eBay? Free Advertising?
Ok, so technically an auction listings cost 35 cents… But one sale can easily make you a profit, and you’re allowed to sell
nine of the same product in one auction at that price… So this is one exception I’m going to keep in this book because it’s really BETTER than free, all things considered.
So where does the Advertising part come in?
Simply place an information package of some kind, even if it’s just an article on your niche, and sell that infoproduct in an extremely cheap auction listing. Most people sell these things for 1 penny, although the difference between 1 cent and 35 cents really isn’t that much of a difference to the buyers looking for this information.
Naturally there are no other costs like shipping or insurance, because delivery is a simple digital download. Further advertising is up to you, and it is always a matter of just giving eBay some additional fees to make your listing stand out more. If your listing is profiting, try starting the next listing as a “Gallery item” for another 35 cents, and go up from there until you’ve reached a point of maximum returns.
Here’s the great part about this tactic: The winner of the listing’s email address is automatically sent to you via email, through eBay itself. Sell a bunch of those info packets, and you’ve built yourself one of your industry’s most targeted lists!
Don’t feel too left out if you haven’t mentally joined these two concepts together before now. Not too many people have, unless they bought the secret from someone on eBay themselves.
The fact is that eBay already has the lion’s share of traffic, and more importantly, of people in the purchasing mindset. Compare this to Google’s Traffic, which is composed of people in the “researching” mindset. It’s not hard to imagine why serious marketers prefer eBay’s traffic to Google’s Traffic!
Advertising on eBay is as simple as being there in the first place, using a few well-searched keywords. Finding those keywords isn’t too difficult either; all you really have to do is search for expired listings and sort by the price. This way you’ll easily see which auctions recently got the most money in your niche, and then all you have to do is model your campaign like theirs, listing your product under the same category!
Drawbacks?
Although the Delivery Time and the Quality of the traffic is world class, the Quantity is not infinite… It depends on your niche, of course, but the competition on eBay can be fierce as new auctions will be placed above older ones all the time. Still, with people happy to search keywords you’ve still got a good chance of being found even between the first day or the last few minutes of the auction.
Effectiveness in drawing a large amount of traffic all depends on how good your auction’s sales copy is. Luckily, you can model your auction off others that have done well in the past.
Make no mistake about it; selling infoproducts on eBay is a world-class listbuilding strategy. That’s about all there is to it, but most people overlook this very powerful way of building your list because it seems too awkward, or they don’t want to take the time to put an info-packet together.
If you sell a product online, then you’ve got to face the fact eventually that this is some of the most targeted, “buyer-frenzied” traffic that exists. If you’re not using this tactic, then you’ll not only be depriving your business of a constant stream of better-than-free advertising, but you’ll also be missing out on a large source of clients that you aren’t likely to be able to reach otherwise.
The fact is that everybody eBays nowadays. That’s why I can use eBay as a verb! In fact I’ve seen a statistic recently that showed $14 of every $100 spent online, worldwide, is spent through eBay now, and this number is still growing! It is clearly the single biggest mover of money on the planet.
People from ALL walks of life can be found there, right when they have their credit cards in hand looking to spend… I don’t even know of another source of traffic that comes close!
When used correctly, you can build up a niche market list on any topic with this technique, and reach an unprecedented 50% or more of that market over time.So, you wondered why I didn’t try to sell all the valuable information in this eBook, did you? The fact is that eBooks almost can’t be sold anymore, because every marketer and their uncle has penned at least one eBook lately and given it away!
Why would we do this? Well, it’s the same principle as Article Marketing, except that it builds more brand recognition and is much more dynamic. For instance, you’ve probably noticed an affiliate link or two throughout this PDF document. Some authors write these eBook just as a way to spread their Affiliate links alone. Some even pay a team of ghost-writers to crank out a bunch of eBooks for them to do just that, on a larger scale!
The most common use of eBooks nowadays and one that still works wonderfully for most niches outside of Internet Marketers is offering a free eBook in exchange for your visitor’s eMail address. Like eBay, it’s a great source of targeted traffic. That’s it - you basically just bribe people to get on your list.
There’s nothing wrong with this tactic, it works. It’s not like you’re misleading anyone, either. Most of them came to your site to find more information, and probably would have signed up for your newsletter anyway just to find what they were looking for.
The third and lesser-known, but more effective method of using eBooks, comes from combining them with Viral Marketing… Such as the product you are reading right now.
Unless you got an advanced copy of this eBook, many of the Affiliate links you saw here weren’t my own. My primary objective when writing this eBook was to get visitors to my website and build up brand recognition for Surefire Success… Keeping control of all the affiliate links in it would have been a nice stream of income for me, but the book would not likely have gotten into your hands, as I wouldn’t be offering an incentive to other marketers to pass this around. I explain this tactic more in depth under “Viral Marketing.”
An obvious drawback is that it can be slow to get going. However, it doesn’t have to be. If your book is really good and offers a great incentive, (like I hope this one does) then more and more affiliates will send it out, and technically you could build up a huge list in no time that way.
Using JV Partners (see “Joint Ventures”) is a great way to launch your eBook for that purpose. If you can offer it to a bunch of big-list owners to send out to their lists, their main incentive will be the revenue from your affiliate links in the document they send.
Also, don’t be discouraged at all from making an ebook because it seems hard to write or compile one. I understand that most people don’t have a PDF writer software, so they think that making an eBook will cost them money or even be something difficult to learn. –Nothing could be further from the truth though!
PDFs are so well integrated into the business world now, that there are dozens of ways to make your MS-Word document into a PDF document, and it will look and work just as good as it would if you composed it with expensive Adobe software. I even made a film showing you just how to do it:How to Convert an MS Word Doc Into a PDF for Free I hope that helps… Now all you have to do is start writing.
If you’ve been marketing online more than a minute, I’m sure you’ve been bombarded with the phrase “the Money’s in the List.” Well it’s 90% true. It doesn’t end there; you still have to work at it. Keep giving to your list once you sign them up, much like a one-sided relationship.
If you ask any of the subscribers to my own list, I hope that they tell you I’ve been doing just that. So far, I haven’t had any more than one single unsubscribe, and I believe it is because my newsletter offers something for everyone, not just a new Advertisement each week. Anyone can send out a bunch of solo Ads from JV Partners and the affiliate programs that they’re pitching, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re interested in building a solid, trusting relationship with your subscriber base.
There are hundreds of places online that harvest email addresses, usually by some sort of co-registration, (where a person doesn’t even know he’s signing up for the second newsletter simultaneously) and will be glad to sell me a whole Solo Ad mailing allotment to that list of 200,000 or more for something like $50.
Sure, it sounds like a great deal, but what would it really get me? About 200,000 eMail boxes filled only with Ads that are no longer opened anymore.Why should these people read such eMail? Would you watch a TV channel that ONLY showed Ads?
The only way to make your own list profitable is to offer the same valuable content that you would in a product or informational website. If you are just looking for a quick product launch of one event, I don’t recommend an eZine for you at all. Owning any eZine list that is worth its weight in kilobytes is a long term process that requires plenty of upkeep. In that case, you should Joint Venture with lots of other eZine owners
The rewards are astounding, however. This is the only traffic method in this whole eBook that receives a perfect score. And yes, it is free to build and eMail your list regularly; there are many software email utilities and even autoresponders floating around for free. A good percentage of web host control panels now have them built into your hosting controls.
Naturally the hard part is the time it takes to build up the list. I give it a 5 out of 5 for delivery speed however because once you send out your email to the whole list, you can have thousands or even tens of thousands of people on your website in minutes. Nothing else in the whole IM arena can claim to do that.
Easily confused with Safelists, there are many eZine services that sell Solo Ad mailings to their big, loosely harvested lists, and sometimes they’ll even offer a free emailing just to get your business. Of course they want to sell you a much bigger eMailing down the road.
It is common to see an ad from a company that looks like a legitimate eZine “collector” company, offering a free Solo Ad submission to a list around the size of 5,000 – 50,000 recipients. I haven’t tested too many of these because of the hoops they make you jump through and the long lines you have to stand in.
In my experience, these companies have the power to collect and sort such a list out of their main, untargeted list and use it as described above in a sort of “bait & switch” routine.
I can’t verify if they all do business this way, but I have seen it happen more than once. The free mailing will go fine but you’ve got to buy a second mailing… So you choose a package, pay $67 or more for the mailing, and a month later when it’s your time to be featured, the much larger list doesn’t convert nearly as well as the little one did!
Let’s not overlook that you really have no way of knowing how many recipients got the email, or if they were safelist boxes, completely untargeted, etc… So any time you see the words “eMail your ad to 2,000,000 people for only $X,” just remember that there are many more than 2 million safelist email boxes online!
The only way to take advantage of this technique is to keep using the “little lists,” by jumping from service to service, never paying for a bigger mailing. However, there is usually a few weeks or more of waiting in line to get through each time, and from time to time an outright scam can occur.
One of the few times I attempted this I used PayPal to send the company $1 to “hold my place in line.” They said I’d even get the dollar back so I said ok, not even caring about the buck.
Three weeks later the 5,000 subscriber mailing went out, and I got a paltry 115 people to show up on my very closely targeted website. Naturally I wasn’t going to sign up for a bigger package, so I didn’t contact them again, not caring about the fate of my $1.
I won’t make that mistake again! Apparently their fine print said that the $1 was a “down payment” for the bigger solo ad later, and if I took no action within 30 days, my default package was the $89 Solo Ad to their 150,000 general subscriber list! My PayPal account was charged $88 a month later and I had no clue what it was for!
Getting out of these kinds of situations, especially when dealing with companies that don’t have a phone number, is just not worth anyone’s time. Making this technique work requires a lot of searching and a thick skin against hassles.
If you want to try your luck, however, simply google the phrases “Free eZine mailing” or “Free eZine Ad Blast.” You’ve been warned though. It’s a tough road.If you are determined to use eZines for advertising (there are many advantages, such as proven, targeted spenders) then I suggest paying for it. At least we now have a very helpful service called Amigo that lets you pay per clickthrough, so your ad budget is never wasted and can be monitored closely.
See “Safelists” and “Blasting” for more on this subject.