A few weeks ago I polled my subscribers on what they wanted me to blog about.
I got a lot of responses from it – thank you!
… and one of the biggest things that people wanted to know is how to make consistent income online. Oddly enough, most people wanted to know how to hit the $100 dollar a day mark online. So I thought I would show you how I sort out my marketing plans for new sites, projects, etc…
Before we get started I need to throw this in here…
*Disclaimer: I’m in no way shape or form trying to give you the impression that by following this blog post or any blog post at all will guarantee you make $100 everyday. It all depends on your work ethic and marketing knowledge. This is from my personal experience and your results may differ.
Well, you knew I had to put that in there. There’s laws and whatnot.
It’s A Numbers Game…
The more sites or campaigns you run be it ppc, ppv, video marketing, whatever – the better the chance you have at finding which one’s are making you the most and scaling those, finding the worst performers and either scraping those campaigns or selling the sites that suck to get some of your investment back.
No successful new business, affiliate site or online venture ever starts out by just throwing an idea out there (for the most part). Really you can’t expect to randomly pick a niche or keywords without research and expect it to do great. Nope, not even if you are following the advice of that $7 dollar ebook you just bought that promised you riches…
Honestly though, you never REALLY know 100% how a new site will pan out BUT if you take calculated risks and do your research you will increase your chances of success significantly.
… but before you begin any campaign you should really have a sound plan before you go all willy nilly into a new project.
The Digital Marketing Strategy (DMS)…
There are usually only 5 steps to my strategy and for the most part I call it intelligent digging. The 5 parts to this are Success Digging, Competition Digging, Discover Your Message, Marketing Channel Strategy and Planning Your Finances.
Doing those 5 things in-depth will put your light years ahead of your competition.
So let’s discuss those a little more.
Thing #1. Success Digging – This is the point where you need to spend the most time. Most people say that keyword research is the most important but what good are keywords going to do you if the market is not spending money on things in your niche? The answer – NONE! You really have to look at the market you are going after as a whole. You need to know right off the bat if there is money to actually be made or not.
You need to look at:
- The products you will be promoting to your market. You need to look at their overviews and descriptions to find out who the products are really for.
- The market itself to see how much sales potential it has.
- Identify your target groups to get your targeting down to the exact group of people on the internet who need what you have.
- Then, you need to select that group and stick to it. The better targeting you have, the more money you will make over the long haul. It’s nice to be able to cast your net in front of other people but if they aren’t exactly who you need to visit your site, they aren’t going to convert. Keep it small, tight and grouped.
- Do a quick SWOT of your planned site and your competitors site. If you don’t know what a SWOT is then you can download one HERE from Microsoft to take a look at and use. Once you see it you will understand what it is used for completely.
- Understand your online value proposition. This is what is going to determines the reason why your visitors will click on that affiliate link and buy from you. If you need more of an explanation then CLICK HERE as this site will explain it and give you perfect examples.
- Figure out your brands positioning according to your previous research. You’ll need to come up with your logo, your tag-line and find out what makes you or your product stand out. The main thing here is to find out who would buy from you and why. This helps you figure out exactly who you need to target.
- You need to figure out your brand or websites main message. This is where you need to clearly define what sets you apart from everyone else selling the same thing. You need to come up with something that speaks directly to your target groups.
- Figure out which marketing channels you want to use. The easiest way to figure this out is to look at where your competition is. Are they using ppc or seo to obtain natural rankings? Are they buying banner ad placements on related websites? The list goes on. But if you see that they are advertising here or there then there’s a good chance that it’s working for them. If it didn’t they wouldn’t stick it out. Make notes of the channels they are using to determine if those would work for you.
- Choose the keyword bundles (as in more than one keyword) that will give you the best chance of reaching your ideal target market.
- Now take your competition digging research and narrow that down to the three biggest players. Follow them everywhere they go. Take notes of what they are doing, where they are advertising, how they are selling. Study that info. Your goal here is to find out what you can do better than they are to give you the edge. Find out what wins the customer!
- Now once you start getting the customers you need to come up with a plan to keep them happy and keep them buying from you. This is known as customer retention. If you build a raving audience it will make your life and job so much easier. Why? Because it’s much easier (and cheaper) to sell existing customers who are happy with you than it is to find brand new customers.
- After you’ve got all of that… It’s time to set up your roll out plan and execute your new found Digital Marketing Strategy! Now all that’s left is to do is to do it!
- Figure out your sales projections. You need to know what to expect. Don’t set your sales projections to high at first. It takes time to build up.
- Next, figure out your budget. I don’t think I have to go into too much detail here because this is common sense. It takes money to make money - but don’t overspend to lose it or just break even.
- Set financial goals for your business. Without goals you have nothing to strive for. Just make sure you are turning profit. Once you hit one goal set your next one a bit higher.
So now you’ve got the plan – Show me the money!
As I mentioned earlier… most people who submitted their request wanted to hit the $100 a day mark on a consistent basis.
Truth is, after you start getting that first “hundo”, it’s just as easy to get to two, three, four hundred a day. It’s not going to come overnight, but you can get there.
And there is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that your visitors don’t see. I’m talking about work! You may not have to do it all yourself if you outsource, but you still have to work.
After your site goes live you still have to do all the technical stuff like building backlinks, page optimization, adding content… You know plug away at it.
The first bit of traffic to a new site or business can be a little discouraging to say the least. It probably won’t be the flood you were expecting and that can bring you down. Don’t let it! It’s normal.
Just keep going.
… but there is a way for you to determine how much traffic you need to hit your marks and get your $100 dollars a day.
First of all, if you are promoting something on an affiliate network where you have a manager, don’t be afraid to talk to your affiliate manager and ask them what their top offers are, how they are converting, how are the top affiliates for that product promoting the offer, what channels of advertising they are using. Your A.M.’s want you to make money because when you make money, they make money. If you can develop a relationship with them then they will spill the beans openly with you every single time.
So for the sake of this example we will use a popular niche here – photography. The product will be a budget friendly digital camera…
Let’s assume that the camera sells for $120 bucks. You’ll get $20 dollars commission on every sale you make. Remember, this is just an example.
From here all you need to do is crunch some numbers…
Since you get $20 on every sale, you would need 5 sales a day to hit your $100 dollars a day goal. Just FIVE sales! If you drive enough traffic or at least the right amount of targeted traffic you can make five sales a day.
Let’s also assume that the average conversion rate is 2%. That simply means that all you need to get is 300 targeted visitors to your site to get 5 people to buy! Let me say that again… Only 300 people! And technically, with a 2% conversion rate on 300 visitors you will actually make 6 sales. So you’ll make $120 a day. That’s better than you thought, huh?
… but not only that… if you only got 50 visitors a day to your site, you’ll still make one sale a day. 50 targeted visitors is super easy! This is actually a worst case scenario because if you did your digging correctly you should be able to do better than one sale.
Boom! There’s your starting point.
Remember when I said to talk to your affiliate manager if you have one? That’s where this come into play.
It’s so much easier to tweak and scale an already profitable site than it is to start a new one from scratch. If your site it performing well then you need to scale it. You can always do things to make it better or add a new strategy.
Get on the phone and give your AM a ring.
Ask them to give you anything they can to help you improve conversions. If you are already making money, they will see that and be more than happy to help you. Just ask what the best affiliates for that product are doing.
They will give you info like:
- They are using massive social proof on their sites and landing pages.
- Their squeeze pages are clean and direct to the point.
- The top producers are using content to make the sale.
- The top producers are using ppc ads from Facebook.
- ETC…
So that’s it…
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