venture or cross-promotion? This is where LFM starts to open doors.

Your membership site, however simple, gives you legitimate, virtual real-estate to leverage in joint venture and cross-promotion discussions. The very fact that you’ve put in the small amount of work required to set up a membership property tells prospective partners that you’re serious and intelligent. Professional marketers instantly understand the value you can offer with the basic membership process. As new people register for your site, and especially as they log in repeatedly, they can be exposed to promotions and offers at various intervals.

You could approach a marketer in your niche that has a big mailing list and offer to place an advert for their product on your login page. This way all your members are guaranteed at some point to see the promotion; many of them will be exposed to it multiple times. As your membership grows, more and more prospects will have the opportunity to respond to your promo partner’s advert.

As long as your site looks good, your product is of a quality nature, and you conduct yourself in a professional manner, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to get positive responses from many of the potential partners you approach. Marketers like the idea of having their adverts posted in private member areas; there’s just something exclusive about this kind of access to another entrepreneur’s members.

Marketers also appreciate the benefits of receiving ongoing promotion over a long period of time. To increase the number of positive responses you receive to your joint venture invitations, you can over-deliver by offering a PERMANENT advert placement in exchange for just 1-2 email broadcasts. Even if you’re just starting out and only have a small existing membership, you can tempt marketers with the promise of long-term promotion. All they have to do is run a couple of promotional emails for you now and they’ll be assured of being placed in the line of sight of all of your members, maybe for years to come.

Essentially what you’re doing here is offering virtual real estate, much like an agency that sells billboard space along the highway. How many other methods of directing traffic can you think of that allow you to snag attractive, joint venture partners without the need to own a large mailing list or a popular website?

Because your member’s area will likely have a variety of different pages, you can also tailor your proposal to suit your joint venture partners. For instance, you may have an article or lesson in your member’s area that’s related to a potential partner’s main product. If you don’t have such a page, why not create one specifically for the purpose of setting up your cross-promotion? Doing this enables you to make a highly attractive offer. Just about any product owner would love to have their wares promoted alongside a targeted article.

You might sweeten the pot still more by offering to place partner ads on a “thank you” page that your members see after buying something from you. Savvy marketers will be especially interested in this because they know the best place to advertise is in front of pre-qualified buyers. Maybe you’ll go another step and set up some sort of downline builder in your membership site. This will provide multiple levels of prospects and affiliates for a joint venture partner. In exchange for a mailing or two, you could agree to make your associate’s program a permanent part of your downline builder page.

By setting up these ad placements with 3, 5, 10, or more partners you’ll be able to direct a substantial amount of traffic in a very short period of time. By offering some sort of free gift or membership, you’ll convert this traffic into qualified email subscribers, providing long-term profitability for you and giving you increased leverage for brokering future deals. Offering a life-time advert in exchange for a couple of one-time email promotions will help you get your foot in the door in the beginning. Once you’re enjoying a steady stream of traffic and a healthy pool of members you’re in a position to broker better deals that are weighted in your favor.

If you start to run out of real estate with your current membership site, don’t over complicate matter, just build a new one! Use your existing membership to populate the new site and you instantly have a shiny new bargaining chip you can use to launch a new cycle of highly effective promotions.

With proper use of LFM, your traffic problems can be effectively erased. Because there are numerous ways to use your membership program strategically, you can focus on becoming an expert with LFM and not overwhelm yourself trying to keep up with the latest and greatest trends in Internet marketing.

I’ll be revealing some of the more sophisticated applications of LFM in forthcoming articles. I hope you’ll stay tuned because the LFM system is easy to implement and virtually guaranteed to put more money into your bank account.

=====
By Robert Puddy
=====
This article was originally featured in Mike Filsaime’s print newsletter, “MDC Monthly.” You can get a free trial copy shipped to your door by clicking here.

Making Money Online

Technorati Tags: creating, Impossible, Mission, traffic

The inability to create traffic from thin air is a huge stumbling block for serious yet inexperienced entrepreneurs. The common “solution” offered to this is to leverage other people’s traffic through joint ventures – much easier said than done when you’re new and unknown.

Another key complaint is the difficulty in keeping up with all the new “must do” marketing gimmicks that come along month after month. Looking at Internet Marketing from a bird’s-eye perspective, one could easily get the impression that to be successful, it’s mandatory to become an expert at blogging, Twitter, Web 2.0, search engines, and a whole slew of other practices. Honestly, who has the time to become even basically proficient in a dozen different methods, much less develop genuine expertise?

Forget the 101 different marketing processes that you’re being pressured to learn; these are things you can outsource later on. For now, all you need is a small set of tactics that work well. You can build a lucrative venture from only a handful of effective methods, whereas you’ll only run yourself ragged trying to become an ace at everything.

I believe a single, simple solution can be applied effectively to these and other common problem areas. I call this solution Login Frequency Marketing, or LFM.

Create Login Power

It may surprise you to know that a login device is all you need to create extraordinary results. The very simple act of placing something people want in a secure member’s area, hence requiring them to log in and get it, opens the doors to a whole range of powerful, profitable strategies.

Contrary to popular objections, membership sites don’t all have to be based on monthly recurring subscriptions. Nowhere is it written that you must convince people to pay you every month, and that you must come up with new material on a monthly basis to appease your customers. The membership model is the most surefire way to go from struggling and confused to profitable and confident and, I promise, setting up and running your own great member site is nowhere near as difficult, costly, or time consuming as most people think.

For that matter, you don’t even need to sell anything to succeed with a member site that uses LFM. You can give away a free report, free software application, or free e-course and simply require prospects to register a member account and then log in to obtain their gift.

The point that I’m in danger of laboring is that creating and running a membership website need not be a lot of fuss and hassle. Now let’s get to the point: How can an LFM membership strategy level the playing field for a marketer that doesn’t have an established reputation or a ton of cash?

The Traffic Myth
The concept of creating traffic is a myth. You may think of this as merely a semantic distinction but it will open your eyes to the reality of internet activity. The truth of the matter is that to create traffic you would have to contact a person offline and then convince them to power up the PC, connect to the web, and then visit your website. Even direct marketing and telesales operations who aim to accomplish traffic creation in this way won’t usually convince someone to drop everything and go online that instant. In practice, all they can hope to do is plant an idea in someone’s mind so that the next time they log in to check their email, they remember to visit the promoted website.

When marketers say they create traffic, what they really mean is that they direct traffic. At any given moment in time there exists Internet traffic made up of millions of people that are either surfing randomly or online for a specific purpose. Don’t try to do the impossible and manifest visitors from the ether. Tap into existing streams of traffic and divert some of them your way.

Think like a hot dog vendor for a moment. Does a hot dog vendor set up his cart in the middle of nowhere and then send out leaflets hoping to attract visitors? Of course not! He goes where there is ALREADY an abundance of people, establishes a visible position, and starts redirecting traffic. To begin with, people just stop to grab a hot dog before continuing on their journey. Eventually, some of the regular foot traffic in that area will start to go out of their way to buy their lunch.

There’s a very good chance that you’re not in business online to sell hot dogs but the principle is the same. Find places that already enjoy a large volume of regular visitors and convince some of that traffic to make a stop-off at your website.

Joint ventures and cross-promotions are a consistently effective way to accomplish this. People go online to read Marketing Joe’s emails and he recommends they take a trip to your website. Or they go to a download page after making a purchase and see a message by the product creator, recommending your website. How do you convince product and mailing list owners to join you in a joint venture or cross-promotion? This is where LFM starts to open doors.

Your membership site, however simple, gives you legitimate, virtual real-estate to leverage in joint venture and cross-promotion discussions. The very fact that you’ve put in the small amount of work required to set up a membership property tells prospective partners that you’re serious and intelligent. Professional marketers instantly understand the value you can offer with the basic membership process. As new people register for your site, and especially as they log in repeatedly, they can be exposed to promotions and offers at various intervals.

You could approach a marketer in your niche that has a big mailing list and offer to place an advert for their product on your login page. This way all your members are guaranteed at some point to see the promotion; many of them will be exposed to it multiple times. As your membership grows, more and more prospects will have the opportunity to respond to your promo partner’s advert.

As long as your site looks good, your product is of a quality nature, and you conduct yourself in a professional manner, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to get positive responses from many of the potential partners you approach. Marketers like the idea of having their adverts posted in private member areas; there’s just something exclusive about this kind of access to another entrepreneur’s members.

Marketers also appreciate the benefits of receiving ongoing promotion over a long period of time. To increase the number of positive responses you receive to your joint venture invitations, you can over-deliver by offering a PERMANENT advert placement in exchange for just 1-2 email broadcasts. Even if you’re just starting out and only have a small existing membership, you can tempt marketers with the promise of long-term promotion. All they have to do is run a couple of promotional emails for you now and they’ll be assured of being placed in the line of sight of all of your members, maybe for years to come.

Essentially what you’re doing here is offering virtual real estate, much like an agency that sells billboard space along the highway. How many other methods of directing traffic can you think of that allow you to snag attractive, joint venture partners without the need to own a large mailing list or a popular website?

Because your member’s area will likely have a variety of different pages, you can also tailor your proposal to suit your joint venture partners. For instance, you may have an article or lesson in your member’s area that’s related to a potential partner’s main product. If you don’t have such a page, why not create one specifically for the purpose of setting up your cross-promotion? Doing this enables you to make a highly attractive offer. Just about any product owner would love to have their wares promoted alongside a targeted article.

You might sweeten the pot still more by offering to place partner ads on a “thank you” page that your members see after buying something from you. Savvy marketers will be especially interested in this because they know the best place to advertise is in front of pre-qualified buyers. Maybe you’ll go another step and set up some sort of downline builder in your membership site. This will provide multiple levels of prospects and affiliates for a joint venture partner. In exchange for a mailing or two, you could agree to make your associate’s program a permanent part of your downline builder page.

By setting up these ad placements with 3, 5, 10, or more partners you’ll be able to direct a substantial amount of traffic in a very short period of time. By offering some sort of free gift or membership, you’ll convert this traffic into qualified email subscribers, providing long-term profitability for you and giving you increased leverage for brokering future deals. Offering a life-time advert in exchange for a couple of one-time email promotions will help you get your foot in the door in the beginning. Once you’re enjoying a steady stream of traffic and a healthy pool of members you’re in a position to broker better deals that are weighted in your favor.

If you start to run out of real estate with your current membership site, don’t over complicate matter, just build a new one! Use your existing membership to populate the new site and you instantly have a shiny new bargaining chip you can use to launch a new cycle of highly effective promotions.

With proper use of LFM, your traffic problems can be effectively erased. Because there are numerous ways to use your membership program strategically, you can focus on becoming an expert with LFM and not overwhelm yourself trying to keep up with the latest and greatest trends in Internet marketing.

I’ll be revealing some of the more sophisticated applications of LFM in forthcoming articles. I hope you’ll stay tuned because the LFM system is easy to implement and virtually guaranteed to put more money into your bank account.

=====
By Robert Puddy
=====
This article was originally featured in Mike Filsaime’s print newsletter, “MDC Monthly.” You can get a free trial copy shipped to your door by clicking here.

Making Money Online

Technorati Tags: creating, Impossible, Mission, traffic