I'm running a promotion over at my new site CoachGlue.com to get it rocking and rolling – and we're doing a big (kind of nuts) affiliate contest over there right now.

Several of my friends have promoted successfully using great email marketing strategies and I wanted to show them off while sharing examples for you to learn from, as well.

So here's the scoop.

To get an idea of what the affiliate contest is about, go to Coach Glue June Affiliate Contest (opens in a new window so you won't lose your spot).

Then, take a look through this report where I pulled promos from the top four sellers so far this month so that you can SEE what's working and learn from it.

Affiliate Marketing: Email Promotions that Work.

I hope you like it! (And yes, there will be an updated version coming when the contest wraps up. Watch for that.)

Warmly,
Nicole

PS. Here are the resources mentioned in the report:

Learn More about my Friends:

• David ->  Free Weekly Training
• Dennis -> Dennis' Awesome Community
• Kelly ->  Kelly's Super Podcast
• Rachel ->  Get to Know Rachel on My Podcast

Win Affiliate Contests!

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but my friend, Connie Green, has won several of my affiliate contests in the past and she has a cool product similar to this one showcasing HOW she did it.

You can grab that cheap here-> How to Win Affiliate Prizes (If you like my report, you'll enjoy that one, too.)

Meet us in Person:

• Vegas ->  Vegas Conference
• Atlanta -> Atlanta Conference

If you've missed past Expert Briefs, you can click on the undies to see them all –>

So, on that note, this week I asked our panel of experts …

It's nearly the end of the year, so I'm personally looking
back over the last year. My question this week is

“Where does your money come from?” 

Here are their responses they so graciously shared.

Tiffany Dow of The Guide to Shiny Object Syndrome says:

I get my Internet income from a variety of sources. I’ve always loved having many different sources because of the panic I would feel (and uncertainty) if I relied on just one stream. So my income is divided up into 5 parts:

1. My own eCourses
2. My PLR store
3. Digital affiliate income
4. Affiliate marketing on Amazon
5. Ghostwriting

When it comes to the lion’s share, it would have to be my own ecourses – because not only do I make money directly, but I worked to recruit an army of affiliates to promote for me. This provides approximately 40% of my online income. The best tip I can give you on this is to forget who else has already done what. Do it your way and you will have fans!

Next on the list is my PLR store. I’ve been building this for years and now have almost 500 products in my marketplace. It runs on autopilot and I have affiliates promoting it, earning 50% of the cart sales. Most PLR sellers create about 5-10 packs and quit, but volume is key to waking up and seeing $200 cart sales. PLR accounts for about 30% of my sales.

Digital affiliate income is what I consider my reviews to be. Here’s a tip on earning from digital reviews: whenever I buy any product, I implement and review it right away. It pays off because people trust me when they see my results unfold. The profits are twofold: once from the sales you make reviewing it as an affiliate, and again because you’re taking action and implementing! I make approximately 25% of my income from reviews.

The last two items on my list – affiliate income on Amazon and ghostwriting are very small players in my income, but not because I’ve failed at them. Combined, they only add up to about 5% of my income. I rarely ever ghostwrite anymore (just primarily to keep my skills sharp) and I’ve sold off (flipped) most of my Amazon sites and Squidoo lenses, so I’m just now building them back up. Best advice? KEEP the money makers. Build a portfolio, instead of flipping for fast cash.

-> Want more from Tiffany? Check out her The Guide to Shiny Object Syndrome

Bob Jenkins of How to Use Mindmaps to Organize Your Business says:

Hey Nicole – I love having a diversified set of revenue sources to balance out the ebbs and flows of having a business.

Here's my breakdown from October 2011 – October 2012:

• 40% – Personal Coaching Clients
• 16% – Mindmap My Business 3-Day Virtual Training
• 15% – Affiliate Income (Affiliate Marketing)
• 13% – Information Products
• 12% – Hotseat Holiday Workshops/Retreats
• 1.4% – Domain Sales
• 1.4% – Welcome To The Call
• 1.2% – Beef Jerky

A few things are interesting from this list for me (and from reviewing these kinds of numbers).

First, if I was like most coaches, I would be missing out on a ton of revenue without the additional revenue sources like information products and information products.

The 3 private label sources (Domains – GoDadady, WelcomeToTheCall – Instant Teleseminar, and Beef Jerky – Jerky Direct) that make up a combined 4% are both neglected and rarely advertised. I consider spending more energy on them, but then I remember how much more fun I have coaching and teaching virtual workshops.

Some of these sources are also inter-related, in that they provide the same customers multiple levels of access and intensity. If I sold in a bunch of different niches, it would be harder for me to improve my revenue/customer numbers.

For example, the Hotseat Holidays both lead to and stem from personal coaching clients.

As for affiliate income, my top generating recommendations over the past year have been for Lon Naylor (Learn Camtasia), Clay Collins (TheMarketingProgram), Digital Access Pass membership software, and Aweber autoresponders.

-> Want to learn more from Bob (and get uber-organized)? Check out How to Use Mindmaps to Organize Your Business

Connie Ragen Green of Affiliate Marketing Case Studies says:

The end of the year always means that I will be reviewing and thinking about my online business to see what worked, what I loved doing, and what I need to completely revamp and update in my business.

2012 has been a year of great growth for me. I am now speaking internationally, which was a goal I set for myself at this time last year. This is my sixth full year online, so I am now more comfortable in every area of my business. You may have heard about the ‘10,000 Hours Rule', a concept based on a study by Anders Ericsson and discussed throughout the book ‘Outliers: The Story of Success‘ by Malcolm Gladwell. The premise is that one needs to accrue ten thousand hours of experience in an area before being able to move to the next level of competence and understanding. I am now at the point in my business where major changes are more likely to occur.

• 50% – Affiliate marketing continues to account for about fifty percent of my income. I enjoy the responsibility that comes along with only recommending the people and products I love, in the exact areas that are relevant to building a successful online business.
• 25% – My own products and courses account for another twenty-five percent of my income, and I now stay tightly focused on what I create and sell under my brand.
• 25% – The rest of my income is derived from my high level Mentor programs, my Weekend Retreats, and from speaking at live events around the world.

My recommendation is to write down everything you are doing to generate income in your business to see which things are working best for you. The ultimate goal is to have a profitable business that allows you to engage in activities that you enjoy while serving the needs of your target audience.

-> Want to learn how Connie wins so many Affiliate Contests? Check out her Affiliate Success Case Studies.

Kelly McCausey of Solo Smarts Podcast says:

Where does my money come from? Had an interesting situation come up this week on Facebook. Lynn Terry and I have a big 1200+ member group working through a 90 Day Low Carb Challenge and someone got it in their head that we are some sort of Ninja Marketing Geniuses who make money every time someone clicks a link or likes anything. Lynn said ‘If only that were so!' LOL!

Affiliate marketing does represent a nice chunk of my income and it is one of my favorite sources since it tends to be the income that keeps on coming long after I did whatever I did to initiate it. It comes naturally as I recommend the tools, people and resources I have found most useful in my own online business.

Information product sales is another valued source of income for me. I have six different courses/workshops for sale right now plus a membership program. Sales come through my own list and via my amazing affiliates.

As we discussed not long ago, a surprising source of income for me is the check I get from an advertising network for displaying their ads on my small mom and family focused blog network. Sponsored posts, paid promotions and the like are all nice extras for my budget from month to month.

Occasionally I go back to my roots and generate cash with my graphic and web design skills. In fact, I put the word out last night that I'm accepting a couple of new clients. (I'm raising cash for something important!) I don't want to service clients on a regular basis, having a skill others are willing to pay to tap is a powerful thing.

I've dabbled with a few other things this year but unfortunately most of that didn't turn out to be the turn on I'd expected and I've let those projects go dormant. I think it's important for everything to know that every project and idea is not going to be profitable. I learn from these disappointments and use those lessons to be smarter about everything else I do.

Finally, I earn money by coaching clients one on one. What might interest everyone is the fact that this is not my primary income. Several people have told me that that is what they assume – that I'm getting RICH by coaching others. I'm not THAT coach who only makes money from coaching. I actually make money from real life projects that have nothing to do with telling someone else what to do as you can see here.

Flexibility, variety, having these choices is a dream come true for this solopreneur. I wish you all the same!

-> Want to learn more from Kel? One of the ways she earns money is through Podcasting. Check out her Smart Podcasting Course.

Jeanette S. Cates, PhD of Plan Your Online Business says:

What a great question! I generally know my numbers, but I was curious about how they have changed over the years. In fact, I pulled a spreadsheet for 2000 – 2012 and here's what I found:

• In 2000, my revenue was half consulting and half products (which includes teaching classes). That was fairly early in my Internet Marketing career, so that makes sense.
• By 2005, revenue was 25% affiliate programs, 15% adsense (the heyday!), 20% consulting, and the rest in product sales.
• By 2010,revenue was at 20% affiliate programs, only 8% consulting (who had time?), 20% member sites (the hot thing that year!), and the rest in product sales, including partner products.
• This year, it's steady at 30% affiliate sales, 22% consulting, 22% member sites, and the rest in product sales.

It's so important to have a mix of revenue sources. As some things come and go, other items remain steady. You may have years when you create a bunch of products and others when you want to work more closely with your clients in smaller sites and consulting. Remember – it's YOUR business and you get to choose how you make your living!

-> Want to peek inside Jeanette's head and get ready for next year? Check out Plan Your Online Business

Dr. Mani of How to Set Goals says:

Interesting question, Nicole.

Here are my answers, as they apply to online infopreneur income alone:

• Affiliate marketing – 25%
• Freelance writing – 20%
• Adsense – 5%
• Infoproduct Sales – 30%
• Books on Amazon – 5%
• Membership sites – 10%
• Other – 5%

It helps that I periodically review this set of numbers, and see how well they match my overall goals for the year. That way, I'm able to tweak and focus on what matters for the month or quarter.

-> Want to learn more from Dr. Mani? Check out his report about How to Set Goals

Nicole Dean of .. here! .. says:

Well this has been interesting to me to read the responses. 

My income is similar to my friends above.

1. My Own Product Sales
2. My PLR Sites
3. Affiliate Marketing
4. Personal Coaching
5. Google Adsense (Niche Sites)
6. Web Hosting
7. Amazon Kindle
8. Consulting

I'll get into a bit more detail on each.

1. My Own Product Sales.

I have several training products that I sell to intermediate and advanced level online business owners.

My most recent one that I'm super proud of is ContentDrafts.com – how to keep your blog fresh.

I also have some courses at the beginner level, including the ones at MomsTalkBiz.com

2. My PLR Sites

I have three PLR sites.  Each is slightly different in focus.

EasyPLR.com
I opened EasyPLR in 2006. At that site, I mainly sell packs of articles, reports, and ecourses. There is no membership component involved. The goal with the site is to get people to make an impulse buy as it's a low priced item and then find out they love me and my stuff and trust me. Then they become repeat customers.

YummyPLR.com
Yummy PLR was opened after EasyPLR (I believe in 2007). We sell food PLR there, including PLR recipes. This site is a membership model and many of our members stay for years.

CoachingPLRContent.com
I opened Coaching PLR content with Melissa Ingold in 2010. At that site, we want to arm our customers with resources, tools and presentations they can use to expand their expert status even further. We have worksheets and PowerPoints slides and scripts and all kinds of stuff with PLR rights. A lot of our customers use our presentations to create video training and to do live webinars, as well.

3. Affiliate Marketing

I don't have exact numbers in front of me, but I would say that I earn approximately 50% of my income through affiliate marketing.

This varies from promoting things like Hillbilly Housewife ebooks on a niche site – to promoting exercise videos from Amazon on another niche site, to promoting services like Aweber here, on my blog and to my lists.

4. Personal Coaching

I take on a handful of personal coaching clients at a time. I spend a lot of time one-on-one with them which is why I only work with a few. I find it extremely rewarding and I love it.

I focus on Infoproduct marketers who have at least one product, who already know who their customers are, and they have their product up for sale (or nearly there). Once they get to that point, I have a blast helping them to multiply their income.

5. Google Adsense on Niche Sites

I still have some niche sites with Adsense on them. For four years, Google paid my mortgage. But, now? Not as much. It's just a nice little deposit every month. The good thing is that I don't have to do anything to earn it.

6. Web Hosting.

I am a partner in a web hosting company – MomWebs.com (with Kelly McCausey).

We focus on helping newbies who are skeeeered of technology to get their WordPress sites up and running. (Many of them switch from Blogger to WordPress with our help.) So that project brings in some monthly cashola, as well.

7. Amazon Kindle

My Kindle earnings are small, but they will be growing next year.

You can see a few of my Kindle books here:

8. Consulting

On occasion, I will do hourly consulting for online or offline businesses. I don't do this too often, simply because I don't like to have a schedule where I have to be somewhere (even on the phone) at a certain time – yeah I'm weird like that. But am always open to having someone buy an hour of access to my brain.

Well that's an overview. I hope it was interesting to you.

Talk to me.

Is this what you expected to hear?

Is it similar to your income streams? Or different?

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS. If you like this post – share it and check out my friends’ sites. That’ll make me happy! Appreciate you!

Here are the folks who contributed today…

• Tiffany: The Guide to Shiny Object Syndrome
• Bob: How to Use Mindmaps to Organize Your Business
• Connie: Affiliate Success Case Studies.
• Kelly:  Smart Podcasting Course.
• Jeanette: Plan Your Online Business
• Dr. Mani: How to Set Goals

Connie flew into the Pensacola Airport near my home on Thursday night.

I picked her up and we headed north (oddly with the speedometer not working) to a mastermind retreat in Northern Alabama held by our mutual friend, David Perdew (of NAMS) and his family including his smart daughter Jenn, at his home.

We brainstormed and strategized for 2 days (Friday and Saturday), focusing some time on each of our businesses so we can all grow even more in the coming months. We also had a really nice hike in the woods on David's beautiful property, got to love on David's 2 dogs and his cat, watched the Alabama vs. LSU game, and ate delicious food cooked by David's beautiful bride, Charlsa.

Here we are before our hike. Left to right, David, Jenn Perdew, me (looking so funny), Connie.

On Sunday, Connie and I left Alabama and headed back to Pensacola, where we spent the night at the Hilton on Pensacola Beach (which was very nice). We relaxed there, and enjoyed some quiet time. Then, Connie spent her last night here at my home. I made her dinner and she slept in my daughter's comfy bed. Yesterday morning she headed home.

Some people come into your life and just make you want to be a better version of yourself. Connie is one of those people to me.

I actually started calling her “Connie Gump” because her life story has so many pieces and parts. Here's how some of her stories started…

1. When I was selling cars…
2. The third time I had cancer…
3. After hurricane Andrew, when my house was destroyed…
4. When I was in Thailand…
5. So, after my husband died…
6. Did I ever tell you I was a gym teacher?
7. When I visit my family in Finland every summer…

I told her she's lived more in her years than anyone I've ever known.

Well, it got me thinking of how I could possibly give back to Connie enough for all she's done for me. And, I thought “a blog post is a start”.

If you're not familiar with Connie yet, here's her bio.

About Connie Ragen Green

Connie had worked as a classroom teacher, real estate broker, and residential appraiser for 20 years, before deciding to change her life completely. In 2005 she decided to come online full time, and now teaches hundreds of people from around the world how to create their own business based on their passion and life experiences.

So basically, I want to share my friend with you.

Here's how you can get to know Connie better.

Check out these Recent Blog Posts that Connie Contributed to here:

• Unique Ways to Make Money Online
• How you Can Get People to Work for you  – Free
• How to Schedule your List Marketing Promotions
• How to Deal with Direct Messages Through Social Media Sites
• Connie Green & Nicole Dean: Listen to the PLR Interview
• Repurposing Your Content

Listen to the Interview I Did with Connie.

I had Connie on my podcast a few years back. You can listen to it here or by subscribing in iTunes.

These are the resources that she mentioned during that interview. They will open in a new window and not interfere while you're listening to the audio.

• WordPress.org – For content management that you can access from anywhere.
• EzineArticles.com
• EasyPLR.com. I didn't pay her to say that. Promise.
• Amazon S3 for file storage.
• Google's Keyword Tool
• Clickbank Pro Search Engine – Connie recommends this for finding products in Clickbank.

Learn More From Connie.

Want More Connie? I know you do!

Connie is an amazing Affiliate Marketer. I highly recommend that you go read this sales page to see why.

Click HERE to Learn how to add Affiliate Marketing as a Stream of Income in your Business

I've personally given her four iPads. (She's won four affiliate contests that I've had.)

Thanks again for being part of my business and my day. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS. One thing that Connie felt I needed to do more of was share my personal story. What do you think? Do you feel you know me? Or do you want to know more?

I was talking with one of my coaching clients this month about the importance of recurring income.

You have to have some consistent income in order to avoid the rollercoaster of unpredictable cash flow.

One month you launch a product and you get a huge influx of cash. The next month… not so much.

This can create a sense of panic followed by relief, followed by panic again. It's definitely neither healthy nor happy.

So, the goal is to make that you have a BASE income that is coming in – to keep you sane and comfortable (and make sure you can pay your helpers and your affiliates). My personal goal is that everything  above that is gravy.

One way to do this is to start your own membership site, whether a Fixed Term type that runs for X amount of time and is then done. Or an ongoing one that runs forever….

And, there are plenty of different models to use to do this. You can offer information, software, or a service – each of these will work.

BUT…

There are other ways to get recurring income
without having to do all of the work yourself.

For instance, you can promote products or services, as an affiliate, if they offer two things.

1. Lifetime tracking of a bunch of products.

2. Recurring income that gets billed monthly.

Then, not only is the income recurring, but it's pretty passive as well. You don't even have to deliver the goods. Someone else is doing it for you. (ooooh…. ahhhh…. )

Let me show you a few examples of programs like that.

NAMS Affiliate Program. (Recurring Income & Lifetime Tracking)

First up. This is a screenshot of my affiliate stats from promoting the NAMS membership last month.

As you can see, I had several transactions. But, the interesting thing is that this the membership is recurring – so many of those sales were from referrals that I'd made months and months prior. AND, many of them are for orders that will continue to pay me for years to come.

Do I have this many transactions every month? Nah. But, many of the members do pay month after month after month, so I do have a “base income” from recommending NAMS.

Plus, every January and August, I see a spike of higher sales when the live event (the Workshop in Atlanta) happens and people purchase tickets for the following workshop (since so many are repeat attendees).

Want to see what exactly NAMS is? Here's a video.

And, the best part? It's a great value – otherwise, I wouldn't be promoting it!

• Check out what's included here: What is NAMS?
• Join the Affiliate program here: NAMS Affiliate Program

Yummy PLR. (Recurring.)

One of my programs that offers a recurring payment is YummyPLR.com. Hint, hint. Be my affiliate! (Subtle, eh?! lol)

And, as much as some people don't like Clickbank, I love it for two reasons.

1. As an affiliate, it's a great way to diversify your dependence upon Paypal because you get paid either by check or direct deposit into your bank account. So, worse case scenario, if you lose your Paypal account, you will still have your Clickbank deposits to live off of during the interim.

2. You are guaranteed to get paid and don't have to track down your affiliate payment from someone who spent YOUR affiliate earnings – which is money that was not theirs to spend. (Don't get me started on that one…)

So, I like to promote some stuff on Clickbank.

And, one of my programs on Clickbank that has recurring commissions is this.

So, if you reach bloggers or foodies – this may be another program to promote to earn some recurring revenue.

• Check out what's included here: What is YummyPLR?
• Join the Affiliate program here: Yummy PLR Affiliate Program

There are tons of programs like this that can help you to get a base income so that your cash flow isn't taking you on a rollercoaster ride.

Here are a few more that pay monthly…

• Mom Webs Hosting.
• Aweber
• Audio Acrobat
• Outsource Weekly

What if you are in a Niche like Fitness?

If you're in a niche – like fitness, you can go to Clickbank.com and search their marketplace.

Just click on “Recurring” when searching and it will show you only ones that earn you money beyond the first payment.

For instance, these would show up:

Of course there are plenty of other ways to get recurring income, but I hope this has got you thinking about what you're promoting and how it's affecting your cash flow.

Please share your questions below.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

Actually, I'd stopped doing Weird Wednesdays awhile ago, because they were taking too much time to write. But, then I was getting all kinds of great suggestions from people. (This week's site is from Tracy Roberts of MomsInABlog.com – thanks Tracy!) So, I'm bringing them back, but simpler. I hope you still enjoy what I dig up for you.

I didn't know whether to put this one in Marketing Monday or Weird Niche Wednesday because it's brilliant but wacky.  (My favorite combination of marketing.)

You gotta watch this video advertisement… It's awesome!

Their Story.

“I'm really lonely but I’m too busy to date during harvest season”
Thousands of singles sow the seeds of love on FarmersOnly.com

FarmersOnly.com launched just over five years ago and quickly became THE place for farmers and ranchers to meet like-minded people.  In the last five years, membership went from 2,000 to well over 100,000 members. Despite the name, FarmersOnly isn't limited to only farmers. The rapid growth is also coming from just good old fashioned, down-to-earth people who live in small towns and rural areas.

“There have been countless successful matches and friendships made on the site. I get thank you emails and phone calls almost daily. In fact, there have been hundreds of marriages since FarmersOnly.com began,” said Jerry Miller, Founder.

FarmersOnly.com is the brainchild of Jerry Miller who has done marketing and public relations for thousands of farms and ranches across the country.  While talking to one farmer, Jerry made quite a discovery.

“Recently divorced, she expressed her frustration of how difficult it was to meet someone new,” Jerry recalled.

“I'm ready to give up!”  She said.  “How am I going to meet someone working on a farm all day? I already know everybody who lives around here… which isn't many people!  Maybe I'll try online dating.”

She signed up on one of the biggest national dating sites soon after their conversation.

A month later, Jerry asked her how her luck was with online dating. She replied, even more frustrated, “The men who have been contacting me don't understand the lifestyle of a farmer,” she told Jerry.  “They don't have a clue!”  This would later lead to the site's slogan. “City Folks Just Don't Get It!”

Being in marketing, he wanted to see if there was a need for a new site specifically for single farmers. “I talked to farmers and ranchers all over the country and discovered they all had the same problems.  They already knew everybody in their immediate areas.  They didn't have enough time to socialize. When they did find time, they didn't want to hang out at a bar.  They wanted to find someone who understood their lifestyle,” he said.  “The need for this new online dating service became very clear and six months later, I launched FarmersOnly.com.”

What lessons can we learn from this weird website and their success?

1. KNOW your market. These guys obviously nailed that one.

2. Humor can be a great thing in marketing. You don't have to take yourself too seriously.

3. If you niche down in a proven market (like dating sites) – you can get attention. These guys have been featured or mentioned on –

• CNN
• USA Today
• Trumped (The Donald Trump Radio Show)
• Newsweek
• Smart Money
• NPR (National Public Radio)
• Here! (of course the coolest of all) 

You can see proof here: Farmers Only in the News

So, talk to me. What do you think about their story? I'd love to read your comments.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

Are You Still Trying to Find a Hot Niche Market?

Recommended Resource #1

My friend, Susanne creates Niche Research Packs and can help you to determine if you’re entering a profitable niche or not. She’s done the research for you.

In each pack, you get…

• Detailed niche description
• Who your target market for this niche is
• List of affiliate products available
• 100 domain name ideas (plus list of modifiers for hundreds more)
• Detailed keyword report for over 1000 keywords
• 100 article and blog post ideas
• 15 different author resource boxes
• 2 different detailed marketing plans (beginner and advanced) with action steps to get you up and running right away.
• List of available PLR products for this niche
• Recommended tools and resources

Here’s the link: Niche Research Packs

Recommended Resource #2: Free Webinar by Kevin Riley

Click on the arrow to go to the page where you can listen.

(You’ll find this hour long webinar free to listen to on that page.)

Take it away, Susanne!

Niche Marketing: Mission Impossible Style

by Susanne Myers

Let’s have a little fun with niche marketing and approach it “Mission Impossible” style. I don’t know what causes me to come up with these quirky topics and analogies when I’m writing for Nicole’s blog, but I sure hope you’re enjoying it. With that said let’s dive right in …

Your mission, should you accept it, is to connect your readers with the best solutions to help solve their problems. Let me introduce you to your team:

• WordPress Site With Awesome Content
• Redirected Affiliate Links
• Autoresponder Messages
• Niche Research Packs

Let’s start with some good news.

Building a profitable niche website is not an impossible mission. In fact, if you assemble your team and put it to good use following the steps I’m outlining below, it won’t take you long at all.

Let’s say you want to set up a new site over the summer to help pay for that new car you want to buy (I know you’re car shopping Nicole). I like doing that anytime we have a new purchase coming up or even to save up for a nice vacation or a new laptop.

Every good mission needs some sort of mission plan. Here’s yours:

Start With The End Goal In Mind

I find it helps to set some sort of goal for the site. This could be making an extra $200 a month to pay for an upcoming vacation, $50 to cover the phone bill or $2000 to make your mortgage payment each month. Without a goal, you don’t know what you’re working toward. Having the goal helps you figure out how hard you need to work, how fast you need to build your site, how much traffic you need and how big of a list you want.

Once you have your dollar amount, it’s time to find a suitable niche to work with.

Find A Problem And Solution

As I mentioned before, your job on this mission is to help people solve their problems and since we are in the US,  that often involves our wallets and credit cards. Of course some of the problems are going to be solved by sharing a quick tip or explaining and idea. But since we’re in it to make a living from niche marketing, you also want to find good products to promote.

Build Your Site

Let’s bring some of our team members into play.

Team member #1 is a site (or blog) built with the free WordPress software. It’s quick and easy to install, very customizable and most importantly it’s fast and simple to add content to it. Use this team member to its fullest advantage by learning more about using wordpress and the various plugins available. For example there are quite a few good ones out there to help your readers share your posts via social media. (see those Facebook and Twitter buttons on this page for example).

Team member #2 is Redirection. Redirection is a simple plugin that helps you to redirect your affiliate links from within the WordPress dashboard. Of course any other way to redirect your links will do – just make sure you get it done.

Built Your List

Team member #3 is your autoresponder. 

My favorite autoresponder to use is Aweber. (Both Nicole and I use it.)

Set it up right away and start creating autoresponder messages that send subscribers back to your niche website, share additional tips and of course make offers. Your list will be one of your biggest assets so get started here as early as possible.

Your Secret Weapon – Niche Research Packs
Last but not least, I would like to introduce you to a secret weapon – or an ace up your sleeve – Niche Research Packs. They help you set up niche websites on the fly with all the time-consuming research already done for you.

Nik says:  If you use Susanne's Niche Research Packs, it's a heck of a lot faster than doing it yourself and a heck of a lot cheaper than hiring someone!

In each niche pack, you get…

• Detailed niche description
• Who your target market for this niche is
• List of affiliate products available
• 100 domain name ideas (plus list of modifiers for hundreds more)
• Detailed keyword report for over 1000 keywords
• 100 article and blog post ideas
• 15 different author resource boxes
• 2 different detailed marketing plans (beginner and advanced) with action steps to get you up and running right away.
• List of available PLR products for this niche
• Recommended tools and resources

Here’s the link to check those out: Niche Research Packs

(NOTE: Use coupon  61414 – to save $20 off any niche pack)

Please show Susanne some love and comment below.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

Want to see more posts from Susanne? Check these out…

• Online Success Interview: Susanne Myers
• How to Create Niche Products
• Reinvent Yourself
• What is Link Building and How Does it Impact SEO?
• Before Building One Way Links – 3 Things You Need To Have In Place First
• Link Building Frequently Asked Questions
• How to Declutter Your Online Business
• How to Create Passive Income and Summer Fun
• Affiliate Marketing Lessons That I Learned at The Bowling Alley
• Skip The Latest And Greatest Marketing Techniques and Stick With Stuff That Really Works

Friday is the day where I give you free content that you can use on your blog – with your affiliate link, to make money with. Hurray!

Not only that, but it’s copy/paste ready for you to profit.

So, yep. You can make money by publishing free stuff. Pretty cool eh?

Of course, rules apply.

So what do I have for you today?

It's a tour of the NAMS membership program. At the end of the video, I included a big arrow that points to under the video so that you can post your affiliate link under the video to earn commissions.

-> The only thing I ask is that somewhere in the post you mention me and link to any post on my blog that you've enjoyed.

Here's the video:

Grab and Go:

• Video is on YouTube here: NAMS Tour on YouTube
• Here's the MP4 version if you prefer to use that: MP4 Version of NAMS Tour. (Right click to download to your computer.)

You are welcome to post the video on your blog and promote NAMS under it. Here's an example that you might use:

JOIN ME IN THE NAMS COMMUNITY!
Click here to check out NAMS
(be sure to look for a coupon code on the page)

Would you like to become an affiliate for NAMS? 

You have two options.

•  Join the NAMS Community here and you'll automatically become an affiliate, too. (Recommended.)
  OR
• Click here and Sign Up for a Free Affiliate Only Account

Thanks!

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

So, I turned to my bud, Susanne Myers of Daily Affiliate Tasks and asked for a guest blog post.  In addition to being one of my favorite people on the planet, Susanne is a successful niche affiliate marketer, too, and is also my mastermind partner.

Turning this over to Susanne. Enjoy her brilliance!

Skip The Latest And Greatest Marketing Technique and Stick With Stuff That Actually Works

By Susanne Myers
Learn Susanne’s system here -> Daily Affiliate Tasks

It’s so easy to get distracted by this new course, that new link building network or the latest and greatest “super-secret-just-press-a-button-and-get-rich” system. But here’s the thing … that stuff doesn’t always work all that well and even if it does it doesn’t work for long. I’ve been doing this for quite some time as has Nicole and we’re both pretty successful at what we do.

We were chatting this morning about how easy it is to feel overwhelmed or left behind if you don’t keep up with all the latest and greatest stuff… and came to the conclusion that it’s really the same few things, done well that work in the long run.

Here’s What Works

Here’s what works for us. We share lots of great content through various outlets including our blogs, articles, short reports, audios, podcasts, videos, Kindle ebooks (in Nicole’s case. I’m still working on that one), and info products.

Yes, it’s work, but it’s well worth it. And we both have a couple of little tricks up our sleeves to make the most of all that content. The first is to simply repurpose as much as possible. That means that an email we wrote to a subscriber becomes a blog post, and is then expanded upon to turn it into an article. We compile several different articles in into a short report and submit it to sides like “Scribd”.

From there we may go back to the blog post and create an audio or video around the same content. You get the idea. By repurposing, you get to leverage every single piece of content you create.

Content Marketing Supercharged With Social Media

Once you have that content out there, mention it on social media sites. Tweet your latest blog post and post your videos on Facebook. Connect your Scribd account to Facebook and record some audio posts on Cinch.fm which will auto tweet and post them on FB. The more active you are in these social media outlets and start to share your content, the more readers you will attract back to your site.

I also recommend you make it easy to share your blog posts (or any other content for that matter). Take a look at the Twitter and Facebook button Nicole has on her blog. With the click of a button you can share this post. Please do :).

List Building And Email Marketing

Last but not least let’s talk about list building and email marketing. We both put a lot of time and effort into this and it accounts for a large chunk of our income. New readers find our content all across the web and eventually land on our blogs (here at NicoleOnTheNet.com or in my case at AffiliateTreasureChest.com). From there they’ll end up signing up for one of our lists and start getting emails. Some of them will be pure content emails; others will be offers for various products. Many of them will be a combination of both. In fact chances are that you’re reading this blog post as a result of one of Nicole’s emails to you.

Do me a favour… stop listening to all the hoopla about the latest and greatest “not-to-be-missed” technique for the next two weeks and instead focus on creating great content, marketing it via social media, building your list and then emailing them regularly. After those two weeks see if you don’t start to see an increase in traffic, exposure and most importantly income.

Ready for more tips on what works and what doesn’t?

Join Daily Affiliate Tasks for $10 per month and work on things that actually work to bring you more traffic, more subscribers and make more affiliate commissions working as little as 30 minutes per day. Learn more and join today at Daily Affiliate Tasks.

Thanks for reading!

Susanne Myers

Turning this over to Susanne. Enjoy her brilliance!

Affiliate Marketing Lessons Learned From The Bowling Alley

By Susanne Myers

Learn Susanne's system here -> Daily Affiliate Tasks

I’m sitting in a bowling alley as I’m typing this watching my daughter and her friends bowl. I know, it’s a weird place to work, but hey … I’m not a big bowler and one of the big advantages of being an affiliate marketer is that I can work just about anywhere. As I’m watching all the fun and excitement here, it struck me that there are quite a few lessons to be learned from bowling.

Lesson #1 – Practice Makes Perfect

Let’s start with the obvious lesson here. The more you bowl the better your score will be. The same holds true when it comes to building and marketing small websites that are monetized with affiliate offers. At first things can seem a bit overwhelming and you won’t always get the results you want. But as you stick with this business model and get better at your craft, it will become easier, more fun and most importantly more profitable to be an Affiliate Marketer. We’re not born with the skill set it takes to make this work, but a little practice each day helps to hone our skills.

Lesson #2 – They Can’t All Be Strikes

Even if you have bowled for 20 years, I’m sure you can’t throw a strike every single time.  The same is true in online marketing. Not every niche website you build will be a big hit. Some may only make you a handful of dollars each month; some won’t make any money at all. Not every mailing you sent out to your list will work as well as anticipated. I’ve had some that resulted in only one or two sales… but that’s ok. They can’t all be strikes and if you pay attention to what’s happening and listen to your subscribers, you can learn something from each of those “flops”.

Accept that they won’t all be strikes and move on. Most importantly don’t let this fact discourage you. Keep working away … stick with what you know works and sooner or later, you’ll get that big strike in the online world.

Lesson #3 – The Right Equipment Makes A Difference

Have you ever tried bowling in your street shoes or with a playground ball you had laying around the house … it doesn’t work very well, does it? The same holds true for affiliate marketing. Like in bowling, you don’t need a lot of equipment, but getting the right stuff in the beginning helps set you up for success. Don’t try to build your site on a free platform. Get a webhost, buy your own domain name and start stuff of right. I promise it won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

When you start to build your list, stick with a reputable service like Aweber or Feedblitz. Set a little of the money you’re making aside and invest in new courses and eventually some coaching. Attend some events and conferences like NAMS.  Reinvesting in your business is one of the best ways I know to really grow things.

Lesson #4 – Keep it Simple

Bowling is really a rather simple process. You look down your lane and roll the ball, hopefully knocking out lots of pins in the process. There aren’t a bunch of fancy techniques. You just do what works and keep doing it turn after turn. Sure there are some variations depending on what pins you’re trying to knock down, but overall it’s pretty simple and something you can explain to a 5 year old.

Look at affiliate marketing the same way. Sure you could do all sorts of elaborate and fancy stuff, but what works is doing the simple stuff and doing it over and over again. You know that guest blog posts like the one you’re reading right now work to get more traffic to your site and to help with search engine rankings. Sit down and write some of them this week. The same goes for articles… they still work as well. Add more articles and blog posts to your own site, submit some to article directories. Keep it simple and work on what works.

Lesson #5 – You’ve Got To Ignore The Noise

This one isn’t very easy, but I can tell you from experience that you have to work on tuning out the noise, whether it’s the bowling alley noise on your next turn to roll (or while you’re trying to work in this place), or the noise of emails, tweets, and the latest and greatest tip, advice or product offer in the online realm. There will be all sorts of distractions that will keep you from completing the handful of tasks each day it takes to grow your online business.

Don’t let the latest email or webinar distract you from what it takes to grow your site. Yes, there is a time to learn more and implement new ideas, but don’t allow it to take over your entire day. Make a list of things that you should be getting done today, work on those first and then take a look at the other offers, courses and ideas. In other words, don’t get distracted by all the noise around you.

Lesson #6 – Coaching Helps … Or even just a few pointers

Right in front of me a dad is showing his son how to hold the ball and throw it straight down the lane. The little instruction is making an immediate difference in the boy’s score. Sometimes all it takes  are a few pointers. Talk to other affiliate marketers, find a mentor or hire a coach. Take a look at some good courses and most importantly apply the tips and strategies offered. Then watch as your own score (your affiliate income) improves.

Ready for more tips on how to grow your affiliate income?

Join Daily Affiliate Tasks.com for $10 per month and work on things that actually work to bring you more traffic, more subscribers and make more affiliate commissions working as little as 30 minutes per day.

Learn more and join today at www.DailyAffiliateTasks.com

Want More from Susanne?

Here are some places you can learn more..

• Free Affiliate Marketing Fast Start Lessons
• Daily Affiliate Tasks
• Susanne has also shared great information all over my blog. Click here to learn more from her

This week’s Weird Wednesday Website was suggested by one of the girls in our neighborhood about a year ago and I promptly forgot. Well, last week we took her out to dinner with us and she said “Miss Nicole, did you ever blog about the giant gummy bears?”

oops! I grabbed my iPad and emailed myself a reminder.  So Brooke, this one is for you!

Presenting the World's Largest Gummy Bears.

www.giantgummybears.com

At GiantGummyBears.com – you can get what is called the “World's Largest Gummy Bear” – which is roughly 1000 times (yes, one THOUSAND times)  the size of a regular gummy bear.

For you dentists and health nuts out there, that is five POUNDS of pure sugar and gelatin and is bigger than a football. Yikes! I think I gained a pound just thinking about eating one.

The 2 foot long, 3 lb. gummy worm is pretty impressive, too.

Their Story.

in 2003 Derek Lawson had an idea.  While continuing to carve out a niche’ in the multi-billion dollar candy industry, he decided create his own candy – one that would be unique and only he would manufacture and sell.  In a time where the prevailing attitude was that of big-box stores carrying cheaply made imported goods and discounted merchandise, he would move to create a specialty item that emphasized grandeur and audacity – yet with eye-appeal and irresistible charm!  He would create the WORLD’S LARGEST GUMMY BEARS!

Truth is the advent of the candy was part of a joke he played on his older brother, and born out of frustration over many other failed candy-product ideas!  Nonetheless, the idea was born, and the impact was immediate!

Notoriety ensued!  Friends and customers were awestruck and began to demand more of the gargantuan gummies. Their store was prominently placed in the local tourism guide’s list of “Things to Do and See”.  The brothers were asked to become part of a popular call-in radio show and the Giant Gummy Bears achieved a local celebrity of sorts.

You can read the entire story at: http://giantgummybears.com/about-us.aspx

What lessons can we learn from this weird website and their huge success?

1. Go big or go home.

These guys didn't just make a “big” gummy bear. They went for the biggest and then went all out for it.  Sometimes the answer is simply right in front of you. Go bigger. Is there anywhere in your business where you can be the biggest? Strive to make your business different and know what your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is. What makes you special? If you don't know… ask someone else!

2. You may need to come up with a clever way to state that you are (or that your business is) unique.

Rather than being another seller of Gummy Bears or candy in general, they focused in on being the biggest. In your business, find what makes you special and then put it into words that are undeniable. I could not comfortably state that I'm the “Best Affiliate Management Expert in the World” as others would (and should) come to mind before I do.

However, I probably could say that I'm the “Top Female Affiliate Management Expert in the World” and have that be pretty hard to argue.

3. Sometimes trial and error is taking you to right where you are meant to be.

If you read the story of how these two gentlemen came to success, you'll see that they helped to start a chain of candy stores and had to close nearly all of them in the 1990s. The candy stores apparently just weren't unique enough and were trying to compete with Walmart.

Through sheer determination, they got through it and are now the talk of this blog.

4.  Don't lose your focus. It confuses your customers.

The website is all about Gummy Bears, but they didn't expand into teddy bears or gum. They stuck with gummy things. Now, they've expanded slightly to include gummy skulls, gummy worms and a few other cool things like gummy tongues. (Yes, really!)

Are you a lover of all things gummy bear?

I knew nothing about gummy bears before starting this blog post. I started to explore this niche of gummy bears and I found some interesting things when I ran my keyword research.

Who knew? While the gummy bear niche isn't huge and it may not a good niche for you, I did discover that the gummy bear niche showcases a lot of *other* niches.

See the words in bold below.

• gummy bear song
• gummy bear recipe
• gummy bear implants (Yes, these are breast implants that are apparently tough like gummy bears. I have NO idea!)
• who invented gummy bears
• worlds largest gummy bear
• gummy bear cake
• gummy bear mold
• gummy bear birthday party
• sugar free gummy bears
• gummy bear lamp
• gummy bear bracelet
• how to soften stale gummy bears
• flaming gummy bear experiment
• gummy bears mini golf instructions (for Wii)
• gummy bears soaked in vodka
• gummy bear costume

You could create a website based around any of the bolded terms above. Pretty cool, eh?

So, talk to me. Have you ever ordered a giant gummy bear or would you? What do you think about their story? I'd love to read your comments.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

Where Can You Learn More about Finding a Hot Niche Market?

Recommended Resource #1

My friend, Susanne creates Niche Research Packs and can help you to determine if you’re entering a profitable niche or not. She’s done the research for you.

In each pack, you get…

• Detailed niche description
• Who your target market for this niche is
• List of affiliate products available
• 100 domain name ideas (plus list of modifiers for hundreds more)
• Detailed keyword report for over 1000 keywords
• 100 article and blog post ideas
• 15 different author resource boxes
• 2 different detailed marketing plans (beginner and advanced) with action steps to get you up and running right away.
• List of available PLR products for this niche
• Recommended tools and resources

Here’s the link: Niche Research Packs

Recommended Resource #2: Free Webinar by Kevin Riley

Click on the arrow to go to the page where you can listen.

(You’ll find this hour long webinar free to listen to on that page.)