Remaining Unlisted

In Affiliate Marketing, one of the things many people recommend doing, is building a list. In fact they say to build two lists. People keep telling me the money is in the list.

One list is supposed to include my prospects. Those people who have expressed in interest in some of the products or services I'm trying to sell and promote. The other list includes those people who have moved from being prospects, or potential customers, to becoming actual customers. Those who have actually decided to part with their money to buy one of those products I've worked hard to promote.

So far both my lists are rather small. In fact they don't exist at all. Maybe I'm missing something here. Lots of people say, building those lists is a requirement, but I don't have specific details how I'm actually supposed to go about doing that.

I've joined two different safe lists. I've unsubscribed from one, and may soon unsubscribe from the 2ND one. In both cases I could only send out my promotional email one time a week.

I can't put these people on my two lists of prospects or customers, because they come from those original safe lists to begin with. Their email addresses, have something like "no reply" behind them. Or they have something that includes the safe list's name in their email address. So it isn't a direct email address, for me to be able to send them anything at all.

The same problem exists from the classified ad and community site that I joined, as a free member there. The people who paid to join that website, can much easier send me and many other people, email marketing messages about things that they're promoting. But as a free member, I don't have the same options as the paying members there have. And the same problem applies. Their email addresses come internally from that classified ad and community site, so I can't add those people to my lists either.

I tried to send something out manually to a number of people. It took some time for me to do that copy and paste thing, and I only sent it out to a small number of people. While I've looked at auto responders, I haven't gotten one yet. I'd prefer getting a free auto responder right now rather than paying for a service, I may later find, I'm not using or seeing any financial benefit from. What's the point of my having an auto responder, if I don't have anyone on my list to send anything to?

I'm not yet ready to develop my own newsletter or email course, to send out to other people. I have enough problems staying current with this blog or trying to write more articles, let alone doing even more writing of on ongoing newsletter to send to all the people on my non-existent lists. See my post about Disappearing Time. Well not yet having an auto responder, will save me time, not having to figure out how to use it.

Where are those names and email addresses supposed to come from that I'm supposed to be placing on my two lists?

Maybe if I had been more aggressive, I should have added the email addresses from the few inquires I received, about the products I'm tried to promote. Those inquiries came from the free classified ads I placed.

How excited I was to open those emails, when the subject line told me, that someone was actually interested in learning more about a product I was promoting. Only to find out those emails were from other affiliate marketers trying to promote their own products to me.

Or how about the few comments I've received on this blog so far? I guess I could have added those names to my lists. But they were also coming from a similar place that I was. One was an affiliate marketer, who recommended a good site for me to join, which I haven't done yet. The other was from a brand new blogger, just as I am. That's been the extent of my prospective customers so far.

It's nice to meet up with people I have something in common with. It just doesn't help my list building skills very much. There's an area, that doesn't seem logical to me at all, to be sending my email marketing promotion to other affiliate marketers or web site owners.

The affiliate marketers are trying to do the exact same thing that I'm trying to do. So while we might make each other aware of new products and services, the chances that we will actually buy anything from each other seem to me to be slim and none.

The web site owners, who are members of those safe lists or that classified ad and community site, are promoting their own web sites and products. Once again I'm on a shoestring budget, so it's highly unlikely I'll be buying any of their products. At least not until I actually make some money doing this, which hasn't happened for me yet,

I don't want to add my friends and family to my lists. My family might start asking me questions I'm uncomfortable answering. Such as how much money have you made? Or how much time have you spent doing this so far? Or they might make comments like, you're doing what? What about all the decluttering you're supposed to be doing? When are you ever going to get a real job? Then their next comments to me will probably be something like, don't email me this stuff anymore. So I'm doing my part to avoid potential family conflicts.

I don't want to email my friends about products, they probably don't need, won't use, and can't afford to spend the extra money on anyway. I also don't want them to feel obligated to try any of the things I'm promoting, just because we happen to be friends. I think that will be a real good way of my losing their friendship or at the very least, having them get good and aggravated with me for emailing them with my promotions in the first place.

Some time back people were commenting, on how you could input your own or other people's phone numbers into Google's search box. Other info would come up, from that telephone number search, like the person's full name, address, etc. The people I learned about this from, weren't too happy, that Google, had put this into place.

Their concern was that the address could then be entered into map quest, and the less desirable people of the world, like criminals, perverts, child molesters, could obtain exact directions to people's houses, from map quest.

My phone number is unlisted, but sure enough when I entered it into Google's search box up popped my full name and address. My phone number is unlisted for good reasons, and I want to keep it that way. It should be my choice, if I want to give it out to anybody, rather then Google deciding they're going to do it for me for anybody in this vast Internet world to look at.

The reach of Google is far greater then my local phone book, where my name and phone number don't appear. Fortunately there was an option to have my phone number removed. Now when I enter it into Google's search box, no information appears about me at all and I like it like that.

With that being said, my phone number remains unlisted now. As for my attempts to be able to place anyone, on my prospect list or my customer list, in those areas I also sadly remain unlisted as well.

Change or Stay The Same?

It's been recommended to me, that I shouldn't divert off topic the way I have been doing and get my blog more focused to the people I'm trying to target. I know this is good advice. I know it makes sense.

Yet I have a hard time doing it. I don't want to remove my post about my Cat Cole, or the one I wrote about the toys I've created. Neither of those topics might have anything to do with Affiliate Marketing, though Cole taught me that sometimes you have to say no, which I was able to relate to Affiliate Marketing.

It was a bit of a stretch I admit. But that's what immediately came to my mind that cold and snowy night when he was meowing insistently at the back door. Having to say no to Cole and the other cat, as well as having to say no to many of the things being offered to me by other affiliate marketers.

As for my toys, I'm proud of them. I'm proud that I made them, and actually finished them. I'm proud of the fact that I actually got into the 21st Century and was able to upload those pictures that other people might enjoy looking at.

Part of me feels I should remove those pictures of My Mini-Me Doll and Rolly the Octopus from this blog. Part of me feels I won't be taken very seriously with pictures like that appearing here.

Maybe it's the little kids voice in me, that's saying "But I don't want to take them down!" I like seeing them here when I sign in here. They make me smile when I see them greeting me, when I first enter my blog. Maybe they'll make other people who might look at this blog from time to time, smile as well. Maybe there's nothing wrong with a bit of silliness appearing on my blog from time to time, as well as everything else that might end up landing here.

I actually want to add more pictures of my toys here. Maybe it's also the part of me that is generally just somewhat rebellious to begin with. That doesn't quite want to do things the way it's recommended, even though I know it's a great recommendation.

Isn't there room for diversity? Isn't it possible that other affiliate marketers, or other people who might be reading my blog, could also be pet owners? Isn't it possible that some of them might even enjoy crafting in their spare time, and might enjoy seeing a few pictures of my hand made toys here?

Maybe I just don't want to have to categorize my blog posts, other people or myself, into tiny little boxes. I suppose I could say this could be part of my spillover into other areas, not exactly related to Affiliate Marketing.

Besides this might give Google some variety in the AdSense Ads they might be placing here, because of my having different keywords, that relate so far to cats, crafts, writing, as well as affiliate marketing. I wouldn't want Google AdSense to get bored if their spiders have to look at the same keywords over and over again.

OK I'm justifying my diversionary tactics for myself. I admit it!

It was also recommended that I start separate blogs for each different category that I might blog about. Target one blog to cat owners, another to crafters, another to writers, another to affiliate marketers. Or else I should just make my blog a hodge podge of different things that I'm going to be blogging about, which so far, seems to be the direction this one's heading in.

Good Grief! It took me quite a long time to get this blog up and running. I spent hours making up my mind about what colors, fonts, I wanted and the placement of things. I put off starting a blog for quite some time, because I felt it would be a time consuming task.

If I start a different blog for each different category that comes into my overcrowded and disorganized mind, I might not get much writing done. And what if I only end up with 4 posts about cats, 7 posts about crafts and then I can't come up with anything more to blog about on each specific topic? Then I'll have a whole bunch of mini-blogs I'll have to keep track of, each of them perhaps not having much content?

Now it's occurred to me that probably I should change the name of my blog since it doesn't seem to be about The Affable Affiliate, and since it is becoming a hodge podge of this and that. Actually I initially wanted to title it Jan's Promo Place. But when it came to also having to come up with a link name/address for myself, I thought people might remember Jan's Promo Place easier then they would remember The Affable Affiliate.

So as you can see, things did not end up exactly the way I thought they would. If I was having that much trouble trying to figure out which should be the name of my blog, and which should be my http link address, just think how much trouble my brain will have coming up with several more new blog names, and addresses? Not to mention that I'm not that thrilled with the concept of moving to begin with or having to set things up at a whole new location.

If I change my blog's name from the The Affable Affiliate to something else, that could also mean, I'll start getting 404 errors or some other kinds of errors from Google. Because I'll have to make changes in other places behind the scenes. At this point I don't want to spend the time figuring out how I go about doing all of that.

Right now I can't come up with another creative name for my blog, that might be more appropriate for the diverse topics I've already started blogging about. I'm just not getting that light bulb coming on for me right now, or that creative bolt of lightning, that says to me, Aha! This is what you should rename your Blog. Maybe it'll come to me in the future, maybe it won't.

Until it does, this blog will remain titled The Affable Affiliate, it'll still be located at http://janspromoplace.blogspot.com. This blog will probably contain some posts from time to time that appear to have nothing at all to do with Affiliate Marketing. I won't guarantee I can always accomplish it, but I'll do my best to tie in my unrelated blog posts somehow. That might not just be a bit of a stretch, it might become a major reach. Be that as it may.

As the writer of this blog, I obviously feel a need to have those unrelated posts appear here once in awhile.

Should I change things here or have them stay the same? They were great recommendations and I appreciate it that someone took the time to give me that good advice. I know I should be following them, but I just can't yet bring myself to remove my unrelated posts about Cole the Cat, or the posts or the pictures of my hand made toys.

So for now things are staying the same, if and until I can come up with a creative name for this blog that would be more appropriate.

Nothing is Simple!

Internet Marketing: A Beginners Perspective

There’s a lot of areas regarding Internet Affiliate Marketing, that I still don’t know much about. Some of it I find rather confusing.

SUBMITTING ARTICLES PART 1

It’s been recommended that I submit some of my written articles to different Article Publishers. Many people have indicated that I can earn money by doing this, but I don’t understand exactly how that works.

I admit that I have a hard time, wrapping my mind around the concept that I’m supposed to allow my writing to be published for free. Apparently if I submit my articles to as many publishers as possible, that will help to increase my by-name recognition. I don’t understand how submitting my articles to multiple publications for free, will later lead to my earning money, either through the writing of my blog or from those published articles.

My blog is new. So far I’m promoting other people’s products or web sites. I don’t have any products of my own to promote, except for my writing ability. I don’t yet have products I can resell, or give away to anyone who might be reading my blog.

I feel like I’m missing something here. How does it go from point A, submitting my articles for free publication, to point B, earning money in the future, from those articles? People say you can earn money by doing this, but nobody explains the details of how that actually happens. I’m one of those people who needs to know the details.

Other people hold a different viewpoint about submitting your articles to as many publishers as possible.

"So what does that mean for that article you wrote and submitted to 50,000 publishers… It means that it did just that – it was submitted to 50,000 publishers. You do not know who it was submitted to, whether they are a respected website, whether they actually have any reasonable amount of traffic, or even if they will publish your article without your permission. You have no
control over what happens to your article."

Mark Daoust, goes on to say that this is not what publishers want from the writers who are submitting to them. He indicated that it’s not in the writer’s best self interest as well.

“The idea of submitting an article to as many publishers as possible is obviously contrary to what a publisher is looking for. At the same time, though, it is also contrary to what you should be looking for. The secret to writing successful articles starts with a simple concept: you want to control who publishes your article, and you want to help promote that article. If an editor chooses to publish an article and sees that it was well-received (and brought in a lot of new traffic), they will be more inclined to publish future articles from you…A properly written, distributed, and promoted article can be far more effective than any other form of marketing, and far more cost effective.”

A web site owner might need content for their web site, but he or she, might not want content that’s already been circulated widely over the Internet. A publisher would prefer that one specific article from a writer, is not being submitted and published by many other publishers.

As a writer, I’ve put in time and effort writing that article, to be as well-written as I can make it. That not only includes the writing itself, but proofreading, editing, and revising my article, before I submit it anywhere. I may have needed to research my topic, before I even put my fingers on the keyboard.

These days, with so many people blogging and writing, it certainly seems there’s much more writing competition for all of us to contend with.

My article might be viewed by some people, as nothing more then a long written ad, for something I’m promoting. Many Article Publishing sites don’t allow the writers’ to place direct links to the items we’re promoting, within the body of the article itself. The writers are allowed to include a link to our blogs or web sites, within the Author’s Resource box at that publication site.

But I feel I’m making my potential customers take extra unnecessary steps. First they hopefully read my article about whatever it is I’m promoting. Then they’re supposed to travel back to my blog. Once they get there, they need to find the link to the product I’m promoting as mentioned in my article. Then when they click on that link, they’ll finally be getting their first look at what I’ve been trying to promote to them all along.

It seems like I’ve sending my potential customers on a long scenic route, with a few extra detours thrown into their Internet Highway travels. If they get lost or it’s dark out by the time they arrive at whatever it is I’m promoting, they’re probably going to expect that I’ll be putting them up for a night or two and that I’ll be feeding them as well.

I've found reading what more experienced Affiliate Marketers recommend to be quite helpful. I just want it to make sense to me. So far submitting my Articles to a large amount of publications for free, doesn’t seem logical to me, but I'm willing to give it a try. Maybe someday I’ll have discovered all the missing pieces I now have with this Article Submission writing puzzle.

But for now, I’m new at all of this.

Source: “The Misunderstood Marketing Method” By Mark Daoust, from
http://www.homebiztools.com/marketing-method.htm

I Was Safe, Now I'm Out!

The source I paid for to learn more about Internet Marketing, suggested I join a safelist, which I did. But since I'm trying to do this on a very limited budget, I joined one safelist, as a free member.

I was allowed to promote one ad per week there. But the paying members were able to promote so many more daily. I was receiving tons of email everyday. With an appoximate ratio of 50 emails per day being sent to me, as opposed to my 1 permitted ad per week, this didn't seem quite fair to me.

No one told me I'd have to do that much reading, when I first signed up for all of this. Pretty soon I just couldn't keep up with reading all those emails anymore.

This also left me confused. Were all the affiliate marketers, just promoting their products to other affiliate marketers? Was this the way it was supposed to work? I had to wonder why would they buy the products I'm trying to promote, when their promoting their own things, and hoping I'll buy from them. Seems to me, that's a rather circular method of trying to get sales.

How about, if you buy five products from me, and maybe I'll buy one product from you? What, you don't like those odds? Well I didn't think much of the 50 to 1 ratio I was getting. Perhaps we can barter? Get 10 of your friends to look at my blog, or click on my cloaked affiliate links, and I'll read one of your ads, and even go visit the web site your promoting. I won't promise you I'll sign up with it though. I already seem to have signed up with more things then I can reasonably keep up with now.

I admit, I learned a great deal from some of those emails I received. Some people, pointed me to products I would never have known about, if I hadn't read those emails. I joined a few other programs, from the recommendations I got from the other members of that safelist.

But soon I had to request that I be removed from the mailing list of that safelist. There were just too many emails flooding my email address. It now makes me reluctant to join another one. Yet it seems to be what's recommended by many people, to get traffic.

In addition everytime I now put my name and email address down on a form, for a program I want to learn more about, it seems I'm appearing on yet another email list. Then I start receiving email, from things I don't recall ever signing up for. I didn't think I was agreeing to that, when I just requested they send me more info to my email address. It's getting to the point where I have to go through my email almost daily, in order to get things deleted, or to find emails that I might actually be waiting for.

Like a message that someone's finally bought one of the products I'm trying to promote. Begging people to buy one of my products, might be an option, I haven't yet totally ruled out.

I'll consider joining another safelist, if someone can convince me of the benefits I'll actually receive by joining one. I wouldn't mind joining another one, that at least gives me credits for reading the emails or ads of other members. I spent a lot of time, reading through all those emails, checking out different web sites, and I was still only able to place my singular ad once a week after all that.

It seems I should be rewarded for all the emails I voluntarily read. I'd like to get something back from spending my time doing that. It also became very obvious, very quickly that some people were sending the same email promotion out, over and over again. I could see the duplicate subject lines, that were coming from the same person. They soon became the target of my ever faithful delete key.

Which also makes me wonder, if I wasn't that interested in signing up for that product the first or second time I read that email, why would people think, my interest would drastically increase with reading the same thing, several more times after that?

I realize these things are sent out by an autoresponder, one of those gadgets I haven't yet gotten. But it seems to me other affiliate marketers might get more responses if they changed their subject lines from time to time, and even periodically changed the message in the body of the text. Otherwise I think that delete key, will be getting a lot more action, and not just from me.

Of course this is just a perspective from someone new at Affiliate Marketing. You're most welcome to add your comments, thoughts, suggestions, on any of the topics I've blogged about so far, as well as things I'll be blogging about in the future. Perhaps there's something about the way safelists work, that I just don't understand yet.

Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated.