Campaign Revamp

How many simultaneous campaigns is the norm?

I think for the newbie it has to be one. For me, it has to be one.

Right now I have one campaign in the sub-niche of weight loss and health. It is a handful enough, and with my a.d.d., it is more than enough to keep my attention for a long time.

So with this one campaign, I have done a lot (for me).

Here's what I've done:

• Written 20 Ezine articles
• Created 3 YouTube videos
• Wrote at least 20 other articles for other article sites
• Set up a landing page with an email sign-up list, offering a free PDF (To me, the landing page is the best looking one I have done)

With all these being done, I average almost 1 new visitor per day. I have 1 subscriber on my list.

There's really only two options here: either 1.) quit or 2.) try harder

So I've chosen number two. Plus, I am doing a bit of a revamp of my actual emails that I've sent out. I'm promoting a product and I barely have tried to sell it outside of a few mentions of it in two emails.

The past two weeks have been pretty terrible in terms of my work ethic. I finished working on this campaign and set back, thinking the money was going to roll in. It didn't. Can't say I'm shocked. But now it's time to move on.

So this week I am going to complete this entire process and then move on. If I don't get it done, it will still be finished. Period.

Well, this wasn't a very funny article. Eh, can't be funny all the time.

Stuck in the Mud

I'm flat out stuck.

I was chugging along, thinking that I had bought my tickets to success-ville. I could see the 5-figure checks from Clickbank in a couple months, easy...

The problem is, shit gets tough when you are doing stuff you are not used to. Err, I mean shit gets tough when you need to start backlinking and don't know how.

Well, that or you are too scared to try. Like me.

Here's what I see backlinking to be:

*Commenting on relevant blogs

*Bookmarking yourself on Reddit or Digg or whatever

That's about it, right?

Well I'm sure any experienced IM-er is probably shouting a big “NO! YOU IDIOT! THERE'S MORE TO IT THAN THAT!” but to be honest I have yet to really search for more information to really find out how to go about doing so.

Maybe I could read an ebook, sure. But it seems to me that it will need some strategic fact-finding on the forum and maybe a bit on the old google.

It's odd to say but I have a hard time trusting stuff I find on the front page of Google. Well at least for IM. For example, let's say I search for “backlinking basics” and click on the first link backlinkingbasics.com. It is pretty much a site someone threw up there to put ads and maybe some affiliate links. This tends to be the norm, no big surprise to anybody reading this. But sorting through all that info-sludge is exhausting.

So learning takes a bit of time. Time that is very precious. I guess it might be a matter of doing a better job searching for the answers then it is to just putting in a lot of mindless action that might not work.

Ah, the learning curve. Fuck yeah!

A Tough Go of It

Start, stop.  Motivated, deflated.  Confident, lost.

This journey has been absolutely fucking crazy.  I imagine one day that I could write a book about how completely odd it is that I became a success, because my approach is so weird and off the wall and I am absolutely the opposite of the type of person who is successful at this.

I have terrible focus.  I've got like 3 million goals.  I have committment issues.  I spread myself too thin.

But yet I've learned how to get here.  I've learned to stick with it.  I have learned that you have to look stupid for a bit before you are called a pro.  I've always learned that there is nothing you can't do.  Period.

I don't care about the arguments saying that there are limits on what we're capable of, or how certain people just "have it" and I don't.  Let's stop debating.

Instead, I would like to recognize that if you really want something, you will get it.  You can achieve success at whatever thing you want, but you have to have that burning desire.

So, maybe I am having a tough go of it right now.  But I have enough desire to see it through.

When The Going Gets Tough...

...Chuck Norris tells you that you are a pussy for being weak.  Then he roundhouse kicks you in the face.

In this spirit I can't help but ask all my followers (all three of you): how do you get through the rough patches (when the going gets tough)?

You know what I mean.  Think of these scenarios:

1. You haven't made any increase in money (or none at all)
2. Life crisis (death of family member, break up, etc.) makes it hard to focus or consistently learn and work on InMa (Internet Marketing).
3. You just feel a lack of motivation in general for whatever reason.

Outside of reading Chuck Norris quotes, I have found that sticking with it through any type of problem has been the key to still being here.  The process isn't fancy, but when I feel a lack of motivation, I simply show up and even if it's shitty work (like my last blog post) I still plow through it.

Fuck perfection.  That shit is a fallacy with a capital 'F'.  So, Fallacy.

I don't know any other way to phrase it.

My friend, who got me started in all this crap told me how that way you succeed is to literally stick with it through everything.  The people who do this are the guys and gals who are there when the dust settles, holding the wads of cash.

It isn't the smartest ones, it's the ones who had the most motivation to stick with it through thick and thin.

My cheesy-motivational-rant-o-meter is starting to go off so I will end this post right here.

Peace bitches!

-Andy

P.S. I apologize to Chuck Norris for even writing anything about motivational problems and pussy things of that nature.  Please have mercy.

How To Be a Good InMa-er!



HOWDY

Well gull dernit, let's learn today how to be a gooder InMa-er.  I done told ya before it's a real hoot!

Well, where do we begin?

Since I am not making any money online right now, I guess I'll have to end it here.

Soooo, instead, can I tell you what I think leads to eventually making money online anyway?  I'll assume you're saying 'yes' because you are still reading this.

Well, for me, it will be not quitting.  And showing up.

I am utterly convinced that I can overcome all the learning, the tactics and strategies, etc. because no one who currently makes an income online is any smarter than anyone else.

This is my conviction.

I can't stress enough that it is utterly hilarious that some dweeb like me is writing about this but I have a feeling it will make more sense in the future as I look back on it.

Or not.  Which will be even funnier.

Please mock me if that's the case.

Big ups people!


-Andy

Why More Than 2 Years Has Produced 0 Sales

It's hard to write a title like the one you see above. Massively sobering.

But hey, whatever, it is what it is.

It was literally August 2008 when I decided to pursue Internet Marketing (could we make this a cooler acronym, like InMa or something? I'm going to lobby hard for this one) as a source of full time income and I have "stuck with it" since then.

Duh, WINNING!

Although I'd have to say, when you "stick with" something, it usually means you have had some measure of success. In all matters of the sense, I have had none. ZIP. So yeah, pretty sobering.

On the surface, that statement can say a lot of things about me and about Internet Marketing. You could say that InMa is a fraud, that it's a scam that proves you should never get into this. Or that I am a lazy bastard who needs to pull myself up by my bootstraps, be disciplined and work harder.  Or I'm delusional (ala Charlie Sheen).

But the fact is all of that is all wrong.

These factors have all contributed to my lack of success:

• Taking a 6 month break
• Buying too many products with no action
• Not following the 80/20 principle (eloquently explained here)
• Thinking that long hours of work is better then less but more focused hours of work.
• Not being proactive enough when it comes to pursuing different InMa strategies. (The only thing I did was article marketing with an affiliate landing page. I tried email marketing for a smidge, but didn't really do much else)
• Didn't focus on having a life outside InMa. No balance.
• Never taking the courage to make my own product.
• Spending way too much time on trivial things. (For example I spent a week figuring out how to get a PO Box and registering for a business tax id. Why this took a week I have no clue, but they are both completely trivial.)
• Checking Clickbank 5+ times/day
• Checking Google Analytics 5+ times/day
• Spending more time reading through forums than time spend putting advice into action (a very common problem as you may know)
• Watching too much porn (Haha just kidding. Pat yourself on the back for paying attention thus far.)
• Having no system for organization whatsoever. Files littered my desktop in a flurry of documents.
• Signing up for 20 mailing lists.
• And probably eighteen trillion other things I am forgetting or can't name.

And all these factors are easily avoidable.

You can argue that some of these are completely unimportant or whatever, but the fact is I have had zero sales (ZERO SALES, seriously), so something I am doing is not working.

Also, I can't tell you how to avoid these factors as you have your own life with your own set of challenges, and I don't believe some wishy washy motivation alquote like "If you believe in it, you'll achieve it!" will make you achieve your InMa goals any better. But seeing some of my issues can hopefully help you realize where you may be going wrong.

Me, ZERO SALES Guy

And more importantly, who am I (zero sales guy) to tell anybody anything about successful internet marketing strategies?

Actually, that's a great question, who am I really to say that?

But the fact is I have the feather in my cap that I have stuck with it longer than anybody else would. I may have made a trillion mistakes when it comes to my work habits and strategies, but I'm still here and I am more encouraged then ever.

I tend to stay away from the overly serious diatribes on my blog here but this one is really a passionate cry to not worry about success over the process.

I love the process these days and all the success will coming rolling in.

Come join me, won't you?

-Andy

Email Marketing Is For Lovers

Yo yo yo, let's talk about some e-mail marketing.

Wow, so how weird is it to write emails to people you don't know, all the while not having a single person on your list to actually write to?

Ahh, I'm sure it get's less weird.

This is where you experienced marketers step in and tell me it gets better.  Go ahead, say it at the screen for me.

Actual Robot Subscriber

Ah there ya go.

Anywho, about a year ago, before I took a break from Internet Marketing, I was messing around with Aweber and attempting all sorts of things. Back then I had a few different sites that were literally terrible. It was awful. I believe I had one subscriber, which I'm pretty sure was a robot.

Fast forward to now and I am starting this learning process all over again.

Learning what to put in emails.  Learning how to make a webform.  Learning how to use Aweber.  

Basic stuff, really. But, just when you think you know something, you have to learn something else.

So fast forward to now again and I have 2 subscribers (within 2 days) and I was jumping with glee. And I'm pretty sure they are real people! Yay!

Although writing emails to strangers is not my forte, I do feel it getting better each time. At this point I have written three emails, one with real value, the other two containing a free report I made.

The kicker: I have no affiliate offers in there. YET.

So that's my next step.

You know, it would be so much easier if I had someone telling me exactly how to do all this email stuff. But it really wouldn't be so damn interesting. Or fun.

Alright IM-er's, as usual, get to work.

-Andy

Follow Me on The Tweeter thing