Adventures of Mark and Dan – Hostels

dan, February 4th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Adventures Dan Mark

Hostels are Ok. I’m getting closer to the point where I’d rather stay in a hotel room, but you miss so much culture when you stay in a hotel.

Let’s take for example the hostel we stayed at in Toronto. This was a house converted into a hostel. Rooms with 6 bunk beds for 12 people to sleep. Stinky for sure – but cheap.

I’ll never forget this one because one of the nights we slept there I made the mistake of not falling asleep first. Some Aussie dude (cause those Aussie dudes are everywhere) was sleeping in the top bunk caddy corner from mine. Well, he fell asleep before me and started snoring. I’m not talking about the kind that you see depicted in “Dennis The Menace” cartoons, I’m talking about the kind of snoring that shakes the trees. I actually had to get down from my bunk, find a shoe, get back up in my bunk and threw the shoe at him to wake him. (Don’t worry I pretended to be sleeping for so long, that I must have fallen asleep).

Then there was the hostel in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I won’t forget this place either. There was no snoring there, but after the lights went out I heard all kinds of things scurrying around me. When we turned on the lights, we found that my bunk and the one above me were infested with thousands of little bugs. Needless to say, I slept on the floor – on my backpack.

But my favorite hostel was in Salzburg, Austria. Unlike the other two it was very clean and there were no snoring problems. Nevertheless, like the other two I got very little sleep. In fact I spent the entire night on a loveseat in the common area. I spent the entire night chatting with a young lady from New Zeland. We talked all night and it felt like we’d been friends forever. She was the first person I fell in love with. Whether it was puppy love or not, I don’t know. I was 21 years old. I just know that I never knew her name, have never seen her since but still smile at the memory.

Hostels are great places to experience life.

Ever stay in a hostel? I’d love to hear your story. Please share it!
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Fill In The Gaps and Achieve Your Own Success this Year!

dan, February 3rd 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Create An Internet Business

So Darren Crawford and I had an idea after seeing at least one person come away from NAMS without even a blog set-up.  We decided we’d start a weekly mastermind group for #NAMS folks.  The idea is simple really.

Once per week, we’ll put on a NAMS only, mastermind phone call. If you’re like me, you’re not ready to hire a VA until you’ve got some level of confidence and knowledge about the tasks. And I recall quite well that 1 year ago getting a blog set-up was a major hurdle. In fact, it wasn’t until NAMS that Cathy the WordPressWizard informed me about the difference between a Wordpress.com account and a Wordpress blog.

So, go to Free Weekly Mastermind.com and get in on the fun. Between the two of us we can get you from A – M, then we’ll make sure to have some guest experts on the calls with us to get us from M – Z.

There are many steps that never get taught at conferences – and for the most part – they shouldn’t be. So if you’ve never heard of nameservers, cron jobs, embed code, article automation, the 10×10x4 traffic strategy, TubeMogul, Onlywire, or the PrettyLinks Plugin – there’s a good chance this Mastermind call is for you.

If you know all that stuff, then join us so you can stretch our learning and we can try to stretch yours.

Sign up for the Free Weekly Mastermind.com Today!

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Lessons From the Niche Affiliate Marketing System (#NAMS)

dan, January 30th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized

Ever get in way over your head? Did you come out unscathed? That’s what a lot of people at the Niche Affiliate Marketing System are feeling this weekend.

Hold that thought. . .

Saturday morning Mark Hendricks spoke to the group as a whole. What was probably a bit strange to the attendees is he didn’t talk about internet marketing, he spoke about life. But it slowly became clear that a career in internet marketing is about the juggling of time, family, use of money, use of time and tasks. Without looking at all these things as a whole, how you create a lifestyle that includes a healthy balance of life – not just work.

Mark Hendricks at Niche Affiliate Marketing Sy...

Image by rogercarr via Flickr

One of the illustrations Mark used was the working of a maze. To get your crayon from the Start to the Finish, isn’t if faster if you start from the finish and work backwards? The point he makes is – doesn’t it make sense to create a goal and work backward from the goal to now see how to accomplish it?

For instance if you want to make $48,000/year, don’t you first need to be able to make 4,000 in a month? Doesn’t it make sense then to figure out how to make $1,000/week? And then doesn’t it make sense that you’d have to learn how to make $150/day? (Yes, I know that’s not perfect math, Bob The Teacher) :)

When you work backwards and try to figure out how to make $150/day – you’ll know you’re beginning to achieve your goal.

Back to feeling overwhelmed. . .

So what I know,  as a 3 time NAMS attendee, that the “newbies” might be feeling overwhelmed right now, but once they establish their overall goals – all the tools they learned here will be right in their lap. And they’ll know exactly how to use them.

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NAMS is finally upon us!

dan, January 28th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in internet marketing

Ever been to an internet marketing conference? Let me guess. . . Session 1. . . chat in the hall with someone you sat near. . . Session 2. . . rinse, repeat.

Most of them are like that. You go in knowing that the speaker’s have a goal in mind. Sure, they’re going to provide you some information that will be useful – but ultimately they’re going to be selling themselves or their product.

Now imagine this. . . you sign up for an internet marketing conference. . . but before you go you meet 90% of the people in an active forum, exchange ideas and even set up dinners to talk about subjects like copywriting and joint ventures.

Imagine creating mastermind groups and find business partners before you even get there. That’s what NAMS has turned into. The Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop, put on by David Perdew has become an incubator for success.

So can you still expect the instructors to spend their time selling? You can expect it – but most of the time you have to ask them if they have a product based on the lesson. This is a group centered on educating its peers. This is a group of friends – hell bent on being just that.

And in this crazy world – what better way to spend a weekend than with friends!

Interested in when the next NAMS event will take place? Try Clicking this!

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The Tools You Need To Create An Affiliate Site

dan, January 18th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Create An Internet Business

Well I’ve worked on turning one of my websites into an affiliate site this week, and let me tell you there is definitely a learning curve.

In fact, as of this moment, the site isn’t even live yet. First I had to identify some software that would handle the tracking of affiliate sales. In the end, I asked some folks I knew and got pointed in the right direction.

Then I decided to create a new sales page, but I couldn’t finish that until I’d completed setting up and installing the affiliate software. Why is that you ask? Well, the sales page has a “buy now” type button on it. When you click it, you’re supposed to go to an order page – well the order page is part of the software so I had to configure that to get the url for the order page.

Then, the order page requires integration with PayPal (or Clickbank). However, I couldn’t set-up PayPal until I’d completed the Thank You Page because PayPal wants to know where to send people back to once they’ve completed the order.

Back to the software. . . Then I noticed that I also hadn’t set-up the autresponder system, which is the tool that automatically sends out confirmation e-mails and future follow-up e-mails. That meant that I needed to go to my autoresponder to get the code and add it to the software.

Once I got all of that configured correctly, I still needed to upload the product and then use my cpanel to password protect the folder that houses the product. That certainly won’t stop the “product theft”, but it will slow some of it down.

I’m pretty sure that when I have all that done this week, it will work beautifully. I can’t say that I recommend the affiliate tracking software yet, but it does come highly recommended. All the other tools here I use quite often and enjoy.

So in somewhat chronological order, here’s the tools you need to create an affiliate site:

1. First of all you need a domain name. I’ve used GoDaddy to buy my domain names, but I host them elsewhere.

2. I’ve used Hostgator to host my sites. I like the cpanel and the price is right.

3. Then you’re going to need the affiliate tracking software. I’m using Delavo, but haven’t used it long enough to give you an opinion.

4. After that it would be helpful to have an autoresponder set up. That way you can send confirmation e-mails, follow-up e-mails, product updates, etc. I use AWeber but envision I’ll change to ByPassPublisher sometime later this year.

Image representing AWeber Communications as de...

Image via CrunchBase

5. To get paid, I use PayPal, but I think you’d be better off if you could take credit cards on your site with a merchant number. Unfortunately, no matter how you slice it – you’re going to be giving a piece of the pie away.

6. To load up the software and sales page to your site, I recommend downloading filezilla. It’s a free tool that will help you in everyway. If you’re building a Wordpress site, however, you won’t need filezilla. Either use Fantastico in your cpanel, or this free WordPress Installer.

7. The only other tools you may need would be an html editor (like NVU which is free) and perhaps a .pdf creator like Adobe.

Once you have those things in place – you’re ready to go!

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The NAMS 3 Action Guide is Ready

dan, January 5th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in internet marketing

I’ve finally finished the NAMS 3 Action Guide.  Writing from the perspective of someone who’s been to the first 2 NAMS events, I thought I’d give you some perspective on how to make the best of the event.

Please let me know what you think, and if you went to the first two NAMS events – what did I leave out?

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What to Name Your Facebook Group or Fan Page

dan, January 5th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in The Buying Process, internet marketing

The name you pick for your Facebook group or Fan Page is critical to its success. If subscribing to groups and becoming fans of pages were a private thing, and no one knew that you did so – titles would probably not be as important. But on Facebook – becoming a fan or joining a group is a way to communicate to others what you like – and who you are.

Look at the Facebook Group called “I Went to Bellevue East High School” – there’s no real content value there. In fact all the posts are “Hey, I went there too and I went to X elementary school”. But,  what if that was the Facebook Group name of the school you went to? Would you click on it?

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

Compare that to a Facebook Group named “My Favorite Place to Take Kids on Vacation Is. . .”. This is one of the most content rich, user generated Facebook Pages. There’s no spam, and users give great tips on places to take their kids on vacation. Awesome resource.

But if you think about the Buying Process, as we’ve talked so many times about, people don’t necessarily come to Facebook for content. You’re at Facebook to connect, write on people’s walls and show people pictures and tidbits about you. Having the title “My Favorite Place To Take Kids on Vacation Is. . .” on your Facebook wall doesn’t say anything about you. Maybe it tells people you have kids, but it doesn’t tell people what your favorite place is. The only reason you’d join that group is if you were actually looking for that kind of information.

Let’s look at the numbers. The Facebook group with the title that speaks volumes about who you are by showing people where you came from drew 486 people in a matter of three weeks. The heavily promoted Kids on Vacation site garnered 200 people in 9 months.

Aside from choosing a shocking title like “I Will Quit Facebook If They Start Charging Us”, choose a title that speaks volumes about the person who joins it.

Think about this. . . People talk about going to Legoland on the Taking Kids on Vacation group. It’s a great place to learn about it, but the Legoland California fan page has 2,016 people and the Legoland Billund site has over 5,900.

Would you rather tell your Facebook friends “I have kids” or “I’ve been to Legoland California and it rocks”? Tell me which group you’d join.

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The Buying Process – Writing Ads for your Audience

dan, December 21st 2009 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in The Buying Process, internet marketing

So, I’ve written quite a bit about the buying process lately. I think that’s mainly because marketers don’t always understand. For instance if you’re an affiliate marketer and you write an ad that says:

    Nikon 30D Camera
    Lowest Price on the Nikon 30D
    No registration required

Now, suppose you write that ad because you’ve become an affiliate of a camera website and the Nikon is a popular camera. Does it make any sense to send that person to a landing page with a title like:

    Nikon 30D vs the new Canon SLR

NO! It doesn’t. Do you know why? It doesn’t make sense because the person who clicks on your ad (based on what you wrote) is beyond comparing features in their buying process. They want to be taken to the page that shows the price and the “BUY NOW” button. Anything less than that and you’re wasting your money on ads.

And speaking of how you write your ads, make sure you spend some time testing what’s written. A poorly written ad won’t get you anywhere (well, maybe you’ll get a spot in this blog) :)

Here’s an example of a poorly written (from a non-native English speaker, most likely), and highly humorous ad – just for fun. I got it in my spam e-mail folder today:

Christmas, Happy!
Hey, what are you doing lately? I’d like to present to you a very good company that I knew.
Its home page company: www.Ele-sky.com
If you have any needs, please contact the company Email.
They can offer all kinds of electronic products that you need, such as motorcycles, laptops, mobile phones, digial cameras, , x box, ps3, GPS, MP3 / 4, etc. Please take time to look at that there must be something you’d like to purchase.
Hope you have a good state of mind in buying your company!
Regards

Please check out these posts on the Buying Process as well:

enjoy!

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Your Web Page and The Buying Process

dan, December 8th 2009 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in The Buying Process, internet marketing

This is the third time I’ve written about The Buying Process in the last few months.  This morning I met with some folks who hadn’t really spent a lot of time thinking about the buying process of their consumer. So after talking about it a bit, I wanted to add a little bit more.

Please check out these two posts on the Buying Process as well:

Your First Time Web Visitors First Glance

From a “buying process” perspective, what process must someone go through internally to sign up and become a member?

Here’s my thoughts on that:

  • They must find the site
  • They must find it interesting enough to read something or browse and not press the back button
  • What they’re reading or browsing must be interesting enough to signal their brain that this is a good site
  • After they’ve decided it is a good site, they must also have the feeling that this site will be good for them tomorrow or next year
  • (We need them to take an action at this point). They must be able to see how to bookmark the site, send a link to a friend, sign up for the newsletter, or join.
    the human brain
    Image by missjdub via Flickr
  • (Ultimately, we MUST be able to contact them somehow. There is no option here. We must be able to entice them back to the site.) To fork over their e-mail for example, they must be a reason to do so (newsletter, gift or free report), they need to see NO SPAM language and be absolutely clear of what they’re getting.
  • Then when they get the “confirm you want this newsletter” e-mail, they must still be confident and happy that they signed up.

So when you look at your website landing pages (where visitors first come in contact with you), I wonder do they know they are the target market? Do they know they are welcome and part of the group? Do they know that your site isn’t directed at someone else? Do they know that this site pertains to them? Do they know this is a place they can feel comfortable and read – not a place to have their guard up and be ready to be “sold” at any minute? Can they smile and feel like they’re home? Do they know we welcome them and they can come back?

After that long diatribe (and if you agree with the above), what do we need to do to satisfy those steps in the buying process? Look at the website Pre-boomermusings. It’s a relatively new site, but the front page respects the buying process.

It says “for people born between 1936 and 1945”. That’s very clear. He could have said “A blog for us pre-boomers”, but chose to help the user understand they’re included. The photo of Don reinforces who it is for. The word “boomer” in there reinforces who it is for. There being no ads helps make you comfortable and not put up your “hide the wallet” guard.

Can you tell that a person born in 1938 might be interested right away? It’s no “mecca of web design”, but it does have a clear message.

Does your site?

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Making Videos: A Fun Way to Drive Traffic

dan, December 7th 2009 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Create An Internet Business, Memories, Raising Kids
stockings-christmas-video

Click Pic To Watch Our Video!

So my kids and I made a video at Animoto.com this weekend.  When I told them about a contest I’d gotten via e-mail, they got excited to do it. So we took some photos, made a few videos with the Flip Video Camera and that’s about all the knowledge we really needed.

There are several video services, like Animoto.com, that take photos and video you upload and turn them into a pretty cool video.

In the case of our holiday video, Animoto.com did all the video editing, added the music soundtrack and created the transitions between segments. Very easy.

What’s even easier is services like that (including the software on the Flip camera), will then upload the video directly to YouTube for you.  You can now be taking simple video, shooting a few pictures and in the matter of minutes you can have a cool video with links to your site on YouTube helping to draw traffic.

Why would you walk around without a camera for that matter? You can always be teaching, advising or just goofing off showing your personality. Either way videos build trust and a relationship with your contacts.

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