Posted on: December 21, 2009 by Peter
When you first hear the term “bum marketing” you may think what the hell? Now, depending on which story you subscribe to, bum marketing can either mean one of two things, it can either refer to sitting on your bum all day making money or if you were homeless (ie. a bum) and living on the street, you could make money online with bum marketing because it requires only free methods to generate income – well, except an Internet connection of course.
If you have a very small, limited budget, then you can still make money online, just follow the bum marketing principles such as:
Action: Wow, this is an important step, as a bum marketer everything is about ACTION. You can’t afford to outsource, you can’t afford to wait for someone to do it for you, you have to take action and do things every single day. If you are not taking any action, you are not working. Reading a forum is not action, checking emails is not action either. Action is doing something that will actively help you earn money.
Prolific Writer: Bum marketing is all about how much content you can get out there and submit to article directories. You will be spending the bulk of your time writing articles and submitting them. Take advantage of all the free places you can create webpages like Squidoo, HubPages, Blogger and Weebly and get content on there that is related to the niche you are targeting. Remember, without content, you can’t drive traffic to the places that will make you money – and you won’t be able to eat!
Forget Perfection: Business is not about being perfect, it’s about doing enough to earn you money and being consistent in taking action each and every day. As long as you are writing articles and promoting your free sites in directories and social media sites the money will eventually take care of itself. You can’t focus on whether you are doing things in the right order or using the right method, simply get articles out there and get traffic.
Bum marketing is a great introduction for most Internet Marketers because it makes them realize how much work, time and effort is involved in making money, it’s not simply a push button system which sends a steady stream of cash to your bank account, whether you can afford to outsource or have to rely on being a bum marketer for a while, you won’t make money without taking action.
Posted on: December 20, 2009 by Peter
It seems that in the Internet Marketing world not a day goes by when there is a the launch of some next big product which will turn us from wage slaves in to financially free individuals if we just shell out $97 and follow some system. If we were to believe everything and buy everything that was promoted, we’d be going broke pretty quickly!
As every savvy and experienced marketer knows the web is very similar to the old Wild West as there are so many snake oil salesmen desperate to make a quick buck and will push anything that makes them a few dollars, regardless of the quality and effectiveness of the product in question.
Having said that, Affiliate Marketing can be very profitable even if you only promote the quality products and are open and honest about who the product would be suitable for – it’s not very ethical to promote an AdWords product when a person doesn’t even know how to set up a website.
With that in mind, here are three top tips to help you boost your Affiliate income:
Pick a niche and stick with it: While it is easy to lose focus and the grass always looks greener in other niches, it is important to pick a single niche and focus all your energy and attention on it before moving on to something else. As human beings, we tend to be able to do one thing very well and it’s proven that our overall effectiveness reduces when we are given too much to do. While it might seem logical to venture in to many different niches to maximize your income, focusing on one single niche – at least in the beginning – is the number one way to make the most money from affiliate commission. However, if after several weeks of work there is not much money coming in, it may be worth moving in to a different niche.
Leave the big niches alone: Look, there are already companies with marketing budgets that run in to the millions of dollars, they employ an army of writers, graphic designers and promoters to dominate the large niches like travel, health, money and other such broad topics, so trying to crack these markets is going to be like banging your head against a brick wall. Instead, target the tiny little niches, the hobbies and personal interest. The Internet is a multi-billion dollar industry, just because a particular niche is ‘only’ worth $10m a year, even if you took 1% of that you will be making a fantastic income.
Explore different avenues: Just because you find an affiliate network offering something that’s related to the niche you are targeting doesn’t mean it has to stop there. There are many affiliate networks such as Amazon and Clickbank where you can find multiple complimentary products to promote without encroaching on the sales of each other. It’s always important to split test the offers as well, because if one product converts at 1% and the other product converts at 2% then potentially (depending on how much commission you earn) you could earn more by promoting a single product.
Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money (after Google AdSense), all it takes is a bit more thought and effort about the type of products to promote and how to promote them. If you get it right, the road to riches can be cut very short indeed! Many Internet Marketers already make full time livings from simply promoting other peoples products and rake in insane amounts of cash each month. If you are willing to invest the time and energy in to making it work, following the tips above, then you too could start down that wealthy road.
