UPDATE!

Our first member-only webinar was a smashing success! The lines were full and people enjoyed it even though we experienced some substantial technical challenges.

THE WEBINAR IS POSTED IN THE DOE MEMBER AREA NOW.

DOE members click here to log in.

More webinars to come!

—–

Today I am very pleased to announce a benefit of DOE membership literally years in the making!

Beginning August 16, 2010 I will be hosting a series of webinars for DOE members to teach them about Internet marketing and succeeding online! These webinars will cover ezine marketing of course, but we’re not going to stop there! We will be covering ALL aspects of Internet marketing, including copywriting, pay per click, cost per action and much more!

Now DOE members get a COMPLETE Internet marketing education … all for the price of their one membership!

There is no additional cost to DOE members for attending these webinars!

Each webinar will be recorded and become a permanent part of DOE membership!

Our first webinar is called Common Sense Internet Marketing. It’s a process I have taught literally hundreds of private consulting clients that will help you go from having no business online to having a very real and profitable affiliate marketing business FAST!

In this webinar I will reveal the following, and more!

• How to find your perfect market and make sure it will be profitable
• How to find a hot-selling highly converting product – this includes understanding how Clickbank gravity works!
• How to set a time and money budget that practically ensures your success
• Where, how and when to advertise for maximum impact
• How to measure results and learn from your marketing for even greater profits

All this and more will be presented on August 16, 2010 at 8pm central time.

SEATS ARE LIMITED so if you want to attend the live event be sure to register now! People who attend the live event will be able to ask questions DURING the webinar and then join me for a private Q&A after the webinar is over!

Membership in the Directory of Ezines has long been considered the best value online. And it just got better!

IF YOU ARE A DOE MEMBER NOW

Log in to the Directory of Ezines and use the NEW link on the left side of the page – Member Only Webinars

Click here to log in to the DOE

IF YOU ARE NOT A DOE MEMBER NOW

Now is the perfect time to join the DOE. Not only do we offer the best resource online for ezine advertising but now you get a complete Internet marketing education to boot!

Just look at what ALL Directory of Ezines members receive …

• Access to the best list of ezines online that sell advertising, publish articles and do joint ventures.
• Free personal consulting by phone (one on one) with Charlie Page.
• Our Learning Center is chock full of the information you need to cure information overload and get some real traction.

CLICK HERE TO BECOME A DOE MEMBER NOW!

Do you want to sell more online? Do you want your ads to get more clicks, your sales letters to convert more visitors into buyers and dramatically increase your bottom line?

If you answered yes then you need to know about benefits. You need to know what benefits are, how they differ from features. It’s time to learn create what are called “benefit statements”.

Knowing this can make life easier. It can help you sell more. Why?

Because the bottom line in selling is simple. There is no “secret” to selling. There is only this one staggering truth.

Understand this and you can sell anything. Fail to understand this and you will be doomed to forever wonder why you aren’t selling more.

Ready for the truth? Don’t be fooled by its simplicity. The truth is …

People buy what they want!

Always have. Always will.

If they want your product they will buy it. If they don’t want it they simply won’t take action, no matter how logical your argument for them to buy is made.

Let me put it another way.

People buy on emotion and defend that purchase with logic.

Let’s look at that again. They buy based on emotion (they buy what they want) but then defend their choice using logic.

Here’s an example. This actually happened to a friend of mine. You have a good car, a car that is almost paid off. But your car needs new tires. So you go to the car dealer and, since you are there anyway, you look at the new models. The salesperson offers you some trade in values for your existing car. You suddenly realize that your old beater is worth more than you thought. Two hours later you are driving home in a brand new car!

How did you get from needing tires to buying a new car?

Emotion!

You saw the car. You smelled that new car smell. You saw yourself driving a new car. And, after all, you deserve it! This is your life. You work hard. You sacrifice for your family. You don’t ask for much. You DESERVE a new car!

See the emotion there?

But how will you defend that purchase to your spouse, your friends or even to yourself? You bought a new car when yours was almost paid off? Are you nuts? You bought a new car in this economy? Are you kidding me?

But you are ready with your answer. Logic will save the day!

It goes something like this.

• New tires were going to cost me $1100! Who knew tires cost so much?
• My old car was almost out of warranty anyway. And you know that’s when expensive repairs start to happen.
• We are taking a trip later this year and I wanted to make sure we were all safe.
• My new car is costing only $65 per month more than my old car.
• My new car gets 10 miles more per gallon than my old car! I’m helping save the environment!

On and on it goes – logic trying to defend what was a purely emotional buy. You bought the new car for one reason and one reason only – you WANTED a new car! Nothing wrong with that. But logic was not the main factor.

FACT: If humans bought cars based on logic we would all drive the same car … the cheapest and safest car on the road! But we don’t. We buy what we want – and then justify it to the world with the logic of why it was the right choice for us.

So how does this apply to doing business online?

The key for business people like you and me is to quickly tell our prospective customers why they should want what we have. In other words, don’t talk about features but instead talk about benefits! We have to understand the difference between features and benefits and then let our prospects know why they should want what we offer.

That’s important enough to say again. You must let your prospect know why they should want what you offer.

It all starts with understanding the difference between a feature and a benefit. Understanding the difference between a feature and a benefit is vital, and easy.

• A feature is what your product does.
• A benefit is what is does for me!

Let’s look at one example from the real world. I’m in a car mood today so I’ll stick with that for now.

One of my favorite cars has always been the Corvette. I love the look of the Corvette and am old enough that I grew up wanting what we called the “Stingray”. As a boy I fantasized about driving down the road driving my shiny new red Corvette.

The Corvette has some outstanding features. Here are two.

1. The Corvette can go 205 miles per hour
2. The Corvette can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in under 4 seconds

Sounds like fun, but are these the reasons that people pay between $48,000 and $105,000 for these cars? (Prices according to Chevrolet.com for model year 2010)

In my view, the answer is no. The reason people buy Corvettes is not to go from 0 to 60 in under four seconds.

The reason people buy Corvettes is to be seen driving a Corvette. A Corvette is simply a rolling envy machine!

People who buy Corvettes often do so for the feeling they get being seen driving a Corvette.

The same can be said of many products, including yours. Here are some products that are sold everyday using a very emotional approach.

• Clothing
• Jewelry
• Houses
• Art
• Business Opportunities
• Competitive “spying” programs
• Ad trackers
• How to make money on Clickbank products
• And many more!

How can you sell your product using emotion?

That’s a great question. While I don’t know your specific situation I can offer some guidelines to help.

There are two super-motivators that apply to almost every product. These are very emotion-driven reasons to buy something, especially something online. Both create powerful emotions that will cause people to act now, which is what all online sellers (Product owners and affiliate marketers) want.

1. Promise of gain
2. Fear of loss

Promise of gain almost always applies to making money but can sometimes be another type of gain. People want all sorts of things (including making money) like prestige, power, fame, to leave a legacy and more.

QUESTION: How does your product help your customer gain something?

Fear of loss is the other side of the coin. This is where all the scarcity selling online comes from. Offline merchants use it too. How many times have you heard your local department or furniture store claim their current sale is the “biggest sale of the year!” That’s fear of loss telling you to act now or pay more later.

QUESTION: How does your product help your customer avoid losing out?

The more you know about how your product satisfies these two needs – the need to gain and the need to avoid loss – the more you will sell. Your ads, your sales letters, your tweets, your signature lines — all of your marketing needs to be filled with benefit statements that drip of promise of gain or fear of loss.

ACTION STEP: How to Translate Features into Benefits

Here are four simple steps to help you translate your product or service’s features (what it does) into benefits (what it does for me).

After you make your list, be sure to review your selling literature, be it a web page, email or brochure, and make sure that you are selling benefits instead of features.

After all, everybody wants to know what’s in it for them.

1. List the key features of your product … the things that make it worth having. Describe what each one does; how it works.
2. Determine what that means to the customer. More free time? Feel safer at night? More financial freedom? Write it down next to the feature.
3. Be able to state every feature in terms of money. Either making a gain or avoiding loss. Write it down next to the advantage.
4. Write out benefit statements for each feature. Memorize your list. Write it down and carry it for quick reference.

You have now created a feature, advantage, and benefit list. By committing these statements to memory and using them often, you will now be speaking the prospect’s language, the language of saving or making money.

And that is the sound they love to hear.

WANT SOME EXAMPLES?

Leave a comment below and give me your URL and I will reply with some example benefit statements for your product! That way we can grow together!

You have probably heard the term “affiliate program” many times. People talk about them, advertise them, and promote them.

Every marketer and their pet hamster (including me) have recommended you start your online career by being an “affiliate”.

But has anyone actually defined an affiliate program for you? Do you understand what being an affiliate is all about?

Whether you’re a newbie or just a little overwhelmed by all the information floating around online, I’d like to help you understand what affiliate programs are and what they can do for you.

An affiliate program (sometimes called an associate program) is basically defined as an arrangement in which an online merchant (such as Amazon.com) pays you a commission to send them traffic.

The term “traffic” simply means visitors.

So, you sign up to be an affiliate of a website and you send visitors to that site. When those visitors take a specific action (most commonly – when they buy something) you get paid.

Simple!

Every affiliate program out there will provide you with what is called an “affiliate link”. This is a special link that identifies you (the affiliate) as the source of traffic.

More about affiliate links in an upcoming article.

Each time someone uses your link or website to click onto the merchant’s website and buys something, you are paid a certain percentage of that purchase.

But how does the site know that YOU sent that visitor? Most sites use a technology called “cookies”. This simply means that a small file is placed on the visitor’s computer identifying you as the source of the referral.

That way the company can know for sure that you should be paid the commission when the visitor buys something.

Most major affiliate programs, including Clickbank, use cookies to identify which affiliate sent which visitor.

There are at least three parties involved in any affiliate transaction:

1. The company who sells the product (or vendor as Clickbank calls them)
2. The affiliate who sends the traffic (that’s you!)
3. The person who visits the site by clicking your affiliate link (the visitor)

Affiliate programs do not bring good profits without some form of effort and organization on your part.

To make money with affiliate programs you will need to learn how to “drive” traffic. Driving traffic simply means sending visitors to a website you are promoting using paid advertising or free marketing methods such as article marketing or social media like Twitter.

Affiliate marketing can be very profitable if you learn the system and promote it the right way. To maximize their profits, most affiliates choose more than one to promote.

There is usually nothing complicated about signing up for an affiliate program. Most programs are free to join.

But there is a downside here that you must avoid.

Since most affiliate programs are free to join, there is a temptation to join many at one time thinking you will be able to promote them all. This can lead to confusion.

My advice is to find a product you believe in and promote it with all your heart.

Become an expert at promoting product X and you will learn how to promote any product. Then you can move on to promoting other products easily.

You see, the success is in the process and in the products you choose to promote.

Once you sign up for a program, you are usually free to place links on your website and in other places.

Affiliates are paid according to a legal arrangement agreed to upon sign-up. Affiliate commissions are based on the number of people the affiliate sends to the merchant’s site, or the number of their referrals who make a purchase or take some other type of action.

There are three basic structures for how affiliates are paid:

1. Pay Per Sale: The most common arrangement. When someone you send to the business’ website buys something, you earn a certain percentage or designated dollar amount.

1. Pay Per Visit: Some companies pay you based on the number of people your link sends to their website, whether they make a purchase or not.

1. Per Lead: You are paid when someone uses your affiliate link to visit the company’s website and opts in, entering some required information (like an email address) the business can use as a sales lead.

Generally speaking, if your affiliate link on your website or other location brings their business traffic or money, the merchant will pay you accordingly.

As an affiliate, you help bring in the customer and the company does everything else: order processing, collecting payment, shipping, etc.

For you, promoting an affiliate program or programs almost adds up to free money. Just look at the benefits you get when promoting as an affiliate.

As an affiliate you never have to …

• Create a product
• Provide customer service
• Have a website of your own
• Provide a download page

As an affiliate you simply promote and get paid. It is simply the easiest way to earn money online.

The company wins too! For businesses, offering an affiliate program is not only an excellent way to sell products online, but also serves as a powerful and cost- effective marketing strategy.

Why? Because you (the affiliate) solve their number one problem – getting enough traffic to their website!

You get paid, and the company gets you to promote for them. A classic win-win!

Now that you know what an affiliate program it’s time to find the right program(s) for you. And that is the subject of my next article!

I have a confession to make … I LOVE words. I love to use them. Love to learn new ones.

I especially love to find just the right combination of words that convey exactly what I mean and cause people to respond in ways that are profitable for everyone.

And I love using four letter words too! Many of you know that I’m a Christian, which begs the question – how can you love four letter words?

It’s not THAT kind of work I’m talking about!  :-)

I love four letter words because some of the most powerful words in the English language are four letter words! Now I don’t pretend to be a scholar. Far from it; I never even went to college! But when it comes to using words to communicate and persuade I’ve been around the block a time or two. Makes me glad I lived this long!

After over 35 years of choosing my words very carefully I have made a list of my favorite four letter words. I share that list below.

Please feel free to leave a comment and share with me your favorite four letter word. And please add they “why” – why is your four letter word your favorite? Please keep all comments PG rated. This is a family friendly blog!  :-)

My favorite four letter word is …

HELP

Why help? Because I have discovered over the years that I love (another favorite) to help people. I shut down my consulting practice so I could give DOE members my time on the phone. The result? More members than ever helped! I like that.

I created this blog to house all the articles I’ve written and videos I have made so there would be one place you could go and quickly get some helpful information free. While we are not finished yet, it’s coming along and people are getting help. I like that too.

Another favorite? Call me a softy but it’s love. Why? Because the love of a good woman changed my life when I was but 19 years old and uplifts me every day. 35 years later and it’s like day 1. Only love can do that. I know the author of love by the way, and He makes my days long, profitable and worth living. Hope you know Him too.

Here’s my list. I can’t list them all because it would take so long to read them all. So I’m going to list one per letter and give you my A – Z of four letter words.

Enjoy!

ABLE – I believe most people are capable of so much but they don’t see themselves as ABLE to get things done. My advice; stop looking at limitations – you are able to get the job done.

BUZZ – I am unashamedly in the business of promoting my products and helping members promote theirs. That takes buzz, and I love to generate buzz for members!

CORE - I believe anyone can succeed in business if they learn and master a core set of skills. Copywriting, email marketing, advertising – learn these and you will never go hungry again.

DUTY – I’m an old fashioned guy who believes we all have a duty to perform to our fellow man. That duty? Love and help! (How square is that?)

EDGE – As an online marketer I am always looking for an edge. When you find that edge big things begin to happen quickly.

FELT – Selling is about emotion. I often ask customers how they felt when something specific happened. I get weird looks, but I learn.

GLAD – The best advice I’ve read in a long time is to “be glad continually”. There is so much to be happy about.

HEAR – When others speak we sometimes listen but do we really hear? Hearing others is a beautiful thing.

ICON – There are icons we can learn from. Seth Godin, Bob Proctor, Zig Ziglar … thank you!

JOIN – I love joining things that are real and bring value to others. What a rush when things are new and possibilities endless.

KNOW – Knowing things matters. Never never stop learning.

LIST – I love lists. Love making them. Love checking them off. Love using them to get things done.

MUSE – Everyone needs inspiration. Find yours and stay connected.

NERD – Love ‘em or hate ‘em, your business ultimately works because of a nerd. Plus, it’s fun to say.

ONCE – Weird choice? Here’s why I love “once”. If I can do something successfully once I can do it again and again. This is the basis of all success in business.

PRAY - Couldn’t make it through a day without this one!

QUIZ – Want to know what customers really want? Quiz them.

ROUX – Hey, I’m from Louisiana!

SELL – Love to sell. Love to sell things for members and watch as they earn their first money online. That’s fun!

TEAM – When you find the right team anything is possible!

UNDO – I love it when someone can undo their failure and turn it into success. Damage can be undone. New beginnings are possible!

VERB - The most important part of copywriting? Use MORE verbs!

WANT – The most important part of selling? Find out what people want, not what they need.

X - I will happily admit that I don’t have one for X. Do you?

YEAR – When I was 25 they seemed so long. Now they seem much shorter. Decide to make this year YOUR year!

ZINE – Ezines changed my life and bring me thousands of visitors a day. For me it’s the ONLY “Z” word that matters!  :-)

So what’s your favorite four letter word?

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Need help making money online. Join the DOE and get in on my telephone consulting offer!

It’s all too easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and forget to do those basic things that create real results in our lives.

While posting video and Twittering are all fine and good, we MUST use the basic and proven methods of marketing if we want to survive and thrive.

And email marketing is one of those basics, one you might be overlooking right now.

It is undeniable that the MOST powerful form of marketing online today is email marketing.

If you look at any major product launch you will see they are done with email marketing. Even these silly “email is dead” desktop delivery products are sold using the medium they claim to be replacing … email!

Ever wonder why?

The reason is simple. Email marketing works!

Recent studies show that over 40% of people surveyed buy things online based on an email they receive. I know I do, and I’m willing to guess that you have bought products too that you learned about in your email inbox. And who hasn’t visited a site and filled in a form to learn more about a product they were interested in?

These things are now a part of all good marketing. The President uses email. Your bank uses email. All online marketers (every single one) uses email. Isn’t it time you experienced the full power of email marketing too?

While video might be replacing long written sales letters (it is) nothing will replace email. In fact, every sales letter you see that is done with video contains that ever-present “sign up for the next video” box for you to fill in.

And then it’s the email follow up that sells us on taking action.

I know you know this because you, like me, get all those “act now” messages!

So now the questions is this – how can YOU use ethical, permission based email marketing to promote the products or programs that will help YOU earn a full time living online?

Here are five ways you can use email to do more. To sell more. To keep more customers happy. I hope you use each one.

1. CUSTOMER FOLLOW UP

Whether it’s a simple as a one-time ‘thank you’ or as elaborate as a 50 message follow up system, customers love to know you care.

At a minimum, send one message thanking customers for every order.

To power up this idea, create a follow up system using your favorite autoresponder and offer your customer more chances to buy. Share neat ways they can use the product they bought from you. Be helpful in every way you can.

If you do nothing more than give a hearty recommendation for the products you use and like you will sell more than ever AND help your customers too. They are likely having the same problems you face. If you have a solution, share it.

Keep messages short and they will always be welcome.

2. CUSTOMER LEARNING

Do you offer a product that takes a bit of learning to use? Most products do take a bit of instruction to master.

Teach your customers how to get the benefits they deserve from your product or service via email.

Keep messages on topic and separate your follow up series into bite-size learning pieces. These follow up messages can bring your refund rate to near zero … a good thing indeed.

3. PRE-SALES SERIES

This is what most people think of when they think about email marketing. Sending emails to sell a product. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, statistics prove it works!

Think about this – if even the best websites out there only convert 2% of visitors into customers on their first visit what happens to the 98% of people who don’t buy?

Sadly, this is what happens.

• They leave
• They never come back
• They buy from someone else

Bummer. The good news is that all of this can be avoided if you just capture their name and email address so you can remind them to return.

After all, they didn’t land on your site by accident. They were looking for something and the odds are YOU have what they want.

They just weren’t convinced the first time around. And that’s perfectly natural. How often do you buy the first thing you see? Comparison shopping is the way of the Internet, and getting prospective customers to return to your site is the challenge.

A pre-sale series is the answer!

This is actually very easy to do. Just write down the top ten reasons why someone should buy from you, then put each in a follow up message. Send one a day until they are all delivered.

Offer the series to everyone who visits your site and let time do the selling work for you!

Or you could let me teach you how to do it.  :-)

Our experience has been that up to 60% of visitors will take your free information if you do a good job of selling the idea.

In my 12 or so years online there have been a handful of things I have learned that are absolute. One of them is this – every website can sell more if they use email marketing well. End of story.

4. SPECIAL PRICING AND REVIEWS

Use email to deliver insider information on special bargains, limited time pricing, and more.

Much like a coupon sheet in your local newspaper, selling advertising in this type of email is a breeze.

The idea here is simple – YOU do the research and prove the value of products and then report on that to people on the list.

When they buy they buy from YOUR affiliate link and everyone wins!

5. HARD TO FIND NEWS

Want to know THE secret to building a loyal mailing list? Give the people what they want!

People love offbeat news, especially when it has a connection to their lives.

For the best example of this on the Net today visit this site. You’ll love it! I’ve been a subscriber for years and suggest you subscribe too.

Even more ways to make money with email marketing.

More ideas about how to use email to sell more could include:

• Announce Special Events
• Do A JV With Someone Whose Product Compliments Yours
• Sell A Message In Your Follow Up Series
• Teach Affiliates How To Sell More FOR You
• Create A Discussion To Research Your Next Product

Email is everywhere and tremendously effective. But it can be one of those methods that gets overlooked in the rush to find the Next Big Thing.

Don’t fall into that trap – make sure your email marketing is rock-solid and then experiment all you want with the “next big thing” as time allows.

Start to USE email in your business today and I can guarantee you will make more money with less effort in the months to come.

And THAT is a beautiful thing indeed!

Like the idea but not sure how to do it? I will teach you how to make money with email marketing and will build 25 squeeze pages FOR you!

You’ve heard it before – if you want to succeed online you must have a list of your own.

Every guru says it. Ever wonder why?

Because it’s true! 

There is no doubt that the single most valuable asset I own online – more valuable even than owning the Directory of Ezines – are my mailing lists.

With them I can build, or rebuild, a business. Without them I’m back at square one.

How about you? Do you have a list yet?
If not, here are four simple ideas you can use today to start building a list of your own even if you don’t have any money to spend, a website of your own or any traffic!

These are all methods I have used, and I still use each of them today.

These tactics work for me and have for years. I hope they will work for you too.

Idea 1 – Your Email Signature Line

Go to your “sent email” folder right now and look at the email you sent today. I’m willing to guess that your email does not include an offer for someone to join your mailing list.

But it should!

Think about this – If you send only 20 emails a day (including replies) then you are sending over seven thousand emails a year!

What if only 1 in 7 people saw your link and joined your list?

That’s over 1000 subscribers to your list … free!

Idea 2 – Forums

Ever visit a forum and ask a question? Many have but they don’t leverage the experience in their favor. Just about every forum out there offers a signature line feature, yet we see thousands of posts with no signature.

Don’t make this mistake! If you post on the Warrior Forum or Michael Green’s How To Forum or any other, make sure to include a link where people can join your list.

Again, free and very effective. Put time on your side with this one!

Idea 3 – Twitter

Ah, Twitter – friend or foe? Great marketing tool or time waster?

Great marketing tool!

Here’s how you can use Twitter today to begin building your list with no money. Start following people you know of and replying to their Tweets. Make sure your reply makes sense and won’t waste people’s time.

Fan Tweets – replying to a Tweet with something like “loved your book about ___” are 100% okay and often much appreciated.

Once you have been following for a while you will get followers too, and become a recognizable name in your circles. When that happens, send a short Tweet about your new mailing list and where people can join it.

Sure, it takes some time and there is software to “automate” this process. But no software in the world can automate the personal touch, and that’s what is needed to build lists.

Idea 4 – Your Blog

If you don’t have a website you might be thinking “sounds good Charlie but where do I send them to sign up?” Fair question.

The answer is your blog. If you don’t have a blog there is simply no reason to wait any longer. Go to Blogger.com and get one now. It’s free, they have templates you can use that look professional.

If you can type, you can blog. And you should. Once you get a blog just put a form on it for your list and you are good to go!

So there you have it, four ways to begin building a real list of your own with no money and no traffic!

1. Your email signature line
2. Forums
3. Twitter
4. Your own blog

Begin using these methods today and you will put time on your side. Sooner than you think, you will have a mailing list of your own. And having a powerful mailing list is a beautiful thing indeed!

Less than 50 DOE Lifetime memberships are available!

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE DIRECTORY OF EZINES TODAY!

There has been confusion lately about article marketing. The questions I’m hearing include:

1. Does article marketing still work?
2. Should I use a “spinner” to create articles?
3. Why was my article not accepted by the big article directories?
4. How can I write a great article?
5. Where can I find someone who will write articles for me for a reasonable fee?

There have been more questions than these but these are the top five I’m hearing.

Today I want to address the #1 question I get about article marketing … “Does article marketing still work?”

ARTICLE MARKETING WORKS BETTER THAN EVER … WHEN DONE RIGHT!

I KNOW it works because I’ve been doing article marketing for over 10 years now. In fact, I was doing article marketing BEFORE there were article directories! You may know that I started as a member of the DOE. What did I do when I first started as a member? Article marketing! Did it work? Less than 18 months later I bought the company!

It worked then, it works now and you CAN do this. Even if you don’t want to write articles!

To prove to you that article marketing works NOW I took a screen shot of a search for one of my recent articles. When I say recent, I mean that I published this article for the first time ever on January 13, 2010. Today is March 4, 2010 so it’s been about six weeks.

You can see the article, and it’s published date (near the bottom of the article) by clicking here. It will open in a new window for you.

Before you take a close look I want to point out these facts.

1. I wrote this article using the EXACT formula I teach Directory of Ezines members and members of my private Article Marketing Live site.
2. I wrote this article in less than 2 hours, using the formula mentioned above.
3. It took my article distribution person less than 1 hour to submit this article.
4. She did NOT use software to submit the article. All of my articles are hand submitted.

Now take a close look and you will see there are over three thousand hits on this article title.

SUPER IMPORTANT: Please notice that I searched for the article title AND my name WITH QUOTES. When you do that in Google you are telling them to only return results that match the EXACT PHRASES. So the only pages returned have the article title AND my name on the page. This is the most restrictive search possible, which means these are real results. Searching for the title only created over 70,000 hits but that was a false positive. To know what is really going on you have to search the right way.

Bottom line, my article is being published on over 3500 web pages in less than 2 months!

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN AND WHAT CAN IT MEAN FOR YOU?

I believe it means two things.

FIRST: It means this … article marketing works! Period. Do it right and it works. Use junk articles and it will never work no matter how hard you try.

SECOND: You have to learn how to do article marketing the right way and get started today. Why? Because article marketing works and it is FREE to do!

If you do not know how to do this I will teach you how!

Members of my Directory of Ezines or Article Marketing Live sites learn what I know and I work with them personally!

If you want to learn article marketing the right way, and want your articles to get this type of coverage, use one of the links below to learn more. Let’s work together and create real results for YOU!

Thanks for reading. If you liked this short case study please leave a comment below and Tweet it out if you can.

Charlie Page

We offer great resources for article marketing inside the Directory of Ezines members area. And there is more to come! I work with DOE members personally to answer their questions on any topic including article marketing. If you are a DOE member log in and let’s get to work. If you are not a DOE member yet then now is the time. There are less than 100 DOE Lifetime memberships still available!

Click here to learn more about Directory of Ezines

Article Marketing Live is an online course where I teach members the step-by-step methods I use to succeed with article marketing. I work with AML members to help them write great articles and get those articles in front of millions of readers. AML members can retake the course each time it’s taught.

Click here to learn more about Article Marketing Live

]]> http://charliepage.com/does-article-marketing-really-work/feed 21 http://charliepage.com/free-ezine-advertising-live-preview-transcript http://charliepage.com/free-ezine-advertising-live-preview-transcript#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:26:56 +0000 Charlie http://charliepage.com/?p=1441

My gift to you!

Today I’m pleased to give to you the transcript to the preview call from my Ezine Advertising Live series of teleseminars.

If you want a great overview of how ezine advertising works, why it works so well, and how you can begin using ezine advertising to drive huge amounts of targeted traffic to any site you promote then you will enjoy the transcript.

It’s in PDF format so you can read it on any computer. You can also print it out if you like and make notes or read it when you are away from your computer.

Click the link below to download the Ezine Advertising Live PreviewCall Transcript.

EA Live Preview Call Transcript

What is Ezine Advertising Live?

Ezine Advertising Live is like getting a masters degree in ezine advertising. The full Ezine Advertising Live course is over 18 hours of teaching on ezine advertising that I conduct once a year. Members of Ezine Advertising Live can take the training as many times as they like and get to work with me one-on-one to make sure their ad campaigns are laser-targeted and their ad copy is sharp.

Ezine Advertising Live is not part of the Directory of Ezines but rather a separate product for people who want to invest time into advanced ezine advertising or want to run ezine advertising agencies of their own. To learn more about Ezine Advertising Live click this link.

If you are not yet a member of the Directory of Ezines please use this link to learn more or join now.

]]> http://charliepage.com/free-ezine-advertising-live-preview-transcript/feed 23 http://charliepage.com/you-are-not-the-problem http://charliepage.com/you-are-not-the-problem#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:00:43 +0000 Charlie http://charliepage.com/?p=1397

Have you ever found yourself discouraged about making money online? Wondering if maybe – just maybe – this Internet thing can work for others but it won’t work for you?

If you have felt that way before the good news is that you are not alone. Far too many today have wasted far too much of their time and treasure on “business opportunities” that promise the moon but only deliver disappointment.

You know the drill.

• Promises not met
• “Lessons” that should inform only make for more confusion
• Support promised that never happens after you buy

We’ve all been there. I have and I’ll wager you have too.

If so I have a very important message for you today.

YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM!

I mean it. YOU are not the problem. The problem, and the reason so many fail online, is the over-hyped promises that websites make to separate you from your money.

These claims are outrageous and should be stopped. You’ve heard it before, haven’t you?

• “Earn $520 a day even if you have no experience!”
• “This system works best if you are lazy and only want to work an hour a day!”
• “We guarantee hits to your website!”
• “Reach 780,000 with your email blast for only $10!”

I think somewhere P.T. Barnum is having a party. He coined the phrase “there’s a sucker born every minute” and nowhere does that ring truer than the good old Internet.

But there is hope!

There is good news, very good news. You can go from hype to hope today! I know you can do this!

Why do I say, “I know you can do this”? Because I’ve done it, and I’ve helped others do it too.

From young to old, from healthy to ill, from doing well financially to struggling to make ends meet, real people are getting real help from a few dedicated souls online.

Before I begin sharing how you can help yourself beginning today I want to repeat something important I said earlier.

YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM!

I really and truly want you to say this out loud right now. “I am NOT the problem!” Say it now and say it ten times a day if you need to. But find a way to get it into your heart and head … YOU are not the problem.

• YOU are not the reason why it’s so hard to get started online.
• YOU are not the reason why working online is confusing.
• YOU are not the reason why an estimated 99% of all people fail online.

There are things you can do to turn your situation around. Since I’m not talking with you one-on-one, and since peoples’ situations are unique, I can’t give you a personal action plan in this article.

But I can give you guidelines based on over 1000 one-on-one conversations with DOE members who have struggled too.

So here are my guidelines. This is what I would do today – and what I did years ago – to turn a seemingly hopeless situation around.

KEEP YOUR ATTITUDE POSITIVE

No matter how you go about it, you need to keep your chin up. I am NOT saying that just thinking happy thoughts will turn you around. That would be silly. But I AM saying that you won’t dig out if you are thinking negative.

When I need a lift I read. Right now I am re-reading See You At The Top by Zig Ziglar, and loving the reminder that goals work and that right thinking really is the foundation of success.

No matter how you do it, start thinking more positively today.

SEPARATE THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF

Now it’s time to do some real work. You need to make a list of what you have bought and consider if you have really tried using what you bought to the best of your ability.

Am I saying now that YOU are the problem? That you didn’t try hard enough? NO – not at all.

What I am saying is that there are certain tools, like an autoresponder, that can work wonderfully well if you know how to use them but can also be a complete waste of time if you don’t know how they work.

It’s not the tool – it is knowing how to use it that matters.

Give me a hammer and nail and you can count on a trip to the emergency room soon after. Give my friend Mark a hammer and nail and he will build you a house!

Same tools – different results.

The chances are that you have the tools you need right now to succeed online but don’t know how to use them. Making a list of what you do have is a good first step.

NOTE: I am not saying to make a list of every eBook you ever downloaded. That would take forever. I am saying however that you should make a list of everything you have bought that cost $100 or more. You might be able to go back and turn that purchase into profit.

What should you look for? It will be important for you to know if you have these things because they are the real building blocks of success online.

• A web hosting account
• Your own blog (working or not)
• An autoresponder
• Products with resale rights
• Memberships to sites that help you promote
• Memberships to sites that help you learn

Making your list is a good starting point for a turnaround.

WORK WITH A MENTOR

This one is so important, especially if you are confused or don’t have a rock-solid plan of action.

It might be hard, but you really need to find a person you can trust and who will help you individually. I know that can be a challenge online.

Here is how I would find my mentor if I were starting over today.

1. I would look at what a person does less than what they say they have done. People who need to brag about their huge Clickbank screenshots would not be on my personal list.  I would look for a bit more humility than that.
2. I would buy their product and experience what they offer first-hand.
3. I would clearly communicate to them that I need guidance but am not holding them responsible for my success. Mentors don’t like that.
4. I would listen to that person and follow their advice and give what they say a real try, a sincere effort.

This is what I did online. I was blessed to have a few people who helped me along the way, and I will forever be indebted to them.

I think if you find a person who will work with you, and you trust them, you will find that feeling of desperation that nags you will begin to go away.

BE COMMITTED TO LEARNING

Here is the good and bad news all in one chunk. You are going to have to learn things you don’t know now but you will only have to learn them once if you have a good plan in place.

Nothing in our offline lives prepares us for things like autoresponders, matrixes, back offices or weird terms like “pay per click”. There is no pay per click offline.

One of the first things to do is learn the lingo of the Internet. If terms like ROI or CPM or autoresponder or ad tracker trip you up then making progress will be hard.

NOTE: If you are a DOE member log in and access the learning center to get my glossary of web terms. The confusion will clear immediately. So you will need to learn, but not forever. And not that much actually.

By the way, the first thing I would ask a mentor is what he or she thought I needed to know to take the first step.

FOLLOW A PROVEN PATH

The Internet is an ever-evolving medium that offers new and exciting possibilities. That’s good and bad at the same time. It’s great if you are in a position to take advantage of it; not so great if you are struggling.

Nothing is sadder than watching someone spend their hard earned money, money they can’t afford to risk, on some “new” method that is not yet proven.

I speak with members every week who are not even trying the things that are proven to work (like pay per click or ezine advertising) because they “heard” it was too expensive.

Be honest with yourself about this. Are there marketing methods you have not tried because you heard they were too expensive or didn’t work?

If you answered yes, you might have believed a lie.

That’s okay; we can fix that.

As with all things, the truth will set you free. The truth about pay per click, to use just one example, is that it’s super affordable. But it takes some learning to get it right and it’s not free. Cheap; but not free. And by cheap I mean you can get good clicks in the health or business opportunity markets for about 10 cents each, or less.

How about ezine advertising? Well, you can send a solo ad to an ezine with about 200,000 readers for about $50, sometimes less.

The bottom line is this – start with the things that are proven to work and then, AFTER you have had some success, experiment with today’s “new” marketing methods.

BECOME HYPE PROOF

This one is essential, and easier to do than you might think. It turns out that our parents were right. If it looks too good to be true it probably is.

Do people go from rags to riches with Internet marketing? Sure, but not many.

Do people with no experience suddenly start making $530 a day by “cloning” someone else’s marketing and using a cookie-cutter approach? I’ve never met one.

The bottom line here is simple. If you want to get rich quick please stop reading this article and immediately put your Visa in the freezer or give it to someone who will keep it far away from you.

Get rich quick does not exist. It’s a myth invented to part you from your money. This is nothing new. The people who were scammed by the recent Ponzi scheme artists like Madoff lost their money in large measure because they wanted something for nothing – an outrageous and immediate return that they knew in their hearts were too good to be true.

But if you want to make real money using the Internet, and are willing to learn and work, then there is very good news indeed.

If you work, learn and follow a proven path then I believe that NOTHING can stop you.

BE WILLING TO WORK FOR MONEY

This may sound downright crazy from a guy who makes his living online, but you’ve got to be willing to work offline for a bit if necessary to get the money you need to live.

I often speak with people who are so committed to “making it” online that they are using credit cards to buy Internet marketing products and passing up the chance to make money offline in order to “give their all” to making it online.

In my view, that is a mistake.

I believe Stephen Covey was right when he wrote the words “first things first” in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

First things do need to come first. And paying your bills, avoiding new debt and taking care of your family must be first. It does not matter if that is done offline or online. It matters that it gets done.

So, be willing to work for the money you need, be that at a job or as an affiliate marketer or in some other way.

One last word on this – stay open to creative solutions. Let me give you one example. This is something I have never shared before.

Do you know how I “bought” my first ezine advertising? I traded article writing (which I was good at) for ad space. Why? Because I didn’t have any money! But I could write so I bartered that for the ad space.

The rest, as they say, is history.

What do you have that you can barter? Did you know that MOST top online marketers have very little time to do things like article marketing, running their own pay per click campaigns, checking links on their websites for 404 errors or even making their own web pages or blog posts?

It’s true! I don’t know of a single successful online marketer right now who is getting it all done easily and with time to spare. Most online marketers I know (and I’m talking the big names and names you might not know) are busting their backsides to get the work done.

I know I am.

So how can this work for you? You can trade your time or talent for products or work that needs to be done instead of spending cash.

Just one idea.

Let me end by saying this again.

YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM

YOU CAN SUCCEED ONLINE!

Your success will come faster and more surely if you …

• Keep your attitude positive
• Make an inventory of assets
• Work with a mentor
• Be committed to learning
• Follow a proven path
• Become hype proof
• Be willing to trade time for money in the beginning

If you do these things and give yourself the time we all need to find success I believe you will do very well indeed. I completely believe that your best days are in front of you and that you can prosper online no matter your age, race, income or education.

Keep your chin up – you are destined for great things!

******************************

Need someone to work with who cares and can really help? Become a DOE Lifetime member today and you get FREE one-on-one consulting by telephone, Skype and email with Charlie Page as part of your membership. Less than 180 Lifetime memberships are available. Click here to get yours right now

Have you seen these resale rights packages that are floating around the Internet?

You know the pitch. It usually goes like this …

Get 792 eBooks, 312 videos, 843 audio files, 19 pieces of software and access to five powerful membership sites for only ten bucks!!

Usually, there are literally thousands of “special reports” thrown in the deal as well.

Often, it sounds so good we can’t pass it up. So, we pull out the Visa and spring for the $17 or $27 or $47.

Sounds great, until you discover that it’s practically a full time job to download and organize the stuff, much less actually read it! Then you have to edit the HTML page (who has time for that!) and upload it all to your web server using FTP … ARG!

So it just sits there, gathering digital dust on your hard drive. Another $47 bucks down the tubes.

If that sounds familiar I have good news for you today. Now there is a way to recover your investment in that resale rights package, and even profit from it as well.

And it’s not selling the package to someone else!

These techniques will work for you whether you own a website and sell your own products, publish an ezine, or sell as an affiliate.

1. USE THEM AS TARGETED BONUSES FOR YOUR PRODUCTS

What you do here is find those products within the resale rights package that compliment your site and offer them as a bonus for ordering your product. You stand out from the crowd and will see an increase in sales because targeted bonuses almost always increase sales.

2. BUNDLE THEM AND SELL THE BUNDLE

What you do here is find every eBook, audio, video, or report having to do with a specific TOPIC and then sell the package as a product to people who want that product.

Since most resale rights packages are topic-specific this is actually quite easy to do. How do you choose a topic? My advice is to stay with big themes like these.

• Health and Fitness
• Making Money Online
• Affiliate Marketing
• Creating and Selling Products
• Sports
• Family

After you create broad-based packages like this you can then “niche” them down to very specific topics like …

• Blogging
• Copywriting
• Building your firs website
• Raising kids with ADHD
• Tennis for beginners

By creating both the broad based and very specific packages you can have more products and appeal to a larger audience. Advertising your bundles with pay-per-click and ezine advertising works very well since both are so targeted.

Another great way to sell your bundle is to visit forums and make special offers.

If you don’t have a product to sell yet this is the fastest and easiest way to create your own product, and is what many of the “how to create a product” courses teach.

3. USE THEM AS UNANNOUNCED GIFTS

People love to be surprised. What you do here is put a note on your website that you are including an “secret bonus” when people buy your product. Retailers have done this for years and called it a ‘grab bag’. Then add one product a week for about eight weeks to your follow up series for clients.

Your clients will love your generosity and you will see your refund rate drop like a rock. A win-win.

4. USE THEM TO BUILD YOUR MAILING LIST

What you do here is to offer an eBook, video, audio, etc. in exchange for subscribing to your ezine or information. This one works! Most smart marketers know that people want a little extra, and here you are giving them that extra while getting what you want.

The key here is to choose a product or products that support or compliment the messages you will be sending.

5. USE THEM TO BOOST YOUR PAY PER CLICK RESPONSE

You know that people always want something for free, right? One great way to use that to your advantage is to spice up your page with a free offer and include that in your pay-per-click advertising.

People who view pay-per-click ads often scan those ads looking for freebies and then visit those sites first. Using products from resale rights packages as giveaways gives YOU the edge when it comes to pay per click.

HOT TIP: Include the fact that you offer a gift in the headline of your pay per click ad. People scan headlines first.

6. USE THEM AS CONTENT FOR AD REVENUE BASED WEBSITES

The Google AdSense model – having a content rich site and making money by displaying ads – is automatic and effective. But it takes *lots* of content, and that’s where resale rights products come to the rescue!

In most cases you can disassemble these information products and REPURPOSE the content as information for a website. Best of all – you don’t run the same risk of a duplicate content problem like you do with private label articles.

That’s because VERY few people have had this idea, and even fewer have acted on it, and fewer still will choose the *exact* product you choose to use.

So grab some resale rights books, take them apart and make each chapter of a resale rights book a page on your new website, and then display context sensitive ads (like Google AdSense) and make some automatic money!

Fast, easy and oh so automated — a true win-win!

There you have it: Six ways to make your investment in resale rights packages pay big dividends.

Just like finding an old coin on the street only to discover it’s rare and valuable, dusting off a resale rights package and turning it into pure profits is smart marketing and a great use of your resources.

And that’s a beautiful thing indeed!

*******************

Need help turning resale rights products on your hard drive into real money? You can work with Charlie Page one-on-one and let him help and guide you every step of the way. DOE members can call Charlie every week and discuss anything they want about making money online. From the newest newbies to the guru names you know, Charlie helps real people succeed online every day. You can get Charlie’s help FREE as a Directory of Ezines Lifetime member! Click here to become a DOE Lifetime member now