After that post, one of the companies I listed came back to my blog and posted a whole post about them.

That company is Glamping Hub and they're back on the blog today! If you don't know much about them, think of them like an AirB&B for glamping locations. Here, check out the previous post: Glamping Hub an Insider’s Look at the New Way to Find Outdoor Adventures.

I like them because some of their locations look awesome and because you can make money if you have a property that could be used for camping, or erm, rather, glamping.

But I really like them because they seem to really want to help the property hosts succeed, they're constantly improving and listening to feedback and just recently they revamped their whole dashboard.

If you’re looking to explore the great outdoors and cross glamping off your 2019 bucket list, Glamping Hub is the place for you. With over 34,000 unique accommodations in over 120 countries, Glamping Hub offers a portal of glamping sites across the globe, from which travelers can tailor their nature experience.

Whether you’re looking to get lost in the branches of California’s redwoods from the comfort of a tree house or spend your days horseback riding through Yellowstone National Park while staying in a safari tent, there are thousands of experiences available for each and every type of glamper.

Glamping Hub has begun 2019 with one of its most exciting developments yet—a brand new version of our Host Dashboard.

The new dashboard to be released soon, is where all Glamping Hub hosts can interact with the support team; update their listings’ features, fees, text, and photos.

The dashboard is where hosts can also manage their bookings, calendars, and rates; it provides opportunities to manage their properties unlike ever before.

Listing maintenance for hosts is also much easier and quicker in the new dashboard, thanks to the usability of its new fresh design.

Here is a breakdown of all the new features and improvements:

1 Smart Calendar

Glamping Hub’s host calendar system has been updated to be more user-friendly and allows hosts to easily update their availability. The display has also been modified and simplified to work for both the desktop and mobile phone versions.

2 New Inbox

The creation of a new general inbox will allow guest messages to be received in an organized fashion and make new inquiries appearance more clear.

3 Notifications

All host notification emails have been completely redesigned. This new feature will give hosts clear and easy to receive details about their booking requests, confirmations, upcoming bookings, cancellations, and any important messages from Glamping Hub and guests.

4 Help Center

This new space will allow hosts to quickly search for answers regarding their new dashboard. For any questions hosts need immediate answers to, they can simply search in the Help Center or contact the direct support line within their dashboard.

5 Intuitive Design

The new dashboard has been designed to be much more intuitive in order to make it easier and more clear for hosts to navigate and use.

For more information on how to list with Glamping Hub and plan your next one-of-a-kind glamping getaway, please visit Glamping Hub.

The post Improved Ways to Make Money with Your Glamping Hub Listing appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Clearly, I'm being sarcastic. But I do want to make a case for why you don't want to use Jetpack to manage your blog's subscriptions.

You don't want to kill all chances of your blog making money, right?

So WordPress.com is great. It offers a terrific free service and a premium service for a fee. WordPress.com also offers a number of add-on services you can use on your self-hosted or WordPress.org based website.

Through a plugin called Jetpack, you can get access to a lot of services usually only available to wordpress.com users. But because we want to monetize our blog any way we want, we are using WordPress.org, the self-hosted version of WordPress.

But at the same time we want the functionality that WordPress.com users have! What a conundrum!

The solution is that you can install some services through the Jetpack addon. One of the add-ons available through Jetpack takes care of blog subscriptions.

I cry a little every time I see a blog using the built-in WordPress.com subscriptions. So much potential wasted.

Sad.

Please, don't use it.

While I think that WordPress.com is great and the services they offer are solid, for reasons I already covered in a previous post, I'm trying to detangle all my websites from all the WordPress.com services.

Just like I discouraged you from using Akismet on that last post, today I'm discouraging you from using the built-in subscription feature that comes with Jetpack.

This blog post is all about making a case for you to STOP using that addon or module.

Stop it, now.

As in right now, when you finish reading this article, you need to go and take the steps I list at the end.

I mean, you only need to do what I say if you want to do the right thing, and only if you want to make money with your blog.

Even if you're not ready to make money today, you need to do this so that you can actually make money any time you are ready to start.

First, let's look at where the problem exists.

In your self-hosted WordPress blog, go to your dashboard, then to your Jetpack control panel and get to the settings for Jetpack.

From there, head over to the Discussion link at the top. (see screenshot below).

You can scroll down from there and you'll see the Subscriptions section. I highlighted that in the screenshot below.

When you use this feature, WordPress.com users can easily subscribe to your blog. Also if they leave a comment and want to, they can subscribe to future comments in that article.

Once this is activated, you can use a widget to add the subscription widget to your sidebar, so visitors coming to your blog will be inclined to put their name and email and subscribe.

Sounds fantastic doesn't?

It isn't.

Here's the problem with this service for you as a blogger trying to make money.

You don't have control of what or when stuff goes to those people that subscribe to your blog using this service.

For example, WordPress.com will automatically send an email to everyone that subscribed immediately after you publish your blog post.

The email is very generic and the text will be just an excerpt from your blog post and it will have a link back to your article.

This is a problem because you don't have control over when the email goes out to announce your blog post. You also don't get to define what text goes out in that email.

If you publish your blog post at 9:00 pm but you want to email your subscribers at 9:00 am the next day, forget about it. You can't do it.

This is a problem because if you press publish to your article, walk away for a few minutes to get a good cup of coffee, but when you return you re-read that article just to realize you were not supposed to publish it yet.

Maybe it was the wrong article, or maybe it needed a little more work. You immediately unpublish it and get to back to work.

You think all is going to be okay. Right? I mean, it's only been two or three minutes.

WRONG!

That article already was sent to your subscribers and the few subscribers that decide to open that boring email, then by the grace of God, decide to click on the link will find that your blog post doesn't even exist because you had to unpublish it. Or it's incomplete.

How embarrassing!

But besides getting our egos bruised a little bit, the bigger problem with that last scenario is that the people that clicked through may just end up unsubscribing because you sent a broken link.

But you didn't even send the link! Right? You just walked away to get some coffee after all that work you did.

It was WordPress.com that sent it. And this is when you realize you wish you could control the timing and send it only when you're ready.

But you can't.

There are more problems with this subscription system though.

For the subscriber, it is very tedious and the user experience isn't great. They have to click and confirm too many times.

If the subscriber isn't logged in to their WordPress.com account but they decide to subscribe to your blog with the same email that they use for WordPress.com then they will be asked to log in.

That can turn people off that don't want to take that step right now or are unable to for whatever reason.

But that double-confirmation is killer, it's killing your relationship with your readers. I recently logged into my WordPress.com to look at my own subscriptions and see if I even remember seeing these recently.

I didn't recognize any of my subscriptions, which means that I'm not getting notified correctly. But that wasn't the most surprising thing.

This was the most surprising part, I had subscriptions pending confirmation from years ago. I had a total of 42 pending confirmations.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with this same issue so that means that people that wanted to subscribe to you will never receive your updates because they never confirmed their subscription.

But It's All About the Control

There's one more problem with this service besides not being able to control the timing.

You don't have the people's email addresses, so if you wanted to send them a special announcement, or a message that you aren't going to post publicly, you really can't do it easily.

You could export the subscribers and use that list to email them manually or try to import them into Aweber, or whatever email list service you have or want to use.

If you are already stuck in this situation, that may be the only way to get out of it, but now you can rectify this problem and get a proper email list sign-up box so your readers can really subscribe to you.

So how do you fix this problem?

Step 1. Sign up for a free trial account with Aweber here.

Step 2. Create a list in Aweber for your blog subscribers, create a form for this list.

Step 3. Install the form on your blog with a text widget or the new HTML widget.

Step 4. Remove the old WordPress.com/Jetpack subscription widget.

Step 5. Turn off the subscription service in the Jetpack dashboard.

You will have a little more responsibility this way, and it is a little bit more work, but you will also gain so much more in terms of control, messaging and the ability to nurture the relationship with your readers as best as you see fit.

In Conclusion

As you set up your blog for business or start a blog for business, this is one of the little details that you don't really know until you find out the problems that come with it.

Using the built-in subscription system seems easy, it takes 10 seconds to set it up and you think all is well. But it isn't.

For reasons I talked about in a previous blog post, (see: Gripes with Jetpack and removing Akismet) I recommend you avoid using Jetpack altogether, establish a proper email list and use that to build the relationship with your readers.

The post Want to Monetize Your Blog? Don’t Use Jetpack Subscriptions appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I kept finding more and more to add to the list, so it grew to what it is now.

Almost seven hours, 52 revisions and just over 5400 words later, I wrapped up this post.

It is by far, the longest blog post I've written for my blog. I hope you enjoy it and find some useful tips that will help you make money online.

Before I get into it, I have to remind you that making money online is real, anybody can do it. And with the "gig" economy or "sharing economy," the notion of a regular job is eroding even more.

You just have to get started.

The options and possibilities are endless, and once you get started the limit of how much you can make depends on your efforts, the niche you pick, and a few other things, but it's mostly up to you.

The biggest limit will be your own mindset and belief.

You have to believe you can do this, you have to. If you're cynical about it, you may never crack the nut. If you're negative, you will see negative results.

And without further ado, here's the list of 37 ways to make extra money online and offline. There is technically a little bit over 40, but you'll see why I didn't count them all. Enjoy, please share if you find it useful and you think others will benefit from it.

Oh yeah, and I'd love to hear any feedback you have, whether it is about the post itself or any of the methods I described.

Ok, enjoy these ways to make money online & offline.

1 - Found money

The reason this post was inspired is that a family member reminded me of the "unpaid money" you can find from the government. I know this sounds fishy right off the bat, and it may not really count,  but bear with me. This could jumpstart your whole making money online adventure!

Someone had told me about this years ago, but I totally forgot about it. Then just recently another family member reminded me to check again and sure enough. I had some money waiting for me.

Apparently, when certain financial events happen with companies, they may have to pay or give some money to the state to "hold" for you until you claim it.

I checked the unclaimed property for California website and I had a little over $90 waiting to be claimed. I claimed them and about a month later they sent me 5 separate checks authorized by the Controller of California, Unclaimed Property Division.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Right!?

Well, it's just $97.29 and that isn't a lot, but it could easily pay for a domain and hosting for an entire year and maybe even the first couple months or more of email service! Think of the possibilities. You could start a business with that!

You could literally start a business on a website that could bring you anything from some extra spending money for the weekend to a full replacement of your income.

Instead of giving you a link for each state, here's the official website, a good location to start your search depending on where you live. There are other types of searches you can make as well so look around on this page: Unclaimed Money from the U.S. Government

2 - Start a blog!

I put this at the top of the list because I cover this all the time with videos and blog posts and tweets, it's how I make most of my money online. This blog, the one you're reading, makes me money.

Still today and for the foreseeable future, blogging will be around. And I consider it one of the best ways to increase your income.

At the very least, you should have a blog to brand yourself, document special events, news, and opinions. That could be a personal blog.

At best, financially speaking, a blog could make you a millionaire. It's a small step to go from a personal blog to a money making blog. But both can make you good money.

But isn't blogging dead?

Don't listen to the naysayers, they've been saying "blogging is dead" since 2005. Sure, blogging has evolved, and it will continue to evolve for the next decade and beyond.

We see a lot more integration with video and audio, and surely trends in culture an technology affect how blogs get produced. Blog creation, distribution, and consumption will simply adopt new technologies and fit the current trends, but the process of sharing thoughts, news, and other types of information will be around for a while.

If you think of a blog as a way to share any type of information, with people interested in the topic, whether the information is free or behind a payment system, that's a blog.

Currently, the most popular platform for a blog is WordPress and requires pretty much the same stuff it has used for the past 15-20 years. A web host, a domain and the blog engine (WordPress). Next year it may require something else and we may produce and consume the content differently, but it will be an evolution so it's never too early and never too late, today is just right to start a blog!

So How Do You Make Money With The Blog?

The blog can make money in a few different ways. In fact is one of the most popular ways to make money online.

For example, the easiest is by selling advertising space on the blog. You can sell ad space directly by using a plugin like OIO Publisher, or Adsanity,  or through a network like Adsense or Media.net. With OIO Publisher you can place your own ads, sell ads directly or place network ads easily.

With a list too! Every blog and website must have an email list. This is one of the key components to a blog monetization strategy.

I debated whether to add having an email list as a separate way to make money online because you can actually make a paid newsletter, that's becoming trendy in some spaces and especially with some real niche content.

I will probably talk about this on its own blog post, but whether you use an email list for your blog or for a stand-alone newsletter, Aweber is the place to go to get that started.

Native content is a hot topic right now also. A blog can make money by accepting long-form blog posts as "sponsored posts," aka "native content," or "influencer promotions." Depending on the niche and traffic or influence of the blog, a blog post may be worth $50 to $10,000 to the right company. The better you develop your blog, grow your active audience and prove that you can compel the audience to take action, the more you can charge per post.

The last method I'll mention to help you make money with a blog is to use affiliate marketing like Notagrouch.com blog does.

Almost any time you see links on my blog they may be affiliate links. This means that I could get paid a commission if you purchase something through one of my links. You'll often see a disclaimer like the one in the introduction of this post.

Ok, one more method to make money with your blog... I can think of at least six more right now as I write this, but I'll cover this one more before moving onto the next big section.

The last method I'll mention is by creating a private membership blog or website where you charge access for content using a membership system likeMemberpress orWishlist Member. You can charge per month, per quarter, per year, or any way you want.

Some websites charge per article. You can also separate membership levels into as few or as many as you want or need. This way you can also offer different pricing and value models.

Both of the plugins I mentioned help you manage access, record keeping and payments so the logistics making money from access to your content is fairly easy.

Ok, onto the next section. If you want more ideas for blogging for profit, let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

Making Videos

There is a huge trend favoring videos overwritten and other visual content. People love watching videos so this could be a way to make some money. There are a few options that don't involve a lot of production costs, just your expertise, a little bit of elbow grease and actually doing the work.

3 - Youtube monetization

Youtube started as a video sharing platform and now it has become ingrained in our lives. People go to Youtube to learn, explore and be entertained. But you can also produce videos to make money. Years ago, Youtube started their ad-revenue program where you can get a portion of the proceeds generated from advertising on your videos.

You could make anywhere from a few dollars to several thousand dollars each month; some people make over five figures from their Youtube channel. The key is to make videos that are advertising friendly.

To start, get a Youtube channel, plan out what you're going to make videos about and start making them. You could start with your phone's camera and a basic video editor that comes with your computer, Youtube even has its own video editor and a huge collection of music you can use for free.

After you meet the threshold for your channel to become monetizable, you can apply to the program and once approved you'll start making money from each ad that shows in your videos.

You can also make money by hosting live videos and allowing people to use the superchat feature to donate to your channel.

Learn more: Youtube partnership program

4 - Patreon

Patreon is a site that lets you share your videos to a select group of people that have paid to have access. It works in a way that people can pay a membership fee to access the content.

In exchange for the membership payment, people expect content to be unique or special in comparison to regular content you may be posting on Youtube. You can also offer rewards based on each level you create, like special access to Q&A sessions, or one on one calls, or other member perks.

One of the benefits of Patreon is that the memberships tend to be recurring, so whether you charge $1 or $100 per month, as long as you continue producing good content and your audience likes it, you get those payments every month.

Learn more: Patreon

The Sharing Economy

One of the newer phenomenon in recent years is that type of business where an owner, presumably you, has "downtime" on a property and thus this property may be listed on a website or app where it will be cataloged as available for rent, lease or hire. This essentially gives the owner an opportunity to monetize their unused or little-used property.

So if you have a vehicle that is just sitting there while you watch TV, you could make money with it by renting it or driving it.

If you have a piece of land doing nothing, you could make money with it. Same goes for just about anything nowadays so the following section is dedicated to that type of business.

While the marketing materials, commercials and most of the buzz you hear about these companies is geared towards and from a consumer point of view, consider the other perspective.

You may be one of the owners and thus, you can make money by listing your room, boat, RV, or another type of property and in some cases you may be able to make upwards of 6 figures just with stuff you already have!

I broke down the next section into 4 sections, driving someone, delivering food, delivering something or renting something.

Driving Someone

This is sometimes regulated and controversial in some places so check the different apps to see if it's available in your area.

This could be fun and profitable. It seems that "everyone is doing it", but new companies and niches keep coming up.

Take a look at all of the options I found:

5 - Uber

The kind of money you can make with Uber varies from location to location. I know a few friends that can make $300 to $1000 per week, but it all depends on the time and other factors. Buzzfeed has a very interesting article about how much Uber drivers really make right here.

Uber pays referral and performance bonuses too so that could bump your pay quite a bit if you make it a goal to get those bonuses. This is also dependent in your area, if you live in a rural area, service calls may be sparse. Use my Uber link and you'll get $5.00 or a driver bonus.

Learn more: Uber

6 - Lyft

This is the closest competitor to Uber and in some cases, it is better for you as a driver. It is all about economics, right? Well, with Lyft, things may be a little more than just financial. It seems that people like Lyft a lot more than Uber because of Uber's controversial history with some of its leadership and business practices.

You definitely will want to try both Uber and Lyft if you're going to try the driving for hire game. Some people report earning a lot more with one or the other then they focus on that for the most part.

Learn more: Lyft

7 - Wingz

While it has a limited reach, it is growing and growing fast. Wingz is like a normal ride-sharing service but more specialized and ideal for pre-scheduled trips. As a consumer, you can establish an ongoing relationship with your favorite driver. This seems a bit more like a limousine service but a little bit more relaxed. You get to pick which rides you want to accept.

The opportunity to make money here is to offer special features and a friendly service so that frequent travels select you as their driver. Their website seems to indicate that they are focusing on specific niches so check them out if your vehicle is special in any way.

Learn more: Wingz

8 - iCarpool

This is very unique and it's good if you have regular commutes and have empty seats in your car. That's their slogan, in fact: turn your empty seats into cash.

The way it works is that you stop by one of the stop spots and people can join your "carpool" and then you go about your business to your destination. You'll stop at another designated area and you're ready to go. No detours, no short rides, no long rides, just the rides you want to provide. The website doesn't explain how much you can make or how much each rider pays but if could be profitable in some areas and certain time zones.

Learn more: iCarpool

9 - HopSkipDrive

This is another niche service and limited to certain areas, but if it fits, it could be a great way to make extra cash. The site talks about how some drivers can make about $30.0 per hour. The focus is on driving kids.

The service is available in San Francisco and the Los Angeles areas, but I believe they'll be expanding to other metro areas soon. This is a highly sought after service by many parents I've talked to.

Learn more: HopSkipDrive

Delivering Food & Beverages

10 - Ubereats

The food version of Uber. Restaurants need food delivered to lazy busy people, you come in and save the day. If you're a restaurant, you can enhance your profit by offering delivery in your restaurant, or you can become a delivery partner and deliver food in exchange for that sweet sweet money.

You'll be paid a pickup fee, a drop off fee, and for mileage from the pickup to the customer. Some people will give you tips as well. Drivers report making between $8.00 and $12.00 per hour.

Learn more: Ubereats

11 - GrubHub

If you are within their service area, GrubHub claims more orders than any other delivery service; they are partners with Seamless. Other benefits include keeping 100% of the tips and making up your own hours. I couldn't find any reliable figures to quote for drivers, but GrubHub claims it's competitive, so I'm guessing that it would be between $8 to $16 per hour or more.

Learn more: GrubHub

12 - Doordash

If you want to make money with Doordash, you'll be a "Dasher" and from the research I've done, you will make anywhere from $10 to over $18 per hour. But this really depends on a lot of factors. One interesting feature available in some areas is a minimum payment. In some locales, you are guaranteed a minimum hourly rate, while other places guarantee a minimum per-delivery payment.

Learn more: Doordash

13 - Postmates

Postmates is another food delivery service that lets you drive for them. Very similar to other services and available in certain locations, drivers report earning between $8 up to $13 per hour. Your mileage may vary (literally and figuratively)

Learn more: Postmates.

14 - Saucey

This is what many party people have been waiting for. Saucey specializes in delivering beer, wine, spirits and the snacks that go with that. Ideal for people that want to have alcoholic beverages delivered to their doorstep. As a driver, this can make you a good amount of money, but reports are mixed. It seems that you could make at least $10 per hour and maybe more, depending on tips and the popularity of the app in your area.

Learn more: Saucey

15 - OrderUp by Groupon

OrderUp was acquired by Groupon about three years ago. Specifically focused on food, OrderUp strives to create a vibrant community of passionate drivers to deliver food to hungry folks. Also known as Groupon to Go, they're quickly expanding and currently serve just over 55 different areas. It wasn't very obvious how much drivers can make by delivering for OrderUp.

Learn more: OrderUp

16 - Caviar

Caviar prides itself in having the other restaurants in their offerings. The ones that usually can't be found on Postmates or GrubHub, the high end restaurants. This is a little bit different in that you can make about $25.00 per hour, and you get paid instantly after each delivery is completed via the Cash app. Areas of service are still limited so you may not have this available, but it is still worth checking.

Learn more: Caviar

Delivering Stuff

17 - Amazon Flex

Amazon Flex is where you can join to deliver packages for Amazon customers. Amazon advertises an hourly rate of $18.00 to $25.00 per hour. Seems pretty straightforward and you can sign up now.

Learn more: Amazon Flex.

18 - Roadie

Roadie is really cool, lets everyone play a legal version of The Transporter. As a driver, you get to chose which gig you want to accept. The gigs are one-way deliveries of random items.

For the consumer, this is ideal when you want to send something across town or across the country. For you as a driver, you can offer your empty space if you have long commutes or plan on taking trips where you have additional cargo space. Some of the more common items you may be transporting include art, construction equipment, furniture, bikes, that sort of stuff.

They have a pretty good app indicating how it works and what's allowed. They report that local gigs pay up to $60 and long-haul gigs pay up to $650. Ideal if you have a truck for example and make regular trips between California and Arizona, or Nevada and same for any other state group of states.

Learn more: Roadie

19 - Deliv

This is a delivery service for businesses. You designate when you're available and you'll be making deliveries for customer orders from places like Best Buy, Macy's, Walmart, and other big retailers as well as other stores. One benefit is that you don't have to deal with people, or food orders, you don't have to run errands either. Just spend your time delivering boxes. Deliv claims you can make up to $22/hour.

Learn more: Deliv

20 - Burro

Burro lets you use your truck to complete deliveries. You help people haul and move stuff and can make a minimum of $40 per delivery while some people making up to $1600 per week. If you don't own a truck, you can sign up as a helper too.

When I checked out the app, it seemed a bit overcomplicated to sign up. You first have to get a "driver token" and you do that by emailing them. Seems like a big obstacle to sign up or use the app, but if you're in an area where it gets popular, you could make a good amount of money.

Learn more: Burro

21 - CitizenShipper

Similar to Roadie, this service lets people post a job and allow various drivers to bid for the job. When I was browsing around I found most of the shipments are across several states and the bids can range from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. It seems like a great way to make money if you already drive a lot across states and want to make some extra money by taking small detours.

The jobs appear to be scheduled a few days up to a few weeks in advance so you have time to bid for jobs and maybe negotiate the deal. A lot of people seem to use this service to send their pets across the country when they're moving. Your pay may vary from gig to gig, depending on the distance and the type of cargo.

Learn more: CitizenShipper

22 - Instacart

One of the more popular grocery shopping apps. You can join and shop and deliver groceries for people that need help with that. You get paid weekly and normally make from $10 to over $20 per hour depending on times and the area where you live.

Learn more: Instacart

23 - Favor

Limited to various areas and cities in Texas, this service matches you with people that need errands run basically. Pick up groceries, pick up dry cleaning, much like the other delivery services but almost anything goes. It would be killer if it were available outside of Texas too.

Learn more: Favor

24 - Shipt

Shipt is a grocery delivery service. They partner up with big name brands like Target, Meijer, Western Market and H-E-B. You can become a delivery person for them and earn around $22 per hour. While they're in limited areas at the moment, they are expanding every week so they may have a service area close to you soon if they don't already.

Learn more: Shipt

25 - GO Share

This is the solution for people that need quick hauls the same day. Think about that time you bought something at IKEA but couldn't take it home and the IKEA delivery service would take 4 or 5 days to schedule your delivery. GO Share can get your stuff delivered within one hour, or so they claim. As a driver you can make between $47 to $71 per hour plus tips. The service is available in 12 major cities in the US so check it out and see if you can make some extra money with them.

Learn more: GO Share

26 - Burpy

Groceries ordered and delivered in as little time as one hour. You can join Burpy to become a shopper for select stores, mostly in Texas. You'll be delivering from stores like H-E-B, Wholefoods, Costco, Kroger and more. The reach of this app seems to be limited to Texas and I can't find any indication that they're working on expanding but you never know. For the time being, if you're in the great big state then check it out and make some extra money!

Learn more: Burpy

Sharing economy

This is the section where you have something others are willing to rent or lease from you. This provides you as the owner with a new form of income and provides the marketplace with a unique experience or something that wasn't available for consumers at all.

If I think about the longevity of this newer economic model, in human years, I think that the "sharing economy" or "gig economy" as it's often referred to is but a few days old. Great time to get started!

27 - Wrapify

This one is interesting. The way Wrapify works is that you sign up and activate the app and allow it to track your driving behavior for about 50 miles. After that, your app will alert you if there are any advertising gigs for you. Then you go to a location to get your vehicle "wrapped" with the advertising campaign and you'll get paid for driving with your car wrapped up in an ad.

It's a clever way of using your car to promote a product or service and I suppose that the more you drive on busy highways and during rush hour, the more you can make. They estimate on their website that you can make between $262 to $452 per month.

This is really good if you combine it with another driving service so that you can make double the money, you could get paid while you deliver someone AND by advertising at the same time. You can see some examples here.

Learn more: Wrapify

28 - Carvertise

Similar in process to Wrapify, this pays between $100 to $200 per month for wrapping your car and between $300 to $1200 per campaign. You need to drive at least 30 miles each day and have a vehicle newer than 2008.

You can make additional money by parking your vehicle in strategic locations; this pays up to $30 per hour.

Learn more: Carvertise

29 - Hipcamp

Hipcamp is the only app in this list for which I've written a dedicated post. Hipcamp allows landowners to let people camp out in their property. As a property owner, you get to keep 90% of your bookings. It's up to you how you want to offer your land.

This is their commercial, I love it.

Maybe you want to let people rough it in your undeveloped land and pitch a tent, or you could develop it with amenities to attract the people that are into glamping. You could for example, turn a working farm into an attraction with a camping site, other types of outdoor locations could offer different opportunities to visitors.

The website reports that some property owners are making over six figures each year from renting their spaces out to travelers.

Learn more: Hipcamp

30 - GlampingHub

This is similar to Hipcamp but it includes international locations and the locations fetch much higher prices on average. They boast over 34,000 locations and include some places in Asia, New Zealand, Africa, South America in addition to locations in the USA.

It appears that they're a little more selective but if you have a good location that would attract tourists looking for an experience closer to nature than a hotel can offer, this may be the way to monetize your property.

Learn more: Glamping Hub

31 - BabyQuip

Previously known as Babierge, this is a great service for parents and a good way to make extra money with your unused kids' equipment. They focus on toys, strollers, high-chairs, and other types of kids items that traveling parents would want to use but don't want to necessarily pack and bring along in their trip.

The way you can make money with this is by making your unused children equipment available for travelers.

Items rent out in the range of $8 to $40 or more per day. Their website shows that you get to keep 80% of the fees and 100% of the delivery fees.

Learn more: Babyquip

32 - Turo

Turo is a peer to peer rental car system. You can make money by listing your car as a rental. Turo, in their own words: Skip the rental counter and book unforgettable cars from friendly locals.

For consumers, it sounds like a great offering to eliminate the boring options you get with traditional car rental agencies. As a car owner, you are paid on a percentage basis when your car gets rented out.

For example, if your car is worth $12,000 and you're willing to rent it out for 10 days out of the month, you could make around $3200 per year. You're not going to spend a week in the Bahamas with that money, but it could pay for all your vehicle expenses for the year and leave you a little bit of pocket change. If you increase the car value to say, $35,000 then you could make around $6300 per year.

This seems to be one of the most passive options if you don't use your car frequently or have a second or third car mostly just sitting around.

Learn more: Turo

33 - GetAround

Similar to Turo, but it aims to let you rent a more "regular" car. GetAround claims you can earn upwards of $800 per month which isn't bad if you have your car sitting around a lot of the time.

Worth checking out. It appears that they are rolling out the service in select areas. GetAround is currently available in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Portland, Chicago, Washington DC, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston! But they promise to have more locations soon.

Learn More: GetAround

34 - Outdoorsy

Outdoorsy is like Hipcamp but for RVs. If you ever wanted to go camping in an RV, this is the place where you would look for one.

But as an RV owner, you can make in the range of $900 to $1800 in average, each time your RV is rented out. That's really cool since you wouldn't be using your RV most of the time anyway.

Learn more: Outdoorsy

35 - RVshare

Similar to other services listed here, this lets you rent your RV out to people. They provide RV insurance, roadside assistance, and all the payment processing.

Their website shows that you can make in the range of $5000 to $30,000 per year with your RV. Another way you can make money with RVshare is by promoting them on your website using their affiliate program.

Learn more: RVshare

36 - Rover

Rover is for dog lovers. You can make money by becoming a sitter. You can walk dogs, or dogsit them for the day or several days. It's up to you. There are other services you can provide, like house sitting or drop-in visits.

Although Rover recommends the rates for you, you can modify them to whatever you want and you keep 80% of the bookings. Not a bad deal, especially if you make this a full-time gig or part of an established pet caring service.

Learn more: Rover

Honorable mentions:

EatStreet.

A delivery service that is expanding quickly, but it wasn't listed because the only way to work for them at this time is to become a regular employee. This blog isn't about that regular job thing so it didn't make the cut, but you're free to check it out if you want a regular job: https://eatstreet.com/

PeerShip.

Seems like a promising idea. You deliver packages "on your way" no need for pickups and deliveries, no need for shopping and dealing with people. This one didn't make the list because their literature is out of date and seems to have no activity in their social streams since 2016. I'm guessing it was a good idea, poorly implemented. https://drivers.peership.io/

Landapart

Landapart is for hardcore outdoor enthusiasts as it focuses on "primitive camping" guests are expected to leave no trace so it's akin to camping in total wilderness. The reason it didn't make the main list is that their system is rudimentary, they don't offer insurance or anything like the other services listed do. I'm not entirely sure what they are other than a directory and messaging system, their listings are limited and their copyright notice hasn't been updated since 2016 so I'm not sure if they're even active. https://www.landapart.com/

Doorman

Another deliver-anything service where you pick your hours and you deliver packages. One feature for customers was that you could use Doorman addresses as delivery addresses and then have a delivery person bring the package to you wherever you were.

However, it seems that this service is no longer active, browsing around their site you'll notice the application forms don't work. There's also this article by TechCrunch from almost 2 years ago.

Learn more: Doorman (appears to be defunct).

In Conclusion

This is a very long list, and while it may seem that many of the methods listed are the same thing, just for different types of products, each one has its own unique features and income possibilities.

I hope that it was useful, if so, please share this out on Facebook, Twitter, even Pinterest or Reddit if you're active there. I would appreciate it tremendously.

I still favor the ways to make money online vs offline. These require no physical presence from you. Not only can I work from any location with Internet access, but I don't even have to dress up or anything like that. I can work any time I want, and making money is limited by my own efforts instead of an arbitrary salary set by my boss. The True Dot Com Lifestyle!

Investment in an online business can be very low and the profits can be huge. Web Hosting can be under $70 for the year, your email list can be started for free, and you can work as hard as you want.

But I know that breaking away from your regular 9-5 job can be difficult and unnerving so a lot of the "gig" jobs listed here can help you make that transition or simply just add another income stream to your bottom line. The possibilities are endless!

The post 36 Ways to Make Money Online and Offline appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Rather than giving you a step-by-step guide or a how-to video, this one covers one of the ways many people will tell you to use for monetization, yet I disagree with.

Before you get started, you should at least know how you can start a blog for profit. That's what I talk about in this video, or rather what NOT to do to monetize your blog.

The most popular ways to make money with a blog are related to advertising.

But there are other ways as well, this is a short video, under 5 minutes that covers some gotchas and advice that will help you before you start a blog and should help you define your goals and do some planning in advance.

As a side note, obviously one of the things you need for a blog is web hosting.

Too Long; Didn't Watch?

If you didn't want to watch the short video, or you wanted more depth, then I'll give you a short summary and some tips next.

Advertising is the easiest way to monetize your blog. You can easily place contextual ads from Google, or Bing, or even other networks, but it may not be the most profitable.

Instead, I suggest you monetize your blog with other methods and with specific steps.

Here Are the Basic Steps to Start a Blog for Profit

Step 1

Obviously, first thing is to get web hosting and start your blog. This should take less than two hours. Use the link I gave you above then follow the instructions to use the one-click installation service for WordPress and you'll be up and running in no time.

If you need help, make sure you use my link and I will setup your blog for you. It just takes about a day. Purchase your web hosting here, send me an email and give me your information. In return, I'll install the blog for you with everything you need to get started.

Step 2

Once you have your blog installed, get an email list so you can begin a relationship with your readers. You will ask for their email address on your blog in exchange for exclusive information or an insider's view of your blog or content. You can use Aweber to accomplish this, they have a free month trial that will be enough to get started.

Once your Aweber list is set up and ready to go, connect it to your blog. You can use the Aweber code and the HTML widget in WordPress, or use a more sophisticated plugin like Optinmonster.

Step 3

Start producing good content. Whatever topic you decided to write about, get to work. Start writing blog posts. Write the best content you can at this time, write fast, publish fast.

You will get better with time, and you can always go back to fix any mistakes you make, but put your best effort forward now.

The key here is to hit the publish button. Write five to 15 blog posts before you tell anyone about your blog. Try to write daily. Then you can start monetizing it.

Step 4

Once you decide how to monetize it (I'll give you a few options next), start promoting your blog everywhere you can. The goal is to get people to read your blog and sign up for your email list.

You will monetize your blog posts directly, but having the ability to email your readers each time you post a new blog post is what's going to make you great money.

As the not so old adage goes, the money is in the list!

Here are the basic ways to monetize your blog

Advertising

Obviously, advertising is the easiest, but as I mentioned above and in the video, it may not be the most profitable. In fact, you may not make any money for a long time. You could get lucky but ads most likely will take a while to yield results.

You could advertise affiliate products or your own products which I will cover next. To do that, use a WordPress plugin like Adsanity or OIO Publisher.

Affiliate Marketing

This is my favorite way to monetize my blog and social media. Affiliate marketing works very simply.

You find a product or service that offers an affiliate program. There are thousands and thousands. Some of the best-known brands offer an affiliate program.

You sign up for the affiliate program, obtain your personalized links and use them in your content. In case it wasn't obvious, the program should be a good match for your content and ideally, it should be a product or service you love or use.

It doesn't have to be, but it will inspire more trust with your readers if you are not only promoting the product, but also using it.

A tip here is this: find the product you use, or love, or the best match for your type of content. Then go to google and type in the product name then add this to your search +"affiliate program."

You can also search directly on the brand's website to see if they have an affiliate program, but often they won't advertise it there which is why I recommend you do a search specifically for affiliate program.

You can also search for "partner program" or "referral program" or "rewards program" because some companies refer to their affiliate program with their own name.

Create your Own Product

This can be extremely profitable, but it can also be the toughest. I don't recommend it for beginners because product development takes a lot of energy, forethought, and planning.

Don't let me discourage you from starting your own product, but be aware that it's a bit tougher than it looks and certainly a lot harder than many marketers will tell you. With that disclaimer in place, be aware that you can make all kinds of products.

You could make an information product, like a course on a topic you are an expert. Think about how many courses are available in Udemy, Lynda, and other platforms.

Physical products could also be great for your blog. You could find a manufacturer and distributor and start making a product that you sell on your blog.

Or you could white-label a product, meaning you find a product that you can label as your own and market any way you want. Rumor has it that Kylie Jenner started her billion dollar empire this way.

The blog will serve as its own advertising and PR machine, and a plugin like Woocommerce can do the e-commerce part effortlessly.

Write a Book

This is just a slight variation of the previous method of "creating your own product" but a little more specific. As I mentioned, an information product is a viable option. It's relatively easy to write a short book and sell it, you can sell it in all kinds of marketplaces.

Amazon has a great program for people that want to self-publish. You could self-publish your book and sell it on Amazon anywhere from $0.99 up to $30.00 or more. Obviously, you will have to test out the pricing and build up a marketing strategy, but a big part of that can be done on the blog.

Once you write your first book, you can write another one and keep going. Amazon and your blog will continue to promote the book so you can focus on new products or other books. This could make a nice recurring income stream.

Here are some books that can help you with that:

• Publish Your Book on Amazon for Free: How to Self-Publish Without Paying a Dime (link)
• How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should (Third Edition) (link)
• Self Publish to a World of Readers: with Amazon, Apple, Google and Other Major Retailers (link)

Native content

This one can be a little tricky but it can also be highly profitable. First, a really quick overview of what native content is.

Native content refers to content that fits the topic, writing style but also promotes a product. Think about those advertorials you see in magazines. They're usually 2 or 4 pages long and they look like articles, but if you look closely, you'll see the word "advertisement" somewhere in the article.

The way you make money with this method is by generating traffic to your blog using your email list and social media, and then by making deals with brands. The deals will usually include what's called a "sponsored post" or an "influencer post."

Brands pay anywhere from $50 up to tens of thousands for a well-written article or blog promotion campaign. It will take time to raise your prices and to have the ability to make deals with brands, but you can do it if you focus on quality content that is niche.

Other Methods

There are tons of other methods you can use, so this blog post isn't comprehensive but you can start with any of these methods and grow more sophisticated over time.  I wanted to tell you of four more ways you can make money with your blog, but I'll cover those in separate blog posts because they require some complex modifications to the standard blog. These include:

•  directory blogs where you gather information about a niche group of websites, businesses or people.
•  user-generated content blogs where your audience creates content for you.
• e-commerce where you sell a number of products with a proper shopping cart.
• membership-based blogs where you offer content to paying members.

In Conclusion

Starting a blog for profit is a great way to make money online. To start a blog is simple, but to make money with it requires a little more effort. The main obstacle is being consistent and dedicated to it.

If you can overcome that, then you'll do fine.

You'll need to decide your main strategy for monetizing your blog, but all blogs need an email list. Then you can use advertising, affiliate marketing or even your own products to start making money.

The post How to Start a Blog for Profit. Avoid This Method. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

If you don't know what the 90 day video challenge is all about, here's the scoop.

For 90 days, you will be required to create, upload and publish a video to Youtube. The goal is to get you started with video content creation or to help you get to the next level.

Today, video is really important for any business, and while Youtube has been around for a little over 10 years now, independent video creators are just starting to flourish and they're starting to become mainstream.

Whether you have a brick and mortar business, an online business, a blog, or all of the above, video can help you grow and besides your time and a small investment in equipment, it's virtually free marketing!

The focus of the challenge will be to increase brand awareness, to generate more traffic and ultimately generate more sales for your business.

If you don't have a Youtube channel, this is the best opportunity to start. If you haven't done much with your existing Youtube channel, then this is your chance to step up your game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLmNrWO0Hpw

The 90 day video challenge starts in two weeks!

The challenge begins on January 29, so you have a couple weeks to prepare! If you're interested in learning more, then join the updates here and I'll send you links to the Facebook group and all the details.

I'll be posting a few updates about the challenge here on the blog and on my Youtube channel. We're finalizing the rules, the prizes and all that sort of stuff so it will be good if you get into the Facebook group so you can see what's going on.

Unlike the previous challenge, this one will have more structure and we'll have tips, tricks, strategies and weekly guidance to help you succeed. Don't hesitate!

The post The 90 Day Video Challenge is Back. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Eventually, she wants to quit her job.

She heard about affiliate marketing and decided that it sounded like just the right opportunity for her. She found that she could work a few hours each day and by all accounts, she could make really good money.

So she did some research on Google, and on Youtube and started learning about making money from home using affiliate marketing methods.

Everything was going great until she realized that several weeks had gone by. She came to the realization as many beginners do, that all the different gurus and tutorial videos she found were pulling her in all different directions.

So she asked:

I'm overwhelmed with all this, what should I do? What should I do next to start my business and grow it?

The answer to that is simple and many people will overcomplicate it. It's a very short bullet list to work on to get results. I've narrowed down the answer to three simple steps.

If you feel like Susie, overwhelmed, a little bit lost and just kind of searching for direction on what to do next, then this is for you.

Assuming you have a product to promote...

Assuming you already picked a product or offer you want to promote, then the next few steps are your immediate tasks.

If you don't have a product to promote or an offer that you'd like to then let me know what your interests are, or what you are good at in the comments and I'll give you a few tips.

Finding out the right niche for people is one of my superpowers. But let's get on with the three tips:

I also created a video if you want to check that out:

Step 1: Create a landing page for your offer.

Keep it simple and without fluff. To start, I recommend you take the assets provided to you by the offer manager and use them. Use similar copy, similar colors and make it easy to understand.

The landing page must contain the benefits of the product, enough information about it for the viewer to become interested, and a call to action.

For your first landing page, I suggest that you ask the visitor to join an email list as the call to action. Using the email list, you will provide the reader with more information and an opportunity to buy the product.

Step 2: Create at least three emails to be sent automatically

Use your autoresponder to send at least three emails to those that subscribe via your landing page.

Each email should be captivating and engaging and ask the reader to take action. Ideally, the action is to visit the official offer page (using your affiliate link) and then let that page close the sale for you.

After you have the three emails in place, test them with a test email account of yours to make sure it's working and all your links are clickable as they should.

Set your autoresponder to send out one email each day. First, a welcome message to introduce yourself; include a short story explaining the most compelling benefits of the product.

Then the other messages should help develop and establish you as an authority and trustworthy source of information about the product, its benefits and the problems it will help solve. Think about including engaging stories, customer testimonials, use cases, case studies and similar information that will help convince the reader to buy the product.

If you need specific direction with this, look in your affiliate dashboard or contact your affiliate manager for some guidance. It is my experience that the affiliate managers will be really helpful with this.

Step 3: Send people to visit the landing page. 

This could be challenging if you're not familiar with traffic generation techniques. But you can do it if you set some time aside and focus.

Your goal is to put the landing page in front of as many people as possible. You can do this with free advertising, or with paid advertising.

I'm a big proponent of paid traffic for online businesses because it is highly targeted, easy to quantify, and generally provides better results than free traffic.

However, paying for traffic can be an overwhelming task on its own.

I suggest you try getting a little bit of free traffic first, just to double-check your landing page, your emails and to get you into the flow of things. Get free traffic for a few days, maybe up to a couple weeks.

There will be a few changes you want to make as you run these small tests. Maybe you made a typo, maybe you forgot an image, maybe you want to change the color of the background on your landing page.

With free traffic, you can easily work through those minor mistakes and other than your time, you really haven't lost much.

I would run that test for about a week, maximum 2 weeks. No more than this. After your landing page has been tested, and your emails are delivering properly, then buy some traffic.

That's it. This is a cycle and so long as you keep bringing the offer to people then some of those people will join your email list, and some will buy.

Later on, you can work on getting better, more targeted traffic, optimizing your sales copy on your landing page, improving your open and click rates from your emails and even going back to some of that sweet, sweet free traffic.

But first, revenue!

You can even develop a strategy to generate sales without spending a lot on paid traffic, but if you want to get started, and generate results quickly these are the three steps you must take.

Additional notes

Where to get traffic? You can buy traffic from Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, and many other places. Set a budget aside to do this every week, and check your stats every day so you can make adjustments.

Make sure you keep adding new emails to your autoresponder series, and when you have ten or twenty, you should then send an email manually every day to your list.

For your landing page, I recommend that you use Leadpages or Clickfunnels, both of those links will give you a free trial to start. But if you're cheap or budget conscious, then you can use Aweber or even your WordPress website.

If you use WordPress, just make sure you use one of the page templates for your theme which remove the sidebars and footers so the reader doesn't get distracted by those. You could also use something like OptimizePress.

Conclusion

Don't let the firehose of advice on Google, Youtube or emails from gurus overwhelm you. When starting out, there are only three things you have to do to generate revenue and start growing your business.

Later on, you can learn more, you can adjust things, you can add more ingredients to the mix but if your business isn't generating revenue quickly, you'll be discouraged and possibly go broke. Complete the three tasks outlined above to start getting results as soon as possible.

These are basic cornerstone strategies to start generating revenue for your online business.

Before you get caught up on my own simple advice and start overcomplicating it, make sure that you do all this quickly. Remember that you don't need to know everything and how everything works.

I have made the big mistake of studying and learning one thing relentlessly until I became an expert at it. I studied it and reviewed it and asked questions to satisfy my fearful curiosity.

This is a mistake if you want to be an entrepreneur and it's understandable. It comes from a place of fear, fear of failure, and fear of making a mistake. I talked about failing recently, you can see that here.

You will make mistakes, and you will fail, but the important part is to fail as you're trying to do something and not just learning about it. Get started now.

The post What Should I Do Next to Start Making Money Online As An Affiliate appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Maybe this sounds like you: A blogger has been blogging for months, maybe even over a year and hasn't made any money.

Perhaps they've made a few dollars here and there. But the reality is that most bloggers, and chances are that includes you, don't make enough to even cover basic costs.

It's not for lack of trying or for lack of skill, generally.

Keep in mind most successful bloggers didn't make money until months after starting their blog.

What do affiliates need to start making money online?

There are many things that comprise the recipe for profits online, but I'm going to cover two important factors that would help you make money if you haven't made enough money from your blog yet.

I know it can be frustrating.

Making money online is more than just posting content and sharing it. You can have a huge following and still fail to make a decent income. In this video, I dive into one of the main reasons why you're not making money despite all your efforts.

Check out the video and take action. If you're not profiting from your blog, maybe it's time you try something new, or time to upgrade your methods or products.

And if you don't think that these are the missing ingredients for your blog to start making money, let me know more about your situation in the comments and we can figure it out together.

https://youtu.be/t9ZgNvtSB2s

If you didn't want to wait for the entire video. The key of one of the messages is to start working with higher-end products which in turn pay out a higher level commission.

If you're interested in learning how to do that and start earning more money than ever before, check out the 21 step training I talk about in the video right here.

The post Affiliates: This Is Why You’re Not Making Money Online (Video) 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.

I reached out to see if I could help. Sometime last year I helped her setup her first ad, and first video landing page. After a gazillion takes and re-takes, script revisions and adjustments, we did it.

She had everything needed to make it work. The last ingredients needed to focus, drive traffic and relentless commitment to succeed.

Little did I know that a year and a half later I would be reading such a sad update on her Facebook page. I offered my help, once again. This time free of charge until she started making sales.

Because I know that what I teach, works if you implement it and take action.

She said she was willing to follow my advice and do whatever it takes to succeed. I asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this because I could tell from her tone that she felt defeated. I've felt defeated too before, so I knew her point of view.

She admitted to me she's been depressed. I asked her:

Are you willing to follow my advice, and do what it takes?

Yes, she said.

I'm no psychologist, but I know that when we're down it's really hard to get out of that rut. I beat myself up and that just makes it all worse.

I have discovered that if I'm depressed, little wins help me get out of my head and the dark places which make me feel like I've failed. Then it snowballs from there into bigger, better and more positive things.

There's something to that law of attraction thing. While I have not read the Law of attraction book in its entirety and I think that a lot of it is a bit hokey, I know that if we focus on the positive AND take action, we start winning.

If we focus on the negative and look for ways something may fail, then it seems that's all we see and that's all that happens.

Success begets success.

So I kicked off an emergency plan to help her. Focusing on little wins. But she was hesitant, her answers were indirect and distracted. It made me concerned so I double-checked if she really wanted my help and if she really wanted to do this. She confirmed.

I broke down her week by hours. She works 60 hours at her dreadful day-job. I budgeted 8 hours of sleep per day. This leaves her 45 hours more or less, after taking into account 1-hour commute for 7 days per week.

WOW. A full 45 hours of idle time. Anybody could make a business if they worked on it at least 2 hours a day, now imagine working five, or six, or even eight! What about personal time? and meals? -

That's negligible, but let's give it 7 to 10 hours per week. Shower in 3 min, you're not going to be doing makeup and hair because you aren't going out for fun, and you can eat at your desk while you work. Remember, this is an emergency plan, not the rest of your life.

Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t. ~ Anonymous.

I never told her it would be easy. Remember? The missing ingredient to any success story in the making is your perseverance, your commitment, your dedication and hard work.

So I told her to take her first win, an easy one. Cancel cable TV.

I know you're going to wonder as you read this, Oscar, what the heck are you talking about? Bear with me.

You see, when you're on the brink of bankruptcy, it's too late to cut back on small bills. Saving $65 on the cable bill will not save you. She argued with me, maybe thinking what you're thinking right now too.

She said:

TV comes bundled with my internet, and how dare you ask me to give up tv? Are you serious!?

This is the case for many Americans, but that's not a law! It's just a tactic that cable companies use to offer you more value. And besides, everything is negotiable.

But she continued to argue with me.

She's desperate and I know it, I want to help but I can't help those that don't want to be helped. She told me: "your [sic] asking me to turn off my tv really...that isn't right"

This she said after I explained a few times why it was important to cancel her cable TV immediately. But she wasn't having any of it.

I told her she was not coachable, I can't help her today. Perhaps someone else can, but I can't. Maybe later when she's ready.

That was the end of that, so why do you care and why am I telling you this story?

So I'll explain to you why I told her to cut off her TV. And also why I think you should too if you are struggling to make money online, or want to get started.

Canceling a $65 monthly bill, only a month or two before you file for bankruptcy is kinda like asking for a non-alcoholic beer after you are so drunk, you can't stand. It's not going to do much good, you're drunk.

The entire point of canceling television was meant to provide a small win to empower her, and second, an act to demonstrate the severity of the situation. There's a third reason that's the most important, and I'll get to that in a moment. But let me explain the first two.

Here's the first thing

Number one, when you call your cable company and you tell them that you can't pay for their bill and want to cancel TV, they will do everything in their power to keep you around. They'll negotiate, they'll give you better rates, offer better deals and so on. Trust me, I've been there, done that, and their offers are often enticing.

But even then, you should cancel.

But what about the internet? And where is the small win to empower me? you ask. Cancelling TV is just a first step, the win comes next.

After you cancel the TV, during the same phone call you tell the company, you'd like to keep the internet and pay for it separately BUT you need a better rate. The person on the phone usually will tell you, that they can't, this is the lowest. You want to get to that point because this is where you setup yourself for that small win I talked about earlier.

When you've canceled your TV service, and they are denying you a better rate for your internet, you ask to be transferred to their retention department. You will be sent over to someone that specializes on keeping you as a customer. This is when they will give you a discounted rate, or a deal that is much better than what you have now, even if it's for 6 months or 12 months.

This also will not make a dent in the bills and the escalating debt. I mean, if you go from $55 a month for internet to $45, you wonder what will $10.00 do? Not much.

But it will motivate you. You have just negotiated something in your favor. You have just scored a small win. When you're struggling to see the light, to be positive or make progress, that's a small dent on depression and the first step to get out of that rut.

And the second thing

From the moment you cancel cable TV, a feeling of the dark reality you find yourself in will shower over you. This is real, that thing you've had for years and probably your entire life, is no longer there. Well, it's there but when you turn it on you'll see a plain black screen. Don't be sneaky and keep Netflix or HBO or whatever, get rid of those too!

Why are you here now, why is the cable tv subscription gone? Answer that question to yourself.

Imagine and look back at all the time you've spent watching it. Hundreds and thousands of hours. The answer is that you don't need it, you can't afford it and most important of all, it's getting in your way of your dreams. This has been getting in the way of your dreams for as long as you've been alive.

When you go to bed, this reality will set in and as you struggle to fall asleep anxious about tomorrow's bill collectors calling, and cooking mac and cheese instead of steak or lobster. You'll wake up and remember this post and realize that time is your most precious asset.

In 16 hours, you can learn to solve the Rubik's cube in under 2 minutes. It takes 1,500 hours to become a pilot. 13 hours to learn a song in the violin. You can learn to ride a unicycle in less than 3 hours. That's not necessarily going to get you out of debt, but it should drive home the point that TV is a waste of time, which leads me to the next and final point.

And for the final point

This is why you get rid of cable TV besides the reasons I gave you earlier. Because it's a distraction, TV drowns your inner entrepreneur. TV sends your dreams to the back burner while you are bombarded with 3-minute commercials for stuff you don't need, just to show you a 6-minute segment of someone else's story.

Write your own story.

I don't care if you watch TV shows, movies, or Kim Kardashian. The people in TV are living the dream you desire. For all intents and purposes, they are getting paid to keep you away from your potential. Not to mention that from the remaining 45 hours you have left each week, you'll probably spend at least half of that watching shit that doesn't mean anything and you'll forget in 3 days.

Conclusion

We are in the situation we find ourselves in because of our choices. If we make better choices, our situations will improve. Yes, it's true you can learn those things I said earlier in those short periods of time. You will not master the violin in 13 hours, but you can learn a song. Practice and continued dedication will make you proficient and eventually you can play anything you want.

It's like that for home businesses as well, or online businesses, or whatever you want to do in life.

If you find a good guide and you put the time and effort, you will learn. But once you learn, you have to apply what you've learned, and you have to practice it. If you want it, you have to be willing to do this, you have to be willing to sacrifice the familiar, the comfort and the known. Otherwise, maybe you don't have what it takes to do this and you should stay in your comfort zone.

Do you want to learn how to start and run an online business, a profitable business you can run from anywhere? Start with a good guide, and put in the time. Here is a paid program, a 21 step and 21 day guide to running a home business that you can follow. It has the education you need, and you'll have access to support, products you can sell and most importantly high paying commissions unlike any other in the affiliate industry. But don't take my word for it, watch the video, it's short.

The 21 Steps program has helped me and many others, and it should only take you about 18-25 hours to complete! Invest in your business, invest in yourself and don't give up. If you follow this advice, history says you will succeed.

The post She Didn’t Have What It Takes. Do You? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

This is a topic that is highly debatable and you'll find proponents of both methods. Each one has its merits and disadvantages. At the end, it comes down to how you send emails to the subscribers.

If you annoy your subscribers or send them irrelevant content, they will make SPAM complaints whether they joined your list via double opt-in, or single opt-in.

In some cases, the discussion isn't just a matter of opinion but a matter of law. Some countries or jurisdictions require that you collect email addresses properly and with full disclosure to the subscriber. That can be difficult with single opt-in methods.

I want to debunk a myth that permeates this discussion, too, while we are at it. In the U.S., businesses are guided by the CAN-SPAM Rule, and this does not specify that a subscriber has to opt-in. Here is a quick guide for business compliance on using promotional emails. In fact, you can theoretically email anybody you want so long as you follow the actual CAN-SPAM laws. The law doesn't say that the recipient of a marketing or promotional email must have opted in first.

Now that I got that out of the way, I thought I would make a short video talking about what I think it's best and why. Check out the video below and let me know what you think in the comments.

I mentioned some tools in the video so I'll link them here. So if you want to start an email marketing campaign, the three main tools I use are these:

Aweber - hosts my email lists and manages the sending and tracking of emails to my subscribers. Start for free here. Aweber allows single opt-in or double opt-in.

Optinmonster - provides me with opt-in boxes, sliders, and helps me capture people's attention before they decide to leave my blog or websites. Optinmonster doesn't have a free option or trial, but it's worth it if you have a website, doesn't matter if it's WordPress or not. Check it out here to learn more, or look through previous posts I've written about Optinmonster.

Leadpages - allows me to create amazing landing pages that connect to my email lists, they also have SMS opt-in services like leaddigits and it's all around one of my favorite landing page builders. Start for free here.

I recommend all three of these services if you are looking to start your email marketing efforts for your business.

The post Which Should You Use? Single Opt-in vs Double Opt-in appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The rest may be afraid of success, maybe they're afraid of facing a challenge that seems too difficult to overcome. They retreat to their comfort zone. But there's a reason the cliche of stepping out of your comfort zone exists; because it works. People that push boundaries, challenges, and limitations persevere.

It is through this perseverance that successful people find success and if you aren't working towards that success with a solid vision, chances are you're going to give up soon.

You may be busy but broke, you may be focusing on the wrong things, spending time in the wrong places. Unproductive, you see the time passing you by, or you think any other number of excuses, like:

It's too hard!

It's too difficult!

I can't do it!

I have a job!

I am busy with the kids!

I have school, then I'm so tired!

I want to learn how to code first!

I don't think it is for me.

All of these are excuses I've heard in the past 6 months from people that won't push through and work through challenges and obstacles. Instead, they go after another shiny object.

After all, it's easy starting out, the brainstorming part is addictive, the busy work is distracting, the process of setting everything up is rewarding, it makes you feel accomplished. But then the newness wears out and you're back to square one.

Are you going to make an excuse for your lack of perseverance, again? As I talked about in a recent video. The most important thing to change one's life is to start in the path towards that change, with a goal in mind and moving towards that goal.

But the next most important thing is to follow through. Otherwise, you'll find yourself quitting and starting over, again, and again. Make a commitment to yourself and follow through. I have helped many of you start with the 21 step training, or with a blog. Some of you have done well and are now running successful blogs or making great money.

But many people aren't using their blogs or making money. These are the same people that will email me and say "it doesn't work!" To which I respond that I want to help. I ask, show me what you've done that didn't work. I get no response after that. I want to help you, but you have to put in the work.

Did you finish the 21 steps? I get no response after that.

Did you write 10 blog posts? No response...

Sometimes I'll get one more response saying "it just doesn't work!" "It's too hard" or "I didn't understand." And the cycle begins again. If you already started the training, finish it, start your business. Persevere.

If you already started a business somewhere else, and you know it should work, and you have proof that it works for others, then carry on. It doesn't matter if you sell widgets on eBay, hand-crafted artwork on Etsy, t-shirts on Teespring, or digital products on Clickbank.

Put the uncomfortable feelings aside and push through. In a video Shia Labeouf did a couple years ago and has since become an Internet meme, he said something that fits my blog post today.

The post Tired of Starting Over? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I know I said that I'm going into this challenge by myself. I didn't announce it to my groups, as of the writing of this blog post I haven't even told my VIP group about it. I'll be emailing them about it soon.

But that doesn't mean that you just get to sit back and watch and read only. I would like you to get something out of this challenge too, a large percentage of the videos and content I'll produce over the next 99 days will be to teach you and share with you tips, tricks, methods and techniques to help you make money.

So while I'm doing this challenge by myself, you have to do something for me, well, for you really. All I ask for now, is that you subscribe to my YouTube channel and to my VIP email list. This will help you not miss anything and also make sure that you get all of the tutorials, or discounts or insights that will make you more money, save you money or help you start a business.

If you have any questions you want me to answer in an upcoming blog post or video, please send them to me. To send me your questions, join the email list and reply to one of my emails and let me know you'd like me to answer a question.

By the way, did you notice my new introduction in the video? I just made that. I'd love to get your feedback on that as well.

The post Your Turn to do Something 100 Day Challenge, Day 2 appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I know I'm a salesman, everyone else is a salesperson too, some of you just don't know it, so this post should be helpful to you as well.

So I've been studying some sales techniques and methods. Today I'm breaking down a video I found that was extremely helpful and I think it might be useful for you if you want to improve your sales at skills.

See, selling is just about overcoming objections to convince the prospect that what you have is valuable and useful for them, today. Not tomorrow, not after they talk to their partner, not after they think about it, today. Now.

The first thing is to be sure and make sure that your product or service is, in fact, valuable and useful. Without that, even if you can convince someone to buy something, your results in the long term will be lackluster.

If you don't believe in your product or service, your prospect will feel it, and even if you sell it, you will have trouble sleeping at night, so don't do it. But if you know in your heart that the product is good, the service is good then the sale needs to happen.

Closing the Sale: 9 Common Objections by Brian Tracy

This video covers nine common sales objections. I've been studying this video and a few others on the same topic. I'll probably share those with you soon as well.

This video is by Brian Tracy. If you have never heard of him, you should learn a little bit more about him.

Before you watch this, and as you go through your own journey on learning to be a better closer, remember one of Brian's quotes:

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, 'What's in it for me?' - Brian Tracy

This reiterates what I mentioned above about making sure the product or service you are offering is going to help your customer. On with the video, a few notes after the video below.

The nine common objections and how to recognize them and deal with them effectively are listed below with timestamps.

1. The unspoken sales objection  (0:24)
2. The excuses and impulse sales objection (1:03)
3. The malicious sales objection (2:00)
4. The request for more information sales objection (2:47)
5. The show-off sales objection (3:11)
6. The personal sales objection (3:54)
7. The factual sales objection (4:26)
8. The general resistance sale objection (4:58)
9. The last ditch sales objection (5:50)

The video is short and sweet and I wish it had some more guidance about the specific situations, but it's a great start. My main question is whether these objections have a relationship to each other, specifically I wonder if they come in a particular order.

Do you agree that these are the most common objections? How would you handle them differently?

The post How To Close the Sale: 9 Common Objections 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.

Her skills come from working with high-level CEO's and high-level executives as an administrative assistant. This is a highly desirable skill, but also a very competitive market. Traditionally, these jobs are reserved for candidates that can be physically available and by definition, they can be limiting.

But just like many other service based jobs, a lot of it can be done remotely and that's what I'm suggesting here. Here's how I would start a virtual assistant agency online.

My friend is based in the United States, but my answer and advice applies to anybody that wants to start a virtual service business. In her case, my suggestion was to start a virtual assistant business online. And I cover the basics in the video below.

Resources to get started

The total cost to start something like this should be well under $300.00. And you can count on spending between $500 to $1000 per year or less for basic operating expenses.

To start a website, you can get your web hosting from these guys: Inmotion Hosting. In fact, if you use that link, I will setup your website at no additional cost. I highly recommend them and endorse them, they host my blog and a few other blogs I run as well as many of my clients' websites.

But if you want to give it a try and DIY, you can just install WordPress from the control panel after you purchase your hosting account ($60). Remember that you get a domain for free also.

You can then add a WordPress theme that you like, I have a list of the ones I like the most, some of them are free themes, some of them are paid themes. Then customize the site so it is unique and attractive.

You could also have a logo designed inexpensively at Fiverr. Quick disclaimer, Fiverr can be a tricky space to find good service, but look for logo designers that have a lot of gigs completed and good ratings. Also expect to pay more like $45-$100 for a good logo. Definitely, do not go think that you can just use the $5.00 service, it will not be good.

You could also use a logo maker service for free, there are several online like this one called: logomakr, or freelogodesign.org, onlinefreelogo, or even Canva. Keep in mind, your mileage may vary with free services when creating a logo, because they largely depend on your creative eye and your ability to use the tools, but at least you can get something started quickly.

Remember: done is better than perfect. You can always come back and improve upon it once you launch and get your first couple clients.

To promote your new business, I recommend you establish a Facebook page, a Linkedin presence, and a Twitter account. Spend time developing each of the networks and grow them as much as possible for free. When you have enough content on your blog, you should do some targeted ad campaigns on Facebook and Linkedin.

I also strongly suggest you get an email service like Aweber (free trial), to help you create an autoresponder series and a newsletter that will keep your leads and prospects informed. Make sure you put a sign-up box on your blog & website to get people to join your email list.

A phone system may be necessary and you could look into Grasshopper, Skype or Google voice to take care of those needs on a budget.

Some of the other stuff I mentioned in the video include:

Woocommerce - Free plugin to handle orders and payment directly on your website.

Freshbooks will help you handle invoices, estimates and even time tracking for your staff. It provides you with amazing billing capabilities and lets your customers pay directly using bank transfer, a credit card or PayPal.

WP Forms is a plugin that can be used to create application forms for virtual assistants and prospects. As well as surveys, questionnaires and other data collection needs.

You can and should definitely establish an email address based on your business domain name, and I would recommend taking it a step further and having Google host that email address via their Google for business service.

To start and save some money, you could just use the built-in e-mail provided by Inmotion; this will match your domain name so you'll look more professional than if you use a "hotmail" or "gmail" address. You'll be able to check and send email with your favorite mail app such as Outlook, Apple mail, Thunderbird or the one that comes with your phone.

Whether you use a Google for business account to host your email or not, you will probably benefit from Google drive to handle documents and internal files that you can share with your virtual staff. So you can set that up and create a shared folder for your staff to get documents and other files.

There's something I wanted to point out about the video. The plugin to integrate WordPress with Freshbooks hasn't been updated for a while so it may or may not work. However, you can find other ways of integrating the two services and in doing some last minute research for this blog post I found that there is a Woocommerce addon to help with Freshbooks integration.

* Some of the links I use here are affiliate links. This means that not only will you help me keep the blog going and provide you with more information in the future but in some cases you actually get a better deal by using my link than you would otherwise. Under no circumstance will using my links cost you more than going directly to the vendor directly. I appreciate your support.

The post How to Start an Virtual Assistant Business Online appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I talk about list building and how it is similar to dating. I also talk about the infamous "free, just pay shipping and handling" method.

List building is essential to any business, the tactics change over time, but the goal doesn't. You need a list and at least two segments, buyers and leads. You can always segment more beyond that and you should, but you need at least two main groups.

For the lead generation part I use two programs. But at the very basic level, you need just the second one.

#1 Optinmonster, because it integrates with WordPress beautifully. It creates intelligent lead generation boxes and helps you retain more traffic on your WordPress blog. Rumor has it that it will soon be platform agnostic so I highly recommend it. You can get Optinmonster here.

#2 LeadPages is the other app I use. This has entire websites that you can build as landing pages and they are some of the best out there. They are mobile friendly, easy to use, and will work with any website you already have or will host them for you in their blazing fast hosting service (included in the price).

They are the leaders in creating squeeze pages and I highly recommend them. You can check out Leadpages here.

#2.5 ClickFunnels. Since I first wrote this post, I've added ClickFunnels to my daily toolbox and I recommend it as well. This is a more robust platform than most other SAAS. You can create squeeze pages or landing pages, or entire funnels with A/B split testing plus they have Actionetics and Backpack. The closest to an "all-in-one" solution. Watch the webinar here.

And of course, as I have mentioned before, I use Aweber to maintain my list. Both Optinmonster and Leadpages connect with Aweber seamlessly to make my life easier. Aweber is available now with a totally free 30 day trial and you can check that out here in this link.

If you can't afford Optinmonster or Leadpages, you can still use Aweber on its own.

Aweber has built-in lead capture forms and you can even create simple squeeze pages with it. I just prefer to use better tools for that, but if you just need to start somewhere, start with Aweber for free.

The post Driving with Oscar – Episode 3 – List Building Tips appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

As you would guess, the conference is about affiliates, Clickbank happens to be one of the best established networks out there to do what they do. Digital products. They specialize on helping you launch your business or enhance it by promoting the products in their catalog. This is one of the most common affiliate marketing models.

I promote several products from Clickbank and they have products in a niche that would probably fit you. But here is Josh Valencia from Clickbank and he explains way better than I can.

Oh yeah, Clickbank also will have beer for you at Affiliate Summit.

The post Josh Valencia Explains What is Clickbank? #ASW14 appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Growing my social media presence and activity also helps me in two fronts. Increases my value in Empire Avenue, which in turn gives me more Eaves to promote my business, and it also helps me rank better in search engines. More importantly, social media is part of my system. I talked about having systems in my Online Profits Guide. And don't be mistaken, social media is personal, but I also use it for business.

Despite what many people will have you believe, it is rather simple to increase your numbers in social media and do it in a meaningful and rewarding way. And trust me, numbers matter; I'll explain more on that later. You simply have to be consistent and good. You don't even have to be great.

You know my strategy and goals, and you have an idea of my tactics. So here I'm going to spell out the tactics for each of the major networks. This will also serve as my daily workbook. You could use it as well and it is in fact an abbreviated version of the basic tactics design I provide for my customers.

Facebook personal profile.

• Post 1 interesting picture.
• Post 1 interesting news article.
• Post 1 question.
• Respond to 5 interesting posts.
• Like 30 - 50 things.

Why? Because Facebook holds most of the everyday conversations about anything going on. People are there, and don't want to leave. Total time to complete, approximately 15 min.

Facebook business page. Oscarstech.

• Post 3 news articles
• Post 1 interesting question/challenge
• Re-share 2 - 5 relevant posts from existing audience.

Total time to complete, approx 10 min.

Facebook business page. IM Scoop.

• Post 5 articles
• Post 1 customized image/infographic
• re-share 2 - 5 relevant posts.

Time to complete, approx 15 min.

Twitter. @notagrouch

• Tweet 4 - 9 original content packed tweets
• Talk to 5 different people
• Retweet 5 good tweets
• Follow 10 new people

Why? Twitter is like the radio. Topics and talks come and go, but you can build relationships that transcend Twitter if you cultivate them. Time to complete, approx 20 min.

Instagram. @notagrouch

• Post 5 photos
• like and/or comment 15 - 30 photos

Time to complete, approx 20 min. Why? Instagram is growing incredibly fast, engagement is huge and I really like it.

A bit of background.

The reason for using all these is to stay in touch with people, have people remember me and think of me when they need one of my services and to increase my earnings on Empire Avenue so I can help promote my blog and other businesses. The total time comes to about an hour and a half, and this is strictly for the mechanics of nurturing these networks. These actions pretty much guarantee activity and growth, but I still have to spend some personal time. I expect the time to vary between 45 min - 2 hours each day. It is also worth nothing that the facebook business pages can be scheduled and automated in advance so the time may be less in those cases.

It is about the numbers

The social media purists will have you believe that it is better to have 100 loyal followers than 1000 followers that may not always read your postings. But I disagree. Social media marketing is the same as any other marketing. It is about the numbers and if you target the right groups and the right audience, the more numbers you have, the better you're off. You can engage with more people if you have more people following you. You have better chances of reaching your target audience if more people have a chance at being exposed to your content. So long as your readers are real, having a lot of them also positions you as a leader in the eyes of your prospects. It's a psychological thing. Low numbers don't impress anyone.

But it is also about engagement

Something else worth noting is that what I posted and shared up here is purely mechanical. Yes, the numbers matter tremendously, but you must also know that having a large following doesn't guarantee engagement or genuine interactions with people. Those two aspects of social networking cannot be automated or predicted. I still have to care about people, talk to them at a personal level and make deep meaningful connections and build relationships.

Don't mistake the tools and schedule I am giving you as a way to "do social media right." There is another part to the equation and that's being genuine, personal and actually engage with people. Follow my schedule if you want, but also see how I actually interact and use each network. I'll talk more about that in upcoming blogposts; it's just hard teaching you how to be sociable and human.

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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.

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How to Share Adsense Revenue With Your Authors in WordPress: "It would be quite useful in attracting new authors to blog on your site, in return for some Adsense revenue for what they’ve written."
(Via Wptuts+.)

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