The Powerful Basics by Michael Badger - HTML preview

© Copyright 2007 Michael Badger LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express written, dated and signed permission from the author.

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DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: The information presented herein represents the view of the author as of the date of publication. Because of the rate with which conditions change, the author reserves the right to alter and update his opinion based on the new conditions. The report is for informational purposes only. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided in this report, neither the author nor his affiliates/partners assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any slights of people or organizations are unintentional. If advice concerning legal or related matters is needed, the services of a fully qualified professional should be sought. This report is not intended for use as a source of legal or accounting advice. You should be aware of any laws which govern business transactions or other business practices in your country and state. Any reference to any person or business whether living or dead is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

What is This Report………………………………………………………….3 The Potential of This Report…………………………………………………4 The Power of eBay – part 1…………………………………………………..6 Opt-In e-Mail Marketing…………………………………………………….11 Affiliate Marketing – part 1………………………………………………….16 Bum Marketing………………………………………………………………19 Affiliate Marketing – part 2………………………………………………….22 Create an e-Book for Distribution…………………………………………....25 Freelance Writing…………………………………………………………….30 Viral Marketing via Managed Membership Site……………………………..34 eBay – part 2………………………………………………………………….39 Building Traffic………………………………………………………………41

What Is This Report?

This report is freely available to members of MichaelBadger.com. As of the writing of this report, anyone can join MichaelBadger.com for free and in the process receive a free monthly income. This may sound unbelievable, but the free money is being offered in a legal and legitimate way. All you have to do is signup and you too can receive a portion of the free money.

Part of the goal of MichaelBadger.com is to introduce as many people as possible to the very powerful and profitable world of Internet Marketing. By offering “free money” we are hoping to generate a significant buzz and thereby put in the hands of as many people as possible this very valuable information.

This report is meant to serve as a primary introduction to Internet Marketing. More than anything it is designed to get you thinking in ways that you may not have considered before.

We hope you enjoy this report and put some of the strategies described into action. Come visit us at MichaelBadger.com for more information or to sign up for your own free monthly income.

The Potential of This Report

Without hype or the slightest exaggeration, the Internet is the single largest economic gateway the world has ever known. Never before has it been so easy for a person to generate revenue from their own home and attain financial independence. And yes, examples like Yahoo, Google, and eBay are the superstars of the e-world, the Internet still presents anyone with a computer and access to the web the potential to make exponential profit.

Of course, with any new medium come new rules, procedures, and a host of undiscovered problems to overcome. By now we are all aware that the DotCom bubble burst and took millions of investors and thousands of businesses down with it. Are there risks on the Internet today for someone looking to go into business for themselves? Of course there are—but is there a risk that your job could be outsourced tomorrow or the entire company relocated to Asia?

Quite simply, this report is not intended to mislead the reader into believing that there are not genuine risks associated with any long-term business venture— because there will always be risks and they are what creates the potential for profit. This report will not promise that the reader can make millions with only an hour or two of effort each day like many of the sales pages you see on the web today. So what does this report promise for the reader?

This report promises that generating an extra $1000 per month is a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to the potential of making money on the Internet. Millions of people are hopping online for their first time every year, adding to the already massive market created by the Internet. While risk is associated with any legitimate business opportunity, accurate information helps lower those risks and improve your odds of success.

In this report, you will find some of the basic principles that thousands of people all over the world are using successfully to create additional income on the Internet. The principles behind every one of these methods can be replicated over and over again—and thus have the potential to evolve from mere revenue streams to become a significant e-business with repeat customers and an expanding client base.

Very often when you create a revenue stream on the Internet, that revenue stream will continue to flow even when you have moved on and stopped giving it your time and resources. As Internet marketers we create systems that can potentially flow income into our bank accounts for many years. So, as you become more experienced as an Internet marketer your income may grow just due to the fact that you have been working for some time. One huge but very attainable goal is to be lying on the beach in the Bahamas for as long as you want without the fear that your income streams will dry up.

Reading this report could very well become a defining moment in your life when you stop thinking “defensively” about your career (“will I lose my job to outsourcing?”) and begin the offensive towards financial independence and security.

The initial goal of an extra $1000 per month can certainly be accomplished if you put any of the strategies described here to work. However, we would challenge you to set your goals much higher than that. The Internet is perhaps the biggest market in the world and it just so happens to cater best to the needs of the individual business owner. Never before has there been such an extraordinary possibility of building financial independence with little to no start-up costs. See the possibilities, implement these strategies, get excited about this work because honestly it is just a lot of fun, and you could be on your road to financial freedom!

The Power of eBay
Part I

With millions of visitors each day and cars, dining sets, jewelry, and even advertising space being sold on a pregnant woman’s belly, EBay is a crowning success on the Internet and proof positive of its astounding potential for profit and opportunity. Of course, there are literally hundreds of detailed books out there promising to help one and all make big profits selling their “gently used” household items and collectibles. This report will not pretend to go into the detail of any of these other resources but will provide the reader with an overview of the auction side of the eBay business along with tips and strategies to help optimize success.

Cold Hard Facts About eBay
Make no mistake about it—the idea of making money from the comfort and privacy of your home is very alluring. So, when someone hears that they can take a picture of their old unwanted items and sell them to the highest bidder to the point of perhaps even quitting their job and doing so full-time—well, many of us leap before really thinking it through.

Inflated Profit Myth
One of the biggest mistakes made by new sellers to the eBay scene is to overestimate the amount of profit made from every sale. In truth, the profit would be the difference between what was originally paid for the auctioned item and what it sold for (not including any potential profit from shipping).

However, many believe since they never plan to replace the items they are selling all proceeds from the sale are therefore profit. A self-destructive cycle begins. At the end of the day, a business must generate a product or perform some type of service. Unless there is a structured plan to continually obtain more products to sell for profit, your home will eventually be empty and your cash flow will come to a screeching halt.

Successful eBay Auction Strategies to Reach Your Financial Goal

Niche Market
To raise capital to start up your business, you will most likely auction off clothes, sporting equipment, old doll collections…etc. But when you have sold your items, packaged and shipped them off safely, and received your money—what do you then invest in as new products to sell?

The Internet and the search engines that essentially guide people through the Information Superhighway are great at getting buyers to the products they want. However, to make more money on eBay or in any Internet Marketing venture—you need to concentrate on a specific niche. This will help you save money because you can lump lower end products together in a “lot” sale. Plus, by consistently selling products from the same niche, it will be easier to standardize processes, vendors, and to become a true expert in your field.

Now there are really two ways to choose a niche market: with your heart or with your head. If you love antique furniture then it would be perfectly natural to want to sell items from this large niche. However, antiques and furniture are not the most popular categories and they can be big items in your inventory—failing to make a sale or two may cause a cash flow crunch or you may even take a large loss. It can sometimes be more difficult to maintain objectivity and make sound business decisions when you develop a personal attachment to the merchandise.

To help you find your niche, you may want to visit http://pulse.ebay.com. From this page, you can discover the most popular item searches any day to see what is currently being searched for more than anything else. While you may not want or be able to sell those particular items, you should be able to see a trend or dominant category. For instance, the most popular items searched on eBay when this report was written include:

1. PS3 2. wii
3. Playstation 3 7. iPod
4. Nintendo 8. PSP
5. Xbox360 9. iPod Nano
6. TMX Elmo 10. Apple iPod

As you can see, the entertainment electronics genre is a very, very popular category right now with some dominant sub-niches developing. However, if you wanted to follow your passion and sell antique furniture, you could also check on Pulse to find the most popular search terms relating to that category as well. So it is a very useful tool in both finding your niche and learning more about your market. The important thing to remember is that the Internet naturally favors the creation of niches so you need to specialize early on—no matter what!

Writing Sales Copy
There is a distinctive difference between copy writing for print…and crafting copy for the Internet. To get the maximum number of people to view your product and potentially place a bid—you need to write descriptive copy that is accurate and keyword rich—especially the title.

What you really need to understand about eBay in order to get the most people to view your object, increase the bidding pool, and ultimately drive up traffic—is the words those potential customers are using to find your product. Using the same Pulse feature, you can determine the best keywords to use when creating your ad for the product. It is especially important to use the keyword in the headline or title but don’t be afraid to look at other ads selling similar products for inspiration and to borrow some good ideas! The copy needs to be descriptive, accurate, and keyword rich in order to be able to pull potential bidders in and possibly boost your profits.

Consistently Reinvest in Business
If you are only looking to make some quick cash once while cleaning out your attic, then there is no need to reinvest your profits. But, if you want to create a sustainable and ongoing eBay business you will want to reinvest at least a portion of your initial earnings to set up and run your business. A few of the common necessities of most Internet businesses, including eBay auctioneers, include:

• Accounting/Tax Software
• Server/Other Computer Hardware and Equipment
• Office Supplies
• Increased Office Space

If you were an eBay auctioneer who specialized in refinishing/repairing old antique furniture and then reselling it for a profit, then you would possibly invest in tools and equipment related to that activity. The point here is that for tax deductions and the possibility of building the business to a higher, more consistent level, you must reinvest a significant portion of your profits.

Ultimately, your determination and consistent hard work will pay off and you will start building a solid reputation as an honest and dependable business. Eventually in order to grow your business even further, you will want to market your products or services in venues outside of eBay. Ideally, diversification will become a priority as you look to grow the business through new revenue streams that help solidify your financial foundation.

Yes, you can make $1000 or more per month on eBay selling off collectibles, furniture, and other unneeded items that have accumulated over the years. Your initial cost would include the Insertion Fees ($4.80) and another $25 or so in Final Value Fees (you are assessed 5.25% on the first $25 of the final sale price and then 3.25% on the remaining amount). Other fees and/or costs that may eat into your bottom line include:

• Paypal or other merchant account fees
• Electronic transfer fees by your bank
• Buy It Now Fees
• Seller Tool Fees
• eBay Picture Service Fees
• Listing Upgrade Fees
• Reserve Fees

eBay does indeed offer a lot of bells that can really wreak havoc on your bottom line but the basic listing service, a compelling ad with relevant keywords, and a little hard work is all you should need to successfully start your eBay business. Remember, this is not actual profit in the classic sense but you could use that money to secure more merchandise and begin establishing yourself as a legitimate force to reckon with….or, you could go out and splurge on something you don’t really need and return back to your job the following day no closer to financial independence.

Six million people visit eBay every day and you really can turn your old unwanted things, a computer, digital camera, and an Internet connection into a sustainable and growing home-based business. Most people, however, just use it to raise a little extra “mad money” and fail to realize the true potential…will you?

Opt-In e-Mail Marketing

Most of us already know about opt-in marketing because we have subscribed to some service or wanted to learn more about some product or service being offered on the Internet. In many cases, we simply ignore these e-mails because we really don’t need their product or service any longer and perhaps not even when we gave out our e-mail address. So, if we ourselves have signed up and given our e-mail address in return for the use of some service or to receive free information or products—but then not been inclined to even read any of the subsequent e-mails—then why should we be inclined to think that we could possibly make $1000 per month using the same dysfunctional system?

Like any proven and effective system or strategy, there will always be the extremes. Essentially, opt-in e-mail marketing is truly the most effective means to receive qualified leads via a precision marketing effort—when done properly. Unfortunately, many marketers have gone with the “size matters” approach and built massive lists of names and then deluged them continually with autoresponder email messages that were poorly crafted and not targeted to any specific market. Thus, they were watered down and alienated their potential audience. Typically, using the “shotgun” approach with a huge list might get someone a 1% conversion rate on actual sales.

However, it is possible to make the same number of sales using a list of 1,000 names as someone using a massive list of 100,000. Many website owners, however, decide that copywriting is the key while ignoring the most obvious reason for low conversion rates: the product or service is being marketed to the wrong people! To be successful and to have any chance of making $1000 in a month—you need to have a targeted list of names. But how do you get this list of targeted names? Before you can even think about getting together a list for an opt-in email marketing campaign, you need two things:

1. A product or service with real value (if you currently don’t have anything to sell, then becoming an affiliate on some site like Clickbank.com is a fast way to secure a legitimate and valuable product to market) in a targeted niche market

2. To Know Who Your Potential Customers Are
a) Who is your ideal customer?
b) What do they like? What do they hate?
c) What are they expecting or looking for when buying this

product or service?

The first half of the battle in any successful opt-in e-mail marketing campaign is the message or the actual content of the copy writing. You need to know your customers and be able to communicate to them using their language and addressing their needs. This will help you craft more effective copy and develop a true rapport with your potential and future customers.

The second half of the battle—the one that most people struggle with and fail because of—is building that list of targeted leads. Some people opt to build a list using pay-per-click. Yes, you can definitely build that list using this option but it can be expensive and the leads do not tend to be nearly as targeted as you would hope. Creating a new website with a sign-up offer is another option but that could turn out to be an expensive proposition that may still end in failure if the market is too competitive. A joint venture would probably be the ideal answer to your list dilemma but how many people want to cut loose with a truly targeted list of names without wanting the moon in return?

The Power of Co-Registration
If you want to make $1000 or more very quickly then you are going to need an effective list filled with people likely to buy your product or service. Fortunately, there are reputable businesses out there that provide a means to secure your list: co-registration.

Essentially, co-registration allows you to buy subscribers and thus build your list—fast!! There are some services that create specialized lists through a process of screening and thus provide clients with certain customer “types”—or those likely to buy a product or service from a specific niche.

A co-registration service gathers their list of subscribers in the following manner: when a customer signs up to receive information from a particular website, that customer is presented with a selection of other lists that they can choose to subscribe to at the same time. The customer selects only the lists that they are interested in joining, and is then subscribed to all of the lists simultaneously. The co-registration company therefore ends up with a list of subscribers who have already expressed interest in receiving information pertaining to a particular niche.

You can secure qualified leads from a co-registration service for as little as $.15 each. That is as much as you might pay for some keywords on Google Adwords but for a far more concentrated and focused list of names!

Co-registration allows you to focus your marketing efforts on those most likely to buy your products or services—all you need to do is identify who your customers are and then concentrate all your efforts on the conversions. While not everyone who opts in will eventually buy your products, those who give their e-mail addresses have at least indicated they had an interest and therefore might be likely to buy some later product down the road—so always keep that list because it truly is the value in any e-commerce venture!

To recap, here is what you need to do in order to make $1000 per month using opt-in e-mail marketing:

• Identify your niche market and secure/create products or services to fulfill the needs of your market. Tighter, more targeted niche markets are ideal and will give you the best chance for profits using opt-in e-mail marketing.
• Convert your landing page into a squeeze page (a squeeze page is a one-page website that will give an information product away as a free gift in order to convince people to give them their e-mail address) to compel visitors to “optin” in order to receive a free gift or some form of incentive
• Find a co-registration service that meets your needs and secure a list of qualified leads
• Create a series of direct e-mails (autoresponders) using conversational copy writing. Continue to tweak and hone the language until the conversion rates are acceptable.

For ongoing success, you want to continually develop new products and material that offers a true benefit to people on your list. You don’t need to send out e-mails every other day to keep your list relevant and filled with people still interested in your particular niche—1 or 2 emails per month is sufficient if they are well written and contain true benefits to the reader.
At its very simplest, opt-in e-mail marketing boils down to building a list of people interested in your particular niche—and then developing and nurturing that relationship by sending out e-mails periodically that provide useful information while selling your business.

If you are going to use email marketing as your main business, or even if it is a secondary stream of income and your main focus is on something else, it is essential that you use a high quality autoresponder company to manage your subscriber list. This will ensure that you won’t run into legal problems related to spam complaints, your messages will actually get through to your customers, and you will be able to set up an unlimited number of marketing email campaigns.

One of the top companies in the industry is Aweber Communications. They are very widely used by Internet marketers, and we use them as well. We cannot recommend them highly enough. You can get more information on Aweber Communications by following this link: Aweber Communications

Is it possible to make $1000 per month with opt-in e-mail marketing? Yes!! With a useful and relevant product or service, an effective series of targeted e-mails, and the use of a reputable co-registration service to secure a list of qualified leads—you can indeed make $1000 or much more per month on the Internet!

Affiliate Marketing
Part I

Affiliate marketing can sometimes appear to be too good to be true and there are many who fail miserably at generating revenue using this method. Unfortunately, only one fifth of affiliate marketers generate four-fifths of all the revenue leaving just 20 percent for everyone else to fight over. While this may not appear to be a very good route to take when trying to make $1000 in a month, the truth is that you can succeed using this method. This first section on affiliate marketing was written in particular for website owners who already sell products to boost their revenue by an additional $1000 per month or more using affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing Basics
The premise behind affiliate marketing for those who already have a website is very simple: you sell related but not competing products on your website as an affiliate and in return you receive a commission (which can range all the way up to 75% in some cases but it is more common to see the commission in the 25-50% range). For instance, if you ran a website selling fireplace screens, you might become an affiliate for someone selling basket holders, candelabras, and other products that relate to your site but do not directly compete with it. Every time someone linked over to the other site and made a purchase, you would receive the agreed upon commission—simple as that!

Clickbank is a very popular site to find affiliate opportunities that can create new revenue streams and boost profits dramatically. The site specializes in e-books and other information products so there is little chance of them directly competing for your sales. This site can also help you identify trends in the market as well as niche topics to concentrate upon. However, Clickbank is just one site and there are literally thousands of affiliate opportunities out there that could enhance your online presence, increase sales, and enhance the professional image of your enterprise. To successfully boost revenue by $1000 in a month, make certain to do the following:

Choose Products with Care: Since affiliate marketing means that visitors to your site are being directed to another that you personally recommend, be sure that those products/services are reputable and confer a true benefit upon the visitor. Otherwise, your own traffic will begin to suffer along with your sales. Successful affiliate marketing requires the trust of your visitors so don’t allow high commission rates to affect your better judgment—only recommend products that you would personally use and find benefit from.
Testimonial: If you are going to be putting your reputation on the line, then be sure to “sample the goods” before placing your stamp of approval and creating an affiliate link. If the product does not deliver on the promises made in the sales copy—run, don’t walk! There are thousands of great products and services out there that you can choose to promote. Don’t ever be swayed in your judgment by a high affiliate commission. Always think from your customer’s perspective first and foremost!
Cloak Affiliate Links: Research has proven that visitors are much less likely to click on your link if they see it is leading to an affiliate program (maybe they feel they can get a better deal or more information by going to the site directly). There are a number of services and programs that will help you hide your URL so be sure to use one before placing the link.
Create Monthly Newsletter: Anything that enhances your site with useful, relevant content will ultimately help your affiliate sales. Creating a newsletter that your customers are eager to read will earn you their trust and support. Trust is a key element to making affiliate sales.
Become an Expert: Related to the advice above, this simply relates to your site being viewed as a reliable source of accurate information about a particular topic or niche. If your site appears gimmicky or is filled with a bunch of high-intensity and hyped sales pages, then traffic will begin to disappear and the spiders will consider your site to be less relevant. Keeping your site loaded with SEO content that is both useful and accurate is essential to establishing and maintaining a su