Who Would Have Thought

After over a year of not doing anything even close to this type of work, I started some SEO for my product's site last night. I set up the Linkmachine pages to automate the link exchanges and tonight the site will start doing to link gathering. One cool thing though. I did a run of the site in Sitereportcard.com. Two inbound links showed up in Google and one of them was a posting in a Yahoo Group or something of that nature by a person who said my site and newsletter were good=) Free publicity.

I'm still looking for more learning material on email marketing. If you have any sources to recommend, I'd love to hear it.

Couple of Sales

2 sales this weekend but that's all at the moment. This does demonstrate that the system does work. Thanks for the offer, Jean-Rene. I was able to finish adding a signature to each of my autoresponder messages that had a link to the product in it. At least now everytime they open an email from me, they will be reminded of my product.

I'm thinking it is time to start doing a split test on the sales page. Doing the split test for the Namesqueeze showed me that the one I had been using was seriously underperforming. Now it may be time to try to get a better sales page.

The reason I say maybe is because I think my lack of sales has more to do with poor impact on my list than anything else. If I had strong email marketing going then I should be able to squeeze a few more sales from my established base. The fact that the 2 sales this weekend were from PPC and not people already on the list brings me to this conclusion.

3 sales/day - $135.60 gross/day That is the goal.

Minor Setback

Apparently Google doesn't like popups=) Yeah, who would have thought. Anyway, I had to change the Course sign-up to a namesqueeze page to get back into Google's good graces. With all of the changes, I'm not sure if my tracking configuration is still accurate. I went back to look and see if it was but who knows.

I haven't had a sale in a long time and I'm hoping it is not due to the protection software I am using to keep people from stealing the product. Usually when I send out an email about the product I get a few sales but I had no response with the last one.

I'm thinking about getting a email marketing ebook to help me out. There has to be something worth reading on the subject out there.

Alright. I'm tired and need to sleep. It's only 8:25=(

Testing Begins

Some people say that you should develop your list and build a relationship with them so they see you as a friend. Others say that you get better results if you try to sell to them relentlessly - you're in this to make money afterall. Now is the time to find out which will work for my product.

The List
It is small but growing. 1500 strong. The task is to infuse each email that relates to something the reader would use my product for with mini-ads for said product. With 105 messages in the autoresponder, this is a serious task to accomplish. The marketing will be a softer approach than the next one. The List would represent the "buy from me because I'm your friend" method.

The Course
This autoresponder was developed today and has no members yet. Consisting of 10 hard hitting messages, this one is all about convincing them that they need my product. Rather than a Namesqueeze page, this course is offered through a newsletter sign-up popup. This may pose a problem as it will most likely have a lower subscription rate due to the popup.

The Adwords campaign has been set up for the course, however, the real traffic comes from the words I have been using to develop the list. I'm thinking that creating a split test would be best in this case. A being the Namesqueeze newsletter and B being the direct to sales page with the Course.

Let the games begin

Tracking in Place

I hope. I ran into some problems with getting Stuffed Tracker set up but I think I have it fixed now. I've cleared all of the data from the past few days and now it is really ready to tell me what is going on with my product's site.

I have a split test set up for the namesqueeze page to see which will bring in more subscribers. I also have a comparison report created to compare a namesqueeze and it's sales conversion to a direct to landing page with pop up configuration. This should be interesting.

Stuffed Tracker has a lot of options and it is fairly daunting to get it all flowing as you would like it to. There is just so much data that it can throw at you. It's a bit overwhelming.

I'm WAAAY Behind

Yeah, I am so far behind it isn't even funny. I have been doing work here and there but then the ice storm hit and I did not have access to my computer or my laptop. I bought the laptop so that I could work without the main computer and I left it at home before ths storm hit. I wasn't able to get back into my duplex until last night - 5 days later=) Anyway, I don't have to go into work until 10 so I've been working hard at getting the marketing ready to go for the product. It looks like I will have to push my goal of 3 sales/day back until the end of February.

Slow Work

The product is almost protected. I bought DLGuard to keep people from being able to steal my product. While the group I am marketing to is not likely to be savvy enough to steal it, others in the IM world would be so I decided to be safe. After hours of messing with it I think I may have it just about ready.

Tomorrow I will finish up the protection measures and then I will find some tracking software. I want this in place before I start hitting the sales page directly with PPC traffic. I'm thinking I need at least a 3% conversion rate before I can start recruiting affiliates. The tracking software will help me get there in a more systematic method than my trial and error approach.

Till tomorrow=)

Where'd the Weekend Go!?!

Yeah, this weekend flew by and I did not get to get into the hard work that I had wanted to for the product. It did bring in two sales this weekend though. More good news, the duplex is clean and unpacked for the most part. This means I can focus again and hit it hard with the product.

Tomorrow's goal - product protection and creating the PPC campaign

Real Estate

While messing around on the MLS, I found a duplex that would bring in a nice profit each month if my calcs are correct. I was planning on going to check it out today but I got tied up. I'll rerun the numbers and see what they look like again. I also need to start talking to banks again to see what I can qualify for in terms of 100% financing. My goal is to buy at least one rental property this year. Preferably two=)

Back From "Holiday"

"Holiday" as you international times put it=) And there is so much work to be done. This duplex is in rough shape. I tried connecting the washer and dryer last night and the valves from the house started leaking. This whole duplex thing has been a practice in due diligence. If you don't take it seriously, you WILL get burned. I have to admit my fingers are a bit singed at the moment=)

Sales have dried up. I need to get on my marketing strategy quickly. You'd think I'd jump on this since it really has the potential to get me out of the rat race but with my home in chaos, it is hard for me to focus. I'm sure you understand. Plus, the magic sales letter email that generated 3 sales was not transferred to my laptop before I left town so I was unable to incorporate it as a permanent part of my autoresponder.

Tonight I will try to get the duplex in order so that I can work on The Biz. Oh, last night I had dinner with some friends and my Biz came up in conversation. We started brainstorming and came up with an idea for a membership site. We will see out that goes.