A lot of people wonder why I do this. There are really three big reasons…

First, I care about whether you succeed or not. Internet marketing really isn’t rocket science…once you know what you’re doing. Before you "get it", though, it helps a ton to have somebody actually answer real questions that real people ask along the way.

Second, even after you’re an "expert", it’s great to get new ideas from other people. You never know when an answer to a question will press just right button in your brain…and boost your profits.

Third, I get literally thousands of emails every week, and it’s impossible to answer them all. So I set up this system to help me manage email better, while still giving you the information you need.

So read on, and I hope you enjoy the learning.

If you’ve been around Internet marketing for any period of time, you’ve probably heard of joint ventures, or JVs. These are partnerships where all parties (usually two, but it can be more) profit from the deal.

But if you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably also heard that JVs are difficult to get, especially if you’re brand new. I get questions about JVs all the time. This email answers some of the most common ones.

1) I’ve sent out probably 50 JV proposal emails in the past three months, and haven’t gotten ONE response. How can I get somebody to say yes? (asked by Clinton Beehler)

ANSWER: Excellent question, and it’s probably the most common one I get on this topic.

Fortunately, the answer is pretty easy, although it takes a little work to do what I’m going to tell you to do.

I get several hundred JV proposal emails every single week. Imagine getting over 1,000 proposal emails a month. What would you do with email 1,001? Yep, you’d probably ignore it. I just don’t have the time to read them all, much less respond.

So if you want to get your JV proposal read, regardless of who you’re proposing to, you need to do three things:

* Make your email subject grab their attention. A generic “JV Proposal” subject line probably won’t get read. But a subject like “PERSONAL: May I promote [his product]?” might. No guarantees, but remember, your subject has to compel somebody to open your email or the rest of your email doesn’t matter.

* Lead with what you bring to the table. If your entire email is about how your partner should promote your product to make you money, that’s no good. Instead, emphasize how HE can make more money along with you, so it’s a win-win deal. That’s a better pitch.

* Make the strongest case by dropping names of well known people you’ve worked with before, or people you already have on board for the JV already. If any of those people have given you testimonials about how good it was to work with you, it’s definitely smart to include those in your proposal.

* Be creative. Overwhelm him with profit opportunity, and really go out of your way to make it painless for your prospect to say yes. For example, if you’ll write all the sales copy and the email templates for the promotion, and all he has to do it load stuff up to his server or autoresponder account, that removes most of the work for him.

Even if you follow those guidelines, you still won’t get a yes every time, but you’ll put the odds in your favor. That’s the best you can do, and it might just pay off big.

How can I get a JV with a big name guru that will get me four- and five-figure paydays I’ve heard about? (asked by Roxie Barletta)

ANSWER: This might literally be the $64,000 question.

People want JVs with the big names because that usually means more profits. But remember what I told you in my answer to the previous question…I get several hundred proposals a WEEK. That reduces your odds.

There are really three main ways to get a JV going with a big name.

First, you can start by promoting their products and making them money. This proves you actually bring some profit potential to the table.

You don’t have to win their affiliate contest, or make them millions. But saying you’ve already made them some money helps your case.

Second, get an introduction. You can’t force this, so all you can do is increase your exposure to the big names and try to develop relationships that might grow into JVs.

That might mean hanging out in marketing forums and commenting on their posts. It might mean going to live events and introducing yourself. It might mean offering to help them by doing some free work on a product or launch.

Anything that will help you get to know people is something worth considering. Out of that could come partnerships with those people, or perhaps with people they know…and that might include a big name.

Third, you can shoot for a level below the big names. This might sound strange, but sometimes it’s best NOT to target the big names. Instead, target the up and coming marketers.

When you see a name you don’t recognize in the second or third spot in somebody’s affiliate contest, that might be a good person to try.

For example, I did a couple JVs with Mike Filsaime before he was a big name. Several of them made solid profits for both of us, but that’s nothing compared to what our partnerships bring in now.

By targeting somebody who wasn’t a big name yet, I grew a relationship with somebody who’s now a big name. And he can say the same about me.

ANSWER: I get this question a lot, and it’s a real challenge for people relatively new to online marketing. Fortunately, you CAN get JV partners even if you don’t have a list.

Having a list is great, but it’s only one of the things you can offer a partner. When you don’t have a list, or if your list is really small, that’s where creativity can make a big difference.

For example, let’s say you don’t have a list, but you want to do a JV with a particular person you’ve read posts from in a marketing forum. Ask yourself what you can offer this person that will make the partnership pretty much equal.

He might have a list, so he might be the one promoting a product to people, but can you contribute in some other way? Probably so. Here are some possibilities:

* If you can write sales copy, you could write some to promote your joint product. That might save a ton of money for both of you.

* If you can create websites, you could do the technical grunt work of getting everything set up so he doesn’t have to worry about it. That’s great if the person you’re partnering with is already very busy.

* If you’re good at creating products, you can take more of the creative load and let the other person concentrate on other things.

You get the point.

Being able to promote a product to your own list is a nice contribution to a JV, but it’s not the only thing that can help a partner. Anything you can contribute that can save time, save money or bring in more profit is usually very attractive to potential partners.

And when you propose your JV with these creative things in there, that has the extra benefit of setting your proposal apart from the others your partner might get.

4) Do JVs work outside the Internet Marketing niche? (asked by Lorrie Lipton)

ANSWER: This is an easy one…YES! In fact, JVs are more common outside of IM than inside. That’s where they started, actually.

Think about when you go to McDonald’s and order a Happy Meal. The toy that comes inside the box is usually from Disney, or Pixar or some other company. That’s a JV.

So if you’re in a niche other than IM, don’t think JVs are off-limits for you.

What makes a JV one of those monsters that
generates huge profits? (asked by Lakisha Facey)

ANSWER: I think people focus too much on the profits sometimes, when JV relationships are more important in the long run, but profits do count. And the most profitable JVs have some things in common.

First, they promote a great product. For example, Steven Clayton & Tim Godfrey released Commission Blueprint earlier this year. It was a fantastic product, and our JV did very well. A great product makes everything easier.

Second, the most successful JVs leverage at least one very responsive list. There’s no way around that. You can make good money without a big list involved, but you have to have some buyers, and that means at least one responsive list.

When I promoted Commission Blueprint, I knew it was a perfect fit for my list, so I was confident that they would respond. That made Steve and Tim more willing to work with me to create a killer bonus for my readers, and it paid off well for both of us.

Third, they’re professional. The websites work, the products are laser targeted at good markets, the graphics for everything look nice, and the promotion efforts hang together well.

If you want a super successful JV, you need to make sure it has a solid foundation of all of those things. If they’re not in place, your chances of success go down.

There are other factors that might make a difference, but those are the biggest three.

Remember, JVs are about profit AND relationships. Not every JV will be a profit gusher, but that’s usually less important in the long run than developing relationships that grow into larger profit engines in the future.

———-

All right, that wraps it up for this time.

If you like getting answers to questions like this, ask your own question! You can submit your question by filling out the simple form at:

http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/questions/

Every couple weeks or so, I’ll go through the questions and pick out 5-6 to answer in an email to people on my lists.

Your questions are what will make this email helpful, so please keep them coming. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question, but if the same question gets asked several times, I’ll try to answer that one. So don’t think, "Somebody’s probably asked that already." Maybe so, but it’s worth asking anyway.

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

P.S. If you know any Internet marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/internet-marketing-qa-issue-7

A lot of people wonder why I do this. There are really three big reasons…

First, I care about whether you succeed or not. Internet marketing really isn’t rocket science…once you know what you’re doing. Before you “get it”, though, it helps a ton to have somebody actually answer real questions that real people ask along the way.

Second, even after you’re an “expert”, it’s great to get new ideas from other people. You never know when an answer to a question will press just right button in your brain…and boost your profits.

Third, I get literally thousands of emails every week, and it’s impossible to answer them all. So I set up this system to help me manage email better, while still giving you the information you need.

So read on, and I hope you enjoy the learning.

You probably already know how popular affiliate marketing is. I’m an affiliate marketer myself, and I can confirm that it’s a great way to make money online. But I get lots of emails from people who are confused about some aspect of affiliate marketing. If that’s you, this FAQ should help you get past that confusion.

1) I get 10-20 affiliate promotions a week from lists I’m on. As an affiliate marketer with a small list, how do I make good income from my promos but keep from overwhelming my list? (asked by Kelly Dupras)

You say you’re starting with a small list. That’s actually not a problem, if you have reasonable expectations for it.

My list is pretty big, so my profit expectations should be higher. That’s why it’s usually better to think in terms of conversion rate.

If you have a list of 50,000 and one percent buy when you send a promo email, that’s 500 buyers. Is that “good”? That depends on how many buyers you’re used to seeing. Actually, a one percent conversion rate isn’t very good at all!

But let’s say you get 10 percent of people to buy from your list. Now your relatively small list of 1,000 gets you 100 buyers. That’s pretty good. If you make, say, $25 profit on every sale, that’s $2,500 per promo email. Even if your list is only 500, you’d still make $1,250 with every email. That’s pretty good profit there.

What really matters is focusing on building your list and packing it full of proven buyers to get your conversion rate up.

As you’re doing that, make sure you don’t burn those buyers out. If you promote too often, they’ll get tired of it and start ignoring your promo emails.

The smarter way to go about it is to put yourself on a somewhat regular promotion schedule. It doesn’t have to be rigid, but it should be pretty regular.

For example, you might decide you’ll do two major promos per month, and send a couple emails a week leading up to each one. And you’ll make one of those emails more informational than promotional. That way people will get used to getting your emails, and they won’t mind them.

Remember, the size of your list isn’t as important as your efforts to grow it and build your relationship with it.

2) What if I don’t have a list yet? How in the world do I get started in affiliate marketing without one? (asked by Hugh Furlow)

If you don’t have a list…get one!

Okay, don’t get mad at me. I’ll explain what I mean.

It’s not as hard to get a list started as people think. Actually, it’s pretty easy if you use a simple plan.

The fastest way to do it is to offer something free and tell people in a niche forum about it. It can be a short report or anything else they might want. You don’t have to spend months writing the thing. In fact, you might be able to do it in a few hours, including research.

Just go to your favorite article bank and find 5-10 articles about the topic that sort of hang together with a theme. Read each one and (this is VERY important) summarize the article in your own words.

Once you’ve done that, assemble your summaries into sections for your report. If you end up with 5-10 pages, that’s plenty. It doesn’t have to be long, because it won’t cost anybody anything!

Now that your report is finished, go to one or more free forums in your niche and write a short post offering your free report to anybody who signs up for your list. Your post might say something like this:

“I’ve just finished my report called [report name]. It’s free to anybody who joins my list. Don’t worry, I won’t blast you with 100 emails aweek :)”

If people ask you questions about the report, use that opportunity to build your relationships with people in the forum, and to make a case for your report.

I’ve used that technique myself several times. And I’ve also offered more extensive products for free, like the videos at http://www.MiniSiteProfitsExposed.com. People love free stuff, and they’re usually willing to join your list if you offer it.

If you’ll use this simple strategy, you could easily find yourself with a list of 500 people very quickly. And if you read my answer to the first question about promoting to a small list, you’ll see that list is plenty big enough to make you good profit.

3) What should I promote? I mean, the possibilities are endless. (asked by Guy Axford)

You’re right, the possibilities can seem a little overwhelming. So what you need to do is find a nice place to start…sort of your baseline place to go to find products.

I recommend ClickBank for that. Their Marketplace has over 10,000 products in there (including some of mine), and it’s very easy to search for stuff.

When you search, look for products in your niche, of course, but sort them by High Gravity. That will tell you which products other affiliate marketers are getting behind in a big way.

Don’t necessarily pick the top one on the list, though. Shoot for gravity between 25 and 150, so that the competition isn’t so fierce.

With ClickBank in your hip pocket as a place you can always go, I suggest branching out from there to focus on new products, preferably product launches. That’s where all the buzz is, and probably where you’ll make your best profits.

There will be more competition there, so you should do your best to come with a good bonus to offer as an enticement for people to buy through you. But if you’ll focus on what’s hot, you’ll like the results.

You might be wondering how to find those hot new product releases. There are a few possibilities:

* Check out the New Products listing in ClickBank’s Marketplace

* Hang out in marketing forums to see who’s launching what, and when

* Hang out in JV forums to see what people are talking about as upcoming launches

I guess that’s not rocket science, but it has worked very well for me over the years, and I suspect it will do the same for you.

Great question and it let me kill a myth that hurts lots of aspiring affiliate marketers.

You do NOT have to buy every single product you promote! It’s fine to buy a product, and it can make your review of it much more personal, but if it’s not something you have to do.

So how can you not buy a product and still do a product review without misleading people? It’s easier than you think.

First, see what you can learn about the product from the sales page. There’s usually a huge amount of information in there that you can use to write your review. Pick the parts you want to focus on, or draw a reader’s attention to.

Second, ask the product creator if he’ll let you see a review copy. It’s amazing to me how many people don’t do this. Most of the time, the product creator will give you one, especially if you start by saying something like this:

“I own [your website URL] and I currently have a list of [your list size] and I think your product could be a great fit. Any way I could take a look at it so I can review it for a promo email?”

You obviously should have a list if you say you do. After that brief introduction, be sure to include some basic information about how you’ll promote the product. That shows a product creator that you have a plan, and will make him more likely to give you a review copy.

Third, read what other people say about the product. Google the product name and see what comes up. You’ll probably find a few review pages already out there that can give you some facts to use. And you can always summarize what other reviewers have said, something like this:

“I’ve seen several reviews that point out a bug in the software, but they say it’s not a big deal at all.”

If you’re willing to get a little creative, you can write great product reviews, but not have to spend a dime on products.

———-

All right, that wraps it up for this time.

If you like getting answers to questions like this, ask your own question! You can submit your question by filling out the simple form at:

http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/questions/

Every couple weeks or so, I’ll go through the questions and pick out 5-6 to answer in an email to people on my lists.

Your questions are what will make this email helpful, so please keep them coming. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question, but if the same question gets asked several times, I’ll try to answer that one. So don’t think, “Somebody’s probably asked that already.” Maybe so, but it’s worth asking anyway.

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

P.S. If you know any Internet marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/internet-marketing-qa-issue-6

A lot of people wonder why I do this. There are really three big reasons…

First, I care about whether you succeed or not. Internet marketing really isn’t rocket science…once you know what you’re doing. Before you “get it”, though, it helps a ton to have somebody actually answer real questions that real people ask along the way.

Second, even after you’re an “expert”, it’s great to get new ideas from other people. You never know when an answer to a question will press just right button in your brain…and boost your profits.

Third, I get literally thousands of emails every week, and it’s impossible to answer them all. So I set up this system to help me manage email better, while still giving you the information you need.

So read on, and I hope you enjoy the learning.

If there’s one thing I get asked about more than any other, it’s about the size and responsiveness of my email list. What most people don’t know is that the size of the list is far less important than whether it’s full of buyers. So here are some questions related to that issue, and some responses I hope will help you.

1) Getting buyers would be great, but what if I don’t have a product? I always seem to get stuck there. (asked by Lonnie Gersten)

You and lots of other people! You’re definitely not alone.

What most people don’t understand is that it’s actually pretty easy to create a product quickly if you keep it small and focused on a particular information need in the niche you’re trying to target.

Even better, it’s smart NOT to start from scratch. That’s simple to do when you use private label rights (PLR) material. That material lets you put your name on it and claim you’re the author, and you can use bits and pieces of it however you want.

So let’s say you’re targeting the list building niche, and you have some PLR material related to building a long-term relationship with a list. It’s a lot of material, but you extract some to create a report 10-15 pages long.

There’s you product! It doesn’t have to get any more complicated than that.

Or, if you don’t have PLR material to use, you can do essentially the same thing by look at article sites like EzineArticles.com. Find 15-20 articles on your topic, summarize the key points in your OWN words (very important) and then write your own articles to create an ebook.

There’s another product! That approach takes a little more time, but not much.

Even better, once you have your product, you can use the same techniques again to come up with an offer that people will see only once when they buy your main product (an OTO).

The way most people do it today, you’ll show this offer to somebody before he gets to download your main product. This lets you use a great strategy–offering a FREE product on the front end with an OTO behind it.

So let’s say you assemble that ebook about building a relationship with a list. Then you put together a quick, easy set of email templates as your OTO. You can sell it for anywhere from $7 to $17 and have people think that’s quite inexpensive.

When somebody signs up for your free report, show him your email templates offer and…probably add a buyer to your buyer list!

That’s a simple strategy I’ve used myself many times, and it still works great. I’ve added literally tens of thousands of buyers to my lists that way, even with simple products that took almost no time to create.

2) I have a product, but it’s not selling from my site. How can I get buyers if nobody’s buying? (asked by Kelly Goodlett)

This is a real challenge for a lot of people, especially when they’re first starting.

The key is to understand one critical point: “buyer” doesn’t necessarily mean somebody who has bought directly from you. It could be ANY buyer. Here’s what I mean…

A buyer is somebody who’s shown he’ll take out his wallet and make a purchase. Now, does it matter WHO he bought from?

Yes and no. It would help if he bought from you, because then you know for sure he’s willing to give YOU money. But if he bought from somebody else, that’s still good, because he’s shown he’s willing to buy from somebody.

So all you really have to do is figure out how to get somebody else’s buyers to join your list.

An easy way to do this is to find somebody who’s willing to put your product in his upsell or OTO. This is easier than it sounds.

You have a product already, Kelly. So look online in forums, at ClickBank or anyplace else you can think of and find marketers who offer complementary products (not direct competitors of yours). Look at their sales pages and find a few who offer an upsell when you click the order button. Find their email addresses and send them a personal message.

In your email, tell them what you like about their site or product. Then let them know you have a product you’d like to make a partnership proposal about.

Your proposal is simple:

* You contribute your existing product to their upsell, which increases the perceived value of what they’re offering

* You won’t ask them to share any profits with you

* All you ask is that the point buyers to your sign-up page before they download your product

There you go. You’ll be adding somebody else’s buyers to your list, and that other person is doing all of the sales work!

This is a great question. Your action plan begins with one word…

START!

The key to building a list is to create something people want bad enough to sign up for. Then you can transform them into buyers.

When I started years ago, I didn’t have a big list. As little as a few years ago, I didn’t have a list anywhere close to what it is now. I started small and grew, just like everybody has to.

The key, though, is to focus on getting BUYERS from the start. Subscribers are great, but if they don’t buy, you won’t make money from them.

The easy way to jumpstart the process is to add buyers from other people’s lists. A cross-promotion is a good way to start.

A cross-promotion is where you and a partner agree to promote each other’s products to grow your lists. It’s easy to set up, and usually easy to pitch to potential partners.

The critical element in most cases is to give your partner 100% commissions. In other words, don’t worry about making money up front. Focus on building your list.

It’s a no-brainer for a partner, because he’s getting commissions, and he’s getting a great product to promote. It’s great for you, too, because it can help you build your list fast.

You can find partners exactly like I described in my answer to the previous question–look for marketers with complementary products and send them an email. Nothing fancy, just a friendly email with a straightforward proposal.

Remember, what matters in the list game is growing a list, not having a huge list right away. A big list is great, no doubt, but it’s more important to have a list of any size and grow it from there.

4) If you could only use one technique to get buyers, other than selling your own product from your own site, what would it be? (asked by Matthew Lesh)

This is an easy one.

If I could use only one technique to attract buyers to my list, I would use thank you page promos.

You might know of my product at http://www.EmailPromosExposed.com. When that first launched, I used thank you page promos a lot, and that helped me get to the 100,000+ downloads I’ve seen for that product.

That’s over 100,000 names on my email list, and a large percentage were buyers. Why? Because I offered an OTO behind my free product, and that got a large number of people to buy from me right away.

Thank you page promos are easy and powerful. All you need is something to offer and the willingness to recruit partners. You can end up with an autopilot income stream, which is what most people want.

In my case, I offered a free video course up front. But you could offer a video course, screen capture videos, a short report, templates of some kind…anything that might appeal to somebody as a free offer.

Then you put an OTO behind it at some price, typically a low one if you’re just starting to build your list. You want to get lots of impulse buyers fast.

The great thing about thank you page promos, though, is how easy it is to pitch to partners.

Give them something like 75% commission, offer to create their thank you page ad for them, and pay them on time. This is EASY money for them, especially if they’re not currently using their thank you page real estate for anything.

Even better, when you grow your own list and start selling more of your own products, you can offer to swap thank you page ads with other marketers. That makes your thank you page proposal even more profitable for a potential partner.

———-

All right, that wraps it up for this time.

If you like getting answers to questions like this, ask your own question! You can submit your question by filling out the simple form at:

http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/questions/

Every couple weeks or so, I’ll go through the questions and pick out 5-6 to answer in an email to people on my lists.

Your questions are what will make this email helpful, so please keep them coming. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question, but if the same question gets asked several times, I’ll try to answer that one. So don’t think, “Somebody’s probably asked that already.” Maybe so, but it’s worth asking anyway.

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

P.S. If you know any Internet marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/internet-marketing-qa-issue-5

A lot of people wonder why I do this. There are really three big reasons…

First, I care about whether you succeed or not. Internet marketing really isn’t rocket science…once you know what you’re doing. Before you “get it”, though, it helps a ton to have somebody actually answer real questions that real people ask along the way.

Second, even after you’re an “expert”, it’s great to get new ideas from other people. You never know when an answer to a question will press just right button in your brain…and boost your profits.

Third, I get literally thousands of emails every week, and it’s impossible to answer them all. So I set up this system to help me manage email better, while still giving you the information you need.

So read on, and I hope you enjoy the learning.

Having been in Internet marketing for years, I pretty much taught myself everything I know about this business. But I definitely remember feeling a little lost when I started. It was overwhelming, to say the least. Two things in particular seemed to crop up a lot: how to set up a website, and how to create a product without working myself to death. These are still hot topics, because I get asked those questions all the time. This issue should give you some guidance.

1) How do I set up a simple website to sell a single product? (asked by Christin Tamburo)

This is probably THE question for people just getting started, and it really assumes you have a product already. Let’s say you do…

The first thing you’ll want to do is know what web pages you’ll need.

That’s not hard, and you only need three to start with:

* A sales page, where you pitch your product and ask people to click the order button

* A buyer registration page, where you send people after they purchase your product

* A thank you (or download) page where you actually deliver your product
I strongly recommend registering your buyers to build your buyer list, but if you want to start as simply as possible, you only need the first and third pages–a sales page and a thank you page. Either way, what you’re creating is called a mini-site.

The next natural question is, how in the world do you create this stuff? Do you need to know HTML? Maybe.

If you can get a mini-site template, you’ll probably be all set. Even if you have to buy it, it might cost you anywhere from $100 to $300, which might be less than you’d pay somebody to do create a site for you at a freelance site.

That’s really all there is to it. The biggest effort is creating your sales copy. That’s what sells your product. Most people just getting started can’t drop big money on an expensive copywriter, so they try to do it themselves.

An alternative, especially if doing it yourself scares you, is to visit popular marketing forums which allow members to post special offers. Sometimes you can get fantastic copy for less than $200 through these specials.

One you have the pages and copy, all you’ll have to do is plug in a payment processor, like ClickBank, so you can take credit card payments online. ClickBank has very helpful setup instructions, and it’s really easy to set up. It’ll cost you $50 to host your product there.

Adding it up, you might spend $550 to set up a pretty nice mini-site, if you don’t want to do it all yourself. And you won’t have to know HTML to do it!

2) I recently bought a package of website templates, complete with graphics. What do I do with it now? How can I get set up to sell it? (asked by Robin Guidotti)

This is related to the previous question, and the answer applies to more than just website templates.

If you’ve bought a product you can resell, all you have to do is set up a mini-site to sell it! Your expenses will be similar to the ones I gave in the previous answer.

If you’ve bought website templates, you might even be able to use one of them (or borrow material from several) and dramatically cut your costs.

You can pay a freelancer to install a template at your domain so you can just fill in the sales copy, and so on. That might cost you $100 to $300, but you pretty much avoid all other costs.

3) How do I come up with something to sell online? I mean, I’m not an “expert” at anything, so what kind of product can I create? (asked by Pete Feiner)

Most people new to online marketing make the mistake of thinking they have to be experts on something before they can create a product in that niche. Not at all!

Really, if you can get past that hang-up, you’ll be very far ahead of the game.

The easiest thing to do is to find a product with some kind of reprint rights in a niche you want to target. That could be:

* Resale Rights (RR), which give you the right to resell a product as-is (meaning no changes allowed)

* Master Resale Rights (MRR), which give you the right to resell the product and pass along the RR

* Rebranding Rights, which let you include your own affiliate links in a product, but typically no other changes

* Private Label Rights (PLR), which let you change a product however you want to resell it, and even put your name on it as the author.

Think about what those rights mean to you…you get a product with barely any work. It’s a great way to start. Focus on finding a good niche, then essentially buy a product. It won’t cost a ton, and you can get up and running fast.

Another option is to interview somebody (or several people) in your niche and record the interviews. That gives you a very popular audio product without doing much work to get it, other than setting up and preparing for the interview.

But back to those reprint rights products. I often get a question like the next one…

4) I just bought a huge package of resale rights and PLR products. How can I differentiate myself from everybody else selling these? (asked by Dorris Kearcher)

First, Dorris, it’s great that you know you need to differentiate yourself. Many people don’t, and then they wonder why their product doesn’t sell.

There are several ways to differentiate yourself when you resell products, whether PLR or otherwise:

* Add more value by including extra components you created on your own. This could be an additional “report” or ebook, an audio version of your ebook (Google “text to speech” for free tools) or something else.

* Get your own graphics. Most people will use the graphics that came with the package. If you get your own, you’ll probably stand out.

* Rename the product if you can. That’s another way to make your product not sound like everybody else’s.

* Edit the product if you can. If you’re allowed to, edit the content to put your own stamp on it.

Those are just a few suggestions. Feel free to get creative with your own twists and modifications. The bottom line is, you’re saving a ton of effort on product creation since you’re not starting from scratch. Invest some of that savings by working to make your product different. That effort can pay you back big-time.

5) What price should I put on my digital product? I’ve seen all kinds of numbers, and I’m a little confused. (asked by Johnathan Vassel)

Lots of people get confused by this. Contrary to popular notions out there, there are no “magic” prices. Sure, $19.95 is often better than $20, but a price of $19 can outsell a price of $17, or vice versa. Only testing will tell you the answer.

Here are some rules of thumb, though:

* See what other people in your niche are charging for similar products. Odds are good that those prices are what the market likes. Copy them!

* Don’t charge a price that’s silly high. Remember, the goal is to make the thing sell. If your 20-page ebook is really worth $1,797, great, but most aren’t. Charge something that seems to fit the product and you’ll do better.

* Don’t charge too little. If your product is good, don’t be afraid to put a good price on it. A nice piece of software should probably sell for more than $7, unless charging that little is a part of your on-purpose marketing strategy.

* There are no magic prices, but numbers ending in “7″ DO tend to perform well. So when in doubt, charge something that ends in “7″. I’d choose the multiple of 10 that feels about right for the product and the market, then tack a “7″ on it. For example, you might charge $37 for a meaty ebook, or maybe up to $97 if the information is really good enough.

Like I said, there’s no magic price. More often than not, you’ll need to guess at a decent price, then put it out there to see how it performs. If it doesn’t work, change the price and see if that helps.

———-

All right, that wraps it up for this time.

If you like getting answers to questions like this, ask your own question! You can submit your question by filling out the simple form at:

http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/questions/

Every couple weeks or so, I’ll go through the questions and pick out 5-6 to answer in an email to people on my lists.

Your questions are what will make this email helpful, so please keep them coming. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question, but if the same question gets asked several times, I’ll try to answer that one. So don’t think, "Somebody’s probably asked that already." Maybe so, but it’s worth asking anyway.

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

P.S. If you know any Internet marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/internet-marketing-qa-issue-4

A lot of people wonder why I do this. There are really three big reasons…

First, I care about whether you succeed or not. Internet marketing really isn’t rocket science…once you know what you’re doing. Before you "get it", though, it helps a ton to have somebody actually answer real questions that real people ask along the way.

Second, even after you’re an "expert", it’s great to get new ideas from other people. You never know when an answer to a question will press just right button in your brain…and boost your profits.

Third, I get literally thousands of emails every week, and it’s impossible to answer them all. So I set up this system to help me manage email better, while still giving you the information you need.

So read on, and I hope you enjoy the learning.

I’ve gotten a ton of emails from people who are confused about some aspect of getting started online, or are having "growing pains" in their business. Some are farther along than others, but most people have one thing in common–they’ve encountered an obstacle they aren’t sure how to get past. This issue should help!

1) I’m completely overwhelmed about how to get started online. What kind of plan do I need? (asked by Kelly Speirs)

It’s common to feel that way. There’s a lot of information out there, and it can be tough to wade through. Here’s the most important stuff to nail down:

- Who are you going to sell to? That’s your market.

- What are you going sell them? That’s your product.

- Where/how are going to sell it? That’s your sales channel.

- What are you going to charge for it? That’s your price point.

- How are you going to attract potential customers? That’s your marketing approach.

- What are you going to do next? That’s your growth strategy.

That’s not fancy, but it’s the core of any smart business plan, online or offline.

But online business requires some serious attention on the marketing approach. In particular, you need to figure out how you’ll get traffic to your website. No traffic means no sales.

I recommend you start by answering those core questions. I always do, for every single site or product I put online. Then, as with any business, you have to DO it.

2) Should I partner with somebody else to create and launch a product, or should I go it alone? (asked by Julio Scavuzzo)

Each approach has its advantages.

If you go it alone, you have absolute control, you don’t have to share any of the profits with a partner, you won’t have to share your mailing list with somebody else, and your brand identity will be all yours for the future.

Partnering with someone else can give a sounding board for your ideas, somebody to support you when you get stuck, some great ideas you might not have thought of on your own, and some help in getting the work done.

There’s no "right" answer, but I recommend that you seriously consider partnering with somebody at first. It’s really about bootstrapping yourself.

Partnering with somebody does have some potential issues, like sharing lists and profits, but it also gives you two huge advantages.

The first is motivation. Coming up with all the ideas on your own, then doing all the work to make them reality can be a drag. Lots of people give up before they finish. If you’re working with somebody else, that person can pick up the ball and run with it if you hit a low spot.

The second advantage is speed. If you partner with somebody, you’ll probably bring a better product to market faster, and you’ll probably accelerate your progress toward your financial goals.

For example, you might partner with some people who are a little farther along than you are. You can help them by contributing good ideas and doing some of the grunt work, and they can help you by jumpstarting your online career. You both win that way.

3) Do I need to find an Internet marketing mentor? (asked by Lance Huhn)

I definitely think you should.

I’ve always been a big believer in education, because knowledge is power in a lot of ways. I read constantly, and try to learn something new every day. But it can be good to have somebody who’s invested in helping you learn. That’s why mentors are important.

The best mentors are ones who take a genuine interest in you. These are people who you "click" with, and who naturally help you out when you ask. You won’t pay them for mentoring you, it just naturally happens. You can work with them on things, or maybe just talk about business in general.

But there’s nothing wrong with joining a mentoring program to get the ball rolling. Those can be expensive sometimes, but if you do a great job, that paid experience might grow into a relationship with somebody.

Another possibility is participating in online forums, like the Warrior Forum. You can develop some great relationships that way, and those might grow into informal mentoring relationships.

It’s usually smart to have more than one mentor, because that gives you different perspectives on various business things. So you might combine these approaches by joining a formal mentoring program, and still develop some informal mentoring relationships with other people in forums.

Most people starting out online have more time than money, so it makes sense for them to do things on their own.

Sooner or later, that flips, and they start having more money than time. It sounds like you might be getting to that point. When you get there, it’s a business decision like any other.

The first step is to assess how much time you’re spending on the IM things you do. Then you need to figure out how a personal assistant (or even an outsource freelancer) can help take those things off your plate.

Can a personal assistant really handle your email the way you have it set up right now? Can a personal assistant do mundane website tasks that are stealing time you could be spending on other stuff?

In particular, you need to free up your time for things you do well that also put money in your pocket. That’s the ideal use of your time.

You’ll have to pay an assistant, of course, so you need to consider a couple items:

- Do you really need an assistant, or can you be more efficient and get more done in less time yourself?

- How much will it cost, and will your current profits pay for it? If not, can you be reasonably sure having an assistant will let you generate more profit to cover the cost?

If you do need an assistant and you can afford it, by all means get one and start spending your time on how to increase your bottom line.

5) Outsourcing seems smart, but I have no idea what to outsource. What do you recommend? (asked by Jamie Mollica)

This is another one where there’s no "right" answer. You can outsource almost anything you want. The key is to focus on outsourcing things in two categories:

- Tasks that take your time away from things that put money in your pocket

- Tasks that can put more money in your pocket if somebody else does them

For example, I’m not a graphic artist. I know what I like, but I usually can’t draw it. So I outsource my graphics to partners I trust, who do great work. Having attractive websites and products makes me more profit.

Another common thing to outsource is article writing. You might not be a writer, so you can hire people to write articles for you. That lets you focus on coming up with great niche ideas instead of knocking yourself out to write when it’s not your thing.

You can outsource website creation, graphics, writing of almost any kind (including website copywriting), AdWords advertising, and so on. It’s all a matter of money, really. If you have the money to pay for it, you can outsource most of your business.

But be careful when you outsource projects. Make freelancers prove themselves on a small project first, before you give them a bigger project to do. And definitely shop around for the best price. Good doesn’t necessarily mean expensive.

———-

All right, that wraps it up for this time.

If you like getting answers to questions like this, ask your own question! You can submit your question by filling out the simple form at:

http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/questions/

Every couple weeks or so, I’ll go through the questions and pick out 5-6 to answer in an email to people on my lists.

Your questions are what will make this email helpful, so please keep them coming. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question, but if the same question gets asked several times, I’ll try to answer that one. So don’t think, "Somebody’s probably asked that already." Maybe so, but it’s worth asking anyway.

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

P.S. If you know any Internet marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/internet-marketing-qa-issue-3

I get massive amounts of email, way too much to answer even one percent of it every day.

Most of the people who send me emails need help with their online business in one way or another. They’re confused, or stuck, or don’t even know where to start.

What’s probably surprising to a lot of people, maybe even you, is that I really DO understand where you’re coming from…because I came from there myself.

Most of you know that I’ve been running a successful Internet business for six years now, since 2002. But successful today doesn’t mean I started that way. Let me tell you a bit of my story so you’ll understand why it makes sense to listen to the advice I’m going to offer you.

I started from scratch, with no money, no JV partners, no list, no advantages at all, really. In that sense, I can relate to anybody out there who’s starting from scratch and feels kind of lost and overwhelmed. I’ve been there!

As I learned what worked and what didn’t, I made a ton of mistakes. I had to spend (and waste) a bunch of money on trial and error. I got frustrated. There were many times I want to dump it all. Sound familiar?

What’s a little different for me is that I refused to quit. By my second year in business, I was earning over $440,000 a year. And that was before I even broke into the “Internet marketing” niche as an affiliate marketer and product creator.

Now I have a business that gives me financial freedom I could only dream of six years ago. Here’s what I mean…

I’m the top affiliate for most product launches I JV for, and I have raked in big profits from product launches, firesales, giveaways, resale rights, you name it.

My email promos regularly bring in five figures, and I’m earning more in passive income in a month than many people make in a year slaving at a desk.

I have a list of over 250,000 active readers who buy like crazy when I promote something, which I only do when I’m really behind it. That kind of list performance is probably why I get dozens of JV proposals every week.

And my products get endorsements from respected online experts like Allan Gardyne, Paul Myers, Jimmy D. Brown, Jim Daniels and others.

Absolutely none of that is to boast about how good I am. I told you that story so you’ll know that the advice I give is based on a level of success I bet most of you want. I’m no genius, but I’m not just “lucky” either. I’ve learned how to do this, and I want to teach you. I get all sorts of invitations to speak at big IM events, but I choose to teach only through my products, newsletter and blog. Today is an example of that.

If I had more time, I could answer emails and blog comments all day, but I’m one guy with a business to run. That said, I’m going to take a little time to teach this week. So consider this post an open invitation to ask me anything you want to.

You can ask about getting your business going, success factors, how to build a list, or anything else you want. I’ll hang out for the next two days to answer questions (not with a response time of seconds, but pretty quick during the day).

I really do care about helping all of you, but I have to manage how I do it. Posts like this are one simple way I can balance helping people and running my own business.

Be sure to bookmark this post and come back regularly to comment and read my answers to other people’s questions.

Have you always wanted to ask questions about your business, but you didn’t want to pay thousands of dollars for a few hours of a business coach’s time? Here’s your chance.
Go ahead and ask away!

I’ve been in business online for quite a while now, and minisites are still a fantastic, simple way to make money online.

But how can you leverage your minisite work to pile up even more money? It’s not hard to set up a minisite (actually, it’s pretty easy once you know what to do), but it’s smart business to make your efforts pay off in more than one way. Let me lay out a simple scenario to illustrate the point.

Say you set up a minisite to promote your own ebook. That’s a good strategy.

Now, where is your traffic coming from? Speaking in pretty general terms, there are two ways to get traffic to any website:

1. You can use various strategies to get free traffic
2. You can pay for traffic using something like Google’s AdWords program

Free traffic is great, and I highly recommend trying to get some. I even give you some tips in MiniSite Profits Exposed (and more in the advanced videos).

First, you want to get traffic to your minisite to sell your product. Hey, that’s why you put the site up in the first place! AdWords is a great way to get that traffic fast.

Second, you want to get traffic to your minisite to buy other people’s products. Don’t let that confuse you. I’ll explain.

In MiniSite Profits Exposed, I mentioned promoting affiliate products to the email list you build at your minisite. That’s very smart, and I’d be proud of you for doing it.

But there’s no reason you can’t go outside your list and get even more affiliate sales. Your minisite gives you a perfect platform to do it.

The first step is to track down hot products to promote. One of the easiest places to find those is ClickBank.

The ClickBank marketplace is easy to search, and you can promote any product there for free. All you need is a ClickBank ID, which is easy to sign up for and costs nothing to get.

You’ll have to research the products, of course, and find some that target your niche well. And you’ll want to focus on ones that are currently selling well for existing affiliates. No sense in trying to blaze a new trail. Find some that already are making money for people, and take your slice of that pie.

Once you know what to promote, you’ll have a do a little “tech stuff”. It’s not a crazy amount, and you don’t have to be a genius, but you’ll have to complete some technical tasks before you’re ready to promote.

You’ll need to set up a directory (a folder) at your site that contains a special type of page. That page might be:

• A review page of an affiliate product with your opinion of it, and your affiliate link at the bottom to send a reader to the product sales page. By the way, if you have a good review page template to use, that’s the fast track to making lots of money with your minisite as an affiliate.

• A case study page that tells people about your experience with the affiliate product, with your affiliate link at the bottom.

• A sign-up page with an email address capture form that sends people through your affiliate link to the product sales page.

• A “pre-sell” page for the affiliate product that aims to warm up a prospect and make him more likely to buy when he clicks your affiliate link to get to the product sales page.

Writing these pages yourself will take some copywriting skill, and you’ll have to be able to set up an HTML page on your own.

If you don’t want to mess with any of that, you can outsource the work to a freelancer at Elance.com or someplace similar. That will cost you a modest amount of money, but it might be worth it to you to save the time and to get a solid page that should perform well.

Beyond the actual landing page you’ll need to create for an affiliate product, be sure that you have a system set up to track your affiliate results. That will tell you which products are making you the best profit so you can focus your efforts on them.

Okay, but how do you get traffic to that page at your minisite?

AdWords!

As you know, AdWords lets you write your own ads that direct people who click to your site. What you have to do is first, get them to notice your ad, and second, get them to click it.

One of the best tactics is to name the product directory with the keyword you want to target…which might be the affiliate product name itself.

Then when you write your AdWords ad, you can use that keyword in the ad in a very important place. The key place to use it is in your display URL, which is the last line of your ad. It shows up as green text.

If you use your keyword there, it’s very likely to help what Google calls the quality score for your ad. That will get you better ad position, which will probably get you more (and better) clicks.

And don’t forget to track how your AdWords ad performs. If you’re not careful, you can lose your shirt by buying lots of clicks and not getting affiliate sales from them.

One of the best ways to track this is to set up ClickBank tracking IDs for each keyword you target with your AdWords ad. Those IDs show up at the end of your ClickBank hoplink (your affiliate link).

When somebody buys an affiliate product through your link, ClickBank will tell you which tracking ID got the sale. That tells you which keyword got them to buy.

That information will help you know which clicks on your ad are paying off, and which aren’t. That protects you from buying clicks without any reward.

That’s a very simple strategy for taking a minisite you’ve already created and increasing your income from it. And you have to do barely any work to make it happen.

I’ll be the first to say that anything you haven’t done before presents a learning curve. That’s unavoidable. But the learning curve for this one isn’t impossible for a novice to climb. The best part is the reward for the effort you’ll put in.

I’ve been doing this for several years now, and it’s one of the reasons I bring in four figures a month pretty regularly from ClickBank products with several of my minisites. It’s a simple technique that I’ve proven to work. Now you can use it yourself.

Remember, minisites are assets for your business. You should squeeze as much profit out of them as you can. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

If you haven’t complained about it, you’ve probably heard other people complain. And you know what? You’re right. It IS tough to find good information, especially if you need to know how to start from scratch.

I get a ton of emails from people needing help with this stuff. Literally hundreds. And they usually ask very similar questions, because nobody’s ever laid out the simple steps you need to take to set up your own mini-sites that actually turn a profit.

The funny thing is, I used to be in the same situation myself. I was frustrated. I couldn’t find help anywhere. I knew I wasn’t stupid, but I needed somebody to lay out a blueprint for me to follow to get started…and not charge me an arm and a leg for it. I definitely can relate to people who are struggling with nowhere to turn.

So I did my part to fix that problem by offering a 100% free video course called MiniSite Profits Exposed. I launched it on Monday (it’s my first product in two years). You’ll find it here:

Click Here To Get FREE Private Access to
This $197 Value, Life Changing Product!

The course shows you a simple strategy for setting up a profit stream from your own product and website.

My goal was to give people the nuts and bolts of how to create mini-sites for themselves, without being technical geniuses. I won’t go over the entire course here, but here are some important items in there:

• The right mindset for building profitable mini-sites
• How to write hyper-converting copy for your squeeze page and your sales page (including the “blind bullets” technique that’s almost sure to get you more conversions)
• How to automate your business
• Simple strategies for increasing your profits with minimal extra effort
• And much more!

The main point of the course is that creating mini-sites is easy, once you know what you want to sell. In other words, once you have a product, even a very simple one that didn’t take you long to create, selling it with a mini-site is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to make money.

Apparently the message is getting out there, because roughly 30,000 people have signed up so far. Here’s what just a couple of them said about the free course:

“Hi Michael,

Your Mini Site Profits Exposed Videos were a real eye opener for me. I want to thank you so much for your time, and effort in producing such top quality information. These videos alone will help people of all walks of life back on the right path to becoming successful online. This is the BEST information I have ever come across online to date: You can be sure I’ll be sharing this with as many struggling marketers as I can.”

- Gary Neame

“Mike,

I have to first off tell you that I am the most skeptical person on the planet when it comes to buying “How to make money” information. I don’t care if it’s online or at a convention/seminar. Well, so far this one is everything that you said it would be and more. In fact I have some programming knowledge and thought I would need it. It turns out, my girlfriend started setting up a site after I fell asleep three days ago and it’s already bringing in money. I’m not saying I’m buying an estate home soon, but it actually is as easy as you said and DOES WORK!! Thanks again for being so persistent with your emails to us.”

- Brad Rello

These are real people, probably very similar to you. They picked up the free course and watched the videos. As you can see from Brad’s comments, he’s ALREADY making money with this.

So now my question to you is…are you using this stuff yet?

The course is 100% free. Have you started applying it in your business? If not, why not? If so, what’s standing in your way so far?

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

Yeah, you and everybody else who wants to sell something. But the cold, hard truth is that untapped niches are a myth.

Well, I guess there might be a few out there still, but they’re few and far between. About the only way you can hope to find one is to jump on the bandwagon for something new…before there’s a bandwagon.

That happened when the Web 2.0 craze started. Nobody knew anything about it. YouTube.com was new. So was MySpace.com. Now every marketer under the sun knows about those. They might not all be using those sites to promote their products, but the niche has definitely been tapped.

Just about every topic you can think of for an information product in the IM world has been covered before. Don’t believe me? Think about the topics that come to mind when you imagine the world of IM:

• list building
• website design
• product creation
• using Web 2.0 to sell
• how to use PPC programs like Google’s AdWords
• how to use audio and video in your marketing
• how to create a "viral" report

The list goes on. It’s all been done. But here’s the shocking truth…

So what?

It really doesn’t matter if it’s been done before.

Your can do it better.
You can do it cheaper.
You can do it with more "edginess" to it.
You can do it more creatively.

The reason people tend not to consider those things is that they get stuck. They think, "It’s been done, so the market is probably saturated."

The market might indeed be saturated, but is it saturated for a reason? If it’s popular, people keep buying stuff in that niche! When something comes along that excites them, they buy it. And that shows no signs of slowing down.

For example, you can go to your favorite internet marketing forum almost any day of the week and find several threads about how to build a list. People have been talking about that forever. And if people new to online marketing don’t know how to do it, that means there’s still opportunity out there.

Never forget what really sells: a unique selling proposition (USP) . That’s the "it" that sets your product apart, that special something that makes it unique.

It could be a product about something people have beaten like a dead horse, but you put a little twist on it and…PRESTO! A brand new product that will excite people enough to buy.

Here’s a quick example…

Lots of people know that mini-sites are a great way to sell products online.

The topic of mini-sites, and even how to set them up, has been around for years on marketing forums. But many people new to IM get confused by all the concepts they need to learn even to set up something simple like a mini-site.

So I created a product called Mini-Site Profits Exposed to cater to that market. It’s a video course that describes exactly how to set up a mini-site of your own, and use it to create a solid income online pretty quickly.

Is it a new topic? Nope, not even close. Has it been done before? Definitely. But there is clearly still a need. I’ve met it, and I think people are going to sign up for my course in droves when I launch it soon…and my back-end offer as well.

You can do the same thing. Look for the pockets of need in "saturated" niches. Don’t ignore them because you think the field’s been plowed already. You never know, there might be gold buried there that everybody else is overlooking.

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

P.S. If you know any Internet marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/has-everything-been-done-in-im/

A lot of people wonder why I do this. There are really three big reasons…

First, I care about whether you succeed or not. Internet marketing really isn’t rocket science…once you know what you’re doing. Before you “get it”, though, it helps a ton to have somebody actually answer real questions that real people ask along the way.

Second, even after you’re an “expert”, it’s great to get new ideas from other people. You never know when an answer to a question will press just right button in your brain…and boost your profits.

Third, I get literally thousands of emails every week, and it’s impossible to answer them all. So I set up this system to help me manage email better, while still giving you the information you need.

So read on, and I hope you enjoy the learning.

I’ve helped a significant number of people get their start online through my courses and products. One of the HUGE topics that always comes up is list building and email marketing. So this issue will be all about that.

1) What’s the “best” way to build a list (asked by Mark Owens)?

MY ANSWER: Well, there really is no “best” way. There are different ways, though, and there are a few that work very well.

For people with some money to spend, using Google’s AdWords program to send highly t’argeted traffic to your sign-up page really can’t be beat. It’s always been the fastest way to get traffic.

The downside to AdWords is that it can cost a LOT of money, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s called having a runaway campaign…and it can run away with your wallet if you’re not careful.

So most people want to find some free ways to get traffic. I’ll give you two suggestions that still work well:

- Write articles and link to your site in your author box at the end. You should try submitting to EzineArticles.com. They get gobs of traffic, and your article is likely to get linked to (and re-published) more.

- Create a lens at Squidoo.com and link to the sign-up page at your site. Google absolutely loves Squidoo, and you could end up ranking very well for the keywords your target with your lens. That will get you free “organic” traffic from Google and other search engines.

While there’s no “best” way to get traffic, those two ways are pretty darn good!

2) Is there a science to emailing (asked by Allyson Worthey)?

MY ANSWER: Yes and no. But I guess that could be the answer to any question, so let me dig a little deeper.

There may not be a science to emailing, just like there’s not really a science to high-stakes poker. But there are things that influence the game, and there are strategies that tend to pay off better than others.

For example, most people email too much or too little. If you send a single email every month or two, people are probably going to forget who you are. But if you send two emails a day, they’re going to get annoyed with you.

It’s smarter to send an average of one email per week, occasionally bumping that up to two for a busy week. That might be while you’re promoting an affiliate product launch, and launch day is coming up soon.

Another “scientific” thing is when you email. Actually, there’s no universally right or wrong time to send an email, but Tuesdays and Thursdays seem to get decent response for some reason. And mailing so that people get your email on a Friday, and then perhaps a follow-up on Saturday morning, tends to work well in the U.S.

So there’s really no science to emailing, but there are smart ways to go about it.

MY ANSWER: The simple answer is because you’re not selling. If you were selling, people would be buying. Sales isn’t just pitching something…it’s convincing people to buy it!

But there are a couple common reasons why people have trouble getting their lists to buy…

First, they email too much. That tends to happen when they promote everything that comes along. If you do that, people on your list will start tuning you. If they’re not paying attention, you won’t sell anything.

Second, their emails aren’t persuasive enough. Selling with an email is a bit of an art. It’s not as simple as shouting, “Buy this NOW!” In fact, you shouldn’t really sell anything in your email. Instead, you should compel somebody to follow a link to a web page where the real selling will happen.

As I teach in my Email Promos Exposed course, which is free at http://www.EmailPromosExposed.com, your email should be designed to get the reader to click the link you want him to click. In most cases, that link will take him to a sales page, or maybe a squeeze page. Let that page do the heavy lifting. Just get the click in your email.

If your list isn’t buying, try emailing less and making your calls to action more compelling in the emails you do send.

4) How can I get my list to buy more (asked by Clayton Veiga)?

MY ANSWER: This is sort of related to the previous question, but it’s slightly different.

There are two main strategies to increase your list’s buying potential, especially as an affiliate marketer:

- promote selectively, so that when you promote something, your list KNOWS it’s good

- promote things with killer sales copy

That second one is a little hard to quantify, but you can try.

One thing I like to do is ask the product owner how his sales page is converting. If it’s doing well, he’ll tell you, believe me. There’s no guarantee it’ll convert well for you, but it’s a good sign.

Another thing to try is reading the page yourself. But do it with one goal in mind…when you reach the end, ask yourself if you REALLY want to buy. Take your first emotional reaction. If you do want to buy, it’s probably good copy.

5) What if a promo doesn’t work (asked by Guy Slavens)?

MY ANSWER: Do another one!

Okay, that’s not so helpful. By all means, do another promo, but you can do better than that. Always learn from what works and from what doesn’t work.

Here are a few things to do:

- Check to be sure your emails got delivered. Your autoresponder should give you stats. If very few got through, that could be your problem.

- Ask any of your contacts if they got similar results. Sometimes a product is just a dud. Sometimes the market is too busy with other things. Your marketing friends may have encountered the same thing.

- Ask your subscribers. You can use a free service like SurveyMonkey.com to create a simple survey asking people why they didn’t buy. Their answers might help you make the next promo better.

Assuming you’re not mailing too often, or promoting junk, you could have encountered some kind of air pocket that’ll pass. Learn what you can, then move on to the next one.

———-

All right, that wraps it up for this time.

If you like getting answers to questions like this, ask your own question! You can submit your question by filling out the simple form at:

http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/questions/

Every couple weeks or so, I’ll go through the questions and pick out 5-6 to answer in an email to people on my lists.

Your questions are what will make this email helpful, so please keep them coming. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question, but if the same question gets asked several times, I’ll try to answer that one. So don’t think, “Somebody’s probably asked that already.” Maybe so, but it’s worth asking anyway.

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

P.S. If you know any Internet marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/internet-marketing-qa-issue-2