Internet Marketing | Steve Iser

One of the biggest mantras we hear in this industry in regards to Social Media is to “Provide good content”, assuming that the rest will fall under place for your traffic. In all reality, that isn’t necessarily the case.

While I always felt that there’s more to it, I figured I’d reveal to you something I found recently.

The mathematical formulas used to dictate what reaches most popular on Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious and many more bookmarking sites has been recently exposed on SEOMoz.

Just a warning - it involves knowledge on basic algebra and basic calculus:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/reddit-stumbleupon-delicious-and-hacker-news-algorithms-exposed

So if you’ve been looking for the formula to get your news to the top, here it is. Enjoy.

Steve

Got something cool for you that I just came across.

I was on Rick Butts‘ blog recently (this cool older dude who speaks his mind - something I find very refreshing in this business) and glanced over a cool video by Scott Boulch. I like Scott and a good friend of mine Michelle MacPhearson has told me much about him - so I watched the video.

Needless to say, it speaks for itself. A simple “web 2″ strategy to bring folks into a membership site - even amongst the most obscure niches. Best of all, from his approach you could even turn your memberships into just a monthly insider community - that takes care of the content on it’s own instead of you crafting it.

Hope you enjoy it - embedded video is below - Scott’s site can be found here.

Look forward to your replies on this,

Steve

[EDIT] PS. Oh damn - badass.

http://www.scottboulch.com/ (Top Link)

This press release was just announced, and I just indulged in every last ounce of it in awe.

This might just be one of the coolest things I’ve seen on the internet in awhile.

A quick refresher.

Social Networks today are based on one simple model - dedicated-based sites via registration… with several differentiations and hybrids. I don’t care how many different versions you show me, that’s typically what we’ve seen from Social Networks for the past 7 years or so with MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc. etc.

What’s really ironic is how I actually shared this idea with a colleague of mine Jim Lillig, prior to knowing what Google just announced today - which might just be the next big Social Network hit. If I had the man power and time, I would’ve put some serious thought into creating something like this - but it was merely just an idea until I read the press release today…

What I’m talking about delves into a bit of the “current definition” into Web 3.0

Google announced a new movement to Social Networks called “Friend Connect”, an open-sourced Social Networking tool which requires no dedicated website to access. This will let users network on any website on the internet. In otherwords, there’s no central authority to network - it’s open to the entire internet.

So you can be networking with people on Joe Schmoe’s website. Or hey, imagine chatting on a salespage during some launch process. How weird would that be?

This could probably pose a threat to MySpace/Facebook communities - but who knows, only time will tell. As long as they do their job and maintain loyalty in the networks by improving, I’m sure people will stay.

The reason why I’m telling you about this is because I think this is going to open a lot more new doors to advertising opportunities and reaching several new websites online as an affiliate/advertiser.

The process is simple:

1 - Webmaster plugs in code on website
2 - Google handles the rest.

Google will probably implement a plan to gain market research and somehow maybe tailor it to Google AdWords and offer some kind of pay per click gig? Who knows? I’m merely speculating, but rest assured Google will seek a way for advertisers to monetize this interesting new opportunity.

This is a step into the right direction of making the web into a much more social space.

I know this social networking stuff, and I’ve had people tell me their fair share, but let it be known that this might just pose some interesting new opportunities in the near future.

Keep your eyes peeled for this puppy. Let’s hear your thoughts.

Steve

PS. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051200823_2.html?referrer=steveiser

(If Only Web 2.0 Sites Could Allow Advertisers To Have Something Like This… They’d MAKE TONS OF MONEY!)

For the past couple of months I have been baffled by the sheer capabilities behind behavioral target marketing. I was introduced to the industry by a very good friend of mine Jim Lillig - who is literally a leader and affiliate marketing veteran in performance based marketing solutions
for Fortune companies.

If you haven’t looked into behavioral marketing, you are missing in one of the internet’s next biggest hotspots and the future of how to market anything online for big bucks whether you’re an affiliate or merchant. This is nothing new - and it’s been around for awhile now, but it’s only recently beginning to pick up presence as internet advertising grows.

Behavioral Marketing is about data collection on internet users behavior on specific webpages visited, keywords they’re searching for, and other aspects of web browsing behavior - it’s literally a direct marketer’s wet dream come true, and allows you as an affiliate or merchant to display super duper relevant advertising. Great stuff, but still only scratching the surface on the possibilities here - and there are traffic networks online that help you do this - icewatermedia.com, trafficvance.com

I have recently been working with some colleagues with placing insertion orders - and they are making money. 40-70% ROI to be specific. Not bad at all for beginning. Now it’s my turn - and I’m placing an insertion order right now infact for Ringtones, Credit Cards and one of my niche products.

Most internet advertisers will tell you now that the best area to advertise products and services today online is using behavioral target advertising.

So why is it that nobody in the Guru Make Money Niche is catching onto this? Who knows.

To quote Jim:

Quote
eMarketer estimates that this year advertisers will spend $575M on behaviorally targeted ads, and that by 2011, nearly $B will be spent annualy, an 8X increase in just 4 years. Expect to see offline data companies either getting swallowed up by some of these companies or at the very least strategically partnering to be able to get a foothold in the game. - Jim Lillig, jimlillig.com

Now obviously to a group of you, this is nothing new - it’s just another avenue to affiliate marketing. But think about the other side of the spectrum people - be the guy with control of the user base.

Corporations are spending huge ass dollars on this - and I think it’s time people start to wake up from typical affiliate marketing here. And sure, we have the polar opposite of malicious adwares and spywares, but I ain’t talking about that - because that’s pretty scummy.

Wouldn’t it be crazy awesome to have an adware tool (with prospects permission) in your niche market that allows you to gather data on their interests and dislikes in the market? Or to know that Visitor A tends to look into a lot of keywords on credit cards consistantly… “student credit card”, “student needs credit card”, and display a dynamic contextual keyword campaign “Having a tough time finding a credit card as a student?”

In other wards, you now have a database of users who use your software and you can now display tons of relevant ads without worries of lame email deliverability, and be able to display more than just one affiliate offer.

The possibilities are endless with behavioral marketing. And I already got a programmer developing a software right now.

Would love to hear your inputs or experiences on the topic. It’s not talked about enough online.

Steve

Ever paid money to learn viral video creation strategies from people who have never actually done it before?

I know I have just out of sheer curiousity. So I think you’ll like this video.

Call it controversial if you will, but some of the elements discussed in this video are how many successful viral videos are created today. I know this for a fact.

Ironically enough, this video itself has gotten viral at some degree.

I’m sure many of you will have something to say about this, so let’s get some talk rolling. Comment below.

- Steve

Hey guys.

Buddy of mine James Brown who’s a killer super affiliate in the financial/entertainment markets online recently interviewed me to understand Social Media better.

==> http://www.steveiser.com/SI-TeleS-Call-8.mp3

We talked about…

* Understanding Social Media on a corporate monetization scale & regular folks
* Facebook/MySpace Marketing
* Social Media + SEO
* Video Syndication

Give it a whirl - let me know your thoughts.

Take care,

Steve

(Listen to the part about whitelisting too - I’m completely stumped there, LOL.)

If any affiliate managers are ready, they’re probably ready to
have knives at my throats because people like me probably
make their days annoying. Hehe.

Anyway, so here’s the dealiooo.

Last night I bought some media traffic
and before I decided to push out the CPA
offer, I called up my affiliate manager
and told them I want a better payout.

Folks, don’t ever settle for the payout
that CPA companies provide you as an affiliate.

There is a big problem right now in the
Affiliate Marketing game where it’s almost
next to impossible to gauge payouts on various
campaigns across multiple CPA Networks. (Friend
of mine is working on a vertical site to address
this issue).

In any case, since networks have a usual margin
of profit difference, they’re willing to take a
percentage hit if it means you’ll more likely
promote a specific offer - so you’ll make more
money.

So a quick how to…

- Find your CPA Offer to promote. If it’s paying
like $10 on CPL, call your affiliate manager and
tell them you’re planning to promote the offer…
but you want a better payout because $10 blows.

In pretty much every case I’m working with these
guys they will always pay me higher. I’ve taken a
$10 CPL offer to $14 before. So that’s a big difference
to my bottomline when I’m playing a volume media traffic
game.

I mean, I was sent 100 leads and I just made myself
an extra $400 just bitching at my affiliate manager.

See the importance now? It’s pretty badass and simple
to do.

Have fun,

Steve

Have to admit I’d rather spend my time making cash than bitch about this – but it’s just been really grinding my gears lately. So… story time folks. 

In the early days of the internet, stock markets went nuts on getting a grasp of the internet sector and took out many IPOs which later led to a dot-com bubble in 2001 because of poor ROI results and no one understanding how money was made online. It seems like we’re on that path once again with thousands of new Web 2 properties emerging every day – most notorious applications being MySpace, Skype, Facebook, YouTube, Last.fm, Skype and many more.

In a recent Wall Street Journal issue, they published that “Social Sites Don’t Deliver Big Ad Gains”, illustrating some pretty abysmal ROI results from Microsoft, Google and Yahoo in their Web 2 properties. This indicates a big issue, and there’s more to this story I want to touch base on… because I don’t think enough people are seeing the full picture here. And this ain’t like some “shocking” new shit or anything. This has been talked about for awhile.

So to many folks small and large, it’s posing a big question: Are social sites over-rated for monetization and its growth, and is there going to be a new dot-com bubble?

Yes And No

For starters, I think there’s a huge issue with the way monetization is being done with most Web 2 platforms currently on both the corporate level and the average dude. Frank Kern kind of eluded to what I’m about to hit on with his Mass Control launch. To sum it up, when we read emails, we have a sort of different mentality. When we are on social networks, we have a different focus.

In other wards, blatant advertising is almost obtrusive (while that’s smart, also not proving to be effective enough) to a user’s experience on a social site whether it’s to just watch some movies and shit or communicate with peers on Facebook.

While I don’t know of any solutions of what can be done on a large scale, I do know what works on the small scale – because unlike most gurus, I actually do this stuff every day. In my product Ready.Aim.Wired, I addressed that if you wanted to do proper and effective MySpace Marketing, you need to initiate unique interaction and story selling to elude prospects into a buying mentality. In reality, a unique character, consistant unique interaction and selling on story is how sales are garnered in a web 2.0 environment. Trust, loyalty and all that other “maven” BS comes with it in the process.

It’s sad because pretty much no one seems to know this is how you sell people. MLM folks have quickly caught on this in the internet world. Selling on the low-scale in Social Marketing is ESSENTIALLY RELATIONSHIP 1 ON 1 MARKETING. Selling your perspective and influence onto others.

I think people need to do their homework before soaking up the kool-aid from the internet marketing products on social media that have no real income proofs behind them. Notice what’s going on behind the scenes at the corporate level and be able to evaluate the problems with big scale Web 2 sites right now. (BTW, big props to gurus for cashing in on a trend on something you don’t know anything about ).

Anyway…

So why is there going to be a new possible dot-com bubble with Web 2 stuff?

Simple.

1. OVER VALUED: YouTube bought for $1.65 billion. Skype bought for $2.6billion. MySpace bought for $580 million. Last.fm bought for $280million. The rise in Web 2 platforms are serving one purpose: BAIT for big conglomerates. Big props to the people who created these sites for exploiting an opportunity like this. Not cool for advertisers. What on earth is driving these high value purchases and over-appraised values in web 2 sites when there is no real ROI in them? The fact they have traffic? Please…

2. POOR ROI: YouTube is not making money. Facebook is not making much money. There is some severe issues with monetizing these applications. Facebook is struggling to create new infrastructure all the time to please advertisers. Media traffic on Facebook is very very very poor on click-thrus.

3. CLUELESS: Face it. Owners of Web 2 sites are struggling to figure this shit out – and they ain’t coming up with enough cool ideas to bank on the system. Before Google bought YouTube, they were in a deficit. Whoa, infact… they’re still in a deficit. Google ain’t digging it. 

4. OVER DONE: Pretty much everyone and their dog is coming up with a new Web 2 application site. I’ve seen some of the most ridiculous and useless applications that I just don’t understand the point behind them.

So you might be asking yourself: is Social Marketing still worth my time? Quick answer to that is hell yeah – the only problem is there isn’t enough “good info” out there on the topic to help you figure how to pull it off whether you’re running a Web 2 application or making money out of others Web 2 apps.

But needless to say, it could be possible to see a new bubble just given the shit going on above.

Anyway, I suck at bitching about stuff – so I’ll let you guys spill your guts here.

Take care.

(Thanks Tony Blake for the video)

Reference: http://digg.com/business_finance/WSJ_com_Social_Sites_Don_t_Deliver_Big_Ad_Gains

Hey folks,

Just got off the phone with my buddy Joel Christopher. Thought we really got to the core of many important Social Networking topics, so I felt like sharing it with you.

In any case, feel free to listen to the interview. About 60 minutes long, then about 30 minutes of Q&A.. so 90 minutes.

==> http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=1391133

Reply back and tell me what you think.

Take care,

Steve

When I was getting started in Online Marketing about a year ago, you could scour eBay for resale right products and private labels for just a penny – and I sure as hell bet it’s even bigger than it is today.

Simply put, it’s as if selling resale rights is almost a joke now unless you got a pre-existing list to sell to. And I’m willing to bet right now you got a stock of sub-par resale right products collecting dust on your hard drive right now – and I don’t really blame you either. A select few people have really been able to utilize the resale right business model quite effectively – but I still think it’s lame. And on top of that, the quality just isn’t there.

So how does one effectively sell rights to their own existing product and make it a big pay day?

A couple of months ago, a good friend of mine was talking to me about “The Bigger Picture”. More often than none, our own existing products have more potential than just selling it within one market such as rebranding into other existing hungry markets, or offering a license/franchise right. Infact, right now I’m busy rebranding my own products & partnered with a friend in other markets where they are even more lucrative.

The formula is very simple, but obviously takes work:

Step One: Sell a product that makes consistant sales
Step Two: Offer the “whole nine yards”
Step Three: Approach & Propose To Highly Segmented Market

Sell A Product That Makes Consistant Sales

If your product doesn’t make sales consistantly, it doesn’t hold any leverage in a market. People have this problem with just selling resale rights as an upsell/OTO/special offer, or just have no proven track record of making consistant sales or even a product that would captivate lots of sales. You need a product that’s evergreen and can be applied into other markets and is a proven seller.

The reason is because your pitch to your highly targeted market is a lot easier of a sell at high price if you have a proven buyer record. Buying a Subway or McDonalds franchise is a no-brainer because the brand is known for making consistant high sales.

If your product makes you $100,000 a year, you can justify a higher pricepoint to sell to your market so you have much substantial profit margins. i.e: $10,000 per license per year. (Yep, he’s actually selling it at that much…)

I’ll explain why it’s so high in a moment. (Very different than your usual $27 or $97 for resale rights).

Offer Full Nine Yards

Here’s the real kicker and benefit-oriented selling point of offering resale rights – the whole nine yards. One of the most k-i-s-s principles I learned in marketing was from Yanik Silver.. paraphrased:

“People don’t want to learn how to fish, just give it to them”.

Pretty much everybody in the IM market who sells resale rights is not offering the whole nine yards. It’s an easier sell to give your potential customers everything you used to make $x/year on your product.

Is that a threat to the lifeblood of your product? Hell no, because only a fraction ever take action.

What does the whole nine yards mean?

It means…

• The salespage

• Your autoresponder follow-up sequences

• Your sales process

• Merchants you used

• Your Proven marketing tools to promote

• Your PPC ads

• How you recruited your affiliates & tools you gave ‘em

• Keywords you organically rank on or aim to rank on

• Your Articles

• Your Backend strategies and who you backended with as well as where to find ‘em

• Your fulfillment center (graphics, product, ingredients, recipe, etc)

• …Give them EVERYTHING you used to make that $100,000/year.

This becomes a lot more powerful because all of the above are proven marketing materials that have generated your $100,000/year. How much of a no brainer is it to the prospective buyer?

It’s literally a “cookie-cutter-copy-paste-turn-key” sorta deal, because how much would you pay if I gave you literally everything I used including the product to make $100,000 a year?

It’s almost a no brainer. It’s almost as if I’m giving them “the fish”

Approach & Propose To Highly Segmented Market

One of the biggest gold nuggets I learned from my friend was how he was going to sell his licenses.

Selling high ticket products doesn’t always have to be geared towards a struggling entrepreneur or some kind of individual. Infact, his approach was geared towards hitting small & medium-sized businesses already selling similar health supplement products.

i.e: Contacting offline/online businesses, asking if they want to expand their reach with a product that has the proven track record of making sales, and how they will be able to plug’n'play it for cash.

Not only was he offering the license, but it was on a per annum basis. Once the buyer had acquired the rights, he can sell it as much as he wanted, and for whatever price he wanted. All the buyer had to do was pay the $10,000 cost per year. With the right support in place, it’s an easy resale right sell, that pays for itself on continuity in the long-term.

Because of this he is able to…

- Sell a product with a proven track record.
- Give the buyer all the support they would need to make the same kind of sales.
- A long term system that pays him on an annual basis, spending little next to nothing of his own precious time.
- Time to go surfboarding

Even with just 10 of these sales… that already makes up another hundred grand in profit, per year.

You see, offering resale rights of a proven product to the right markets can have much bigger paydays – you just need to plan it right.

So if you have an existing product right now that’s even pushing as simple as $5000 a month, you might want to start structuring a long term strategy.

Because the sales process never ends…

Hope you found this insightful,

Steve

PS. Feel free to reply below with your comments or questions.