A-Z Systems Marketing Blog

I’m on so many different mailing lists now, and most of them belong to very successful and well known Internet marketers. I subscribed to them mostly to be informed of all new trends and developments in Internet marketing business.

It’s also a very interesting and enlightening study of the different marketing personalities and different approaches, methods and preferences in the types of offers.

But from time to time everybody is starting to mail information about the same offer, emails start to arrive more often, there is obviously a race and a fierce competition. Every marketers comes up with their own free bonuses, trying to overdo each other in their generosity. It is perfectly understandable - they are looking forward to some fat commissions.

It usually means two things:

• It is a pre-launch of some product, program or course, so every marketer tries to get his buyers lined up before the launch.
• You can bet that the offer will be really expensive ( and I mean - really!)
• There will be a limited number of whatever is offered and there will be a countdown to create more hype.

Starting with the launch date, the number of emails increases, they tell you how many packages are left, there are more bonuses offered and the sense on emergency is pumped up, so you feel that all your life will be wasted unless you purchase the damn thing.

Aren’t you eager to pay $1997.00 for the fulfillment of your dreams and eternal happiness they are promising? That was exactly the price of the last offer everybody was mailing me.

You probably know what ROI means. It stands for Return On Investment. If it is, say, 2, you get $2 for each dollar invested. This is a very high ROI. Banks these days don’t pay more than 2% interest (per year), it makes ROI = 1.02.

Keeping this in mind, let’s now turn to another abbreviation: OBA.

OBA stands for Online Business Alliance. I mention ROI and OBA together here because Online Business Association provides an unbelievable return on investment!

No I haven’t made millions or even thousands with OBA (yet!) ¬†But.. I’ve made a few hundred in the course of less than 2 months. And my total investment was $5 (five dollars), and I haven’t spent a penny on promotion, I used only free Internet advertising.

Let is see what my ROI is as far. Let us say I’ve made $500 (it was actually more). With only $5 investment my ROI is 100 (one hundred)!

Now, if you tell me that you don’t need a few hundred dollars in return for $5 and some easy work (mostly surfing and using free list builders, etc.), I’m sorry, I won’t believe you! I bet you have some outstanding bills to pay - like almost everybody these days.

So, you start by purchasing one ebook that actually has a value far exceeding $5. You get two more ebooks and one audio book as a free bonus. And then you sell the book for the same price - $5. This is 100% profit.

I promise - you won’t have any problem with selling the book - one of the many benefits the company provides is an absolutely outstanding support. The books you get provide loads of marketing information you would pay many times more for elsewhere. But that’s only the beginning. The company has a fantastic forum where not only the owner, Dave Gray, posts helpful hints, new developments, new tools, and also answers members’ questions; but there is also the exchange of ideas and information among members like I haven’t seen anywhere before - and I’ve been around for a long time!

There is absolutely no other investment required, although you will later have a choice of using a little bit of the money you earn to get into the ad space leasing program within OBA, that will take your ROI and earnings into “higher dimensions”, so to speak. It opens the gates to really unlimited income… but you can decide whether to participate in this part or not later.

Time to introduce you to a page that lists the benefits of Online Business Alliance, one of highly effective selling tools for OBA. When you join, you will get this page with your link and also dozens of other pages to use in promotions.

http://azsystems.net/oba/five-bucks-biz.php

I’m sure at this point you already purchased your book and are on the road to real earnings. If not, bookmark this page and think it over - but don’t procrastinate! While I was writing this post, I got two more payments of $5 each to my PayPal account.

PS: Online Business Alliance is definitely a program that fits into my Affordable Wealth concept (see post).

Everybody on the Internet is trying to sell you something or convince you to join some program, MLM company, etc.

The competition is fierce, everybody is trying to come up with something attractive, some original twist to their solicitation. Free ebooks, free reports, free memberships, free this and that… endless flow of free staff. Sadly, there isn’t much value in all these free bonuses, although there are some exceptions. In general, I’d always advise to evaluate the main offer and look at all the extra bonuses only after you decide that this main offer will benefit you. If not, it shouldn’t matter how many free bonuses are added. Actually, the more free bonuses are offered, the more I get suspicious of the main offer.

I already have a post on One Time Offers (OTO), you may wish to read it here.

This particular post is about absolutely ridiculous and deceiving free bonus I’ve seen a few times on various Traffic Exchanges and List Builders. ¬†The person offering the bonus is promoting a well known MLM company and using it as a “bait”, so to speak.

Here is a direct quote from the ad:

100,000 FREE Leads A Month

for 40 Months = 4,000,000 Leads!

That kind of bonus is designed for the newcomers to the field, for those who already know what leads are, but not really familiar with the lead market. Experienced Internet Marketer would laugh at that, or just won’t pay any attention.

Here are the reasons why:

• Really good , responsive leads cost money, sometimes a lot of money. I’d consider similar offer to be believable if the marketer would offer 100-300 leads, 1000 at max. Any good leads cost at least $50-$100¬†for a thousand, really good “surveyed” leads sometimes 10 times more. So, the leads offered in these quantities couldn’t possibly be any good.
• Can you imagine that anybody could offer 100,000 free original leads to every new member that joins? I happen to know that, using this free bonus, this marketer enrolls tens of new members a month. It is rational to conclude that many members receive the same leads.
• Even if these leads (against all odds) are decent, you can’t really make use of these quantities yourself. Mail your offer to them, using your Internet provider? You will be blocked or will lose your account after mailing a few hundred! Internet host providers restrict the number of emails mailed to about 50 an hour (unless you lease a dedicated server that will cost you $250 -$500 per month).
• All autoresponders and mailing services are very strict regarding the quality of the leads they permit to upload for mailings. If you have a lot of undeliverable addresses or even a few spam complaints from the prospects, your account will be closed in no time! Leads acquired in these quantities will usually have more than 50% of bad addresses and a large numbers of people that are already tired of countless mailings and definitely will complain!

They really don’t have to, but believe me, they’ll be eager to pay to find out about unlimited free leads for life system, also known as¬†Funded Streamline Sponsoring.

I don’t want to go into explaining to you the simple fact that you probably already heard hundreds of times: you need endless supply of hot opt-in, ready for your offer leads to make money online.

No matter what network marketing company you’re in, no matter where or what country you live in, and no matter if you just signed up in your first MLM business yesterday or are an experienced Networker, you need fresh responsive leads, or you may as well quit your online business!

If you have been in Internet Marketing for some time, you already know  that lead generation could be very expensive and can easily make you broke.

Not anymore!

With a new lead generating program by Paul Birdsall you will make money while generating leads - not pay for them!

In fact, when you use Funded Streamline Sponsoring, you will immediately start attracting an unlimited number of leads and - They Will Pay You To Show Them The Plan!

Instead of you chasing your prospects, your prospects will be chasing you, eager to generate free leads for life themselves and pay you for the secret.

When you start using this concept of Funded Sponsoring, making money in MLM or any other online business becomes as automatic and “routine” as checking your email.

Watch new free video series that will show you how to build any online home business without spending a dime on advertising!

Even more - this Paul Burdsall’s video will show you how to start making money before sponsoring anybody into your program or selling anything!

Click HERE to find more.

I’ve used TrafficWave autoresponder for a few months to manage my marketing campaigns. My goal was to make money with the programs I was promoting and I always was very happy with the results.

It didn’t enter my mind, that TrafficWave shouldn’t be ignored as a good money-maker itself, that commissions TrafficWave pays could be very substantial addition to other earnings or even main income! I just placed my TrafficWave affiliate link on a couple of my websites and also added to my signature - without really expecting anything. It wasn’t very long before I got my first $17.95 “Fast Track” bonus, then my commission grew to cover my subscription and… I woke up to the money-making benefits of the program!

I assume that you know what autoresponder is, and that there could hardly be any real money made on the Internet without it. Here is a short definition:

An autoresponder is a computer program that automatically returns a prewritten message or series of messages to anyone who sends e-mail to a particular Internet address or fills a request form on the website.

TrafficWave is definitely one of the best (if not the best) autoresponders for Internet marketing. I don’t want to go into the details here, TrafficWave website provides abundant information:

• TrafficWave main page (features and benefits).
• TrafficWave Compensation Plan

And very important: it is FREE for the whole first month - no risk, no obligation whatsoever!

If you want to receive our free report on making money with autoresponders and see TrafficWave in action, fill and submit the form below!

If you haven’t read my previous post on the same subject, please read it now!

I was talking about a simple fact that there could be (and are) a lot of crooks and con-men in Direct selling, or just sellers that greatly overprice their product. Not all, of course, not even a majority.

And in Network Marketing there are a lot of sponsors, or, better to say, recruiters, whose idea of MLM is to enroll as many people as they can, with the idea that among those many there will be a few people that would be able to work by themselves.

As I said, I prefer Network Marketing to Direct selling. It isn’t because MLM is devoid of scams and scam artists - there are many of them in this business too.

My point is that when Network Marketing is done right, it becomes much more a “people helping people business” than just selling a product.

The difference of MLM from Direct selling (or even simple Affiliate marketing) is that every distributor in MLM structure depends on people in the group, often 4 or more levels deep, directly affecting his/her earnings. So, even if you are on my 2nd, 3rd, and sometimes even lower level, I want you to build your own group, because I also receive commissions from at least a part of your group.

So, if I want to make lots of money it is in my interest to become a really good sponsor, not just enroller. It means that I have to learn myself, then pass my knowledge and skills to the members in my group, which means that I have to learn how to teach and how to pass the teaching skills also!

As one very successful MLM’er put it, to be a good Networker you have to be a mentor with a heart of a servant.

And please believe me, it is a very satisfying (and profitable) attitude to have! I’m trying to follow that advice as much as I can.

My main Network company is Global Domains International. To help my group members, I put together a GDI Support website and now working on combining GDI with traffic and list building tools, following my principle of Affordable Wealth.

No time to write a long post, here is just a fast review:

Craig Haywood did it again!!

Craig has launched MyViralSurfer and let me tell¬†you, he has made it almost impossible for you not¬†to get lots of traffic… and cash!.

Here is a quote:

I really hate hype just as much as you, yet I still want you to be prepared to be blown away by what you are about to discover. I am about to introduce to you a system designed to completely automate the way you build your list, generate targeted traffic and build your downlines in any program of your choosing. I know this is a mouthful…that’s why I am going to proof to you…

Because of the viral nature of MyViralSurfer, every member will refer new members to MyViralSurfer, whether they want to or not. That is just the way we built the system.

So, please see for yourself. And it’s free (if you wish).

It is very new, click here to see and join!

Let me start with a simple statement:

You really can make money, lots of money either in Direct selling or Multilevel Marketing - or in combination of both.

One of these methods should become your main focus, even if you use a combination of both (like I do).

I won’t pretend to be objective. I really like and enjoy MultiLevel Marketing more! Please understand, it is my personal preference, there are lots of people making lots of money that prefer Direct selling.

Here is why I think that Direct selling, in  not so clean hands, can become a close relative to a con game.

You’ve probably heard or read the kind of praise for a great salesman that goes: “He can sell ice to an Eskimo!”

So, in that sense, act of selling is an act of persuasion. Oh, yes, when you study sales manuals, there is always a mention somewhere, that the product or service you are selling should be good and worth the price. But, most of the time, it is just a footnote, something that your sales guru is obligated to say.

From then on it is just a series of technics of making the prospect feel that he/she is buying something of a tremendous value, something that is impossible to live without and will create heaven on earth for a buyer.

As a seller, especially if you are marketing on the Internet, you are advised by all manuals to create a favorable image of yourself, “brand” yourself, establish trust and confidence with your prospect. That is a very good advice to a honest seller.

But… don’t you think that this is also a very good advice to a con man?

And, in my opinion, if you want to sell ice to eskimos, you definitely should be one. The ability to sell the stuff that has no worth to a prospect is definitely a trait of a con man.

I don’t want to create an impression that all sellers on the Internet are con men. But some definitely are. See, for example, my post on pricing the offers.

Everything goes:

• The price will go up soon or even tomorrow
• We discounted the price for a short time
• This is a one-time offer (see my post)
• Pre-launch system (building excitement by several emails before the sale starts)
• A load of free bonuses
• And lots more - you will encounter all the tricks of the trade on the Web.

In short, they advise, it is the best if the prospect has a real need for your product, but if he doesn’t, you have to create an perception of this need.

You may wish to have a glance at another post of mine: Seller vs Buyer.

What I really wanted to say is, that the methods of selling are basically the same when selling a great product to a prospect that needs it, or a lousy product, or a good product to a customer that in reality has no need. The technics of persuasion are the same.

And please, don’t take it that I’m trying to convince you not to sell on the Internet. ¬†I ¬†shouldn’t and I can’t, I’m a seller myself, hopefully not of the con man kind.

For me, the difference with multilevel marketing is that MLM, if it is done it a correct way, is not about selling. It is not about making a customer out of the prospect, It is about creating a partner whom you to train and help and start working together with.

It is about people and relationships - something that just fits my personality better.

My main money-making MLM company now is GDI.

I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing writing about this issue.

After all, I am a marketer and a marketer’s goal is to make money. Some money - good. Good money - even better. Lots of money - fantastic. So, it took me some time to decide that it would be good for everybody if I make¬†public¬†my thoughts on the subject of pricing the offers.

The last push I got today. When going through my daily emails, I found one from a well known to me Internet marketer, whose list I was subscribed to for a long time and found his advices and hints reasonably helpful. As other owners of all the lists I’m subscribed to (and there are at least a dozen of them), this gentleman often recommends ebooks, advertising programs, seminars and such. The idea for him is, of course, to make some commissions on these offers - nothing bad about that!

Yes, there is nothing bad about that, this is a normal business practice.

Provided, of course, that the price (or fee) charged is not ridiculously high - as in the case of the last offer ¬†that was recommended to me. This was a “training program” that costs $1997 (yes, one thousand nine hundred ninety seven dollars).

Could it be worth it? I doubt it very much. In the past I purchased some of these highly recommended expensive programs. Most of them have about 10% worth of really useful information, the rest is added mostly to create volume and make the offer impressive enough to convince the prospect of the supposedly great value.

Usually these programs are “circular” or, as programmers say, “recursive” - you are taught exactly the same methods that the author is using to sell the offer to you. The novice usually gets way too much information to digest and loses all hope to implement the described methods. The professional may find some good hints, but in my experience, it would be possible to find the same information for free, or almost for free on the Internet, if you put some effort in it.

Please understand, that I express my personal view when I say that this practice of overcharging for the product doesn’t agree with me at all. Yes, I know that some of the marketers using these methods make millions (and some just say so). Probably because I refuse to follow these methods myself, I’m not “filthy rich”. But I live a comfortable life and my conscience doesn’t bother me at night (although I don’t think that the marketers that overprice their products lose any sleep over that).

There is a short story by O Henry, where two “gentle grifters”, his usual characters, find themselves in a small town on an island created by flood. The town is populated by ¬†very heavy drinking folks and there are only two bars there. Our grifters immediately see a great business opportunity, buy both bars and start charging about ten times the usual price for drinks. (There is a very funny ending to this story, you are advised to read it.)

Quite a few years ago I attended a seminar on selling, where one of the people in the auditorium asked a question about the product pricing. The host responded: “Charge as much as you can get away with!”

So, this O Henry’s grifter was a great businessman, it follows. Well, I beg to disagree. For me, good business is to provide the product or service for what it is really worth, and not more. And I understand that I belong to a minority.

This is supposed to be a marketing blog, so what is the value that you get from this post, is there any information you can use to make money?

I guess, this post is mostly about saving money (as they say, penny saved is penny earned). Here is some advice, you may wish to follow it or not.

• On the Internet, anything that costs more than $100 ¬†should arouse your immediate suspicion.
• If you see a program costing several hundred dollars or even more than a thousand, there is a good chance the price will go down pretty soon. It will go down faster if we don’t fall victim to all these great marketing technics and just wait.
• If you see that one of the reasons you have to buy now is because the price will go up soon, there is more than 99% chance that the increase will never happen. I’m speaking from many years of experience.
• If you see dozens of free bonuses¬†attached to the offer,¬†that are supposed to have enormous value ¬†- this is an old ¬†marketing trick. ¬†Try to figure out the value of the product sold, don’t pay any attention to free additions.
• Read my post on One Time Offers¬†They are supposed to work like a dream - I’m personally ¬†just annoyed by them¬†most of the time.

You may be interested in my other post, on the concept of Affordable Wealth. I have now several programs that provide me with a very comfortable living. I think that my total investment in them was below $200. ¬†Plus investment of time and effort into learning and promotion, of course. I think I had a very good deal without buying any “training programs” for $1997.

We always need more traffic (well, if you are rich as Warren Buffett, I guess you don’t need it).

My idea is to join every new traffic tool there is (especially if it is free). then test it for a reasonable length of time and then decide what to do with it. If it’s free, I just leave it there.

Now, here is a new traffic tool that I joined. It is really free and you don’t need to change much about what you already do.

From what I can tell after browsing the back office, this should be one of the greatest viral traffic tools ever introduced. The name is Web Traffic Juggernaut (click on the name to go to the site and join).

My advice is - join now and sort it out later - it is free and it’s still in pre-launch (for only 2 days at the time of this post!).

Once more: HERE IS THE LINK. You’ll get to a pretty long and detailed page, but it is really worth reading. The is a short movie there too - well made, entertaining and definitely will sell well, which is very important for you and me!

I am so impressed with Web Traffic Juggernaut, that I even devoted a special page on my blog to this program. The link is to the right, under “Pages“, or you can Click Here. The same movie is also posted there.

Ground floor, free and powerful - I’m impressed enough to join!