Colin Klinkert Dot Com

Quick post today to alert you to a new service who is using the leverage of JohnChow’s blog to run a contest that is good for all parties:

John Chow is holding a new contest to give away $6,000 in CASH! $5,000 would go to the charity of your choice and $1,000 will go to you to spend however you want.

If I win, I would give the $5K to World Vision. The reason I choose World Vision is because I am familiar with them and very proud of the work they do. I personally have sponsored a boy called Amkela since I first got my credit card 5 years ago. He was 7 at the time and was 12 in August.

Over 50% of the worlds population are starving and live in shocking conditions, they need all the help they can get. So If I was to win I would put the $1,000 paid out to the winner with the $5,000 and donate it to World Vision as well.

The contest is being sponsored by XR.com. XR.com is a tiny url service that makes links smaller than tinyurl itself. The creator of the site is also adding new cool features all the time. Sign up for an account and check it out!

Please also consider sponsoring a child as well, simply click here. It is very affordable and rewarding too.

This post is a follow on from the post I made a few days ago, click here to read it first

Get That Business Coming Your Way!

You like the idea of an online newsletter, and you are beginning to see how this will help you bring in more business to your website. But you do have a few concerns, which is perfectly natural. You need to know that everyone who starts something new, has their own concerns and fears.

Some of the most common question are;

1. What if I don’t have anything interesting or relevant to write?
2. Can I keep the quality up over a long period of time?
3. How do I make links from my pictures to my website?

These are just a sample of the questions that are asked…but never fear! This is so much easier than it sounds.

The thing you need to be concerned about IS WHEN you are going to DO IT! Stop with the excuses, just begin and you will realize how simple it really is.

1. You do need to remember that you must always offer something that is of interest or very useful to your reader.
2. Keep your newsletter fairly short. So many these days have more than enough emails to read, and they don’t have time to read a long newsletter. They will like the fact that they can read it quickly and get something from it.
3. You want the best format possible for your follow up emails, so put some thought into this process. You want a model that you can use week after week, which by the way makes your job easier.Below are a few ideas that you can use as your standard format, choose one or combine them, whatever fits your personality.I. Tip of the Month

   Here you will come up with some great tips that focus on your main products. Do a bit of brainstorming giving you two or three months of content. If you are focusing on an area that you are familiar with, it should be easy. Some of the topics can be offering and explaining the problem, then offer a tip that will solve the problem.

   II. The Famous “Top Ten” list

   This format is so popular because it works. If you are an expert in Doll Collecting, then write your article about “Top Ten Reasons to start Doll Collecting”. Keep your sentences short.

   III. Three Different Ways to….

   Sometimes it can be difficult to find ten ways to do something, but you can always find three ways to do it. This can be done alternately with your Top Ten newsletters.

   IV. The “Before and After” approach

   You can use this much like you would the “Tip of the Month” format. You will introduce a problem with the solution. This format works best when you can include case studies which is an excellent way if interacting with your customers on a direct level. You may even ask your customers for some examples of their ‘before and after’ and if they will give their permission to share it with your readers. If your format is in text only, you can include a link to show pictures on your website.

   V. What about “Checklists”

   If you want to share something new with your readers, a great way to do this is with checklists. Be sure to include all the steps, and these check lists will help save your readers a lot of time, which they will love. You will begin by writing a short paragraph which introduces your topic, include your list, the end it with some final tips. You can format your entire newsletter on the checklist formula, or present it randomly.

   Now you can see that online newsletters aren’t as difficult as you first thought. Get your list and get started, no excuses.

Check out the Posting Contest I have running: Click HERE to learn how you can win $100!

Bring in Even More Business!

Today I want to talk about online newsletters and how these can bring in even more business for you. This is a very cost-effective way to market and will not eat up all of your time.

Whether you are mailing your newsletters out through the post office, or sending them out via email, this is a great way to increase the recognition of your brand, bringing in repeat business and sharing your experience and story and success with your readers.

1. You are going to first put your list together of your current customers along with any potential customers. Any names that you have collected from inquiries, direct mail response cards, etc…that you have from the beginning of your marketing endeavors, will be the start of your list. If you don’t have a list, and you have some money set aside, you can purchase a list, giving you names of the best potential customers.

1. If you are doing an online newsletter, it is best to include a content manager system. This will make your editing much easier with a newsletter template, your graphics and giving it your own style. You will have a little bit to learn, but you will have a lot of fun doing it. If you need help through the process, call a college student, they will be a great resource. Another option would be to hire somebody at Guru.com at great cheap prices.
2. Next you want to have a feature that allows you to track bounce back emails to help you manage. your list, deleting these names from your list. It is really important to keep your list up to date. Now, your goal is to increase sales, but you need to make this an easy process for your readers because they all have very busy schedules, so you need to show off your products in the very best manner.\Below are some tips to help you do this and achieve greater financial success from your email marketing.

• Include pictures all throughout
• Show details in these pictures
• The pictures need to be bright and cheery
• Make the picture a link to the sales page or product information page.
• Be sure to add a text link which is associated with your product picture which links to the online product page
• Include the ability to order directly from your newsletter with purchase buttons
• When you have a new product, make sure you have direct links in the website, making it easy for them to get there without any extra navigating.If you still have concerns about your new online newsletter, …just know you can do it…I will go over tomorrow some of your biggest questions..such as “What do I say?”, or “How much time will this take?”, or “How do I set up the links?”. Well, we will answer these questions in our next blog. Stay tuned…..

One of the things that you will see a lot of on the internet are people who have managed to build up businesses that are now making them six and seven figure incomes. While those figures are a rare occurrence, they are a reality to some. So many people are struggling to try and earn even $1,000 in a single month. The dream of thousands or millions is just that, a dream.

However, when you think about it and look at all the similar money making programs available, and the people that are successfully earning seven figures, chances are they are using the same techniques that people making $50,000 or less a year from the internet are using.

There is one obvious difference between those two cases; the money that they make. But what are they doing that is so different? Is there really even a difference? After all, if they are using the same methods, is it simply a matter of luck that a factor of one hundred separates someone from making thousands instead of millions if the two people are doing the same thing?

Actually no, it has nothing to do with luck at all. There are many little differences, which we look at in blog posts at ViralKing. One of the differences is something known as diversification.

If you come up with a content site, paste AdSense all over the place and then sit back to admire your work (and update that one site) for the rest of eternity, you might do well for yourself but at the same time you are never going to get to the point where you really take advantage of what you have available to you.

This opens up a very big point. Adsense is not nearly what it was before and now with them changing the click spaces to only headlines and url’s many top publishers are suffering. Plenty of Fish is a very large dating website, in fact bigger than all the free dating sites combined. He runs Google Adsense and has noticed a shocking result. His income is down 60% in the last 2 months, and this is a guy that makes well over $100k a month from Adsense, we are talking big money!

That scenario is something you would see from someone making $50,000 or less a year. Someone making $5 million a year would add ten other revenue streams, all completely different to the one website in order to double, triple or even quadruple the results and then build dozens of other websites exactly like it. The step after that is to then find another method that works and build dozens of those sites too. Diversification is the key to making money online; just ask any of the experts, from John Chow in blogging (Who is on track to make over $300k this year from his blog) all the way to the Rich Jerk in content websites.

A Product I do recommend is Butterfly Marketing Manuscript, it will show you lots of different techniques and at the moment you can get it free! (Click Here To Get It Free)

My mum sent me these pics a few weeks ago in an email, its not my bird or kitten, but its very cute. I might make a thing of doing this some weekends, nice pic series. Enjoy:

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What Do You Know About Affiliate Marketing

As you already know, Internet marketing uses the Internet to market products as well as their promotion. You can be using this method to promote your own products or the products of others.

This is where we get into the affiliate programs and how they can benefit you financially by earning commission on the quality products you are promoting for others.

There are several avenues of marketing that you can use such as your website and web pages, personal blogs and Email Opt-in lists. You are going to promote the product with a squeeze page or promotional letter, In your letter, you will include an affiliate link which will contain the affiliate identifier.

With your affiliate identifier link, your visitors will click on the link, be sent to the product sales page or website, and with their purchase, you will be given a percentage of the sales price. This is very similar to sales in brick and mortar stores, however with an affiliate program, your part is very simple and self running. All you need to do is do the initial set up and optimize the traffic.

You need to realize though that Not All Affiliate Programs are the same, so choose wisely.

What you need to know and look for in choosing the right affiliate program:

1) Training and Support

Affiliate programs will usually provide training and support, which is crucial for those just starting out on Internet Marketing. This is so important as it will be the only way for you to become effective as well as profitable. You need to look for affiliate which offers sufficient training and the know how in selling their product. There are however, Internet marketers who have experienced great success in affiliates without the training and support, but wouldn’t it be nice to have that training and support?

2) Look for High Commissions

You are going to put in the effort to bring in the traffic to the affiliate product with your sales pitch, then directing the customers to the affiliate sales page, and for your well earned efforts, you will receive a percentage of the sale in form of commissions. As you look at the different Affiliate programs to market, look at the amount of commission they offer, some are hardly worth your effort.

The most popular site to promote affiliate programs is Clickbank. You will soon see that Clickbank is the largest online marketplace on the Internet. Clickbank places hundreds of thousands of products which are sold on a daily basis. There are some that pay up to 75% of the purchase price.

3) Affiliate Referral Programs

There are a few programs that will offer you a chance to recommend their affiliate programs yourself. This sill ultimately award you with a greater percentage of all the sales generated for the program you recommend. This is where your viral marketing techniques will come in effect, the more you recommend, the more money you will make.

4) Triple Combination; Affiliate Training and Support, Referral Commission and Product Commission

You will be happy to know that there are some programs out there that offer the best of all three worlds of affiliate marketing. You can have all of these with training to help you in your marketing efforts. A wonderful example of this is the Internet Marketing Center’s Affiliate program. With this combination, you can reap huge commission benefits.

You can make some good money with Internet marketing bringing you closer and closer to your goal of financial freedom. But remember, you need to be willing to put in the time and effort.

Yesterday Arnie brought his muscle out for McCain, so I decided to even the equation and post a video on my blog! Take THAT Mr. Terminator…

Who will you be voting for in 4 days? I’m not American and can’t vote, I also don’t see as much as you do, but I know who I would be voting for…

This is a wonderful viral marketing campaign, well worth us taking note. I might try and set something like this up one day! Maybe for the launch of my training product coming out next year…

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