The hot term right now is influencer. So and so is an influencer, this person over here is a micro-influencer, you've heard it before.

Eyeballs. Views. Clicks. That's the beginning part of being an influencer, essentially, traffic. Do you have an audience that watches your content? Then you're an influencer.

It doesn't matter if you have 117 million followers and almost 10 billion likes as Charli D’Amelio does, or if you have 3000 followers and 10,000 likes. You are an influencer.

And believe me, I'm not keen on the term "influencer" term or the connotation and rapport behind it. But it is what it is.

Influencers and Influence

What matters is how many of those people who follow you are true fans and will follow you across networks and across time. How many of those people are willing to listen to you when you tell them to go check something out or to visit some other website or property because you like it or endorse it.

There are two factors that really matter when making money online. Traffic, and conversions. You can have a viral video get a million views, but it could also net you $0.00. That means you have traffic, but no conversions.

On the other hand, you can have a video that gets 10 views every day but makes you a few hundred dollars each month, which means you have a little bit of traffic, but it converts.

Now, what if you had a video, or several that get hundreds of views AND convert into money? That's what we're after. Making money as an influencer, or making money online for that matter takes fine-tunning. It takes some practice and trial and error, but if you don't have the basic elements to work with then you'll never be able to fine-tune them.

Are you waiting for a viral moment?

You could blow up and become an Internet sensation and capitalize on that. Like Nathan, the guy with the Oceanspray juice and Dreams song. You could also win the lottery. But who's actually counting on that?

Even after all the success Nathan experienced when his video went viral, I know he left hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars on the table.

Let me tell you what you need to have a steady income, a long-lasting legacy, and a path to go from a lucky (or unlucky) influencer to a true digital entrepreneur.

Be Prepared

Part of going viral, getting free stuff, getting sponsors, making money, and all that could be luck, but the other part is preparation. And as they say, luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

The following are the things you need to do to make money from your social media presence. I'll go through them in a quick list kind of way. If you'd like me to expand on any of these, let me know, leave me a comment or send me a message here, or on Instagram and I'll be happy to answer your questions in greater detail, in a video or in a dedicated post.

What you have

An audience

Don't worry if you only have a few followers. Everybody starts at 0. You don't need to have a million followers. Don't worry if you don't have 10,000 followers. Really, you can start this with 50 followers. The part that is important is that you have a profile and you're going to develop it.

A little bit of time

Let's face it, we're busy. Everybody's busy. I recently posted on Facebook about this and the common response is that we have 1000 things to do. But if you've got time to scroll through Tiktok for 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, check Instagram for 15 minutes, then you can make time. If you're up to speed with the latest bingeable Netflix show, then you have time. Especially if you can get paid for this time.

A desire

This is key. I can't force you to do this. I can't compel you to do it. You either want to or you don't. Could I persuade you to do what I'm saying here? Of course, I could use psychologically powerful words to convince you; I could promise you riches; I could offer all the assistance in the world, but if you don't have a desire, then you might as well scroll on by and keep spending time on TikTok without earning any money.

What you need

A website

I will tell you until I'm blue on the face. You. Need. A. Website.

A website does a few things. Number 1, It legitimizes you in the eyes of reputable companies. Number 2, it locks in your fans and audience. Number 3, it establishes the foundation for your legacy, independent of the social network you want to use.

With a website, you aren't subject to the social network's terms and condictions, your posts aren't banned, your comments won't get you shadowbanned, you control the narrative.

A list

This has evolved overtime, but the principle is the same as it has been for 100 years or more. You need a list of interested parties. A mailing list. The easiest and most common is an email list, yes believe it or not, people still read email and it's in fact the most trusted and relied upon messaging system in the planet.

Not everybody has a Facebook account, not everybody has an Instagram account, some people don't even have a phone number that can receive a text message. But almost every person that has access to a computer has an email account. It's how banks, hospitals, doctors, schools, and other institutions keep in touch with you.

Get an email list. Plug it into your website and this will let your audience and your fans stay in touch with you no matter what platform is hot today, and no matter what you're promoting (see the next item). Remember when Snapchat was all the rage? Yeah... who cares about them anymore?

An item or something to promote

This is the trickiest part because it is a universe in and of itself. I can't quickly tell you what item to promote, but the opportunities are endless. There are three big areas that you could explore to make money with this. One is affiliate relationships, two is sponsored promotions, and three could be your own product. There are a few other notable mentions, but they pretty much fall into these three categories.

A good amount of companies that you use everyday have affiliate programs. Take for example, the trends on TikTok. One of the trends is summervibes, summer bodies, etc. If you're a girl and you're already posting bikini videos or dancing videos, one easy way way to make money is to become an affiliate for those products. Shein has an affiliate program that pays 10 to 20% commissions.

Sponsors work in a couple of different ways. You can get paid just to be an ambassador or spokesperson for a brand --this requires a highly engaged audience and generally a large audience. But you can also do one-off sponsorships, where a company will pay you a flat fee for posting a number of posts.

Your own product can mean that you develop and engineer an actual physical item. That's a lot of work, but it is profitable in many situations. You could sell your art, or crafts.

You could also create a digital product, like a course, a book, or even a private membership site. You could become the product, or you could offer your services.

I know what you're thinking, but no, I'm not suggesting that you go out and join OnlyFans, but you can have a private membership area on your own website where you give your audience what they're looking for or an extended version of what you post in your public social media profiles.

While OnlyFans is making all the headlines right now, the private membership area concept isn't a new thing and there are many other platforms besides OF that you can use for this. Your website for one, but there are also others like Patreon, SubscribeStar, Thinkific, Kajabi, and the list goes on.

In Conclusion

You can monetize your social media profiles. I know people that make 4 or 5 figures per month; that's nothing to sneeze at as a side hustle. Others make over $100,000. You can do it from anywhere in the world where you have an Internet connection.

You don't need to be a huge celebrity. It takes a little bit of effort, some time, and preparation, but at the end of the day, the opportunities are endless, the payouts are fantastic. You can do this, doesn't matter if you're 16, or 73.

Dedicated to my TikTok fam, You guys are killing it. Shout-outs to you guys @ayuputurossa @marivic59mommy @dumb_bricklayer @iamtiktokelle @findingmea

The post How To Monetize TikTok Influence appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I'd venture to guess that he was like the average 20-year-old kid. Enjoying life, coming to terms with the realities of becoming an adult and just trying to figure out life. One day as he was enjoying spring break in Florida he received a message.

The message was an invitation to make a radical change in his life. This invitation went out to thousands of people, I'm pretty sure it was actually tens of thousands of people. It was a radical proposition. At the time I saw the invitation as well and I felt like I should have responded. But having two kids and a wife and a mortgage made me doubt the ability to follow through with that response.

I thought I would sleep on it for a couple days and talk it over with my wife.

Empty Pockets photo cover credit by Richie Diesterheft licensed under CC.

But in just a couple days, a second announcement came out saying that the invitation was now closed as they had received enough interest and they were certain that one of the applicants would fit the job.

I chucked it off to bad timing and moved on. But I kept an eye on the development of this opportunity.

A few months later, that's when I heard about Steve for the first time. Steve was the person that responded to the opportunity and was granted the chance to take it. His commitment, or his quick response or the fact that he didn't have a lot of commitments helped him win over hundreds of applicants.

Steve literally dropped everything to take a chance. With a few bucks to his name, Steve left school, he left so fast, he left laundry in the washing machine and took a flight on a one-way ticket to South East Asia. His future was uncertain, but he held onto the idea that this would work.

He went to work on his business, learning everything he could and soon began to make money. And yes, I get it, it's easy for a student to drop everything and travel half way around the world. He didn't have a care in the world, right? No mortgage, like you or me. No kids. No real commitments.

And so he continued working and working and then he began teaching others how to make several thousand dollars per day. This is when things got real.

But is it really as easy as it sounds? I don't think so. The part that matters is that he made it work, he followed directions, he learned, he applied his lessons and started making money. I remember him posting just earlier this year about how he was going to break the $200,000 mark in just one month.

The craziest part is that he went from poor student to millionaire in just about two years. I can write another 2 thousand words telling you how he did it, but it comes down to this: commitment, faith, and a following a system.

He had the commitment to succeed and he knew what he was doing at the time wasn't going to get him the financial freedom he desired. Faith because he had to trust the opportunity and he showed his belief by dropping everything and taking a chance. And finally, the system is what helped him achieve such success in a short amount of time.

I could tell you about the things he did to achieve a million dollars, I can explain how it all works. In fact, I've been telling you about this for years now, here on the blog, and in my emails. But I rather you hear it directly from him, if a picture is worth 1000 words, then a video must be worth a million.

There is no secret, it's affiliate marketing.

This is high-level, hight-ticket affiliate marketing and it's purposeful, driven and highly profitable. Unlike the average affiliate or blogger, this system provides you with the marketing, the products and the fulfillment that you need to make high-level commissions. If you're a beginner, or you're looking to start making money online then you should check out Steve's story right here.

Steve put together a guide that will help rookies start making money. Watch his video and take a chance, who knows where you could be in 6, or 12 months from now. Steve started without knowing anything about affiliate marketing, internet marketing and by his own admission he wasn't really tech savvy even though he's a young guy.

Here's a short excerpt in his own words:

In the first 210 days of 2017, I made over $1,000,000.

That breaks down to about $4,761 per day, $198 per hour (every hour, even while I sleep), $3.30 per minute…
27 months ago when I first started this journey I could have never imagined it taking off this fast. It feels like I started yesterday…

At first, I did this as a matter of necessity. I needed the money – to pay student loans, to help my family, to escape my credit card debt. I was in a deep deep hole and I needed to climb back out.

I used to make $198 in 4 DAYS! ($7 minimum wage x 8 hours = $56 a shift working a regular job). Now as each hour passes, my bank account grows by that amount regardless of what I’m doing.

It’s honestly mind blowing.

Once I made my first $1k, $10k, $20k it became less out of necessity and more of a game for me.

“How can I make more money this week? This month?”

And

“How can I help others do the same?”

Continue the story here...

The post Struggling to Make a Profit as a Beginner appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

On this day (May 20) pretend to be a millionaire or start working on your plans that you think will make you a millionaire.

Word on the street is that everybody would like to be a millionaire. That means you, right? And in jest, timeanddate.com suggests you should pretend to be a millionaire today, or start working on your plans to become one.

Let's not pretend

I want to talk about the second part of that. Being a millionaire can give you security. But it's difficult to make a million dollars, or so it seems. Here are some ideas:

Some people will tell you that all you have to do is visualize it, think about it, project it and it will become so. That's a bunch of baloney if you ask me.

Other people will tell you to invest in the stock market, or in options or commodities. I'd say that you have a chance of making a million dollars or more with that, but you have an equal or greater chance of going broke as well if you don't know what you're doing.

Maybe you want to find a new hot startup and invest some money into it, wait and hope that they become the next Uber, or Snapchat or Blue Apron; well, maybe not Uber right now, but you get the idea.

Instead of talking hypotheticals, I'm going to give you two practical ways of getting closer to being a millionaire, starting today.

Spend less than you make

Here's the first method to help you become a millionaire. It's not always about how much you make, but how much you get to keep so be thrifty and wise with your money. Will Rogers, the highest paid Hollywood actor of his time said this:

And it's true. The best way to accumulate wealth is to not spend your money. So next time you go out, next time you go shopping, next time you are browsing Amazon, remember this: spend less than you make.

If you're going to use credit cards, make sure you can pay the full amount all the time, so that if you're using a credit card, you're using it to accumulate rewards, get a better deal, or get some consumer protection. Do NOT use a credit card because you don't have cash in the bank.

From first-hand experience, I can tell you that using credit cards to purchase things for which you don't have the funds in the bank, is a recipe for disaster and financial enslavement.

Add multiple streams of income

The second way I'll suggest to becoming wealthy is to add another revenue stream. Most people make money from a single source; their job. You are probably in this group, and you may even have a good job that pays you well. You feel secure, don't you?

But the bottom line is that your job is the only source of income, if you become disabled, or if you get laid off, or if your employer goes out of business, you're shit out of luck. There goes your security!

Even with a job, you should have other streams of income. Not only will this help you generate money faster, but it will also give you real security and freedom. You'll feel less stressed, and you'll be happier overall.

Sell something online, start a blog, become a consultant, become a reseller, learn to invest, work on ways to get more money for the same amount of time and effort you spend every day!

Living proof

What I describe above is exactly how I work and live, my blog generates part of my income, I also consult and coach people on how to start businesses and how to improve their businesses.

The results are great because they allow me to spend time with my kids and wife and friends and still my blog makes money. I earn money while I'm at the park with my kids, out with my wife or having dinner with friends.

Sometimes one of my sources of income may dry up, as I talked about with Coco Jack, but I don't need to worry about it because I still make money with all the sources of income I have working for me.

You can see in the screenshot below, that I get paid various amounts from different sources, I also receive physical checks from a few companies, and as of the writing of this post, I am waiting for 3 checks adding another $1500 or so.

There are also about half a dozen other companies that owe me between 230 to 1000 for this month.

The post Be a Millionaire Day appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But I thought I'd give you a new list of programs that piqued my interest.

Before I jump into it, I should also point out another post that you probably want to check out if you're new to the whole idea of making money with your blog. It's a collection of Q&A related to monetizing a blog. There's also a video where I give you some tips I've picked up along the way.

Let's get started, shall we? Oh! One more thing, before we get going, if you don't mind giving this a quick share on Twitter, you can do it with te link below or the quotes sprinkled throughout the article.

Hiver

This is a new company in the helpdesk arena.  It is excellent for businesses because it integrates with Gmail and Google apps and instantly activates a help desk system that can be shared across the support team so that every customer interaction can be managed, assigned, shared, tagged and resolved directly from the inboxes of support personnel. This is a terrific opportunity for blogs that provide business advice, technology reviews, software as a service blogs and other related niches. Payouts are great at $200 to $400 per sign up. Sign up here.

Pure Paw Nutrition

As the pet care market grows, any blog with a pet-centric audience should take a look at these guys. I was impressed by their website which is vibrant attractive, their product seems great too. But what caught my attention is the smart use of an LTO (limited time offer). This should help with conversions significantly so if you have a dog training blog, pet related blog or anything to do with dogs, you should take a look at this affiliate program. Their cookie last 30 days and they pay 11% which is great for such a competitive space. Sign up here.

Zen and Soul

If you're into fitness, well-being, and specifically yoga, then this affiliate program is for you. They have everything you need for your yoga experience so if you have that type of audience, then this might be a great addition to your blog. The user experience on the site is good and the design is attractive so that should help with conversions if you have the target audience. Their cookie will remain for 30 days and they pay out a 20% commission on every sale! You can sign up here.

Connex Digital Marketing

This caught my attention because it's one of the few companies I've seen offering this type of service and using affiliate marketing to promote it. This is ideal for any blog that provides online marketing information. What's more interesting is their pricing structure. They have a great price system that makes these services affordable. The payouts are a flat $100.00 per sale with a 30-day cookie which isn't' that great, but if you have enough traffic, you could make a few hundred dollars up to several thousand dollars each month just from this. Sign up here, and look for Connex Digital Marketing when you log in.

Skimlinks

Skimlinks has been around for quite a while but it's worth mentioning because it makes things easier for you to monetize your content by automatically changing links to be affiliate links. Another benefit of using Skimlinks is that you partner up with them and benefit from their volume rates. The biggest benefit by far is that you don't have to sign up for tons of different affiliate programs. Definitely worth checking out if you have a lot of content that you haven't monetized before, or if you've started a blog recently and want to save time and effort. Sign up here.

Linktrackr

Linktrackr is awesome. It's a private link shortener that works like Bit.ly but you can use your own domain (or pick from one that they offer). I use it for all the links you see that start with oglink.it. The reason this is a good program to promote is because they pay a decent commission and they offer a service every blogger needs. This would be ideal for a blog that talks about blogging, online marketing, social media, influencer marketing and similar topics. Pay ranges from 30% to 50%, the cookie lasts 30 days AND there is a 2-tier program. A 2-tier program means that you get paid an additional commission from the sales generated by anybody that you refer. Sign up here.

Creditsaint

This is a credit repair service that can fit into a financial blog, or lifestyle blog, maybe even a making money blog like mine. Their offering is to help customers fix bad credit and start building good credit and many people need this. They offer a solid $100.00 payout per sale and have a terrific 90-day cookie. Sign up here and search for Creditsaint under merchants.

CEFA

An excellent offer for any fitness-centric blog. This program is attractive for a couple reasons. Council of Exercise Fitness and Athletics offers CEFA certification for trainers and other fitness professionals. The reason it seems like a great program is because it has brand weight by being associated with some of the top fitness brands, like 24hourfitness, Equinox and others. For you as an affiliate, the payouts are awesome at 50% and the cookie lasts forever. That's awesome! Sign up here and search for CEFA

After thoughts and a couple words in closing

Some of you asked me if I gave you the proper link to some of the programs before, because you went to the Shareasale website and didn't find the program. I want to clarify that when I say "Sign up here" and then search for the name of the program, you need to be signed up and logged in with your username for the search to work. Signing up for Shareasale and most affiliate networks is free, just takes a couple of minutes.

The post 9 More Programs to Help You Monetize Your Blog appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I get a hundred new offers every week or more, most of them are boring, others don't pay enough, many of them are pure junk,  and the vast majority are outside of my niche.

I thought I might share some of the most interesting ones with you. These are also the offers that I would consider if I were in their niche. Without further ado, here are 9 new programs to help you make money as an affiliate.

925 Attire. (out of business)

From their own site: Attire 925 was created to bring business casual apparel and footwear to fashionable women of all sizes! The payout is pretty low at 5% and the cookie is only 30 days but the niche is interesting. This would work well for a fashion, or lifestyle blog. It appeals to working women, stay at home moms. Apply here.

The Ruggedbeard Company

This is the shop to get your beard all the TLC it deserves. The Rugged Beard Company provides oils, balms, and waxes for beards and mustaches to keep them healthy and looking their best. The cookie is a bit low at a 30-day retention, but for a physical product, commissions are at a solid 10%. This would work well for a male-centric lifestyle blog or a fashion blog. Apply here.

Cajun Crate

The subscription model is permeating all types of markets and food is one of them. The Cajun crate takes the monthly subscription model and spices it up with a cajun centric box of Louisiana cooking delights. The commission is quite low for a product like this and I really want to strangle the affiliate management team for not offering a recurring based commission, but they're set at 5% with a 30-day cookie. The audience is anybody that likes the convenience and surprise of these type of boxes and anybody looking for a unique gift. Would work great with a lifestyle blog or a foodie blog. Apply here.

Ocassioni Eleganti (out of business!)

This got my attention because it is a jewelry shop with unique and affordable designs, but their commission is very high for a physical product like this and their cookie is awesome. They make some really eye-catching jewelry that won't break the bank so it's perfect for a fashion blog, lifestyle blog, or other blogs with similar budget conscious but stylish driven audiences. Their payout is 15%, paired with a 120-day cookie! That's yummy! Apply here.

Breast Actives

This is interesting because the payout is big! The product is based on a do-it-yourself at home therapy program. It's essentially a breast enhancement program based on natural products. I can't say if it works or not because, well... I don't need the product; my man-boobs are big enough, thank you very much. But the results and testimonials look terrific. This would be great for a site centered around self-image, body image, self-confidence, body positivity, self-help, natural remedies and related topics. The payout is $44.00 per sale! Apply here, then look for offer number: 31681.

The Flavor Run

Perfect for fitness blogs! This is a program where you can promote these awesome 5K runs that are happening throughout the country. They're adding new locations each week and it would be a perfect fit for a fitness blog, running, lifestyle and even a local or events blog. The commissions are 10% and the cookie lasts for 30 days. Apply here, then search for The Flavor run.

Bunny Williams

This program is for blogs focusing on the sophisticated side of home and living. The products offered would fit into the home and garden category but after browsing some of their catalog, the pieces are fit for a museum or a model home. The commission is really competitive at a solid 15% commission but their cookie leaves a lot to be desired with a short 15-day lifespan. If you want to promote this, you better be good at closing the sale quickly. Apply here, then search for Bunny Williams.

The Nooky Box

This one is rated R or maybe even NR, but it's definitely NSFW. I told you that the box subscription business is thriving. This one is a box subscription service for your wilder side. Their tagline reads Yay Sex! So yeah, this is an adult subscription box service that sends you new toys, oils, and games to spice things up in the bedroom. The payout is great at 10% and they have a great long lasting 120-day cookie. Apply here, then search for The Nooky Box.

Patch Collection

Sports are always a good seller if you have the audience. As you gear up towards your favorite sport, your visitors will want to get patches for their favorite teams. But there's a twist, even if your blog isn't about sports, you can make money with Patch collection. They offer pop-culture related patches as well for things like DC Comics, Star Wars, Marvel and more. Commissions are 10% with a 30-day cookie. Apply here, then search for Patch Collection.

In conclusion.

That wraps up a round-up of 9 new and promising affiliate programs you can join today and start making money. I would love to hear back to know about your experiences with them and if you found this useful, I would appreciate it if you took a few seconds to share this post in social media using one of the buttons available or any of the tweetable quotes.

Money by Andrew  Magil via CC

The post 9 Programs to Help You Make Money with Your Blog appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

It's hard for me to save money too, so I focus on making more money. But I have to acknowledge that saving more money would be a really good thing.

I've been trying to make savings a habit. Trying to put away a certain percentage of all income is good practice but it's not always as easy as it sounds. Maybe the habits book we're reading in our book club will help, but if I don't have to think about it, even better.

I've tried all kinds of ways to save money, from keeping a daily log, to incentivizing the process of savings, to using programs like "keep the change" from Bank of America. These haven't worked for me in the past.

Now, I use something that is better. It came across my inbox in a newsletter I think. It's a new startup, a company that can really help you save money. It's quite ingenious how it works.

The company name is Digit.co, and it really is a virtual bank. The way Digit works is that you link Digit to your bank account. Their algorithms then analyze your income and expense patterns for a while.

After the system analyzes your account they begin making small withdrawals from your account and deposit these into a savings account.

In my experience, the withdrawals range from $0.81 to $6.97.

I've now been using them for about a month, and so far I've saved almost $30.00. This is money I didn't really need at the moment, and the deposits amounts happen every day or every couple days but don't disrupt my cash flow.

I tend to ramble a bit, so maybe check out this video that explains it very clearly.

I wouldn't have saved these $30.00 on my own. Looking through their blog, I found that other people have saved anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

Digit automates your savings, so you don't have to think about it. If you want to give it a try, use this link, I think they'll give me a few bucks for referring you, so that's cool too.

Setting it up was super easy, it took like 5 minutes to connect to my bank and using it is simple as well. After you have your account, you can text Digit to inquire about your recent transactions, or your balance.

They'll even tell  you the last 3 transactions that took place in your regular bank account, so it works as a quick balance check without having to login to your bank app and all that stuff.

Because everything is automatic, and intelligent, this is by far one of the best methods I found to save more money. When you have saved enough for your goal, or when you decide you want to make a withdrawal, you request the money and it will be transferred to your regular bank within 24 hours.

It's like that old idea that you should put all your pocket change in a jar at the end of the day and after a while you'll have enough money to buy yourself a little something. Except this is virtual and way better than a can full of pennies.

Who's endorsing Digit?

Digit is backed by some really big names, and equally important there are some big names writing about them. I'm confident my money is safe, just like I knew my money would be safe when I joined Mint in the early days.

Mint revolutionized how we spend money, how we track money when they launched.

Digit is going to revolutionize how we save money.

Who's Using Digit?

It seems that every kind of person is using Digit, from students to professionals and even retired folks. Just looking through their blog, you'll see some featured members, like Marriam Yakeem, a student. She says:

I’m not a good planner, so I like the fact that Digit saves for me. I don’t have to think about it.

There is Eric Patrick too, a family man, alright he says:

I never even think about it anymore and when I receive a text message out of the blue showing my balance, I’m simply amazed every time.

I'm sure Digit can help you too. Now you really have no excuse not to save money. If you want to give it a try, and I think you should, click here to learn more or to get started. It's free, and it's awesome.

The post How To Save Money With This Revolutionary App appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But recently in my trip to Las Vegas, we used two Uber rides and the driver in one of them was very friendly. He told us he makes great money and quit his other job to do Uber full time. Says he works about 9 hours each day. I don't think we asked him his age, but the driver was young, probably early twenties or late teens so he's happy doing the hustle.

He says there is a high demand in Las Vegas all day long, 24 7 he says. He often gets rides that are worth more because the demand for drivers is so high at that point, they call that a multiplier.

But let's be a little more realistic, you will not find crowds gathering outside a river of luxury hotels like you do in Las Vegas in many other places.

Maybe a couple of cities in the country can offer that consistent number of crowds to provide work for a large pool of Uber drivers. So I have always wondered, can you really make money with Uber? Well, the mystery has been cracked. Once you find the average hourly rate that a Uber driver makes you won't look at Uber again.

How do you find the average hourly wage for an Uber driver? You watch this video of course!

Why Uber is Terrible - Explained

I haven't tried it myself, and if I did it would only be for fun, to try the experience because I can think of a dozen things I can do with internet marketing that pay way more than Uber, and don't require risking your life or safety.

The post Can you Really Make Money From Uber? or Why Uber is Terrible appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Thomas the Apostle is a person in the Bible who does not believe the claims of Jesus (who can blame him?). He doubts the claims that Jesus died and rose three days later. He wanted to see proof.

He was one of the 12 apostles and sometimes people call him doubting Thomas. The story says that eventually Jesus showed up to Thomas and showed him proof.

So maybe you're a little bit like Thomas and want to see proof that affiliate marketing works.

I want to show you a screenshot of one of the products I am promoting right now. By promoting I mean I wrote about it a couple times and I posted it in a few of my blogpost. It maybe took me 20 minutes total to promote this product.

Here's the screenshot of the results so far:

This has been going on since early August and I've generated a total of $269.81 in commissions. When you consider that this is one of dozens of products that I promote, then you realize it's not such a bad deal to do affiliate marketing.

Here's the overview for this account. Not to bad for about 20 or 30 minutes of work. What's even cooler about this is that it will (should) continue making money for some time to come.

The post Are You Like Thomas? Here’s Your Proof! appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

You know, I've helped quite a few people get their stuff together and start a business online. I've done it for people starting out and I also have helped people with existing businesses. The ultimate goal is to increase revenue.

They say that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I take care of bringing opportunities together and teach you how to capitalize on them. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of support and encouragement, and you'll make a breakthrough. Sometimes you need to be humbled by an experience that you didn't expect.

And no matter what I always believe that you have to persevere through the toughest parts to get to the best. I have a story about that in my ebook. And I also teach a few things.

The book (free to download) is called: Work Anywhere, Profit Online. An Unusual Guide to Making Your First $100,000 Online. And it reveals secrets about Internet Marketing like nobody does.

This is how we do internet marketing. And this leads me to the next part of this post. Why I wrote the book. -- There are many reasons why I released the book so suddenly and just recently.

If you notice, my blogging here at Notagrouch and at Papidaddy pretty much ceased for the past couple of weeks. That's a huge no-no in my world.

But I have a good reason for it and that is the book. For years I've been helping people get their businesses online. I've helped them optimize their business and get more out of it.

I helped many people and realized that everything I was doing to help one person could apply to many. It's taken a while but I finally had something to show you. The book explains the differences between businesses and some of your options.

I really finished it because I had a little bit of time and some things cleared up for me while I was at Affiliate Summit West. I have more to tell you about that too!

When I came back from Affiliate Summit West 2015, ASW15 I caught a cold. Turned out to be a sinus infection and took a big toll on me. But it gave me time to write and wrap up the book.

By the time I finished it, I had written over 120 pages I think. But it was finished.

Then I asked in Facebook if some of my friends would be willing to help me review it. Five awesome friends jumped on the post and asked to see a review copy.

I just gave them access to the Google working copy and then they started working on it. Google lets you have many authors work on one document simultaneously.

It was pretty amazing so in just a few days the five of them gave it a complete overhaul. They corrected grammar, typos and helped me clarify ideas.

Four days after my friends started editing, we had a final copy. Version one. It went out to the public and I announced it. My friends turned editors freaked out a little. They had a few more pages to edit. I told them we could do it later.

I felt like O'Reilly in his infamous video gone viral. We'll do it live!

And I ran with it, while they made the final edits. The book was well received immediately. Or more than I expected. I have a decent amount of followers but even then I was very surprised.

As of the time of this writing, in just about a week, the book has been requested over 1000 times and it has been downloaded over 4000 times give or take a couple hundred. You have to account for people downloading it twice, or at work then at home.

And even as a free book I'm happy with the results. This is what I've been teaching all along and I help customers do. Create a compelling piece of content and offer it in exchange for a little bit of mindshare.

Mindshare is what I think is the key factor that most marketers miss. Mindshare is the cornerstone of branding. Mindshare is your key to their living room. Mindshare is everything.

For everyone that has downloaded the book. Even you reading this. I hope I've made at least a tiny impression in your head. I hope I taught you something or opened your eyes to something.

If you haven't read the book, that's what I hope to do. Learn a little bit. Discover how things are done and find out how you too can have a business online. It is not rocket science.

It also explains how I see the world of business and what type of business is my preferred option. People are liking it. Here are a few quotes from comments:

Carmen C. From Italy said:

The post Work Anywhere, Profit Online — My First eBook appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

It pays real money and it isn't difficult. If you want to jumpstart and cut through all the nonsense then get in touch with me before you do anything else. There is a better way to earn a living than wasting your life away at a job you hate.

You really don't have to do that. I show some checks from Shareasale, Aweber and a couple private companies that pay directly.

This doesn't mention the companies that pay me directly into my bank or paypal account. If you're wondering if you could do this too, you can.

If you are wondering if this is real, it is. If you want a guided process to learn Internet Marketing I can set you on the right track immediately.

Contact me and tell me you're interested in learning internet marketing. All my contact information is on my contact page.

The post Internet Marketing Works. See some Checks for Proof appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The post To build a system, take action now appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Many popular tips and some very unique ideas. Covers making sure your unique value proposition is clear and unique. What are you going to give me that I'm not getting somewhere else. Start a swipe file.

It's all about getting creative and saving time and effort.

The post 25 List Building Tricks appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Free traffic comes from your blog, from content, from social networks. It is mostly the same as "organic traffic" and it is really good, but it isn't free. Please don't make the mistake to think that this traffic is free.

In order for your content to get traffic, it needs to get promoted somehow. If you create a killer blogpost, it still needs to be promoted to the right audience. It needs to be shown to the people that would want to read it. After you spend time writing a blogpost, you may think that your job is done.

Maybe you think that you can just sit back and wait for people to come and start reading your blogposts. But that doesn't happen. At least it doesn't happen for a while. You have to work hard at promoting your blogpost. You need to post on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, then share it on forums, tell your friends about it, tell your family about it. You have to spend time getting that free traffic.

Free traffic costs you time. Lots of time. There are a couple of benefits to free organic traffic, but it is not free.

Another reason why free traffic isn't free is because not only does it cost you money in time. It is expensive because it takes a lot of time to bring results. After you publish your blogpost, you then need to spend hours and hours promoting it. Sometimes people come to the blogpost, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they will come weeks or months later. This delay can be very expensive!

If you want to see a series of articles I started writing about getting free traffic for your blog, check those out here: part 1, part 2. Just remember that if you don't spend money on traffic, you need to spend your time and effort.

Then you still have to wait for search engines to index the content and send the real organic traffic. This is the good organic traffic, but search engines can take a while to index and start sending visitors to it. Time is money and the slower things happen, the more money is lost or not made.

One more reason why free traffic can be really expensive is because it is very resource intensive to obtain, and the quality isn't the right level of quality. You can spend a couple hours promoting your blogpost in several Facebook groups, or Linkedin groups or Google Plus community and get a lot of people to visit your blogpost.

But are these really the people that will buy what you are selling? If they are not the right target audience, you're now wasting time bringing people to your blogpost, but they don't really want to read it. You're wasting your web hosting resources showing and hosting your website but you're showing it to the wrong people.

Think about this next time you're hesitant to buy traffic. I will explain why paid traffic is always better.

Paid traffic is targeted

Whether you buy traffic from banner ads, social media, solo ads or any other paid advertising system, you'll find that the heavy lifting is taken care of it for you.

You can select what type of traffic you want, most social media platforms that offer advertising let you select who will see your ad. When you buy a solo ad, you buy it from the people that sell the type of traffic you need. There is no guess work here.

In contrast, when you get free traffic you don't know if the clicks or visitors are actually interested in reading about your blogpost or product. Maybe a friend sent them the link, or they caught it by accident in your Twitter feed but they aren't really interested in that.

Paid traffic helps you budget better.

When you buy paid traffic, you know how much you're spending and how much you can spend in a week, or a month or whatever time period. You can adjust your budget this way. You can decide to spend $5.00 per day, or $30; but you always have control over this.

In contrast when you are trying to get free traffic, you don't know if you'll need to spend 2 hours, or 20 hours to get a certain amount of traffic. You don't know if you need to write 2 blogposts or post 7 updates on Twitter, or 5 photos in Instagram. Free traffic is ephemeral.

Paid traffic can be sourced relatively easily

To emphasize something I said earlier, paid traffic can be purchased time and time again. The sources might change but as long as there is Internet and people are selling something, you'll be able to buy traffic in some form or another.

In contrast, free traffic is tough to find and it is hard to figure things out whenever they change. For example, 5 years ago it was very easy to get free traffic from Twitter, now the hot social networks are Instagram and Snapchat but it's hard to figure out how to get traffic from those. You always have to be learning how free traffic works if you want to be good at it.

Paid traffic is fast

I have blogposts that have been read tens of thousands of times, and I have Youtube videos that have been viewed thousands upon thousands of times. Unfortunately most times, it takes weeks or months for that kind of traffic to happen organically. When you pay for traffic, you will see the traffic start arriving almost immediately. Solo ads are usually delivered within a week, Facebook ads can send you hundreds of clicks each day, Instagram ads give you traffic within 24 hours. Paid traffic is fast and measurable.

In conclusion

Next time you think about how to get more people to look at your offer, or your landing page, or your blogpost, perhaps you should consider a source of paid traffic. If you aren't sure how to use paid traffic, then do some research, learn one source first and use it. Perhaps try Facebook ads, or Twitter ads. Even Pinterest and Instagram are serving ads now. If you are serious about your blog, or your online business then you owe it to yourself to explore paid traffic.

Here's a course that teaches you exactly how to dominate your affiliate offers using paid traffic, this course teaches you how to dominate each type of traffic. Over 10 experts in the field share what they do best and how they generate thousands of dollars with their preferred paid traffic method.

The post Free Traffic is Expensive and Why Paid Traffic is Better appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Well, what about those products that only pay you once. Perhaps try this:
Negotiate with the owner for a recurring model for you. Really. Some affiliate managers will negotiate payout terms with their top affiliates so if you're making sales and you commit to certain number of sales, you'll be able to get higher payouts than advertised and sometimes you can request recurring payouts instead of one-time. These are individual contracts made on a case by case basis.
Sometimes they invite you to contact them if you can make more than just a few sales. Believe me, I have several programs where I get paid way above the normal payout, because I have a commitment of bringing in a good number of sales.

A very small example. This is one of the networks that pays my commissions. Today I got three sales related to earlier blogposts I made and or simply related to something I talked about or tweeted about earlier this month. Take a look at the screenshot:

Add more value to the offer you're giving and add a recurring billing item in the bundle, or value proposition. I spoke of that exact thing on the newsletter article I wrote for inmotion Hosting last week.

I offer a free wordpress installation service at Real Free website. Well, turns out, I also offer premium theme customizations, sometimes some of the plugins or other services I recommend have a recurring billing model. I bundle things together and I offer several products and try to find one or two that pay me every time the customer pays their bill.

Right now, I can tell you that Aweber's affiliate program is like that, as is Leadpages, as is Optinmonster and several others. If the product is good, and you have a genuine interest for your audience to use it, then find the product that will pay you a recurring fee instead of one time payment.

Yes, sometimes the payment is only a 10% payment, or maybe 20%. But if you think that a customer may stay with the business for 6 to 12 or even 24 months, or even several years, that small percentage can turn into a lot of cash coming in on auto-pilot. Literally.

That's how you make recurring affiliate income. The amounts don't have to be huge (although they can be). But consistent commissions, increasing each time you solve a customer's problem... don't mind if I do.

The post How to make recurring affiliate income appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

To the OMG members:

(thanks Elsa for pointing out that Acronym)

I've talked to a few members this past week and some of you are going through some rough times. I thought I would tell you a little bit about motivation and these situations we find ourselves in when we're trying to make things work.

Being an entrepreneur is tough. It is much tougher than doing a normal 9 - 5 job. The reward is awesome, financially and emotionally. The freedom, invaluable. But things don't always work out when we want them, the way we want them. But the thing is to never give up.

If you really believe in what you're doing, then there is no "going back" there is no throwing in the towel. Very often the minute you quit is only a few minutes before success.

I've thought about giving up several times in the past, and each time that I was ready to throw in the towel I reconsidered and let things be for one more hour, day, week. and then I tried harder. Then things materialized.

I'm not saying that things will just magically fall from the sky. But sometimes the success comes after the hardest effort and only right after. It's like climbing a mountain. Often times, the last mile of a hike is the toughest, it's steep, and you're tired and you're thirsty. Then you reach the summit and all the pain is forgotten for the realization that you made it. The breeze cools you off, and you remember this is where you wanted to be all along. You are glad you didn't turn around 30 minutes or an hour ago because you would have missed the view.

Take breaks along the way, yes. But don't give up. If something isn't working, then pivot, change something. It is crazy to continue on a failing path --that's not what Im saying you should do. But you should work through your difficulties because once you get those worked out, the rewards come. Everyday you can fix something, adjust something and do more, make more, be better.

Regardless of your current state of mind, you also must remember to stay out of your comfort zone. The comfort zone is the failure zone. "Dabblers" stay in their comfort zone because they want to dabble on something before they jump on it, and at the first sign of discomfort, failure or unknown, they come back to their safety net. That will never get you anywhere.

If you believe in what you're doing, then do it. If you don't believe in it enough to pull all the stops, then why are you doing it? I doubt, I fear, I fail everyday, but I use that to my advantage, those emotions motivate me to do better than yesterday. Don't let uncertainty, fear and doubt take over, look at fear in the face and let it feed you. Let it recharge you and give you a boost to climb the last mile. It will only make you stronger for tomorrow's journey, when it will begin all over.

How do you expect others to believe in you when you let doubt take over? Stop that. You have an able mind, hopefully able body, and 12 - 14 hours each day to sculpt your destiny.

Ask for help, seek advice, find a mentor. But don't give up because you have a bad week, or a bad month. I've had a full bad year and more in the past. This is why I have this group. For me to help you guys and to get help from you, to learn from you as you learn from me. So cheer up, it's Friday. Take a deep breath and go kick some ass.

The post Don’t miss the view. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

A huge mistake I see by people trying out their e commerce shops is to offer discounts. They offer coupons, probably because shopping carts today have very easy ways of integrating coupons into their checkout systems. And people think that by offering coupons they'll attract more customers. And all of these reasons are probably partially true.

But the biggest mistake I see is that the coupons are crap. When you're offering something online, and you're not known, you've got no brand, you have to believe in what you're doing. So much so that you should almost give away your first product for free. After All, wouldn't you give away your first product if you knew that the customer will come back for more products after? That should be your mentality.

Give away a taste, a freebie then sell more products to that customer. Find out more about them, learn why they wanted your product, how can you make it better? The first product is often called a loss-leader. So why not go balls out and give a 50% off coupon? or a $60 off from your first $100.00 purchase? Now those would be coupons that get my attention! And I'd be happy to Tweet, Facebook, share and Google+ the crap out of that offer, bringing you more clients.

I'd even send an email out to my friends or family members that might be interested in that offer. And guess what? You have now attracted the attention of buyers willing to spend some money to get your product.

I believe another reason that people do the crappy 5% or 10% coupons is because they're too lazy to figure out how to market to them again. Here's the secret sauce to that... email marketing. Before you give away a product or offer a 50% discount like I am suggesting, make sure you have a sytem in place to help you promote more products or services to that customer. Get them to share their email address with you and then use it!

-- Believe me, this is cheaper than any advertising campaign you can concoct. Do it. Next time skip the bullshit 10% off coupons. Give them something to chew on, something substantial. And milk it. Ask them questions, ask them to share the amazing offer in social networks, and follow up with them by offering other products that will also benefit them. That's how you do business online and how you acquire new customers.

The post Giving out coupons? Don’t be a cheap ass. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

As I mentioned on a previous post, many companies have an affiliate program. This means that you have a good chance of making some extra cash if you try to use an affiliate program on your blog.

Apple has an affiliate program for iTunes content. You can sign up to be an Apple iTunes affiliate by applying here.

That means you can promote apps, music videos, Television shows, Movies and other paid content available on iTunes.

Maybe you like to review books, or movies or music. You could add some of the affiliate links about the content you review or write about. Using these links on you blog or website will pay you money when clicked on.

I've never promoted this before so I can't tell you how they have worked for me, but I just applied so I will keep you updated when I my application is approved or denied.

Something I noticed is that they seem to be active and keep you can read their page of affiliate resources. Looks like a good tool for new iTunes affiliates. You'll find link generators, banner generators and even an RSS generator.

The post iTunes affiliate program. Did you know they had one? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Real Free Website was born out of the desire and need to help other people be found online. If you've been following me for a while, then you know that I actually started setting up free websites for people from my Notagrouch.com blog.

Many people read my blog and I often get questions on how to setup a blog or website. Most people don't need anything fancy. But they need to be online. Whether you are a business owner, a musician, a hobbyist, an athlete or even a student, you need to have a presence online.

I was spending a lot of time answering questions. Educating people about how the internet works, how websites work, what they should do next, where they should go for help. How to market themselves using a website. All in the hopes of getting new business to design another custom built website. But there was a disconnect. Most people that are looking for free advice, direction and the like, can't afford a professional web designer. Or they think they can't afford a professional web designer, but that's fodder for another blogpost.

Normally I build custom designed websites starting at about $3000.00 USD and going up to $25,000. That's a lot for most people. And so their next option is to hire someone cheap from Craigslist for like $450 or have a family member, friend, neighbor, or someone else "do their site." Their other option is to roll up their sleeves and do it themselves.

I usually think that the best option is to pay a professional to fully take care of your website. From design, to implementation, to support and maintenance and this comes out to a pretty penny. Believe me, even at $3000 or $5000, I'm very inexpensive compared to other "design agencies" out there. Many  design agencies outsource their work to me. So I know what it costs to build a site and I know how to do it right.

I still wanted to help people so I decided to streamline my process and give them a new option, I just couldn't keep spending hours and hours giving away my knowledge and time for free. So the option became this: Get a free quality website setup as I would set it up for my clients, for free. The same security settings, same best-practices, same plugins, and same quality.  Then give them the tools to design something great upon that foundation.

This gives people the tools and know-how needed to make their website stand out.  So I did this. I got really good at setting up sites quickly and with minimal expense for me. Then I found a hosting company that took pride in their support and provided very reasonable prices. I moved a few of my sites over to them to test them out, they passed all my tests. Then I found their affiliate program and joined it.

A match made in heaven. Combine my expertise at setting up websites with the web hosting services by Inmotion Hosting and Real Free Website was born. I took the same offering I had on my personal blog but I made it available to the public by branding it on its own.

So I decided to launch the service recently and I had a special offer at launch. Sign up to get a free website setup and you'd get three amazing bonus items. Free coaching or training from me, Free Email autoresponder setup and Free SEO evaluation and setup.

The grand opening went really well. It passed all my expectations, and it makes sense. I've never seen an offer like that or anything like that and that is what most of the people that made the choice to get a free website told me too.

So the next steps to continue to grow that business is to produce new training videos, more blogposts and I will also be publicizing specials on a regular basis so that the value continues to be unsurpassed.

Thank you for everyone that supported my venture online!

The post The Real Free Website Grand Opening. A success! appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Take a look at the chart below, and I'll explain it after (click to enlarge).

First things first

In the diagram, each of the purple boxes represents a landing page. Each one is titled differently, but they're all technically landing pages. Some may be sales letters, thank you letters, long-form sales letters, or squeeze pages.

Creating these pages is fairly simple if you use a service or outsource them. I would recommend you take a look at Leadpages as the best service to create these pages for you. They create mobile-friendly, responsive, Facebook-friendly, WordPress compatible, easy, painless, and compatible with Aweber.

First, we will start with the landing page. We are assuming you have traffic going to the landing page. The traffic could be sourced from any type of advertising campaign, social media campaign, word of mouth, or any other method you can muster. We'll cover traffic in another blog post.

Once the visitor gets to a landing page, and the visitor enters the required information, a confirmation page is presented. This page will explain to the visitor to check their email address and click on the confirmation link. This is pretty standard stuff and it relates to that double opt-in process I talked about on my previous post about the email system.

First major step

The visitor now has two options, to confirm the link or to ignore it. For now, let's assume that yes, they click on the confirmation link. This will take the visitor to the Thank you page. The thank-you page may contain the sales letter and offer and most marketers I think would suggest this option.

In the flowchart, I chose to put the sales page as an additional step to illustrate it clearly. Both options are valid, but keep in mind that every time you present an option to click or not to click to continue you risk a percentage of the visitors to not continue. Also note that the Thank you page is presented from the previous email. At this time, another email is also sent. This email tends to mirror the thank you page and sales offer. We'll come back to the email part in a couple of paragraphs.

The sales page needs to present the offer. The offer must be clear and simple to complete; don't overcomplicate the options the visitor has. Present the offer, make it irresistible and make the next step loud and clear. That step is to buy.

To buy or not to buy

We are now at another decision, the customer will decide if they buy or if they save their hard-earned dollars for another day. Let's assume and continue with the positive response flow and assume they purchased your product. Success! this is awesome and you're on your way to earning a living online. At this point, you use another landing page to present them with another offer, another product, perhaps an upgrade to what they purchased. The cycle starts over at that time.

Now let's go back to the thank you email/sales link. At this point, you present the sales offer via email as well as on a website. The email, like the website, provides information about the product. The email serves as a reminder about why they need to buy your product now. They can save the message, reply to you and ask questions, re-read it, forward it, this is why you do both a webpage and an email.

After the first email, you present the follow-up sequence. Opinions differ on what is the right amount of emails in a follow-up sequence, but facts show that constant reminders and relationship-building emails work best as opposed to infrequent ones. Most successful internet marketers will advise you to email your customer every day they haven't purchased your product.

Tie in the email messages to the sales pages

Each email you send gives you an opportunity to expand on the benefits of the product. You can showcase success stories or testimonials. You can present new offers, OTOs (one-time offers), or LTOs (Limited time offers) to encourage them to buy. Then the cycle continues. If you want to be more sophisticated, each email message in your follow-up sequence can send the customer to a customized landing page specific to that offer instead of the same sales page you've used in previous instances.

Now, let's go back to the first choice where the customer didn't confirm the link. For most internet marketers, this step is unorthodox. I add it to my own sales process because I think it is important and we need to account for a few possible scenarios.

The follow up is key

It is important to follow up manually because it gives you a chance to connect with your potential customer. There is also the chance that maybe something went wrong with the email subscription, maybe they didn't get the email, maybe it went to spam. The way to follow up, if you are using aweber, it is easy. Go to your list and look for the unconfirmed email message and manually send the person an email from your email. Introduce yourself, tell them why you're emailing them and help them get through whatever obstacle may be in the way of confirming their request for information via email.

So that's it

There are many ways to follow this model and variations can be endless. The only real way to find out what is the best way is to test each step yourself and see how your product or service performs. You can use a link shortener to easily do A/B testing for example. You can also create several landing pages in just a few minutes in order to test a short sales page vs. a long sales page. It's also easy to move a subscriber or potential customer from one list to another when you're using Leadpages and Aweber; they work together flawlessly.

This process can be applied to almost any type of promotion online. Doesn't matter if you're trying to sell a product, service or just increase the readership of your blog. It even works for a church if you want to increase your congregation. You just have to think out of the box and understand that a product is anything you want someone else to use, and a sale is made anytime you persuade your target customer to buy. Get it?

The post The internet marketing basic sales flowchart appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Look, if you had, one shot
Or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?

Before I tell you about email, I wanted to refer to the intro lyrics I posted above. They're from Eminem's Lose yourself and I posted them so I could ask you the following. So as I present you opportunities and guidance, what will you do? Only time will tell, but I hope you take action. That is all I ask from you. If I had to do it all over again I would not change a lot. But what I would change is how fast I take action.

So as you continue to read the rest of my blog and upcoming posts. Ask yourself, have I taken a positive action towards my goals today!? Ok on with today's post...

Email is proven, tried and true.

So today I'll tell you about the first thing I would do if I were to start all over with this online stuff. I would do this if I were a beginner for sure, but even if you're a seasoned veteran, you should do this. Setup an email list system. But email is so passe... so the social media purists say, right?

You'd be surprised, studies show that email has the best ROI when it comes to marketing online. It is still the most popular, most prevalent and most used internet service besides the internet itself. In other words, email is king. Or how about this article: Marketing E-Mails beat Messages from Friends for Finding Websites. Case studies, surveys and reports come out every few months pointing to the fact that we still use and respond to email more than any other communication method to date.

People read email daily, several times a day. They read and check their email more than facebook, more than twitter and certainly more than Linkedin. The other networks don't even get to compare as far as mindshare goes when it comes to email. In short, email is where is at when you want to sell, market and develop a relationship with your customers.

So what can you do to use this often called archaic system? Whether you are a blogger or a full blown entrepreneur trying to sell products online, you need to have an email list.

An email list serves various purposes and allows you to stay in touch with your customers, readers or constituents under any circumstances. And let me make a distinction here. I'm not just talking about having an email list, like an excel spreadsheet or a group of emails in your contact list in your email program. No, when I say "email list" I'm referring to an email list that lives inside an email service provider, like Aweber, Infusionsoft or Vertical Response.

Benefits of an email service provider.

By using an email service system, you are more likely to follow CAN-SPAM laws and be compliant. Most email systems require that anyone that joins your list goes through the double-opt in process. A process which requires the subscriber to take two steps to confirm his or her desire to join the email list.

Having an email service system also allows you to send hundreds or even thousands of emails without problems. There is no email provider that will let you send more than a hundred or two hundred emails in one day, especially marketing type of emails. If you use the service provided by Gmail or Yahoo or another service like that, you'll be shutdown if you send too many emails.

Once a new subscriber has joined your list, you can email them on a regular basis. And that part is crucial to a successful email list and email marketing campaign. You must keep your readers warm. In other words, don't let your readers subscribe and forget about you. You must email them in a regular basis. This is where the autoresponder feature from an email service provider comes in handy.

When someone joins your list, you can have a series of email messages ready for them and deliver them on a daily or weekly basis. This is what an autoresponder is. This is also how you keep your readers warm. You also have an opportunity to get to know them and invite them to know you better by sharing stories, key posts on your blog and even specials or unique offers available to them. But don't just email junk.

Offer tremendous value!

Your emails need to be valuable and compelling. It is quite a privilege to have somebody join your list, so make sure you offer something that is worth their time and attention on every email. You can tell your customers how to do something that is of interest to them, point them to insightful or members-only content. You could even give them special discounts, only available to email subscribers.

If you're going to have a sale or a special event, why not let your email subscribers know about it first? This encourages them to stay subscribed and also tell their friends about it. And you offer them value at the same time.

So how do you get an email list service?

There are dozens of email services out there and as a business consultant and overall kick-ass techie, I've worked with pretty much all the major ones. Your choices hinge in value, features, service and the most important is deliverability rates. I've worked with iContact, Constant Contact, MadMimi, Vertical Response, Infusionsoft, Mailchimp and Aweber. Maybe more but I can't remember them now. The one I recommend is Aweber. As far as online marketing, they are the defacto standard and the most widely used service, and for good reason.

Their system is full featured and it has automation rules which I love. So you can automate some of your email list management. They also have features like a +date system, so you can send time sensitive emails based on custom dates.

Like most of the other systems, they allow for variables so you can customize your emails with personalized information. The features available and the customer support make Aweber the irresistible choice . Their price is super competitive and while they're not free like Mailchimp, they do offer a $1.00 trial to start. Oh yeah and before you go jumping on the "free" Mailchimp wagon, you may want to read why I don't use them and why I switched. Just pony up a buck and get Aweber, you'll be glad you did. If your blog or business is important to you then you'll do this today.

In order to get an email service system, you need to sign up first. After you sign up, they will give you a special code that contains a form. This code goes on your website and it will turn into a form that your visitors can fill in to join your mailingn list. Voila! After this, you can login to the system and send emails to your list or setup an auto responder.

But how do you get people to join your mailing list? That is the trickiest part of any business online. You can read the full CAN SPAM law of 2003 if you'd like to really find out who you can and cannot email. But what you want to do is get your customer to agree that they'll be added to your email list. One way is to say this during the check-out process of your shopping cart. Another way is for a visitor to your website  to fill in their name and email on your website and explicitly request the emails. You can offer a free download, or a free coupon, or entice them by offering email subscriber-only discounts. You can get really creative on how you get people on your email list.

Bottom line is that you need an email list service and you need it yesterday. Start capturing the emails from your customers so you can give them a delightful experience when they interact with you. I personally don't care if you use one service or the other but I've helped enough people move away from their service and into Aweber that I would recommend you start out with Aweber. Their support kicks ass, their service is rock solid and they just work.

The post Basics of Making Money Online. Email System. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die.
You gotta get up and try, try, try
Gotta get up and try, try, try

-Pink

Before you go any further in your business, let me warn you. Sooner or later, you will fail. Probably sooner than later, but it's alright. A failure makes you better, stronger, smarter. That's if you get up...

Trust me. It's alright to fail, but if you want to succeed, you gotta get up and try again. This is the key to success, this is the key to life. It took me quite a while to embrace this when it came to online marketing and making money online. It's easy to say and profess this philosophy, but it's much harder to follow it, to live it, to embrace it.

Like Pink's Try from The Truth About Love, you have to get up and try. It's a simple as that. Sometimes you'll make mistakes that you can't explain. Other times you'll do everything right, but maybe you have the wrong product and nobody cares to buy.

Even worse, you may find yourself in Tyler Cruz' position of losing it all overnight! Can you imagine making 6 figures each month and then overnight, you wake up to nothing! How about that!?

And you think your failure was big? Are you devastated? What are you going to do about it? Cry about it? Whine about it? Blame the vendor? Blame the product? Blame the buyer?

What do you think Tyler did?

Before you complain that it isn't working. Before you blame the vendor for not explaining it. Before you accuse your audience of not getting it. Own your failure, learn and pivot. Get up and try again. Then, rinse and repeat. The faster you fail, the faster you can correct that mistake and eliminate the problem from your process or your system.

Remember that in business, like in life, nobody owes you anything by default, you don't deserve it if you don't want it. It's up to you, your perseverance, your system, your efforts and that will be the case from here on now. Ever since I came out openly as a marketer and started sharing some of the success I've had people have been telling me things. They tell me that it doesn't work, or they make excuses why the thing they did didn't work and how this isn't for them.

All these people always fail to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe they didn't do something right and they gave up too easily, too soon. They fail to acknowledge that maybe they didn't get it. That maybe they didn't follow instructions. It's always someone else that takes their blame. This makes them feel better about failing and not trying again, because it is easier to blame something else instead of owning the failure, studying it and trying again with a pivotal approach.

This is what separates the dabblers from the success stories. Get up and try again, and again, fix your approach, fix your system, get a mentor, ask questions, maybe get something like this. You don't need to go at it alone. But you must get up and do.

The post You will fail. I promise this much. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Let me explain it the best way I understand it. Affiliate Marketing is the process of marketing a product for someone and getting a commission when the target audience or intended consumer purchases the product or service. I also asked the Twitter world what they thought Affiliate marketing is (answers at the bottom of the post).

In other words, being an affiliate is pretty much like being a salesman. You promote a product and when it sells you get a commission. There are a few differences between an affiliate (the person that does affiliate marketing) and a sales person.

An affiliate tends to be a jack of all traits. While a salesperson can have many skills, generally their job doesn't require all of them and instead they just need to know their one product inside out. Salespeople tend to know one product or product line and they know it well and they work for that one company that produces that item or series of items. An affiliate marketer is a high-tech sales person. They need to know how a website works, how email systems work and they must be in tune with more than one product.

Often times, affiliate marketers build their own websites, run their own email systems and run their own ppc, or cpm campaigns. They have to go out and hustle and make connections and partnerships  often these are calle JV's (joint ventures). The difference as I see it between a salesperson and affiliate is that a salesperson tends to sell one thing and usually for one company. An affiliate may sell a dozen or more products from as many companies.

In order to get started with affiliate marketing, all you need to do is come up with something you're good at and find related products in that space or niche so you can promote them. For example, I'm an affiliate for various hosting companies, software companies and service providers related to internet technologies. You'll find them throughout my site either on the sidebar as sponsors, or sometimes in my blogposts.

You can find tons and tons of affiliate programs on the internet. They can be related to virtually any industry and they offer various commissions structures. Some of the most common affiliate marketing niches are fitness, health, and making money or starting your own business. Obviously, the more popular a niche is, the more competition you'll encounter.

Sometimes, you can make a flat fee commission, sometimes the payments are percentage based. Sometimes, your favorite products have affiliate programs you can join. And since you're (presumably) happy with the products, you may tell your friends about it. Why not get paid when you do that? That's the core of affiliate marketing. Promoting products and getting paid to do so.

The best example I have is my Free WordPress offer. If you buy the hosting which I recommend, the company in turn will pay me a commission. This is how I can build you a free WordPress site with all the bells and whistles.

There are many other topics I'll cover surrounding affiliate marketing, like ethics, affiliate networks, promotion techniques and methods, and who's who of internet marketing (the parent industry of affiliate marketing). Stay tuned.
I also went out to Twitter and asked the question. I got a number of responses. Mostly they seem to be negative and appear to come from jaded perspectives. Many people believe affiliate marketing to be a waste of time or right down unethical. But having been in the trenches with some of the biggest affiliates in the world, I can tell you that those notions couldn't be further from the truth. But I'll share the answers I got anyway:

@notagrouch use your digital reach to promote someone else's marketplace offers for a fee.

— Sales Performance.ca (@SPerformance_) March 24, 2013

This is a great answer, succinct and to the point but it also speaks a little bit about how to approach the affiliate marketing space. "Using your digital reach" is key because you should promote products or services which you believe in and you'll most likely be able reach those people that are within your network already.

@notagrouch probably a whole bunch of work for little ROI ???

— Jolie B Studios (@JolieBStudios) March 24, 2013

This is a typical answer for almost anything that you do to make money. You gotta keep in mind, most people give up way too early and way to easily. Affiliate marketing is not a quick rich scheme, and if you ever enter the space, stay away from anyone that promises you'll make tons of money overnight. It just doesn't happen that way.

In perspective, some of the biggest names in the world have affiliate programs. For example, Amazon, Home Depot, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, and new names too, like Hootsuite.

Speaking of the biggest names in the industry. My buddy John Chow weighed in, as usual with some humor:

@notagrouch Affiliate Marketing was invented by @johnchow

— John Chow (@JohnChow) March 25, 2013

By the way, it is worth mentioning that before I ever met John Chow in person, he had inspired me to make money online. He is a huge influence and has taught me a lot of amazing things about internet marketing.

Another one of my friends also gave a good answer:

Hi Oscar,marketing other business products,earn commission, giving more exposure to company product RT @notagrouch: What is affiliate mkting?

— Lynn Brown (@LearnIt2EarnIt) March 25, 2013

Here are a few more answers I received:

@notagrouch IMO, affiliate marketing is a group of marketers, sales, promoters, all representing for the same brand name of product(s).

— Dennis Coble (@DK_Coble) March 24, 2013

@notagrouch - Affiliate Marketing is when one promotes/markets a product/service. They receive commissions for each sale they generate.

— iDefineTV (@iDefineTV) March 24, 2013

To learn more about Affiliate Marketing, you can read my posts tagged with Affiliate Marketing section and make sure you attend the next Affiliate Summit.

The post What is Affiliate Marketing? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.