Do You Have Engagement From Scratch?

Engagement From Scratch!, that’s the name of the book put together by Danny Iny of FirepoleMarketing.  I mentioned it very briefly in a previous post and said I’d give away a free copy chosen from one of my commenters. I’ll get to the winner in a minute, but first I want to encourage you to read this book.

Engagement From Scratch! is a book on important lessons learned about building audience in an online world. It’s not just Danny talking, its insightful and smart contributions from a lot of marketers. I love the tagline for the book:

“How super-community builders create a loyal audience and how you can do the same!”

Some of these wonderful pearls of wisdom come from Guy Kawasaki, Ana Hoffman, Brian Clark, Corbett Barr, Danny Brown, Derek Halpern, and Kristi Hines. I think there are 30 contributors all together.

There were many times that while reading the book I stopped dead and thought, “Brilliant. Not only do I love that, I can DO that.”

Danny Iny did a great  job with this book. Thank you Danny!

And now for the winner… Debi J!
Debi, please email me your physical address so I can pop it in the mail to you. Thanks!

•  If you’ve read this book or have questions, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
• Contests are fun. If you want to join my current affiliate contest you can sign up here and I’ll send you the contest details.

4th Week of Internet Marketing Productiveness

Today starts the 4th week of being extra productive with my internet marketing, which all came about when Susanne Myers and I decided to challenge each other and ourselves to get lots done before NAMS7 in Atlanta. I have a question for Susanne at the bottom of this post.

Last week was definitely a challenge because of personal things – like over a half day at the hospital for my son’s exploratory procedure, plus other appointments through the week and my daughter coming home from college early Friday. But here’s how it went down:

1. Finish up the chapter I’m doing for Connie Ragen Green’s next Kindle book – Done. Whew!

2. Market my new product – Partly done, but not as much as I planned.

3. Work out details on a project with Sheila Atwood – Done up to the point where we are.

I also had a To Do list of little tasks and business housekeeping that I whizzed through.

So this is our last full week and I’m starting it off by going skiing after this post. New snow, sunny, I make my own hours… I can’t resist. After all, that’s why I work for myself online; so I can go skiing when I want. I’ll be putting in some more “work” hours later on today.

This week:

1. Continue to market my new product. The part I didn’t get done last week is to contact some targeted marketers outside my affiliate program and ask them to promote. I don’t randomly pick people who have big lists, I look at what the marketer specializes in, what their followers expect to learn from them and if my product could help. For example, if their thing is paid solo ads or PPC, then my Easy Article Starters are probably not what they’re looking for.

2. Write 2 guest posts.

3. Do 2 written interviews.

4. Work with my coaching clients.

5. Finalize the project with Sheila Atwood so it’s ready to go, although I won’t launch it until after NAMS. I do need to outsource a portion of this project this week but I’ve got a well-qualified writer on-board now.

6. Blog hop, tweet and FB comment.

You can see a lot of my tasks are marketing, but I’m also working on something new. I think it’s a good mix. It will really be a challenge to see how much I get done this week between skiing, a doctor appointment, and my son getting his wisdom teeth out on Friday!

~~~

Susanne had a question for me on her blog:

“I love your Article Starter Packs. How did you come up with the idea for those?” 

I like this question, Susanne!

It was actually a 2 part thinking process – questions about 2 problems I was asking myself – and the answer actually solves both problems.

I was thinking of the problems people have with PLR – they don’t want to bother rewriting it, or don’t know how, yet they want to have original articles they can submit to article directories or post on their blog that are unique. I’m not a big fan of article spinners, so I was trying to come up with something else that would help them easily write original articles.

The other thing I was pondering was the question I often got from new PLR writers who subscribe to my Professional PLR Providers newsletter, “What should I write PLR about?”  So I was wondering how I could give them a head-start on their PLR writing so they could get their new store shelves stocked and they could then work on marketing their businesses.

So what if I “start” articles for people? Come up with the ideas for the articles, get them started, suggest where they could go next with them? Would that help both parties?

I wrote an Easy Article Starter, sent it to Alan Petersen for feedback, and was on my merry way. It’s always a good idea to bounce things off a trusted friend who understands your online business and brand. Now I’ve taken it a step further by asking myself how to do these so they help affiliate marketers.

How can you serve your readers? What do you know, what comes easy for you but not everyone, that you can create a product around?

~~~

Now I have a question for Susanne since she’s got me thinking about product creation:

“How did you come up with the idea for your Daily Affiliate Tasks membership?”

Please pop over to Susanne’s blog to see how she did with getting stuff done. Will she make it to her goal of 50 blog posts? Will she answer my latest question?

• Then leave a comment below on what you hope to accomplish this week!

photo credit: m.gifford

 

 

Easy Article Starters for Affiliate Marketers – It Just Got Easier

Have you ever had a good idea for a product and never did anything about it?

Yep, me too.

Have you ever took a good idea and when you started creating a product, found it wasn’t such a good idea after all?

Raising my hand here.

Have you ever had a good idea for a product, created it, put it in the marketplace and people loved it?

Yes.   And these home runs are what keep me in internet marketing.

One well-received product is Easy Article Starters.  It came about when I looked at problems many, many people were having with content…

“What do I blog about?”
“How do I write about it differently than everyone else?”
“I have writer’s block!”
“I need more content for my blog, article marketing, emails, ecourses, etc.”

and Easy Article Starters were born. People snatched them up and said very nice things about them. They were able to write faster, create original articles or posts, and come up with additional ideas for articles. One guy said he took an idea from one Starter and wrote an ebook!

So I wrote more Starters in different niches, not just internet marketing. So far there’s IM, Self-Improvement, Weight loss and Fitness, Family and Home, and Dogs. I’m working on more niches right now.

I love it when I can help people!

 

But I was thinking how I could improve upon the idea, and what else people were struggling with in regards to content, and I came up with Easy Article Starters for Affiliate Marketers and did a Mega pack.

These are so you can use them to promote affiliate products (although you don’t have to). The Mega pack contains 10 affiliate product promotion ideas and 5 Easy Article Starters for each topic. They’re not hard-sell, in your face, promo starters. But you can easily slip your affiliate links into all of them.

The Mega pack topics are:

• hosting (promote your favorite)
• domain names/registration (promote your favorite)
• autoresponder (promote your favorite)
• Earn 1K A Day (membership site)
• Nicheology (membership site)
• Amazon
• Easy Video Player
• Thesis WP Theme
• Keyword Scout (need to be a member of WSOPro to promote)
• Contest Burner (WP plugin)

So that’s 50 Article Starters you can use!

And here’s a sample one in case you’re confused:

As you can see, it’s not a whole finished piece. That’s what makes them great – you end up with a unique blog post, or whatever, all your own. Content is your real estate! You can use it strategically, repurpose and reuse it, and it will take you many places!

So that’s the path of this product so far. If it interests you, you can grab it from the discount page above or better yet, buy from one of my affiliates. Hopefully they’ll be visiting the comment section of this post and you can find them there.

• I’d like to hear what you would do if you could quickly and easily produce lots of content for your affiliate campaigns! Would you create an ecourse? Article marketing? A free report with affiliate links in it?

Week 3 of Internet Marketing Uber Production

Today marks the start of week 3 of this challenge Susanne Myers and I have going where we’re trying to see how much we can get done before the NAMS conference in Atlanta. While I’ve been getting a lot done and I’m quite happy with that, I’m sure getting tired. I think Susanne feels the same way. But it’s worth it in the long run!

Last week was all about product creation and launching a product. This week will be about marketing the product. I’ve learned that while I’d love to just spend my time creating, it’s all for naught if the finished product isn’t promoted extensively. If you’ve ever put your creation in the marketplace, you know what I mean.

I‘ve got some personal things that will be taking up about 1/3 of my week, but I’m going to work hard when I can.

So here’s this week’s agenda:

1. Finish up the chapter I’m doing for Connie Ragen Green’s next Kindle book.

2. Market my product. The best bang for the buck, by far, is to have my wonderful affiliates spread the word. So I’m going to have an affiliate contest! I’ll be working like a mad woman today creating material they can use and letting them know all the details. I LOVE doing affiliate contests because I get to see new marketers earn their first-ever commissions and I also get to watch how the super affiliates do it with style and craftsmanship. Everything in-between is wonderful too. If you’d like to join my affiliate program, you can sign up and I’ll be mailing out the details for the contest soon. This should be fun!

I will also be contacting marketers who might be interested in joining in because the fit is good, i.e. they have readers or a customer base that could benefit from the product.

3. Finish up the details for something the amazing Sheila Atwood is working on for me. When you’re weak in an area, you should surround yourself with people who are strong in that area! So that’s what I’m doing.

Now I’m going to hop over to Susanne’s blog and see what she has planned for the week. Join me?

For that matter, will you join us in this week’s production challenge? Comment below if you’re not afraid to be held publicly accountable!

 

 

Internet Marketing Deadines – End of Week 2

Well I was just over to Susanne Myers‘s blog and I can see she’s kicking me to the curb in this Getting Things Done challenge. I actually got everything done on my plate, but I think that means I didn’t set hard enough goals. Honestly though, I was trying a few new processes so I wasn’t sure how they’d go or how long they would take.

1. Finish up mega Easy Article Starters pack – check

2. Do up a sales page for the above, plus start a new optin list for the backend offer – check

3. Write the first month content for the backend 6 month offer – check

4. Do the sales page for that – check

5. Get the second backend offer set up – check

6. Load the products in DLGuard, create payment buttons, do thank you pages, etc. for the sales funnel – check

7. Work with my coaching clients – check

8. Get the outline for Connie Ragen Green‘s book chapter done and write a portion of it – half way done with the chapter

9. Get next guest post up – check

10. Email my list – check 

Launching a new product can be so time-consuming. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big or small launch, it’s exciting and frustrating and takes all your time. I’ll tell you about it on Tuesday.

~~~~

Susanne asked me a question on her blog and I’ll answer it now.

“We both love NAMS and keep coming back. What’s the biggest benefit you get from attending and what keeps you coming back?”

For me, I have two answers and I’m not sure that one takes top spot over the other. I love NAMS because I learn things I don’t know from people who do know. The teachers are people who have walked the walk, and that matters to me. Even though I’ve been around internet marketing for over 4 years, I like to keep on learning from the best – Terry Dean, Paul Evans, Lynn Terry, Connie Green, Nicole Dean, etc.

The other reason I go to NAMS is to meet people face-to-face that I’ve only had an online friendship or acquaintance with, or barely know by name. This is huge! It’s a chance to share ideas, brainstorm over dinner, talk about common interests, and maybe have some JV opportunities present themselves. When you get to know other online marketers in person, you don’t feel lonely even if you work at home by yourself all day.

Some people go to conferences just to build JV relationships and they skip the classes because they’re pitch-fests or don’t contain valuable information. I find that not to be the case at NAMS. You don’t see people hanging out in the halls during sessions, you see the rooms crammed full of people listening, asking questions, and taking notes.

Thanks for the question, Susanne, and that reminds me of a question I’ve been wanting to ask you about NAMS.

One day I’d like to speak at a conference like NAMS. How do I go about being considered? What steps do I need to take to get noticed by the conference presenters?

I’ll wrap it up now.

• How did y’all do this past week?
  
• Did you try anything you’ve never done before? How did it go?
  

photo credit: leonshishman

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