What could you do with a link that would expire after a certain number of clicks?

Or that would expire after a certain number of hours?

Expiring links are a typical part of good shopping cart systems — it makes it more difficult for people to pass along a download link to all their friends and family. Once the ebook, software, etc., has been downloaded, or a certain amount of time passes, the link stops working.

I’m proud to announce the birth of a new product, called, believe it or not, Expiring Links.

It allows you to quickly create links that expire when you want — after x number of clicks or x number of hours.

And it’s separate from a shopping cart so you don’t have to pay for an entire system, just the expiring links themselves.

But you can still use Expiring Links with something like PayPal to automatically create expiring links when someone buys a product from you.

Or, use it with your Aweber account to give someone a time-limited bonus for signing up to your list.

Expiring Links is a part of the Sonic Toolkit membership site…

…but I’ve also decided to offer it as a stand-alone product.

Watch for an announcement tomorrow on how to grab your copy. I might even use an expiring link to give the first 10 people a big price break. =;)

Just in case some of you hadn’t heard, I moved my family into a travel trailer and we’re going to noodle around the US for about a year. If that goes well, we’ll then sell the trailer and buy a sailboat and noodle around the Caribbean until we get tired of it.

We’re down in California right now and will be here for another 2-3 weeks, then heading for Texas (and possibly into Mexico) for the last part of December and January.

I’m still working my business — I just do it from coffee shops and the like (I’m in a Starbucks in Vallejo, CA, right now). It’s not an ideal setup, but it does work. The main drawback is that I’ve slowed down on some things — it’s harder to carve out several hours at a time to focus on things.

But the next version of Article Architect is coming very soon and a new tool will be added to Sonic Toolkit right after that.

The other big news is that I’m going to do some “Brainstorm Weekend” sessions as I cross the country. If you’re interested in getting together to swap ideas, see the official site:

http://BrainstormWeekend.com

I’ve had a few people ask about using Sonic Memo Pro with a self-hosted Wordpress blog. Yes, it works, and it’s very easy and straight-forward.

Here’s a video that shows what to do — note that the audio starts right away, the video starts about 12 seconds in.

Put audio on your Wordpress blog.

I’ve received several tech support queries today about AVG flagging Cloak and Tracker, Article Architect, etc., as having a virus.

It’s not true.

AVG has done this in the past — they flag ALL programs written in REALbasic, which is the development environment I use for all my programming.

I’m hoping their next update fixes this (like I said, this is a recurring problem with AVG). The work around is to set up an exception for your application or turn off Resident Shield.

The other workaround is to switch from AVG to something else more reliable.

I’m selling a limited number of resell rights licenses for my new product, KompoZer Video Tutorials. I think this is the first time I’ve offered resell rights for a new product right out of the gate.

This is the product: KompoZer Tutorials

However, the only people eligible for buying one of the licenses are those people on my JJ List (current customers) or my Select Marketing Info list — to join that one you can use the form to the right.

If you have a target market that would benefit from instructions on building their own web pages, you might want to look into one of these limited licenses. Join the Select Marketing Info list and watch for a broadcast telling you more.

I’ve finished the KompoZer tutorial videos site. You can see it here:

KompoZer Tutorial Videos

If you don’t know, KompoZer is an open-source, cross-platform program kind of like Dreamweaver or FrontPage — it’s a WYSIWYG web site maker.

The tutorial videos I created show how to use KompoZer to create your own web pages — so it cuts the learning curve waaaay down.

The price is really cheap and I’ll be adding more videos as members make suggestions, so if learning how to build your own web pages is something you want, you should join right now.

I’m still in Alaska (it’s a loooong story) but should be leaving after the weekend.

While I’m waiting to leave I decided to spend the holiday weekend creating a product that’s been on my “to do” list for a few months — a video tutorial on how to use the Kompozer software to crank out your own web site.

For those who don’t know, Kompozer is an open-source program that’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and is a good alternative to using something like Dreamweaver (which is way spendy).

I’ll be launching the tutorial videos next Tuesday (that’s the plan today) and will be allowing XX number of people to also buy resell rights to the videos.

Come back here late Monday or early Tuesday for more details…

I’ve done a split test on the Article Architect site over the last 42 sales — I was testing a different audio message. Both the same, except one added this wording in the middle:

“Before you decide whether Article Architect is the right software to help you reap the benefits of article marketing, I want to make one thing clear, because I know there are people scouring the internet for shortcuts to success — Article Architect does NOT write articles for you. All of the article creators out there turn out garbage and people who use them should be ashamed of themselves.

If you want to build a long-term online business, those shortcuts will end up hurting you. Instead of shortcuts, look for tools that will help you do the things that count, faster and easier.”

Basically, I was searching for a way to lower my refund rate from people who were looking for something that would actually generate articles without human intervention.

Here are the conversion numbers:

Normal wording: 7.71% Blunt wording: 3.46%

First thing is, even the “bad” number is a pretty good conversion rate.

Second thing is, the “warning” message really cut sales.

What I haven’t looked at is whether the refund requests differ based on which audio messsage they listened to. I’m actually not sure if I can track the numbers to the individual, but I’ll check into that.

Just thought I’d share these results with you. If nothing else, it shows the contents of an audio message can really make a difference in your conversion rate.

Members of Sonic Toolkit can use Sonic Memo Express and Sonic Test and Track to perform their own audio-based split tests.

I’ve had a LOT of questions about yesterday’s post and would like to try and allay some of the fears that have been expressed.

1. I’m not “leaving the business.” I’m still going to do internet marketing but will focus on non-marketers. And that doesn’t mean I won’t ever release another tool. After all, my original utility, Sonic Memo, came about as a result of me trying to better market a cookbook. Upon offering Sonic Memo I just kind of got sucked into the “sell to marketers” niche.

2. Your products will still work. A couple people seem to think that if I stop selling a product, the copy they bought will stop working. Nope, I don’t have any software like that. If you’re happy with it now, you’ll be happy with it whether I’m selling marketing tools or juggling balls.

3. Article Architect owners will still get the upgrade to v2. Even if I sell my business before the AA v2 launch in July, a condition of the deal will be that existing AA owners get v2 for free, just like I’ve intended. The upgrade is coming! =:)

4. How much do I want for my business? Hmmm… good question. One that I don’t yet have an answer for. I was “floating a trial balloon” to gauge interest, and now that I see there is some interest, I’ll nail that down.

5. Will I split things up? Yes. I’m willing to keep Sonic Toolkit (I want to, actually, since I use it so much myself) and sell off all the stand-alone products.

Once again, nobody will be “left out in the cold.” I wouldn’t sell my business unless I was assured current customers would be taken care of. I’m NOT going to just drop things and walk away — I’m just refocusing.

Thanks!

Jay

I’ll be offering this “officially” in a couple weeks but figured I’d float it out here first because I’d rather deal with someone who “knows” me and my business to some extent.

I’m contemplating getting out of the internet marketing business — well, kind of. I’d like to market on the internet, just not to other marketers. =:) That’s what I’ve focused on for the last several years and I’ve had fun and made some money, but in keeping with my new life offline (moving on to a sailboat the end of this year) I feel like I need a fresh start online, too.

What I’ll be offering are complete rights to all my existing programs - and I don’t mean just resell rights I mean ALL rights. Someone can get the source code, docs, videos, marketing materials, customer and prospect lists, etc. Even I won’t be able to sell the products after someone else takes them.

We’re talking about everything from the original Sonic Memo Pro to the latest Content Conveyor Belt, and everything in between — Sonic Info Riches, Cloak and Tracker, Sonic Opt-In, Podcasting In About An Hour, Joomla In About An Hour, Article Architect, Audio Editing Secrets, Sonic Snooper, etc.

It also includes the monthly membership site, Sonic Toolkit which contains Sonic Flix (for video) Sonic Memo Express, Sonic Survey, Sonic Flycatcher, etc.

Basically, I’m looking at selling my entire marketing business.

However, I don’t want to sell it to someone who will just take the stuff off the market. I get emails weekly from people trying to buy PLR Commander — but I sold that last year (so it’s not included in the package) and the guy never put it back on the market. I don’t want that to happen with this stuff.

Yeah, it’s a business deal for me, but it’s also kind of personal, if you know what I mean.

Like I said, I’ll be writing up a complete description of the business in a couple weeks but if someone knows what I’m offering and makes me an offer I like, I’ll do the deal just that fast and can skip the whole “sales” process.

I’m not planning on vanishing — I just want to focus on non-marketing niches for a while.

Interested?

I subscribed to Trafficology and enjoyed the newsletter — then messed up and didn’t switch my credit card when it expired.

Which turned out to be a GREAT thing because I was really impressed with the “Hey, you won’t get the next issue” emails I started receiving. I saved them so I could study and implement something similar in my own marketing.

Until the last email they sent me.

That one pissed me off and cemented my decision to NOT renew my subscription and paints Nitro Marketing (the parent of Trafficology) as a deceitful company.

Here are the paragraphs that did it for me:

If you do not provide us with your updated billing information before then, your account will be DELETED and the balance you owe will be forwarded to our collections department.

Their collections department? I’m being sent to collections?

If you update your billing information TODAY we’ll agree to wave any past due charges. Just pay for your current month’s subscription and we’ll call it even.

First, it’s waive, not wave, but they say I have past due charges — which is why I’m being sent to collections, I guess.

Except that after getting clarification from customer service it turns out they wanted money for something they were GOING to send me (the next issue), not something I’d already received.

So there was no PAST DUE amount, and thus no reason to send it to “collections.”

Which means the email to me was full of lies designed to scare me into paying them more money.

Nitro Marketing is that kind of company, eh? So why in the world would I ever give them a single, solitary dime in the future?

I can’t think of any reason. And as long as they continue with deceptive marketing practices, you should think before you give them any money, too.

My plan was to post some things I’m getting rid of this past weekend — but we ended up in a flurry of packing and cleaning and I’m still way behind the 8-ball.

If you had to get rid of all your marketing stuff except that which would fit in 1 or 2 medium boxes, what would you keep and what would you ditch?

Let’s take the 7 Figure Code, for example — 3 huge binders and 16 DVD cases. The video I handled by ripping all the DVDs onto my hard drive and then copying the MOV files to one DVD-R (would be nice if people shipping multi-DVD packages would include an extra one with all the content already ripped).

So the video is easy to take with me but there’s no way I can take the binders — so do I give/sell them to someone? Okay, then what about the 16 DVDs? If I’m keeping a copy (for now I am because I haven’t watched them all) then I can’t send the DVDs on to someone else — so do I throw them away? That seems wrong, too.

And over and over it goes. I have 4-5 “big package” courses sitting around and time is getting very short.

And I know the thrift store here doesn’t want the stuff, so I’d better figure out a solution quickly! =:)

If you’re looking for the “audio thing” I mentioned in my email, it’s the next post down. It went in less than 15 minutes.

I am doing the last of the packing before moving and am coming across stuff like the original Traffic Secrets, Underachiever Course, etc.

It’s all GREAT stuff but I can’t fit it onto a sailboat so I’m going to sell some of it and give some of it away.

Watch this blog over the next 3 days because I’ll be posting — and taking whoever gets in first!

Thanks!

SOLD!!!

I’m selling my pro audio gear — I’m switching to more portable gear since I’ll be on the road/ocean for the foreseeable future.

I’ll be advertising it on Craigslist this weekend but if you know what the stuff is and don’t need a “sales letter” to convince you to buy, I’ll sell the entire set (which cost me about $1500 just a few years ago) for $500 to my ———- (SOLD!!!) PayPal account.

• Digidesign MBox w/ProTools LE software (2-channel USB mixer)
• Audio Technica AT-3035 Microphone w/Shockmount
• Daptor Two Wireless Interface (record cell calls)
• JK Audio Broadcast Host Digital Hybrid (record phone calls from landlines)

This system will work for Windows or Mac people (better for Windows because the MBox drivers for Mac usually lag the current system by a few months).

This is the setup I’ve used to create podcasts, tutorial videos, host teleconference calls (to record and then sell), etc.

First $500 to my PayPal account takes it.

Oh, the first three pieces listed there fit into a foam-filled silver case that makes it EASY to take the gear to mobile locations.

I’ll pay shipping to a US destination.

Yesterday I told you about a content conveyor belt I created and said I’d let you know what kind of results I got in 24 hours.

This is a niche that I’m new in, so I didn’t know what kind of response I’d get. I also didn’t know what kind of monetary reward I’d have to offer to get results.

So I asked for “tips” on a certain topic and offered 10 cents for each one. 24 hours later I have 10 good tips — 9 that I can use right out of the box!

It cost me a buck and the conveyor belt is still running and I’ll let it run until I have 50 tips. At that point I’ll compile them into a booklet and use it as a give-away. Actually, I’ll be selling reprint rights to the booklet to people who do business in that niche.

Which means my $5.50 investment will make…well, I don’t know how much it’ll make yet, but I’ll bet you my next two desserts it’ll be well worth the time and money I’m putting into it! =:)

Have you started a content conveyor belt today?

I’m sure you’ve heard of my Content Conveyor Belt system that shows you how to create an ongoing flow of fresh, original content you can use in your blog posts, ebooks, articles, etc.

I’m just starting a new product and have ZERO content for it. So I used the system and created a conveyor belt for the new content I need and turned it on just a few minutes ago.

It’s a new niche for me so I have NO idea how fast the content will come in (some are pretty slow, some come in like a flood) but I’ll come back here in 24 hours and let you know how it’s working.

I was just doing some upkeep on my in-box and thought it appeared my junk folder was filling up faster than normal — that’s the folder that spam is sent to automatically.

I have the filters set pretty good — well, as far as noting going in there that shouldn’t. Because of that I still have dozens of spam per hour that I have to delete from my in-box.

But this isn’t about that spam, this is about the spam that’s AUTOMATICALLY sent to the junk folder. I deleted all emails from that folder except those that had come in the last 24 hours. Got done and saw there were 6,213 pieces of spam!

6200+ pieces of spam in a freaking day! And remember, that doesn’t include the hundreds I deleted manually!

That’s 259 spam per hour coming to me. This is insane.

It’s not going to be streaming video that makes the net collapse, it’s going to be spam!

It’s no wonder that some people are reporting the death of email marketing. I, for one, am so busy deleting emails I hardly have time to read any!

I think RSS could be the secret weapon — but I think too few people use it. I use it more and more and love the fact that what I get is always EXACTLY what I wanted. There’s no easy/common/foolproof way to slip spam into an RSS feed that I’m aware of.

Anybody got ideas on how to increase the adoption rate of RSS readers — and of people who will use them?

I came across some interesting stats from last fall I don’t think I ever published.

A friend and I were arguing about prices such as $34.95 vs $35 — he owns a retail store and, like most logical thinking geeks, believes the only difference between the two prices is that the former is “stupid” because it’s just a gimmick that nobody “falls for” anyway.

So I decided to test those two prices on one of my products and see for myself if there was any difference. And here are the results:

Price: $34.95 — 5.3% conversion rate

Price: $35 — 3.9% conversion rate

That’s a large enough difference that I’m convinced the “trick” works and as a result, I’ve been using a lot more $x.95 prices.

I still haven’t done any conclusive tests on the whole “7″ thing, so maybe I’ll hit that next. =:)

Here’s a screenshot from the version of Article Architect I’m running on my computer:



Yep, in the new version you can post your articles to your own Wordpress blogs — and even schedule them for future release!

Get a bunch of articles/blog posts ready to go using the tools in AA, and the post them all to your blog where they will be published on the schedule you specify!

That’s one of four MAJOR new features in the next version of Article Architect. Besides the major features, there are more than a dozen new minor features and scads of tweaks that make Article Architect faster and easier to use — and more important to your online business (in ways I’m not going to disclose yet).

AAv2 will see a price increase — but all current owners will receive a free update. So if you don’t have it yet, you can get a copy here: Article Architect

It for more than just article marketing now! =:)

(AAv2 is scheduled for a May 27 release.)

(This post may be controversial, but not just for controversy’s sake. I’d like to hear arguments pro or con about this.)

As an affiliate you can promote someone’s product and make a commission if a sale is made. It’s the merchant’s way of rewarding you for bringing in business.

In a nutshell, the way it works is you provide a special link to the product you’re promoting and when the user clicks that link to look at the product, a cookie is put on their computer. If they then buy the product (on that visit or a subsequent visit) you will get credit for that sale.

As a merchant it’s a great way to “hire” a sales force that works on commission, and as an affiliate it’s a great way to make money by promoting a product.

Nothing unethical there at all.

But did you know that simply by coming to this web site and reading this blog post, I could have “stuffed” cookies on your computer for products I’m not promoting? If you then buy that product, I’ll get an affiliate commission!

Some people don’t see the problem with that so I’ll spell it out. A commission is given in exchange for the affiliate helping to make the sale. In the case of cookie stuffing, there is no help being given by the affiliate — so the affiliate is taking money away from the merchant.

I know people who read this blog are interested in internet marketing — I could stuff the cookies of dozens of the top IM products on your computer and odds are some people are going to end up going to those sites and buying — and I’ll get a commission.

Money for nothing — what could be better?

Well, how about money that’s ethically earned? Wouldn’t that be better? I see so many people who are willing to shaft someone else in order to make a buck that it’s disgusting.

Who is getting hurt in this case? By paying a commission that wasn’t rightly earned, the merchant is losing out.

I’m not saying an “accidental sale” now and then is so horrible — but there are people out there doing underhanded things in order to make sales.

And other people who are writing software to help them do more of that. In fact, on the Warrior Forum right now there’s a piece of software for sale that allows you to do cookie stuffing. That capability is one of the major features of that software.

I asked whether that was a proper thing to do and an anonymous dork started spouting about how you can use a hammer to hit a nail or to smash someone’s head, but that doesn’t make the hammer bad.

Right.

But if the ad for the hammer talks about how you can kill someone with one blow, and how the special finish allows blood to wash right off, it’s pretty apparent the hammer’s being sold for a specific purpose.

You can make money cheating people and you can make money without cheating people.

I think cookie stuffing is cheating and people who do it are unethical.

Am I wrong?