-CHAPTER
4-
TRAFFIC GENERATION ON THE INTERNET:
(WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T WORK)
If you've absorbed
nothing else thus far I sincerely hope that you have absorbed just ONE
overriding concept that we've tried to get across to you...
"Traffic is KING!"
If you can master the secrets of traffic generation you can sell
anything to anybody, anytime, anywhere, and you can make a DARN good
living!
So
the basic idea of the
C.H.I.P. is simple:
Involve yourself with advertising and promotional concepts that
will accomplish TWO things:
(1) produce traffic for YOU, and that
(2)
you can in turn sell to
OTHERS who need traffic. (And on the Internet, who DOESN'T need
traffic!?)
In
other words, “Don’t dig for gold - Sell the shovels!”
In this chapter we will be looking at the
basic types of traffic generation on the Internet.
While we are analyzing them, think about the idea of so-called FREE
advertising versus PAID advertising, and consider this
statement…
"If
FREE advertising actually worked,
why would PAID advertising even
exist?"
Think about it!
THE SEARCH ENGINES:
Of all the items of misinformation, DIS-information,
exaggeration, and out-and-out lies propagated about the Internet that
irritate me, the usefulness of search engines as an advertising
medium would be pretty doggone close to the top!
A very simple definition of what a search engine is,
would be to say that it is the Internet’s version of a telephone
yellow-page directory. Looking for something on the Net but don’t
know where to find it? – just go to one of the search engines, type
in the appropriate word or phrase (in theory, similar to paging
through the phone book), hit "enter," and voila! You are
given a list (a very, very LONG list!) of websites that are
(supposedly!) relevant to your needs.
Now the perceived wisdom is that search engines
offer us Internet marketers an unlimited amount of FREE traffic. The
hype tells us that "all" we have to do is achieve a high
placing on a number of the important search engines and we’ll never
have to worry about paying for advertising again.
Bunk!
First of all, let’s follow through with the
analogy we made of a search engine being the Internet equivalent of
the yellow pages. Picture this, if you will. How would you like to
move to a new city and find out that in THIS town (we’ll call it
"Cyber-town") there is not just ONE phone directory, but a
DOZEN different phone directories!? Also, to your surprise
and dismay, you find that each directory chooses to list their results
in completely different ways. Not only that, but when you refer back
to the SAME directory a few days later, you find that everything is
listed in a completely different order!
If phone directories worked in such a hit-and-miss
fashion, how effective do YOU think they would be for companies to
advertise in? Nevertheless, that is pretty much the state of affairs
of search engines on the Net today - and it's getting worse.
Now it’s not really the fault of the search engine
folks. As Internet marketers, we are attempting to use the search
engines for something they were never intended for – to advertise
our product, service, or business opportunity. Search engines were
designed as RESEARCH tools, NOT as ADVERTISING tools. To do
research - to "find stuff" - they function rather well. But
as a means of advertising they are lunacy at it’s best!
First of all, contrary to popular belief, the search
engines are NOT a complete catalog of ALL the websites on the
Internet. Far from it!
All search engines combined index only about 42% of
all the pages on the Net – less than HALF! Currently, the most
popular search engine is Google, which indexes approximately nine BILLION web pages. Now that seems like a lot - but only until
you realize that there are over THIRTY billion web pages on the Internet!
In other words, the largest and most popular search engine on the
Net indexes less than a THIRD of all web sites! But even if
the search engines DID manage to catalog every single website there
is, not only would it not help, it would be much worse, because.....
...THE MORE WEBSITES ON THE INTERENT,
THE LESS EFFECTIVE SEARCH ENGINES BECOME AS A SOURCE OF
ADVERTISING.
Here’s why…
The average SE shows a listing for just ten to
twenty websites
on the first page of it’s results when you do a search. Now the
typical search engine user may have the patience to go through those
first twenty or so listings, and then continue to the second page of the
results. A VERY patient person may actually go to the third page of
results. But it’s well known that IF YOUR WEBSITE ISN’T LISTED IN
THE TOP 30 OR 40 RESULTS IT MAY AS WELL NOT EVEN EXIST!
When was the last time YOU did a search and went to
listing number 6,842!?
You see, the very success of the Internet, the fact
that every DAY a hundred thousand more websites go up, is disastrous
to us as Internet marketers – at least as far as "search engine
marketing" is concerned
Let’s use a real
"off-the-wall" example...
Let’s say that you had put up your
website that day long ago, when there were only 29 other websites in
your particular category. What would your chances have been of being
in the top 30 results? 100%, right?
Now let’s say some time goes by and there are now
90 websites in your category. All things being equal, what are your
chances NOW of being in the top 30? Just one in three, or 33%. I’m
sure I don’t have to tell you, though, that today, in virtually any
category of search you can think of, there are going to be more than
90 results. (And that is putting it MILDLY!)
For example, I just did a search under the category
of "business opportunities." I was given 33,600,000 pages
of results. At 10 listings per page, that’s over 300 million listings for business opportunities! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR
CHANCES ARE OF BEING IN THE TOP 30!? And remember, if you’re not
in the top 30, those other 33,599,970 pages might just as well not
exist!
Now I know what you’re going to say. And, yes,
there are various techniques and some very excellent software
that you can use to increase the likelihood of being at the top of the
list. This process is called "S.E.O" or Search
Engine Optimization. I’ve used a few SEO
programs and some work quite well.
How do they work? Well, to decide which sites are listed,
the SE’s use what are called "algorithms."
Algorithms are simply programs with a set of rules that tell the
search engine how "relevant" your site is to a particular
search, and therefore how high it should be placed in a search.
To use a VERY simple example, let’s say your site
is titled, "Nutritional Supplements." Algorithms are what
prevent YOUR site from showing up when someone does a search for, say,
"maps of South America." But algorithms are much, MUCH more
complex than that. Let’s say someone actually DOES do a search for
"nutritional supplements." (I did, by the way, and
came up with "only" 1,300,000 pages of results.) Algorithms
"spider" through your site, gathering crucial bits of
information. They analyze several different factors and come up with
an overall "relevancy score." The higher your
"score," the higher your site would be placed on the list of
results when someone does a search on a particular topic.
But here’s the problem: EVERYBODY has access to
these same tools to improve the standing of THEIR websites. Not only
that, but the SE’s CHANGE their rules - their algorithms - on a
regular basis, and no two search engines use the SAME algorithms. For
example, one of the algorithms SE’s use is "keyword
density." This means how many times certain keywords appear in
your website. Today, one particular SE may feel that your site is most
relevant if the phrase "nutritional supplement" appears as
6% of the total number of words on your site. Any LESS and your site
isn’t relevant enough – any MORE and you are attempting to
"spam" the search engine. Next Thursday, though, the
technician in charge may decide that they want to change that to 7%.
What happens? Your website may go UP or DOWN in the listings, or even
be dropped entirely. The SE’s are constantly changing and modifying
their algorithms.
And keyword density is just ONE of several factors
that are used to determine the order of results. Attempting to
maintain a high position in the SE’s can easily become a full-time
job. In fact there ARE individuals and companies who do NOTHING but
get paid to maintain their client’s position in the search
engines. These folks are specialists in the field of S.E.O.
("Search Engine Optimization").
A friend of mine recently developed a new website
for a niche product. He is currently paying an SEO specialist $700
a MONTH to optimize his site, and he is tickled to death to pay
that fee. Why is he so happy? Because he received quotes
from other SEO specialists for as much as fifteen THOUSAND dollars
a month! In addition, my friend's SEO guy warned him not to
expect major results for ten to twelve months!
Do you honestly think you can beat these
professionals – full-time professionals who get paid to do NOTHING
else but "play with the search engines?"
And even if you could – would it really matter?
Yet another "big lie" propagated by the Internet community
is the importance of search engines to Internet marketing. While it
may be true that they account for over 80% of OVERALL website
views...
...the search engines account for LESS THAN 7%
of all the traffic to E-COMMERCE sites, OUR kind of sites!
From the perspective of Internet marketing, search
engines are next to useless in generating substantial traffic. And
it’s getting worse every day! Each day more and more websites go up,
but the number of pages in a search, the number of listings, that a
person is willing to take the time to look at quite obviously remains
constant – the top three pages, or approximately the first 30 to 60 listings.
In other words, the more successful the Internet
becomes – the more websites that go up – the LESS valuable search
engines become as traffic generators!
Now understand, I‘m not giving a blanket
condemnation of search engines and their use in Internet marketing. IF
you happen to have a very unique product, IF you are one of
only a few persons selling it, and IF people already know about
it – why, then, search engines CAN be of value to you. For example,
if you are selling "widgets" you have a better chance at the
SE’s generating some traffic for you than if you are selling
"hats."
(Interestingly enough, just for the heck of it, I
did a search for "widgets" - whatever THOSE are! - and
I still came back with over 3,000,000 listings! But that's still better than the search I did
for "hats," which yielded 83 MILLION listings. My
advice - don't try to sell hats on the Internet.)
And…if you are involved in an affiliate or
reseller program, you might as well forget the search engines!
First of all, if there are, say, 20,000 people
involved in a particular affiliate program, that means that 20,000
people have the EXACT SAME WEBSITE, since affiliate programs generally
give you a "mirrored website" when you join. Now even if the
main website happened to meet the search engines’ criteria for
relevancy, do you think any of the SE’s want 20,000 of the exact
same page cluttering up their search results for a given topic!?
Hardly! That defeats the whole purpose of search engines, and pretty
soon people would no longer use that particular search engine. So
search engine algorithms are programmed to look just at the
"root" URL, the main portion of the domain name. You’ve
noticed, surely, that aside from your member ID or member code, YOUR
affiliate URL is identical to everyone ELSE’S in any particular
affiliate program. Incidentally, does your particular URL for any
affiliate programs you are involved in contain a question mark? This
is called the "question mark delimiter," or "query
string." It is how many of the affiliate programs identify their
numerous affiliates. The algorithms of most
of the major search engines simply discard any URL’s which contain a
question mark!
Is there a solution? Can search engines be used in
any way as a practical means of generating substantial traffic to your
website – WITHOUT having to take on search engine positioning as a
full-time job?
Yes, indeed! The solution is the
"pay-per-click" concept.
A few years ago a relatively minor search engine by
the name of "Overture" (formerly GoTo.com) decided to
try a unique, new method of listing placement. What they decided to do
was to base the ranking of your website on how much you PAID for any
particular search term.
As an example, let’s assume once again that your
website is all about Nutritional Supplements, and you wanted to rank
high in the listings when someone used Overture to search for sites
about "nutritional supplements." Well, Overture made it
E-A-S-Y! If you wanted that coveted "page 1, number 1"
position, all you had to do was PAY for it - out-bid everybody else
for that particular search term. If the present page 1 #1 ranking was
held by a website that was paying, say 4 cents per click, you could
capture that #1 spot simply by bidding 5 cents per click. Overture
then simply deducted 5 cents from your account each time someone
clicked on your link. And there was no limit to the number of search
terms you could bid on! You could put in a bid for
"nutrition," "supplements," "health
supplements," "vitamins," "minerals," and so
on…the list of bid terms is limited only by your imagination.
It’s GUARANTEED traffic to your website that
you pay for ONLY if you actually get visitors!
Has Overture been successful? You betcha! SO
successful, in fact, that in 2006 they were purchased by giant Yahoo!
and are now called "Yahoo! Search Marketing."
Overture's "per-click-cost," which started out at just one
cent per click, is currently at TEN cents per click.
Now, when Overture first started using this system,
they were very much ballyhooed by the "the net should be free for
everybody" – "the net should be a level playing
field" crowd. Even from the first, however, after months of
playing the search engine game myself, I felt that the Overture system
was the only LOGICAL way for search engines to work. Sure enough,
today there are over THREE HUNDRED other search engines,
attempting to capitalize on the Overture "pay-per-click"
concept. In fact, as of this writing, most other major SE’s (i.e.
Google, etc.) offer some form of "pay for placement"
type of listing procedure. A good example would be Google's
"AdWords" program.
This brings us back to our statement at the
beginning of this chapter where we stated, "If FREE
advertising worked, then why would PAID advertising even exist?"
The search engines are a prime example of this. There are those
Internet "gurus" that would have you believe that
"all" you have to do is to get your website ranked high in
the search engines and you'll get all the free traffic you will ever
need. As we've shown, the only real way to get a high ranking is
to either pay a Search Engine Optimization expert
to continually monitor your site, OR to use Pay-Per-Click
search engines for an automatically high ranking. Either method
could cost you hundreds, and even thousands of dollars a month.
So much for "free" traffic from search
engines!
But even if ALL of the search
engines adopted a "pay-per-click" system, search
engines STILL account for LESS THAN 7% of all the traffic to E-COMMERCE
sites, OUR kind of sites!
Plain and simple - most folks use search engines for
research and comparison purposes - NOT for purchase
purposes. At best, folks may visit several websites in a
certain category to gather information and educate themselves to make
a purchase later on.
Think about this...
Let's say that people actually DID use search
engines to make purchases. Let's also say that, through some
miracle, you are able to achieve (and maintain) a "first
page" listing in all of the major search engines for your
product. Do you realize that this means that your site is now on
a page WITH YOUR TOP TEN OR TWENTY COMPETITORS!!! Not
very effective at all, is it!? In fact, this concept is so
important I'm going to repeat it...
"Even if you did achieve a page one listing
in all of the search engines, your website would be on a page with
your top ten or twenty competitors!"
Think about it.
If you're in the insurance business, would it be
good strategy to invite ten or twenty agents from your top competitors
to join you when you sit down with John And Mary to discuss their
insurance needs? See the point?
Could this be why "dirt world" companies
do not rely exclusively on advertising in the phone book yellow pages?
The bottom line is this: The type of
advertising that has always worked most effectively is - in both the
OFFline and ONline worlds - advertising that is presented
DIRECTLY
TO a group of targeted prospects.
Advertising like...
EZINE ADVERTISING:
An "e-zine" is an "Electronic
magaZINE,"
the Internet’s version of the good old-fashioned magazine. Ads
in targeted ezines are probably the most effective form of Internet
advertising...
...however it is also the
most expensive.
A well written ad in a good ezine will generate
clicks to your website at the rate of between $2.00 and $10.00 per
click. However, other advertising techniques which we outline below
will generate traffic to your website at the rate of less than a penny
per click! Now that’s a big difference, isn’t it? So why would
anyone want to do ezine advertising?
Well, GOOD ezines with valuable, readable content
are avidly read by their subscriber base; thus, your ad has a better
chance of being seen. You will find that out of every 100 people that
view your site from ezine ads, approximately 30 will purchase your
product. On the other hand, for every 100 people that view your
website using other, lower-cost techniques, THREE will purchase your product.
So it boils down to a trade-off, doesn’t it? Ezine
advertising generates a higher close rate than other forms of Internet
advertising, but it’s much more expensive. Other forms of
Internet advertising are considerably cheaper, but generate a lower
close rate.
Which should YOU use? Our recommendation is that
you BEGIN with the other forms of advertising which we will be
outlining below. Once you have built up that side of your
advertising and are looking for ADDITIONAL advertising resources, THEN
you should get involved with ezine advertising. It’s relatively
expensive, but WELL worth it!
Now, there are a few pointers that you should be
aware of when you start doing ezine advertising.
There are THREE basic types of ezine ads. In order
of increasing cost, they are:
- classified ads,
- "top" ads, and
- "solo" ads.
1. Classified ads are just that. They
appear several at a time in a particular ezine, are generally
limited to just 4 to 6 lines, and of course, they are the least
expensive. And generally a waste of your time and money.
2. Top ads are pretty much the same
as classified ads, in that they are limited to 4 to 6 lines. The big
difference is that they appear at the very TOP of the ezine, so
it’s the first thing people see when they start reading the ezine.
Thus there is a much greater chance of your ad being seen, especially
if it appears in a well-read ezine. Top ads are more expensive
than the run-of-the-mill classified ads, but they pull better.
3. Solo ads are called
"solo" because they don’t even appear in the ezine!
Huh!? Then how do they work!? Well, the ezine publisher has, of
course, his proprietary database of his subscribers. When you
purchase a "solo ad" the publisher does not put your ad
into the actual contents of the ezine when he mails it out, but
rather SENDS YOUR AD SEPARATELY in a completely separate
mailing! YOURS is the ONLY ad - in fact it is the ONLY thing - that
appears in that mailing. Not only that, but the subject line in the
recipient’s email browser is not something like, "Here is
your newest issue of Internet Marketing Ezine." The subject
line is YOUR headline for YOUR program! In addition, you are not
limited to just 4 to 6 lines of ad copy; a solo ad generally allows
you up to FIFTY or SIXTY lines of text! I think you can see just WHY
solo ads are so effective.
Our experience has shown that, quite frankly, it’s
not worth the time to bother with either classified or top ads. Solo
ads are the only way to go. Once again, though, a solo ad in a
good, well-read ezine can cost hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of
dollars - FOR A ONE-TIME RUN!
Obviously, although ezine advertising IS extremely
effective, it is not for the beginning marketer or for someone who
doesn't have "deep pockets" to start with.
SAFE-LISTS:
"Safelists" (sometimes referred to as
"opt-in" lists) are the Internet’s oldest form of mass
communication and mass promotion.
If you’ll recall from our brief history of the
Internet, the very FIRST such program was a list for science fiction
lovers. Obviously, then, a safelist is simply a list of people with
common interests who sort of band together to exchange ideas back and
forth over the Internet via email. In other words, they
"opt-in" to send and receive email from other members.
Most safelists today allow you to join as a free
member or a paid member. As a free member you have the right to
have your sales message sent to the other list members once or twice a
week. As a paid member you may usually send your sales
message once each day. Most safelists also have an
affiliate program whereby you can earn commissions for referring other
members to the safelist.
The owners of the safelists take great precautions
in maintaining "clean" member lists – they HAVE to, after
all, because they are SELLING the rights to these lists.
So... safelist advertising IS a very effective form
of promotion. There are thousands of them on the Internet and,
because of their effectiveness, more are springing up all the time.
There are, however, two drawbacks to safelists...
The first drawback is that the typical safelist does
not grow in membership very rapidly. So, even though as a paid
member you are usually permitted to send out your ad to the rest of
the membership on a daily basis, you will usually find that the
effectiveness of your ads decrease rather rapidly. Why?
Clearly it's because, for the most part, the SAME people are receiving
your ad day after day.
Is there a solution?
Yes there is, and it's a simple one. You
simply join a LOT of safelists. Thus, even if the typical
safelist only adds a small handful of NEW members each day, if you are
a member of ENOUGH safelists, then a whole lot of NEW prospects will
see your ad each day. It is not uncommon for the typical
Internet marketer to belong to, literally, HUNDREDS of safelists.
But this leads us to the SECOND drawback.....
When you submit your ad to the membership of a
safelist, the procedure usually is to go to the website of that
particular safelist, enter your ad, and click a "submit"
button to send it out to the membership. (In other words,
safelists use what we refer to as a "web-based" emailing
system.) No big deal, right?
Since it takes a matter of just a few minutes to go through this
submission procedure, it IS no big deal - IF YOU ONLY BELONG TO
ONE SAFELIST!
But if you belong to several safelists, you could
spend HOURS a day going to each of these individual websites. I
know of some marketers who used to spend as much as five hours each day - JUST
on safelist promotion!
How can this problem be overcome? There
are actually two solutions that should be used together...
1) The "Shotgun" Approach.
The vast majority of safelists consist of just a few hundred members, so
their membership (and new prospects for you!) increases very
slowly. To decrease the time necessary to post to multiple lists, safelist
submitters have become very popular. Rather than going through
the enormous tedium of joining hundreds of safelists, and then each day
having to post your ad to hundreds of safelists, you simply join just one
"master" safelist (think this master safelist as your "shotgun") This
master safelist is the safelist submitter, from which you can
join as many as two THOUSAND safelists with one click of a button!
Likewise, you can then post an ad to those same safelists with just
one click of a button.
2) The "Scalpel" Approach.
In addition to the myriad of smaller safelists, there are a handful of
what could be called "monster" safelists. These are
safelists that each consist of 20,000 or more individual members and
generally have a very loyal subscriber base. Because they have
such a nice, big subscriber database, the owners of the
"monster" safelists do not allow their safelists to be
entered into safelist submitters. Because of their
comparatively huge size, advertising results can be extremely good using
these "big boys."
FFA AND CLASSIFIED AD SITES:
We’ve all seen ‘em. Those ads that say...
"Put
YOUR ad on umpteen gazillion websites – for FREE!"
The websites these ads generally refer to are the FFA sites and the
classified ad sites...
...and the free submission programs that enable
you to do this are totally worthless.
First of all, though, for those of you new folks,
let’s define a few terms so we don't lose anybody here....
"F.F.A."
stands for "Free
For All."
An FFA site is simply a website where you can go to "post a
link." The link is a one-line "headline," which is a
hot link to the website you are promoting. In other words you are
"posting" a small, one-line ad that is a link to your MAIN
ad – your website. A typical FFA website
will display several hundred of these one-line headlines in list format.
Since it is free for everyone ("free for
all") to
post their ad headline on these sites, they came to be called Free
For All, or simply FFA sites. (Note: For all intents and purposes,
"classified ad sites" and "FFA sites" operate in
pretty much the same manner. Thus for the balance of our discussion we
will use the term FFA for both types of sites.)
What is the benefit, though, for someone to go
through all the trouble of setting up such a site for YOU and
thousands of others, to place THEIR ads on for free?
Simple. When you post an ad on an FFA site, you
agree to receive a "confirmation email." In theory,
this confirmation email is a courtesy gesture that is sent to you, via
email, confirming the fact that you have placed your ad on the site.
However, in practice, IN ADDITION to confirming your post, that
email also contains a brief sales message for the product or program
that the OWNER of the FFA site is trying to sell to you.
So everybody's happy! YOU get to expose your ad on
the FFA site for what YOU are selling, and in exchange for maintaining
the site, the OWNER of the FFA site gets to send you HIS sales message
to you in the confirmation email. Now, in the "dim mists of
antiquity" (seven years ago, Internet time), people actually went
to these sites to check out the latest programs, products, services,
and business opportunities.
But things evolve FAST on the Internet! Two things
happened almost simultaneously to utterly destroy the value of FFA
sites - at least as a DIRECT form of advertising.
First of all, the owners of these FFA’s soon saw
the value of their sites, and got a brilliant idea: "Why
not CHARGE A FEE for an IDENTICAL ("mirrored") FFA site to
other individuals. Then they, TOO, can accept listings on their
individual sites, and have autoresponders send out THEIR sales
messages to the ad poster."
Thus were born the FFA networks.
Collections of hundreds, and in some cases THOUSANDS of identical FFA
sites, each owned (or "hosted") by different individuals,
but all managed by one main company.
Now about this same time, another group of
entrepreneurs saw THEIR opportunity.
The popularity of FFA’s increased exponentially,
as did the NUMBER of FFA pages, as more and more people liked
the idea of exposing their program via a FREE ad on an FFA site. This
second group of entrepreneurs began designing programs and software
that would post a person’s ad to thousands (and soon HUNDREDS of
thousands) of FFA sites simultaneously – without the person ever
having to actually go to the site to personally post the ad! What a
BOON to online marketers!
At least for a while…
There are only a limited number of postings that can
fit onto any one FFA site, right? So the FFA page owners soon
instituted an automatic "roll-off" feature into all the FFA
networks. What this meant was that, as newer postings were placed on
an FFA site, older postings "rolled off" the bottom. That
did not present a problem, though (at first). Postings still stayed on
any one particular FFA site for several days, before they were
replaced by other, newer ads. And that was all that was needed to
expose your ad to the general public.
But as the popularity of both the FFA sites and
automatic posting software increased geometrically, the ads
"rolled off" the pages faster and faster. In addition, with
the advent of the posting software, it was no longer necessary for
people to actually GO to the FFA site to post an ad. They could
post ad after ad and never even SEE the site they were posting to!
Recently we did an actual real life experiment. We
posted an ad on several FFA networks, and what we found was this:
BEFORE IT "ROLLS OFF" THE PAGE TO BE REPLACED BY NEWER
POSTINGS, AN AD IS VISIBLE ON AN FFA SITE FOR AN AVERAGE OF JUST…28
MINUTES!!! That’s not much of a "window of
opportunity" for someone to see your ad, is it?
But it doesn’t really matter HOW long your ad
is visible on an FFA site, anyway. Why? Because, as we stated above,
HUMAN BEINGS NO
LONGER GO TO THE FFA SITES!!! Only the posting robots go to the FFA
sites to post hundreds of thousands of ads every day.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the
value of posting ads to FFA or classified ad sites is now
virtually non-existent! And yet countless budding netpreneurs spend
countless hours using submission software to post their ads to SITES
THAT A HUMAN BEING WILL NEVER SEE!!!
So just what is the value of FFA sites? Why
are we even talking about 'em? Well, pay attention, because.....
...USED
INTELLIGENTLY, FFA SITES WILL BE ONE OF YOUR MAJOR TRAFFIC
GENERATING TOOLS!
"Whoa, whoa, whoa,
Stan!" you’re
saying. "You
just said that posting ads to FFA sites was a waste of time! How can
you now say that these sites are going to be one of our major
traffic generating tools!? Aren’t you talking out of both sides of
your mouth!?"
Did I say anything about POSTING your
ad to FFA sites?
What I’M talking about is HOSTING
your own FFA site. In other words: "HOST, don’t
POST!" It all has to do with a well-established marketing
principal called "reverse marketing."
Remember those confirmation emails I was talking
about earlier? Well, think of the beauty of it! As an owner (host) of
your OWN FFA site, countless people will be using the automatic
submission software to post ads to your site. And every time someone
posts an ad, they agree to receive YOUR confirmation email (which ALSO
contains your advertisement!).
Now let's discuss just why these folks who post
ads to the FFA networks are such good prospects. It's
very, VERY important that you understand this...
Reason # 1: They are FRESH leads!
Each day's list of leads from
an FFA network contains email addresses of folks who have posted
their ad to the network the day before. Thus, your
leads are, at most, just 24 hours old. It's a little difficult
to get leads fresher than that!
Reason # 2: They are RECEPTIVE leads!
At first you may be saying to yourself, "Well,
geez, Stan, these are folks who posted an ad trying to sell ME
something! So how can they be good prospects for what I'M
trying to sell!?"
Well, ask yourself this: "Just WHY do
people post to FFA sites?"
You may think the answer is obvious - that they
post to FFA sites because they want to sell you something.
That's the INDIRECT answer, however. The DIRECT answer
is that they post to FFA sites because they want to make money.
But statistics tell us that less than 1% of Internet marketers are
actually making a profit at what they are doing. That means
that 99% of 'em are IN THE MARKET FOR A BETTER OFFER - YOUR
OFFER!
Reason # 3: They are ACTIVE leads!
Who would you rather have for a prospect?
Someone who doesn't know a thing about Internet marketing, or
someone who has at least a little experience on the Internet?
The very fact that folks have posted an ad to an
FFA network means they have a little experience in the online
world. They don't have to be "spoon-fed" or led by
the hand - THEY ARE ALREADY ACTIVELY PROMOTING A PROGRAM,
PRODUCT, OR SERVICE. And statistics tell us that the average
Internet marketer is involved with not just one, but as many as SIX
programs at any one time. So they are far more amenable to
listening to your offer if it sounds good to them.
On the other hand, trying to sell people who don't
know a thing about Internet marketing is like trying to sell ski
equipment to people who have never seen snow!
Reason #4: They are LOW-COST leads!
The typical monthly fee to host your own FFA site
is approximately $20.00, and the network will deliver to you around
200 leads per day. 200 leads per day comes to 6,000 leads in
an average month.
But let's play "devil's advocate" here
and say that some of these leads are duplicates - folks who have
posted their ad on several consecutive days. Let's also say
that some of the leads you get have (for one reason or another) bad
email addresses. Let's "go crazy" now and even go so
far as to say that two thirds of your monthly leads fall into the
"undeliverable" category.
That STILL means that you are getting 2,000 good,
responsive leads per month... for a cost of just $20.00.
That's a mere penny per lead! Nowhere else on the Internet
can you get leads that cost-effectively!
Now, then, all FFA Networks have three very basic things
in common:
1. All FFA Networks, for a small monthly fee
(anywhere from $10.00 to $30.00 a month),
set you up with a "mirrored" website of your own that
other people can post their ads to.
2. All FFA Networks give you access to the
email addresses of the people who post their ad on your FFA
page. These are your prospects to whom you can now send
YOUR sales message.
3. All FFA Networks pay you a recurring
monthly commission for referring other members to the network.
And just how do you get your sales message out to these
prospects? Currently, FFA networks make use of three types of
systems to get your sales message out to your prospects. These
emailing systems are...
- Type # 1: "PC-based" emailing
systems
- Type # 2: "web-based"
emailing systems, and
- Type # 3: "S.A.F.E."
systems
A "PC-based" emailing system
uses a software program (called a Group Mailer) that you purchase and
then download to YOUR personal computer. Each morning you will receive
from the Home Office of a particular FFA network a list of email
addresses of all the people who posted an ad to that FFA network the
previous day. You will receive this list in your email box. You
then copy and paste that list into your Group Mailer program,
add your sales message, and send it out over YOUR "PC" -
your personal computer. Since you send out these
sales messages using your PC, this type of emailing system is called
"PC-based." The biggest benefit of a PC-based emailing
system is that YOU are in 100% control! Do you want to delay
sending out your sales message for two days? No problem - just
save each day's list of leads for two days before sending 'em out.
Want to delay your mailings by FIVE days or EIGHT days? Again,
no problem - you are in complete control! Plus - and this is a
BIG plus - since you are doing the mailing yourself you absolutely,
POSITIVELY know that it is actually being sent out.
The "web-based" emailing system
resides, not on YOUR computer, but on the computer of the FFA network
itself. All you do is go to the website of that particular FFA network
each day, type in your ad, hit send, and your message is emailed to
your day’s list of prospects FOR you. A web-based emailing
system is much faster and easier to use than a PC-based emailing
system. Also, your sales message is sent out using the FFA
network's mail servers - NOT your ISP's mail servers. A minor drawback
of web-based emailing systems, however, is that they lack some of the
personal control afforded by PC-based emailing systems - you never
even SEE the email addresses of your prospects and often you are
limited to a delay of just one day.
Now, just what is the "S.A.F.E."
system?
"S.A.F.E."
stands for "Set
And Forget
Emailing."
A SAFE system is actually a web-based emailing system... and THEN
some! It completely automates your emailing chores! Here's how
it works: You go to the website of that particular FFA network,
enter your ad, CHOOSE YOUR DELAY (generally, anywhere from one to ten days!), and click "setup." Now the SAFE system
will AUTOMATICALLY send out your sales message to your prospects based
on the time delay you chose. In other words you need never go
back to the site for anything other than to change your sales message
or your delay! You could go on vacation for a month, and your
ads would still be going out each day to your prospects.
Set-And-Forget-Emailing!
(Note: Most FFA networks give you a choice
of which system you wish to use, and you can change your choice at any
time.)
Which of the three systems is best?
For a number of rather technical reasons, PC-Based
systems generally give the best results and the highest number of
clicks. There are considerable drawbacks to PC-based systems,
however. First of all, they are obviously much more time
consuming to use than web-based or S.A.F.E. systems. Secondly, a
relatively higher degree of computer expertise and marketing
experience is necessary to make effective use of PC-based
systems. Thirdly, you must be at your computer each day to send
out your mailings - if you're not there, prospects do not receive your
sales message. Finally, and most importantly, since all mailings
are going out using your computer and through your
ISP, you run a significant risk of spam complaints. The bottom
line? PC-based systems are NOT for beginners or even the
moderately experienced!
Web-based systems "take you off the
hook," as far as spam complaints. All mailings are sent
out, NOT using your computer or your ISP,
but rather the resources of the FFA network that you happen to be
using. Web-based systems are also very easy to understand and
operate - even for beginners. The one minor drawback is that,
like PC-based systems, you must be at your computer each day to send
out your mailings - if you're not there, prospects do not receive your
sales message.
S.A.F.E. systems, quite literally, are complete
set 'em and forget 'em marketing systems. Once they're set up
you don't have to mess with 'em until you wish to change the message
that is being sent out to your prospects.
(It is important to point out that the Big Dogs'
C.H.I.P. concept makes use ONLY of programs that use
Set-And-Forget-Emailing systems. Think of it! MULTIPLE
lead generation programs that you simply
"set-and-forget." Autopilot marketing at it's best!)
So.....to sum up the magic of FFA networks:
- You initially join an FFA Network to obtain
leads to advertise your program, product, or service.
- These leads are among the freshest and most
cost-effective available on the Internet.
- By referring other marketers to the FFA Network you earn a
commission that quickly offsets YOUR monthly Network fee.
At this point your advertising is now FREE.
- Even BETTER! As you refer more and more
marketers, and as THEY refer marketers, over a period of time your
commissions continue to add up to a VERY substantial, RESIDUAL
income of their own!
- Eventually you can earn a full-time living
showing people how to advertise effectively. In other
words, you are "selling the shovels and not digging for
gold!"
VERY sweet concept, isn't it!?!
SUMMARY
For all intents and purposes, the concept of "free’
advertising that actually works is a thing of the past on the
Internet. The ever-increasing popularity of the Net saw to that.
It’s almost like the Frankenstein monster that eventually killed
it’s own creator. Remember what we said at the beginning of this
chapter:
"If FREE advertising worked,
why would PAID advertising even exist!?"
So just what is the solution?
The solution is
C.H.I.P.
The Coordinated
High
Income
Portfolio
And Chapter 5 is where we get to the "good
stuff!"…..
BACK
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FORWARD
- TO CHAPTER 5
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