Article Marketing: the term is heard in many places on the internet, and misunderstood in just about as many places.

Article marketing is not the practice of selling (or marketing) articles to other people.

It’s not just about writing articles for publications.

Article marketing is all about driving traffic to a web site, period. That could be your own personal web site, or any web site you’re looking to promote.

As an example of the difference between a “normal” article and one used for article marketing, both types of articles might be used to educate or entertain.

But when the reader finishes the article that’s designed to be used for marketing, they should be compelled to click through to a specific website in order to get more information on the topic.

In other words, there’s a “call to action” in the article.

You may be looking for more people to sign up for your email list — you can use article marketing to drive traffic to an opt-in form on your site.

You might be an affiliate for a product and want to make some sales — you’d use articles to drive traffic to an affiliate site.

Or, you might have your own product or service to promote. You can do that with articles. As long as the reader clicks through at the end of your article, you’ve done your job well.

Just as a point of clarification, an article used for marketing purposes shouldn’t be just a promotional piece. People looking for information on a specific topic aren’t usually looking for a sales letter — if that’s what your article feels like as they read they’ll just skip it and find something else that fills their need.

Instead, you need to make the article itself worthwhile, as if you didn’t have a “hidden agenda.” And at the end of the article you need your call to action — the reason why the reader should click through and see what else you have to offer.

Article marketing can be used by writers and non-writers alike to drive free, targeted traffic to their web site.

I’m at a farmer’s market selling flowers for the 2nd week and decided to see if ending the price in a 7 brings in more sales offline as well as on.

Last week we sold the flowers for $20 and this week we’re trying $19.97 each. My hunch is the perception will be that the flowers are a much better deal at this price.

We’ll see soon — we go live in just a minute or two.

Update: Bah! Rain and clouds kept people away, the place was mostly dead. We ended up leaving early and my test was a flop. Not sure if Mom will still have flowers next week, but if so, I’ll probably take another day to try the test again.

A few years ago I upgraded Sonic Memo — it was actually completely rewritten from scratch and a ton of new features added. I figured I’d call it Sonic Memo Pro.

It was so cool it deserved the new name.

But the boneheaded move I made was in “resetting” the version number. But it was a different program, right? So what I did was “correct.”

Except that I found myself explaining why Sonic Memo Pro v1.0 was newer than Sonic Memo 3.0 — yeah, it had “Pro” tacked onto it, but I still sold it from the sonicmemo.com web site.

And did several more things that have caused me more headaches because the newer version has a version number that’s lower than the old version. (Did I confuse everyone?)

It seems I’ve done it again…

I just released Sonic Sneak last week.

But wait, some people bought Sonic Sneak from me a couple years ago. Is this an upgrade?

Here’s what happened…

1. I finished Sonic Sneak a couple years ago and allowed subscribers to my list to buy copies before the docs were done, etc. Kind of an “early adopter” program.

2. Before I launched the program for real, I changed the name to Cloak and Tracker (I was going through a phase where I felt stifled by having to use Sonic in every product name).

So a couple weeks ago when I cranked out a server-side version of Cloak and Tracker, I decided NOT to call it CaT because then people would be confused about which version they had.

Since the Sonic Sneak name was designed for a link cloaker/tracker, I decided to dust it off and use it. That way I wouldn’t have the problem of people confusing the old Cloak and Tracker with the new Cloak and Tracker.

Except that I apparently sold more copies of the original Sonic Sneak than I remembered, because I’m getting more emails than I expected wondering how they can get the latest version of Sonic Sneak.

It’s a legitimate question.

I just wish I had a better answer than, “I’m a bonehead.”

And have I learned my lesson? I’m not sure, because this fall I’m planning on releasing a new version of Sonic Memo called Sonic Memo A/V — it’ll do audio and video.

But is it an update to Sonic Memo? Is it a separate product? And what freaking version number do I put on it?

Some days I think I should publish ebooks instead of software. This is one of those days.

The scenario: you have a web site that sells a product, or you’re promoting someone else’s product in order to get an affiliate commission. And one day you make a sale! Woohoo!

But if you’re like the vast majority of marketers online, you have no idea where that person came from. You’re trying many different tactics to drive traffic to your web site — some article marketing, maybe a little pay-per-click, forum postings with sig lines, updates on Twitter, etc. That sale could have come from any one of those techniques.

You just made a sale, so doesn’t it make sense to do more of what got that person to click your link? But unless you have a way to track your links you’re just guessing as to which tactic is the most profitable for you. A sale made by accident is still nice, but there’s no way to duplicate that kind of success.

Fortunately, there are simple ways to track the people who are coming to your web site. Some people look at the log files for a site, but I’ve never liked that for several reasons. First, log files are filled with a lot more information than you need to know for link tracking, so pulling out just that information isn’t easy. Second, log files don’t always track where the click came from — you end up with very incomplete data. And finally, if you’re promoting someone else’s product as an affiliate, you don’t have access to their log files anyway.

The secret to tracking links is to make each link come to your web site first, and then redirect to the destination web page. That way you can save the click information. As an example, let’s look at a typical affiliate link:

http://www.example.com/app/javanof.asp?MerchantID=55200&ProductID=2753650

Except for changing the domain name, that’s a real link — kind of messy looking, eh?

Let’s look at that same link after it’s been put into a tracking program:

http://example.com/go/convert

Not only will it be trackable, but it also looks much “friendlier.” That’s the biggest hidden benefit to tracking your links — you get links that are shorter and nicer looking.

When someone clicks that shorter link they’re taken to your web site, the click is logged, and the user is automatically redirected to the final URL. At any time you can look at the tracking data and see exactly which links have been clicked on, and how many times.

The more advanced link trackers allow you to use “tracking tokens” on your links to further track where the most clicks are taking place. For example, let’s take that previous example and look at how it could be used with tracking tokens.

http://example.com/go/convert/ppc http://example.com/go/convert/article

It’s the same link, but in the first example we put “ppc” on the end (separated by a slash character) — that’s the link you’d use in your pay-per-click ads. The second example is the one you’d use in your article marketing.

The link itself leads to the same place, but after using those links you’ll be able to look at your tracking data and see how much traffic came from your PPC ads and how many came from your article marketing.

In fact, you can even use different tracking tokens for each PPC ad and for each article. The more data you have to work with, the easier it is to make the right decision. Use tracking links when you post messages in forums, when using Twitter, in emails, etc.

Let me modify a statement I made earlier — unless you have a way to EASILY track your links you’re just guessing as to which tactic is the most profitable for you.

The reason “easily” is so important is because if something you’re going to do (possibly dozens of times a day) is a hassle, most people will just forget about it. So when you’re deciding on which link tracker you’re going to use, make sure ease-of-use is one of the criteria you judge by.

In any case, tracking your links and watching where the traffic comes from will make you a more profitable marketer.

For more info see the Sonic Sneak web site.

A few days ago Stu McLaren asked me a simple question via Twitter and it spawned a multi-day programming spree. I ended up with a brand-new product and called it Sonic Sneak (because it’s a way to create stealth affiliate links and track your clicks).

As usual, I launched it to my list first — I give people on my list first shot at my products as a thank-you for being a subscriber. And in this case especially, it really paid off for them.

Because I launched the product at $37 but over the next couple days I realized this was a tool that can mean a LOT more profit for people who use it. Charging $37 is almost disrespectful.

So today I raised the price to $97, which is still a great deal for people who need the benefits this tool will give them.

I think we kind of get seduced by the all the free stuff we run into all day long on the internet and start believing that people won’t pay a fair price for something. That’s my problem, anyway. I’m a programmer and want people to use my stuff — so I tend to price my tools lower in order to get it into the hands of more people.

And while that can be a legitimate list-building tool, it only works if you’re marketing to a crowd who hasn’t been exposed to you in the past. Most of my products are marketed to people who are familiar with my work, so the whole list-building strategy is kind of a bust.

While it’s true you can sometimes make more money with a lower-priced product, you have to sell almost 3 times more at the prices I’m talking about to make the same amount of money.

Let’s look at an example:

$97 x 100 = $9,700

$9,700 / $37 = 262

To make the same amount of money with the $37 product you have to sell 262 units. That’s a lot harder than selling 100 units, for sure.

Sidebar: For people who think THOUSANDS of copies of each marketing ebook and tools are sold, think again. That’s *rare* — there are a LOT of things out there that sell just a few hundred copies over their entire lifetime. In some cases, maybe only a few dozen copies.

I realize some people will look at Sonic Sneak and say it’s not worth $97 — but I know there are some people who’d look at it and, for one reason or another, say it’s not worth $37, or even $7.

On the other end of the spectrum, I know some people will use this tool to make even more money and they will know without a doubt that even at $97 I’m seriously undervaluing this product.

I still intend to give the people on my lists a discount when I launch new products, but I hope I’m getting to the point where I stop putting silly prices on tools that can make people a heck of a lot of money.

Not long ago I asked the question on Twitter, “How do you know when you’ve been trying internet marketing long enough? At what point should you just bag it and get on with life?”

I don’t lie about how my business is doing, it’s been a roller-coaster for the last few years and I’m still a “working marketer” — not yet one of those guys who can ditch everything and grab my board when there are killer waves, or catch a ride on the vomit comet. If I don’t keep cranking out products, things go bad. Quickly.

However, I wasn’t asking that question for me, it was just a generic question because I know a lot of people who seem to work as hard as I do, yet still haven’t had near the success I’ve had. And I just wondered where the “breaking point” is for most people.

And today while working on a project I realized that if you know what’s good for you, you won’t have a breaking point. Because really, what other choice do you have?

Let me explain.

I had iTunes cranked up and a song by Terry Taylor came on called Mr. Flutter. (Don’t wrack your brain, probably only 1-2% of you might know who Terry Taylor is.) I listened to the words…

I'm trying to write a song but I don't have the words
And the kids need a doctor but I'm not insured
And my wife she looks pale, she got the check in the mail
And it's not the amount we were thinkin' about

Here comes Mr. Flutter
He and Mrs Dread, well they love each other
Gonna build a haunted house, be my father and mother
They're tiein' the knot in the middle of my gut
And they both want kids so there's one in the oven
They picked out a name, he's called, Little Nothin'
And I think he was born to be my kissin' cousin
He's pullin' the chain in the middle of my brain

Okay, they’re not mainstream lyrics, but anybody who’s been in that situation can relate to the feeling of helplessness when there just isn’t enough money to take care of things.

I don’t care how good your day job is, if you’re cranking away at internet marketing it’s because you want something more than what you have.

Maybe like the guy in the song it’s just enough to get by, to be able to pay the bills and maybe even get a little ways ahead at some point.

Or maybe you’re not in a financial crunch but you’re working a lot more hours than you want to. Or maybe both are true for you.

Sidebar: It seems to me like we do things backwards — I think we should be retired while our kids are at home so we can teach them and enjoy them, and then after they fly the coop we can get jobs. Who wants to work too many hours and miss out on the experiences your kids have while they’re growing up?

Whatever the reason, you’re probably not building an online business because you’re bored and need a hobby. You want something more — you need something more.

So, when is the time to quit?

When you have reached your goal. Because anything less than that means you’ve given up on what you KNOW you and your family need. And if it’s not internet marketing, what’s going to be the vehicle that gets you there?

Your day job? How’s that been working on for you so far? No, really, if your job was giving you what you need, you would have never looked into building an online business in the first place.

Maybe there’s some other “opportunity” that will be able to take you where you want to go — just be careful not to do what so many people do who are chasing “biz opps” — jumping from one to the other, always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The nice thing about internet marketing is that it encompasses a lot of ground and is a proven way to build a business from scratch.

So when things don’t look like they’re working out — when it looks like every other internet marketer on the planet is doing better than you, that’s the time to put your head down and keep trudging.

The ships have been burned — there’s no going back, because there’s nothing back there for you. You’ve been there and it wasn’t giving you what you need. Your only hope is what lies ahead. And while there’s never a guarantee in life, we can all see that others have made it to the place we desire to be — and if we continue to do those things that have been proven to work we should arrive at the same place.

Right?

Maybe. But that has to be good enough — at least for me. Because the thought of giving up and living a life that’s “typical” makes me sick to my stomach.

I refuse to be typical. I refuse to live a life that’s mediocre. I refuse to stop striving for the kind of business that allows me and my family to walk the beaches of the world.

Where’s your breaking point? When will you give up?

Is it just a fad like CD radio? Or is it a legitimate marketing tool like email?

Twitter for Internet Marketers is a free teleseminar that will answer that question and more.

Tuesday, May 26th, at 1PM Pacific. All you have to do is register.

Here’s what someone had to say about me and Twitter…

Register right here, right now, and find out how you can tap into this fast-moving river of prospects. Sign up for Sonic Tweet using this form…

Many people get started with internet marketing by promoting someone else’s product in exchange for an affiliate commission. That’s a completely honorable way to make a buck, but unless you’re an extremely rare kind of person it’s an online marketing method that has some real limitations.

The best way to “write your own ticket” is to have your own info product. That way you can call the shots, you can control the promotions, and you can benefit in ways an affiliate will never be able to.

Of course, you may be saying, “Creating your own product isn’t all that easy, otherwise everybody would already be doing it!”

In this short article I’m going to explain why that’s not true — it’s not a matter of being easy or of being hard, it’s a matter of knowing the right steps to take. (And as you’ll see, all of the steps fall on the easy side of the scale.)

What’s The Topic?

I’m only going to touch on this briefly because most people who are thinking about creating an info product already have a niche picked out. Maybe you’ve been promoting an ebook on weightloss and now you want to compete in that niche. Or maybe you bought an ebook about gardening and realize you know more than the author and can claim your own piece of the pie.

Whatever your reason, the first thing to do is to choose your topic, or niche. In some cases, you’ll be choosing what’s called a sub-niche. For example, weightloss is a big topic, but weightloss for busy executives is a subset of that niche — and in many cases, those sub-niches can be even more profitable than the main niche.

What’s The Type?

Do you want to create a PDF-based ebook? An audio or video product? In some cases the topic will steer you in one direction or another. For example, if you’re doing a “How To Juggle” tutorial, video is perfect for that niche and audio is a very poor choice.

While some people think a PDF ebook is the easiest to create, I think audio products are easiest. And after the learning curve for video screencasts, you’ll find those very easy to create as well. None of the options are “rocket science” — and all can be useful in the right situation.

What’s The Tool?

Once you’ve decided PDF, audio, or video, it’s much easier to decide on the tool you’re going to use to create your info product. After all, you just eliminated 2/3 of the options!

Today it’s easier than ever before to create a product because there are so many free and low-cost tools available. Even if you’re wanting to create a cool video product you can use free software that can be downloaded.

You can do a Google search and find lots of tool options, but the best shortcut is to find someone who’s already done what you’re planning and ask them what tools they recommend. In most cases product creators aren’t stingy with that kind of knowledge.

On Your Mark, Get Set…

Yes, there are more blanks that need to be filled in before your info product is done, but if you can answer those three questions you are more than halfway there — because most people don’t even get that far. They get stuck trying to figure out what their info product is going to be about, or they put on the brakes because they can’t figure out which tool to use.

If you really want to create your own info product don’t let anything stand in your way. After creating dozens of digital products I can say with confidence that the feeling I get when someone buys one of my products is a hundred times better than the feeling I get when selling a product as an affiliate.

Winning the lottery is easy, building a viable online business isn’t. I know, I know, I just broke the “Guru Code” because I gave away the dirty little secret.

It is hard.

But there are tools available that turn time-consuming tasks into no-brainers. An autoresponder is one of those tools and I’m going to show you how using an autoresponder correctly can put your business on autopilot.

But first, just to make sure we’re all on the same page…

An autoresponder, quite simply, is an email address that automatically responds when someone sends an email to that address. You send an email to a certain address and a few minutes later you’ll receive a reply. Automatically. No humans are involved in the process at all.

A sequential autoresponder goes one step further — it sends out a series of emails on a predetermined basis. Maybe one every other day, once a week, etc.

And you may not believe it, but that’s a very powerful force to use with your business. Let me give you an example…

You’re a hot-shot marketer and have a sales page converting at 5% (that’s a huge conversion rate in case you didn’t know). That means 5 out of every 100 people who come to your page buy your product. Yeehaw!

Oh, but wait, that also means 95 out of every 100 people who come to your page DON’T buy. They just go away and you never see them again.

And that’s where an autoresponder can save the day. Because if you set it up correctly you’ll end up getting some sales from the 95% who don’t buy immediately.

If you’re selling Blue Widgets the people who come to your page are obviously interested in widgets, so what if you put together a special report called, “The Top 10 Ways Widgets Can Make You Rich.” And then offer that for free to the people who come to your web site. All they have to do is give you their name and email address and you’ll give them the report…

…and more information all about widgets, blue ones, especially.

The prospect signs up for the list, they get the report, and then your autoresponder takes over. You’ve put a series of emails into the autoresponder and once or twice a week a new email about blue widgets will be sent to the prospect. You’ll give hints and tips about using blue widgets, and then give them another opportunity to buy.

What you have is a way to continue the sales process, even after the prospect leaves the web site! You can share testimonials with them showing how other people have profited after buying your blue widgets, etc.

And you can continue to share the love of blue widgets with them until they decide to buy — or decide to get off your list. And as long as you continue to send them compelling and interesting info about blue widgets, they’ll stick around and listen to your pitches, be they soft or hard.

This means that when you get ready to promote a product (whether it’s your product or whether you’re aqcting as an affiliate), you shouldn’t “throw the switch” until you have a series of autoresponder messages loaded into your autoresponder and ready to go. And, you’ll need a special report or some other “enticement” to get them to join your list — saying “pretty please” doesn’t work all that well online.

We all want the kind of business where money rolls in while we drink fruity drinks out of coconut shells on the beach. We want that “autopilot business” everyone talks about.

An autoresponder filled with messages that continue the sales process is one of the biggest ways to make can happen. And whether you’re promoting your own product or someone’s product as an affiliate, a series of autoresponder messages can help build your list and make extra sales at the same time.

If you don’t have an autoresponder account, I recommend using Aweber. With one account you can create multiple autoresponders, each with multiple follow-up emails.

And if you need a cheap and easy way to put together a special report that can be given as a gift to get people on your list, check out the process described at Content Conveyor Belt — I use it all the time.

NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 5 By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”

The word “overhead” is not a favorite among those who run businesses of any kind. Nobody likes the expenses of operating a business. And nobody really talks about them much when it comes to promoting all of the “money-making” products and services online.

But, don’t kid yourself, there’s a lot of overhead.

That brings me to the fifth reason why I love affiliate marketing…

** You don’t need a big budget to make it work **

Do you have any idea how much money is spent running an internet business? There are monthly fees for…

• Autoresponders
• Hosting
• Management
• Advertising
• Scripts
• Much more

There are regular fees for…

• Licensing
• Outsourcing
• Support
• Customer Service
• Maintenance
• Development
• Recruting
• Much more

It’s not uncommon to spend tens of thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of dollars in operational costs — which is fine if you’ve been in business a while and are making the bucks. However, if you’re a newcomer, it can be taxing on your budget!

 SIDEBAR:  I paid one girl over $30,000 last year
 just to oversee one small part of my business.
 No one talks much about it, but there ARE a lot
 of expenses involved before you get to the 
 "bottom line" of profit.

BUT, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need a big budget to make it work! You can simply use a variety of free and low-cost marketing methods to generate clicks to your affiliate link.

That’s why I love affiliate marketing.

You don’t need a big budget to make it work.

…………………….

Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week. Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea! Visit http://jayjennings.com/likes/affiliatenaire/

…………………….

For the next several days I’m drivingthrough Canada in places where there’s no cell service, let alone internet access.

So if you try to get hold of me for some reason and you think I’m ignoring you, that’s probably not the case. =:)

I’ll check in when and where I can. Once we get back “home” I should be back online every day.

Thanks.

NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 4 By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”

I’m sure by now you are well aware that there are those who have reported HUGE amounts of money being made with their online businesses. What you may not be aware of is the amount of work involved in generating those “sales” (not always net profit, mind you … this isn’t “spendable” income in a lot of cases.)

That brings me to the fourth reason why I love affiliate marketing…

** You don’t need to manage an entire business **

While it can be quite lucrative, running an entire business with employees, inventory, partners, vendors, and other associates can be a time-sucking, frustrating ordeal.

Imagine…

• Processing refunds
• Putting out fires when partners SPAM
• Managing day-to-day operations
• Overseeing projects you’ve outsourced
• Recruting new affiliates
• Training everyone to help you
• Paying taxes
• Taking care of the paper trail
• Doing all of the “stuff” that business owners do.

Didn’t you want to start an internet business to make more time for important things in life?

Why not make a lot of money WITHOUT making a lot of extra work for yourself?!

It can be a lot of extra work and stress. BUT, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need to manage an entire business! You are simply responsible for promoting your affiliate link… someone else handles all the rest.

That’s why I love affiliate marketing.

You don’t need to manage an entire business.

…………………….

Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week. Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea! Visit http://jayjennings.com/likes/affiliatenaire/

…………………….

NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 3 By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”

Some people have the ability to persuade others and talk them into just about anything. Especially when it comes to influencing their buying decisions. They know how to push the right hot buttons, say things the right way and generally get consumers into an emotional frenzy to the point they are ready to click an order button.

There are two key words in that paragraph that really need to stand out in your mind: “some people”.

Not everyone has this ability. In fact, only a few do.

That brings me to the third reason why I love affiliate marketing…

** You don’t need to write a world class salesletter**

Have you ever tried to write a salesletter? There’s a reason why professional copywriters charge up to $10,000 (and sometimes even more) for a SINGLE salesletter. It takes a lot of experience and skill to write a top-gun salesletter, which is why most people have a hard time convincing people to buy if they do create their own products and website.

They simply don’t have the right salesletter in place to make it all work. Without good copy, it really doesn’t matter how spectacular the offer is, you’re simply not going to get many sales.

 SIDEBAR:  The average conversion rate of site visitors
 who become buyers is reportedly less than 2%.  That
 means 98 out of every 100 do NOT buy.  That's why
 sales are so incredibly bad for a poor site ... you
 *might* get 2 sales out of every 300-400 visitors.

BUT, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need to write a salesletter! You simply direct people to someone else’s high-octane salesletter for THEM to convert your leads into commissionable sales.

That’s why I love affiliate marketing.

You don’t need to write a world class salesletter.

…………………….

Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week. Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea! Visit http://jayjennings.com/likes/affiliatenaire/

…………………….

NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 2 By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”

Pop quiz time. What does “HTML” stand for? Don’t know that one? How about this – what does “FTP” stand for? OK, one more chance. Do you know how to work with either?

That brings me to the second reason why I love affiliate marketing…

  ** You don't need to build a website **

What scares people more than creating a product is building a website!

• What in the world is HTML? Or FTP?
• How much does the software cost? And hosting?
• How do I upload files?
• Why isn’t it formatted correctly?
• Why don’t my graphics look like the ones the pros have?

If you are a complete beginner, it can be very difficult (even using templates) to get an attractive website in place. And hiring a professional to do it fo ryou is out of the budget for most people.

But, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need to build a website. You simply send visitors to someone else’s professionally designed site through your affiliate link.

 SIDEBAR:  Just in case you're interested, HTML stands
 for "hypertext markup language" and is the coding
 used to build webpages.  FTP stands for "file transfer
 protocol" and is the process used for moving files
 from your computer to a website, or vice versa.

Really, in a manner of looking at it, you get to take advantage of the time and money invested by someone else to develop the site. Think about it: when you promote an affiliate link, it reflects firstly upon YOU. You are the one who is advertising the link, recommending the product, sending people who have interacted with YOU to the website.

The professional site of someone else really represents you as the promoter, in the eye of those who have clicked through your link.

You get the benefits without the bother.

That’s why I love affiliate marketing.

You don’t need to build a website.

…………………….

Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week. Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea! Visit http://jayjennings.com/likes/affiliatenaire/

…………………….

NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 1 By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire“

Do you find yourself “starting” to create your own product to sell online, but never “finishing” it?

One of the things I love about affiliate marketing is –

** You don't need to create your own products **

Many people find the idea of creating their own products to be an overwhelming and even paralyzing task.

• I don’t have any good ideas!
• I’m not a writer!
• There’s too much competition!
• I don’t know how to set everything up!
• I can’t figure out where to start!
• It’s too hard!

These are just a few of the valid reasons many people give when it comes to not creating their own products to sell. I’m sure with a few minutes of brainstorming, we could come up with a list of many more.

With affiliate marketing, you don’t need your own products. You simply promote someone else’s already proven successful offer for a commission.

And, truth be told, even if you ARE a writer and you DO have lots of ideas and you CAN figure it all out…

** Nobody wants to create new products all the time **

As good as you may be, you don’t know everything! Why try to create a product on every topic imaginable in your market when you can earn just as much money by simply promoting someone else’s really good offer as one of your profit streams?

That’s why I love affiliate marketing.

You don’t need to create your own products.

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Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week. Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea! Visit http://jayjennings.com/likes/affiliatenaire/

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It’s proven you can make money on the internet without your own product — but time and again it’s proven that you’ll make more money if you have your own product. The bad news i that creating a product can be really time-consuming.

What if I could show you a way to create an info product that didn’t take any time at all? Well, no extra time, anyway. Sure, it sounds like a pipe-dream, but here’s the secret that will work for anyone who’s creating an info product on a subject about which they’re passionate.

If you are a woodworker, odds are that you hang out with other woodworkers in online forums. Or you’re part of a list on Yahoo or Google Groups. You, and others like you, discuss tips and techniques about woodworking.

Let’s suppose you post one new message about woodworking every day (I know some people who are really into their hobbies or careers would post much more than that) — in 90 days you’d have 90 comments, tips, or suggestions about woodworking. You’ve created content while living your normal life.

Do you think there are beginners in woodworking who would give their left chisel for that information? You’d better believe it! But for most people a post on a forum is something that’s here right now — and gone tomorrow.

Instead of posting your message on a forum, write it in a word-processor or similar software and save it to your hard drive before you post it to the forum. You don’t have to do anything else. But after a while you’ll notice that your stockpile of content is growing – and full of some real gems.

Take that already created content, put like items together, possibly type up some material to link them together, and save as a PDF file. Boom! You’ve just created an ebook you can sell or give away as a way to build your list!

Most people are going to be creating content every day — they just don’t think of it in those terms. Start looking at everything you write as raw materials for your online business and put it to use not only in the forums, blogs, and emails, but as articles, special reports, and full ebooks.

Remember I said this method of creating content will work for someone who’s passionate about a subject? That’s because those people will be writing about their chosen niche anyway — they don’t think of it as creating content.

However, this method will also work as a way to painlessly write a special report or ebook about any subject — and at the same time you’ll be building credibility as an expert in the subject.

Instead of coming up with the information from scratch, find a series of articles that have PLR, or private label rights. Rewrite those articles so they are unique to you, and post the articles (or excerpts) in response to questions on forums.

Do this over the course of a few weeks or months and you’ll soon be seen as an expert in that area. Now put your articles together as a special report or ebook and you’re all set.

Note: Don’t lie to people about whether you’re an expert or not — give them good, solid information and let them make up their own minds.

Man, it was a long time coming, but I’m announcing the release of Article Architect v2.1 today (version 2.0 came out quietly a couple days ago, then I added a few more smaller features in time for the official release today).

One of the major new features in AA v2 is the ability to post an article to a Wordpress blog — in fact, this post was made from inside Article Architect!

If you’re interested in taking advantage of the power of free traffic — free TARGETED traffic — you need to check out Article Architect — it’s the Official Article Software of Internet Marketing! =:)

http://articlearchitect.com

There are some days when I wonder why I keep coming out with software products rather than info products. After all, what kind of tech support does a PDF file need? So why do I keep doing it?

Oh yeah, I’m a programmer. =:)

I’ve just spent most of the last 9.5 hours trying to fix ONE last little thing in the next version of Article Architect…

…it’s just a little feature that allows you to post an article to a Wordpress blog.

In fact, I wrote this post inside Article Architect and then told it to publish to my blog. So the fact that you’re seeing it means my 9.5 hours of pounding finally had some effect. =:)

Actually, that part was done a while ago, what I was figuring out was how to allow you to specify what category to post it under. But now AA will show you a list of your blog categories and allow you to choose one to publish under.

Oh, and you can also select multiple articles at once and tell AA to post them in the future — every x number of hours or days apart.

So, when is this coming out? Really soon.

Which is why there may be some confusion. I just released v1.9 of Article Architect and some people haven’t even received the upgrade notice yet.

And in a week they’ll have to upgrade again? That’s not nice. Even if it does add some new power to the program.

So if you’re a current owner of AA, you’ll be seeing an email later tonight about the upgrade. And it will basically say, if you like going through the upgrade process, go ahead and grab v1.9 now and v2.0 in a few days. Otherwise, just sit tight and a cooler version will be along soon.

Okay, now the moment of truth…I’m going to tell AA to publish this to my blog…

I just launched a new product — a set of 52 audio articles called, Writing Tips for Content Creators.

If you have people on your list who are interested in writing articles, ebooks, special reports, etc., this is a great way to give them content they can really use. You can buy the set and with 52 different tips, you have content ready-to-go for an entire year!

Here’s a sample of the content:

Organizing Tip 12: Use A Checklist

That page was generated using the included software. YOUR name will be on the web page and the audio control when you generate the pages for your site.

http://imsoundbites.com/writingtips.php

This is the second pack in the IM Sound Bites series and is way good! =:)

My new product has just been launched, at http://imsoundbites.com

For those needing a sample, this code was generated by the software and all I had to do was paste it in here to make it work:

The Trap Of Information Overload (02:00)

Thanks!