Entries Tagged 'IM Interviews' ↓

Kristi Sayles: Tell us something about yourself? How you got started with Affiliate Marketing, with Internet Marketing and with all of these things which branched out and have grown so greatly?

Ian del Carmen: Thank you Kristi for having me here at TalkWithExperts.com and mabuhay to all the listeners of your Internet radio show.

First off, my name is Ian del Carmen, I live in the Philippines, I’m the President and CEO of Fireball Planet Corporation at www.FireballPlanet.com – I’m now 29 years old and I started doing business online in 2006. I stumbled upon Internet marketing while busy learning how to do eBay, discovered the profitability of resell rights products, and there everything started.

The idea that came to me about resell rights started making me money online. You know, invest in a product by buying the rights to sell. Paying only ONCE. Then getting 100% of the profits for every sale I made from that product.

Then I thought there could also be a business model where I don’t need to invest money in buying products and yet I can earn money… NO INVESTMENT! That’s when I found affiliate marketing. It’s a very beautiful business model because I’ll be like a salesman of different companies and I earn huge commissions just like when I was doing direct marketing offline. You know, I was involved with companies like Avon, Sara Lee, W. Brown, Hanes, Jockey, and the like before I found the Internet so it’s the same thing. BUT much better because I don’t need to get out of the house to promote. All I need is a computer with an Internet connection. So that’s the beauty of affiliate marketing online.

As I go along, I keep on studying different strategies on how to do what I do perfectly. I always believe that life is a continuous learning process. You should not stop learning new things.  So I study what other successful affiliate marketers do like Ewen Chia. Ewen helped me a lot with affiliate marketing… WITHOUT him knowing. Funny is that I was like his stalker, I always look at what he does, and I apply what I learn from him on my own business.

Kristi Sayles: What do you recommend if we still don’t have a LIST, how do we start building the LIST?

Ian del Carmen: As what I mentioned in my previous interviews and guestings, I started building my list thru giveaway events. It should be easy. You know, giveaway a product that you have rights to giveaway or a product that you created yourself. Capture the subscribers email address so you can contact them again in the future. Build relationships with them, get to know each other more, and the rest will follow. And you should NOT stop building a list. It should be an on-going project in your business plan. I started a long-term giveaway event where all our listeners today can build their own list of subscribers and clients. It’s called FireballGifts.com at www.FireballGifts.com – where they can build different sub-lists: free subscribers, list of buyers, list of Big Ticket buyers, list of physical product buyers, etc. That way, your next campaign or product launch is targeted.

Kristi Sayles: For someone who doesn’t know how to go about Affiliate Marketing, where should they start?

Ian del Carmen:  I suggest you find one good product that you think is worth promoting. It could be related to your passion in life like fort example: motherhood. If you are a mother who stays at home, try going to Clickbank.com and search for related digital products. Once you are registered as an affiliate, start studying how affiliate marketing is done. Continuous learning. Then apply what you learn. You can study how to cloak your affiliate links then apply. Study how to put your links in your outgoing emails, forums, blogs, then apply. Study how to maintain a blog then apply what you learn.

In fact, you can get started with affiliate marketing at NO COST! Join any free affiliate program like my Affiliates Center at www.FireballJV.com where you can also learn how to be a power affiliate marketing. Get a free blog at Blogger.com or Wordpress.com and start blogging about the products you’re affiliated with. Be sure to provide good content like reviews on the product, e-courses that promotes the affiliate products, etc. You can take a look at my blog at www.IanDelCarmen.com and you can check out how I do it. When you start earning commissions, be more professional with your sites.

Get a web hosting and domain name at www.FireballInternet.com and create your own websites or outsource some services from people from anywhere in the world to do those jobs for you. I suggest you FIRST get your own name as domain name. For example, get www.KristiSayles.com or www.IanDelCarmen.com – whatever your name is. Then you can use YourName.com/blog as your professional blog. If you want to start a bookstore online and you want to continue branding yourself with your name so that whenever people here your name, there’s a good recall, you can use YourName.com/books or a software store at YourName.com/software.

And by the way, as a Clickbank affiliate, you can register for a FREE online mall with your own Clickbank ID. I just launched a new FREE service called Fireball Mall at www.FireballMall.com – go there, register for FREE, include your Clickbank ID and you will be given your FREE MALL where all Clickbank products will be included with your own affiliate links embedded on the site. And that’s FREE so be sure to go to www.FireballMall.com and create an account for yourself before start charging for it. Sorry if you’re too late if the free offer is closed but you can still join me at www.FireballJV.com and my staff and I will be happy to have you on board on all the Fireball products as a valued affiliate.

Kristi Sayles: Please share with my listeners your deep dark secrets on how to monetize their websites and make money? How do they draw in TRAFFIC and other things needed to really make money on the Internet?

Ian del Carmen:  OK, when I started, I’d just maintain a free blog. I was a newbie then so I don’t even have money to pay for hosting so I get a free Blogger.com account. Now while you maintain a blog, you can actually monetize every aspect of it. Get a free Google Adsense account. Get a free Commission Junction account at CJ.com. Get a Clickbank.com and Amazon.com account. Join free affiliate programs like FireballJV.com. So while blogging about different things that are related to your passion or topics that you are knowledgeable about, you can post recommendations on different products that you’re an affiliate of. Send traffic to your site by building your list. Be sure to always build your list. That’s having sure traffic whenever you want to. If you learn Adwords or Pay-per-click, apply it but be sure to build the list so you can follow-up in the future.

Now here’s what I also do that gives me recurring MONTHLY profits. I promote quality membership sites. This way, each referral I make to the merchant pays monthly charges and each and every month my referrals stay with the program, I earn commissions. Now I don’t just promote membership sites without seeing what’s inside. I always join the sites myself. Then if I see that value of it, and it gives 50% commissions monthly, I’ll promote it to my list and even if JUST TWO people joined thru my affiliate link, my access every single month is already paid for by them. Remember, I earn 50% commissions per member. So 2 members, my monthly fee is paid. But what if I refer 10 or 50 or 100? There comes the profit. But it also gets better than that! Since I’m a member, I can also access the components of the membership site so meaning, for example, I am allowed to resell a product, I can sell it to my subscribers who are not members of the site. There comes additional profit. Just a simple example but that’s one business strategy that you can use as an affiliate and Internet marketer. In fact, I created a free membership site directory where you can access A LOT of membership sites that you can check out and promote. You can access it at www.FireballPlanet.com/MembershipDirectory

Kristi Sayles: In Traffic building… Is it alright to buy a list, is it ethical, do you recommend it?

Ian del Carmen:  I don’t recommend buying a list because No. 1 it’s NOT targeted. They don’t even know you from Adam. They don’t subscribe to your list. They might even think you’re a spammer. I find it unethical to buy a list BUT…

Many people I know have also been successful with building a paid list. And what they say is that: send them one email telling them honestly where you got their email and then send them to your site with an opt-in form so they can LEGALLY subscribe to your list. That way, they become opt-in subscribers. Now if they don’t respond and they don’t opt-in, forget them. AND NEVER EMAIL THEM AGAIN.

For me, I’d rather buy advertising which sends me new subscribers that buying email addresses directly.

Kristi Sayles: How do you feel about Article Marketing and how do you use it in your business?

Ian del Carmen:  Honestly, I don’t do much article marketing but I have a website called Article Everyday which gives members an article everyday with my resource box. Members are allowed to post it as content to their blogs, create ebooks or reports, publish in offline publications, all with my resource box and my website URLs. That way, I build free traffic from my articles. That’s the only thing I do about article marketing but as I said, I should learn it more and apply it to my business.

Kristi Sayles: Do you have anything else you would like to tell our listeners before we call it a night?

Ian del Carmen:  Well what I always want to inculcate to people is to have a continuous learning process BUT apply what you learn QUICK. Never do what others do. They keep on studying but never applying what they learn. Or they still wait for the right time. There’s no such thing for me as a right time than NOW. You know, some people even buy all the courses, pay for coaching, etc and in their calendar, they plan to finally launch their business next year. It should not be the case. The Internet is a very fast-paced world and what you discover now might already old tomorrow.

Now for everyone on this call, I have a special gift for you to show my appreciation to Kristi. For the next 20 people ONLY, go to http://fireballonlinemarketing.com/talkwithexperts/ and you can read the details about it there. Thank you Kristi for having me here at TalkWithExperts.com and thank you everyone for listening.

Kristi Sayles: Goodnight everybody, goodnight Ian…(say “Goodnight Kristi”)

Ian del Carmen:  Goodnight Kristi! Goodnight everyone and cheers to your success!

Do you have a list?
Yes, we have a couple of lists. The first one
is for Miz Kathy’s Found Secrets. I
personally recently started my self-help and
spiritual list at brotherpaul.net.
How many subscribers do you have on it?
foundsecrets.com has over 4000, while
brotherpaul.net is currently at 25.
How long did it take you to build this list?
At first, the list building was real slow. I
began in June about five years ago with
barely 30 subscribers over 3 months. Then I
hit on a secret that jumped it up to almost
250 in one week. The second secret bumped it
up to over 3000 in one month.
How important is your list to your online
activities?
If you don’t have a list to keep in contact
with, you basically have no presence. You
must have a list to succeed.
How often do you send email to your list?
Usually once to twice per week
What have been your best list building
methods?
Ahhh, NOW we get to the SECRETS. The first
secret was I created a couple of public
domain books that I had written in “red-neck”
fashion (The Science of Getting Rich became
The Exact Way To Git Rich and As A Man
Thinketh became As Ya Think. I then added
about another dozen books, including one on
how to quit smoking. I gave them away with
free sign-up to my e-zine. I then promoted
them on SureFire Wealth.
But, the second method is how I keep building
the list. I stumbled across Mark Hendrick’s
Twelve Days of Christmas promotion. I
created a book called Open Your Daily
Newspaper & MAKE MONEY! and gave it away at
that promotion. We were flooded with people
who joined the list.
We had over 4100 subscribers when I created a
new e-zine and had 505 members actively
interested move to the new one.
How do you improve opt-in confirmation and
delivery rates?
Whether you use DADA mail, which we
originally started with, or our current
system, Amazing Auto-responder, you need to
make sure that your e-mails are CAN-SPAM
compliant. (We’ll talk about those a little
later.) Let’s talk about being compliant with
CAN-SPAM.
CAN-SPAM says that the e-mails must be done
via double opt-in, and that you must have a
way to unsubscribe. So, put an unsubscribe
link in every e-mail, and always, always,
always include your postal mail address in
case somebody wants to unsubscribe via postal
mail. If you follow those two rules, you can
stay out of a whole heap of trouble.
That being said, to get people to opt-in,
give something away of value. (You can
always include a One-Time Offer, known as
OTOs, which can help offset your costs. We
have a walk through script that you can use,
which, if you take advantage of our OTO, you
can get at: http://tinyurl.com/yro9sv, to
setting up offerings and including a One Time
Offer. It uses fill in the blank technology
to make it easier for you.) And, the order
goes as follows for value (from low to high):
Public Domain Work
Ebook You Have Rights To
Ebook With Master Resell Rights (means they
can resell it)
Ebook With Private Label Rights (means they
can change it, claim it as their own, and
sell it)
YOUR OWN created ebook or software
The higher the value, the more they will
opt-in.
Now, to get them to open your e-mails and get
them delivered.
Avoid words like free, freebies, and money. If you must
use these words, then put an asterisk in the
middle or in place of key letters: free
becomes fr** and money becomes mon*ey.
For “free”, we use the word no-cost and for
“freebies” we use no-costers.
But, your subject line has to grab them.
There are whole books written on this, but
the best and quickest technique is to stop in
the middle of the sentence and put a hyphen
in the subject line, like this:
“I couldn’t believe it when she told me
that—”
Get the idea. It’s called creating suspense.
And, if you can get them to open it, you can
get them to read it.
What are the best ways to improve your list
responsiveness?
If you’re getting them to open your e-mail,
you can then get them to respond to your
offers. Again, remember this list:
Public Domain Work
Ebook You Have Rights To
Ebook With Master Resell Rights (means they
can resell it)
Ebook With Private Label Rights (means they
can change it, claim it as their own, and
sell it)
YOUR OWN created ebook or software
Well, then what you need to do is offer an
e-book for free, but then you can create a
value off those that make it even better.
For example, you’ll notice that if you went
to the URL I listed earlier:
http://tinyurl.com/yro9sv, you could pick up
an all in one package that outside of buying
your own domain name and web-host walks you
through how to put your products up for sale
on the internet. The price is cheap,
compared to the eight and a half years it
took us to figure it out, and then we offer a
slightly better package that shows you how to
add in a one-time-offer for a slightly higher
price. (You’d pay a total of $34 to save
yourself eight and a half years of
aggravation of figuring it out wouldn’t you?
Yeah, we thought so.)
Oh, did you see that technique! We asked a
question that we knew that you’d agree with.
That’s another great way to improve your
responsiveness. Plus, talk with your
audience like they are your friends. Use
your own unique voice, so that you don’t
sound like every other high-pressure
marketer.

And, don’t forget, it’s not all about making sales.

Offer advice in your area of expertise–often.  (And, at no charge)

Create different niches to get more readers.

And, practice, practice, practice!
How do you manage your list (your own
software or 3rd party service)? Why?
We have used both a software that works off
our server, and a 3rd party server.
We originally used DADA mail because it’s
free and powerful. But, it doesn’t
personalize. Yes, we have the flexibility of
moving people from one list to another more
easily, but we had to make a special deal
through our web-host (you can check them out
here: http://tinyurl.com/9gkeo. They offer
three terrabytes of bandwidth, 24 hour
service, and a whole lot more for less than
$100 per year.) that allowed us to mail out
500 e-mails per hour for an extra $35 per
year.
But, then we stumbled across Amazing
Auto-responder, (which you can purchase
through: http://tinyurl.com/ytu4cd) that let
us send out to 10,000 subscribers (only
10,000 subscribers? Aw, my heart’s breaking,
he said with sarcasm dripping from each
word.) However, since you are not using YOUR
servers, your e-mails get out quicker. Plus,
it allows us to personalize our e-mails. The
personal touch means a lot more. Would you
rather see, “Hey, everybody!” or if your name
was John, “Hey, John!”?
Both of these allow for double opt-in, which
is crucial in CAN-SPAM compliance as we
mentioned earlier. DADA mail adds the
ability to “black-list” abusive members.
How do you see the future of email marketing
and list building?
For right now, we think it’s the best game.
We’ve toyed with the other technologies that
allow for “instant notification” of updates,
but most people get annoyed at pop-ups, so we
think there will be a return to good old
fashioned e-mail marketing. SPAM is a huge
problem, but people are getting better at
spotting how to get rid of spam by deleting
stupidity. (People just don’t believe
anybody from any foreign country is going to
give them huge amounts of money, and people
are sick and tired of hearing about how to
make certain parts of their anatomy bigger,
and who even remembers what a Rolex is any
more, since most people check the time on
their cell phones.)
But, list building, (especially targeted list
building) will be the wave of the future.
And, hey, if you want to join a couple of my
lists, you can get some good “no-costers” by
signing up at:
http://www.foundsecrets.com/ty/arsignup.html
or, if you are more self-help and spiritually
oriented, you can join us at:
http://www.brotherpaul.net/optin.html.
The first one will get you “228″ no-costers,
and the second one will get you the first few
chapters to my “Keys To The Universe”.
And, since you’ve been such a good sport and
read this far, why not go pick up my:
“Wanted: Liars, Thieves, and Murderers!
Reward: Heaven!”

http://www.foundsecrets.com/wanted.pdf

Even, if you ain’t
spiritual, you’ll finally get to read
something funny in the spiritual realm.
Make it a great day!
Brother Paul
Webmaster
http://www.foundsecrets.com
http://www.brotherpaul.net

Question: How long have you been using StumbleUpon?

I’ve been using StumbleUpon since April of 2007. I find that while the users of the site have a famously low attention span, the traffic can be great as long as you have quality content. Another prerequisite for receiving a large amount of traffic from the StumbleUpon site is having a large friend network. These friends definitely help propel your Stumbles forward and give them momentum.

Question: What do you see as the biggest benefits from being a SU user?

The biggest benefit by far is the sudden surge of traffic the StumbleUpon site can deliver. For instantce I had a popular post about Second Life on my Paid Insider Forum that I stumbled. The post received over 1800 page views in a little over 24 hours. Not too bad for a post that normally would have only received a couple hundred from other traffic sources. This post contributed to several new signups on the forum, which may lead to new long-term customers and name recognition for myself online.

Question: How has StumbleUpon helped you?

I’ve had the chance to make some really great new friends from StumbleUpon. Several of them have been well known marketers. In fact, I ran across you, (Dr.Mani) on StumbleUpon, which in turn lead to this interview you’re reading right now. So the benefit of the site goes far beyond the traffic aspect that you see up front.

Question: Do you use StumbleUpon as a social networking tool? How?

The reality is that StumbleUpon is another avenue to build relationships and create a core following of advocates for you. It’s funny, but I’ve met people on the StumbleUpon site who have gone on to seek me out on Twitter, Myspace, Facebook and Technorati. It’s amazing that once you make these connections how your network can open up very rapidly to new people. This type of leverage is great to rapidly grow your exposure.

Question: What tips do you have for getting more value from StumbleUpon?

The best way to get more StumbleUpon traffic is to increase your high profile friends count. Here’s the whitehat method I use to get more website visitors by building a bigger network of top ranking Stumble users.

Before you attempt to locate these friends and friend them in the hopes that they will add you as their friend in return you should do a few things.

Start by first sprucing up your profile with artwork, pictures or photography to make your StumbleUpon profile visually appealing. This way you don’t look like you just started out on the site. StumbleUpon users want to make sure that you are active on the site before they will add you. This gives their Stumbles more exposure.

Second, you may want to build up your friends count by visiting other Stumble profiles. Give them a thumbs up, then review their page. Then add them as a friend and send them a comment, saying something that you liked about they website or stumbles. Make sure to say, I added you as a friend, and compliment them.

Once you’ve build up your Stumble profile with some pictures, votes and friends you should attempt to get on the good side of the top Stumblers. You can find the top StumbleUpon users at:

http://stumblerank.com/

You want to look for users who have less then 200 friends so they can add you back.(If they have over 200 friends they can not add you back and you will not benefit from the relationship)

Follow the steps laid out above to friend the top users who still have space available. Remember to be yourself. Social networking is all about being real and forming relationships. Make sure to visit your friends occasionally and keep the friendship going.

Question: What features would you like to see on SU that are not yet there?

The beauty of StumbleUpon is it’s simplicity. I think for it to be more effective there should be a way to find the top ranked sites. They already have a similar ranking for the top users on the site, I think it would be great if they did the same for the top websites.

Question: What do you like most about StumbleUpon?

The ease of use, and its ability to quickly generate a substantial amount of visitor traffic.

Question: What do you dislike most about StumbleUpon?

I’m guilty of spending too much time browsing other sites. To tell you the truth it can be a big time waster if you’ve got critical tasks you should be doing instead. I recommend you utilize the site, build up your friends network and network with others. When it comes to Stumbling for leisure, do it on your down time at the end of the work day.

Question: How do you see StumbleUpon evolving in the future?

As for what’s next I think it’s best said by the founder, Muhammad Saleem.

“I foresee better ways of assessing and networking with top users. More focused ways to categorize users by their interests (using tags), etc.”

Authors Resource Box

Matthew Sherborne is an author and info-product creator of many products including Myspace Cash Machine, Instant Money Reports and Paid Insider. His primary goal is to help people around the world realize a better life through the creation of online income.

Welcome to Internet Marketing Interviews. This site was based on a simple premise:

Everyone is an EXPERT - at something.

You are too.

And I want to interview you about it.

But because we are both so busy, I came up with this idea to make it simple, quick and easy… as well as profitable for you!

You will

• Make new friends
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• Get links to your site
• Spread your message

In Just 3 Easy Steps!

• 1 Register
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Join. Registration is free and fast - click here

Give Interviews. Pick from a set of questions on topics you are interested in and have some experience with - you’ll see a list on the sidebar on the right.

To start off, we have questions about affiliate marketing, article marketing, blogging, list building, Stumbleupon and Twitter.

Click on the links and copy the list of questions. Then answer them. It will take you 15 minutes or less.

Get Promoted. When you are done, publish your interview here.

How To Publish Your Interview?

Go to the homepage and log in if you haven’t yet done it.

You will reach the blog dashboard. Click on the tab labelled WRITE near the top of the page.

In the form, copy and paste your interview answers into the text box, and give your interview a title.We recommend that the title contain your name/business name, the topic of your interview (e.g. Twitter, or Affiliate Marketing) and a short catchy blurb.

Here’s an example:

“Dr.Mani on Twitter - “Tweets From My Heart”
Don’t forget - at the end of your interview, please include a short ‘RESOURCE BOX’ containing details about yourself and your business. Include one (or at most two) links to your website or blog.People who re-publish your interview will be required to include your resource box along with the Q&A, giving you extra exposure across the Web.

Then click the PUBLISH button below the form - and your interview will be published to the blog after review by our editors.

That’s all.

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Help spread word about IM-Interviews.com by telling your friends - and inviting them to join.

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