That’s how many videos have been served up by Sonic Flix so far.

And Sonic Memo Express has served up 1,688,109 audio files.

Those are two of the tools inside Sonic Toolkit — and I hate to even put up a link because the sales letter just sucks. That’s why I don’t promote STK very much — because I know I need to rewrite the sales letter and I just don’t have the time.

Taking a peek at the sales letter I see it’s so outdated it doesn’t even list all the tools inside:

Adsense Eliminator Expiring Links Inline Profits Exit Attack Sonic Test & Track Sonic Flycatcher Sonic Memo Express Sonic Syndicator Sonic Flix STK Survey Monthly PLR Materials Miscellaneous Marketing Title Brainstorm

This weekend I’m working on a new tool — kind of an extension of Sonic Flix — that will make it very easy to put together video sales letters.

When that’s done then I’ll use it to create a new STK sales letter. And I’m going to significantly bump the price as well (don’t worry if you’re already a member, you’ll be grandfathered in).

More info as the new product comes together…

In my work with article marketing I solicit questions from people who want the free, prequalified, targeted traffic from writing simple little articles, and one question keeps coming up time after time:

Q. Does article marketing still work?

Sometimes the writers are wondering about backlinks, or search engine optimization techniques, or any of the other tactics for which they’re using articles, but it all boils down to the question of whether it still works…

…and whether it will continue to work in the future.

Here’s Why Article Marketing Will Always Work

The simple answer is that getting free traffic from articles happens for many different reasons, and there’s no way every one of those reasons will vanish.

For example, the search engine aspect — even if every search engine in the world vanished overnight there are still many ways you can use articles to drive traffic to your sites.

Even if the search engines stopped indexing links in articles, so the use of backlinks ceased to work, there are still many ways to drive the user to your web site.

The only way article marketing will stop working is if people stop reading — and that’s never going to happen. A lot of reading has switched from physical books, magazines, and newspapers to the digital versions, and articles used to promote products or service have switched right along with them.

Just to get your thinker working, let me give you three ways to use articles for marketing on the internet that don’t rely on search engines in the slightest.

1. Become A White Knight – In general, you help people who write ezines/newsletters, blogs, etc., come up with new content for their readers, so they win, and you win because your resource box is exposed to a new audience.

2. Long Term Sales On Autopilot – Use your articles as a “passive sales pitch” in a series of autoresponder messages. Once people join your mailing list, start sending them sales messages in the form of articles (that also give them great information).

3. Automatic Special Reports – Combine several articles on the same topic together and publish as a PDF file. You now have a “special report” that can be given away as an incentive to join your mailing list, or even sold as a stand-alone product.

I’ve written entire articles on those techniques, so look them up if you’re interested in all the details.

No matter how you slice it, article marketing has been around for decades and will be around for decades to come, driving free traffic to our web sites.

Recently I split-tested an opt-in page to see whether a testimonial would help increase conversions.

Sidebar: In a nutshell, split-testing is when you split the traffic in two (or more) parts and send them to different web pages. Each one is typically the same with just a single difference. Then you keep track of which web page brings in the most sales or opt-ins and you know whether that difference is the one you should use going forward.

Most people might say a testimonial would help, but it’s always a good idea to test things so you know for yourself what’s true in your market.

In this case, yes, the testimonial helped — although that’s not what I think is the most interesting thing.

First, here are the stats:

Page without testimonial: 10.37% opt-in rate. Page with testimonial: 14.40% opt-in rate.

Both pages were identical other than the testimonial and those numbers are after almost 100 opt-ins. So according to the test I get 4% more opt-ins with the testimonial than without. That’s settled, the testimonial stays in.

But here is what I found more interesting…

The testimonial I used wasn’t from Marlon Sanders, or Mike Filsaime, or Frank Kern, or anybody else who’s a “known big-wig” in the internet marketing scene.

It was from a guy that probably very few people in the internet marketing world have ever heard about. I don’t know that for a fact, but looking at his site and Googling him I think he’s a “nobody.”

I mean that in the sense of “name recognition in the IM world.” Using that definition most of us are also nobodies — I’m not belittling the guy or what he does.

My point is that you don’t have to have the backing of a “big name” marketer to make a difference. Even someone who’s basically unknown (a nobody) to your target market can make a positive impact if they like what you’re doing and publicly say so.

If you’re selling a product or service and Jane Doe says something nice about you, ask if you can use that quote in your marketing. They may not have a known name or a huge following, but their sincere words about your product or service can be the catalyst for changing prospects into buyers.

So thank you to that unnamed person and every other “nobody” who takes the time to speak up and say what you like — as you can see from the stats on this test you have the power to make a big difference, well-known or not.

If you’re interested in talking about article marketing, internet marketing, or have tech support questions about my products, join me on a free conference call every Saturday:

Day: Saturday Time: 10AM Alaska Time, 11AM Pacific Time, 2PM Eastern Time Conference Dial-In: 1-218-862-1300 Conference Code: 365046

I’ll be on the line for up to an hour and it’s very informal. Ask a question or bring up a topic you’re interested in.

I hope to see you on the next call!

Jay

PS – A couple weeks ago I said I’d be recording these calls and making them available, but I’ve discovered I can’t do that. It’s a time issue — I’m not willing to release the raw recordings and I just don’t have time to edit them. Some pieces will probably show up in the future, but the only way to really get any info from the call is to join us live.

Writing an article to promote a product or service is often as simple as sitting down and writing a review about what you’re pitching. But in order to give your readers a little different take on things, try writing an interview article.

An interview article is one where you talk to someone about the product or service, ask them questions, and then write the article based on their answers.

One of the big advantages of this type of article is that you don’t have to be an expert on the subject — you just have to find someone who is. In essence, you’re piggy-backing on someone else’s knowledge. For normal article writing I recommend that you stick with subjects about which you have some personal knowledge. Otherwise you’re doing a disservice to your readers by giving them information that’s wrong or very shallow.

The interview article is the exception to that rule — and it opens up so many markets that you might be shut out of otherwise.

You might be thinking it’s hard to find an expert, but you don’t have to go to the top of the pile — if you’re doing articles on golf you don’t have to interview Tiger Woods or Vijay Singh. (Of course, if you have the opportunity, go for it!)

Instead, the golf pro at the local course or country club knows more about golf than most people — and someone like that is very approachable. Offer them lunch or a drink and that’s probably all it will take.

Hint: If you take lessons from someone like that they’re MUCH more likely to agree to an interview!

Here’s one of the coolest things about doing an interview article — when you interview someone you’re not going to ask them one question and be done — you’re going to quiz them for as long as you’re able. Which means you’re going to end up with enough raw content for several articles, not just one.

When you do get ready to write the article you’ll have to decide whether to write it as a Q&A (Question and Answer) piece or as a “regular” article. If you don’t do it as a Q&A piece I’d still suggest mentioning the informatiom came from a conversation with John Doe, Golf Pro at the XYZ Club. That will add credibility to the article.

No matter whether you’re interviewing a local dog trainer, an organic gardener, or a competitive martial artist, writing an interview article is a great way to get free traffic in a niche where you’re merely an observer.

Just posted a new Sonic Flycatcher video for those people who’ve never seen it:

http://SonicFlycatcher.com

It’s only about 3 minutes in length and might give you some good ideas — take a look!

If you’re using article marketing to drive free traffic to your web site you’re probably very close to having your own digital product you can sell online.

What kind of product? Special reports that are about 7-15 pages in size. Small enough to be put together more quickly than you might think, but large enough to create value that people will pay for. If you have 10-12 articles written on a specific topic you can easily put them together and have a special report done in no time.

Easily Creating Your Reports

A typical article is probably about a page in length. The easiest way to create a report is to gather 7-15 articles that are similar in topic and put them together — voila, you have a report!

Of course, sometimes it’s good to have a section of the report that’s longer than a page — and you also want to make sure the report doesn’t “feel” disjointed. So look for a couple articles that fit together especially well and tweak the end of one and the beginning of the next to turn them into one longer article.

In fact, if you take a little time and do that with each article, you’ll end up with a much better report — one that flows rather than jumps around.

Making Money Using Free Reports

This is similar to article marketing in that you give some information on how to solve a problem and then promote a product that can make the process faster and/or easier.

Where it differs from article marketing is in the promotion of the product. Articles that are submitted to directories usually have to have a rather passive pitch or they’ll be rejected. But in a report that you are going to distribute you can be as blatant as you want.

Just remember, if you’re all pitch and no info you won’t be making a very good impression on the reader. Be sure you balance the info with the pitch.

Although there’s not a hard-and-fast rule, special reports that you give away usually contain more affiliate links than a report that you sell. The paid reports also usually contain more hard-core information.

Making Money Selling Reports

Probably the most basic way to make money with a report is to put up a sales page and a PayPal button. If the info product is decent you’ll make some sales — maybe a lot of sales. And you can use articles or free reports to drive traffic to that sales letter.

You can also use the report as a “foundation” for a larger info product — add some screencast videos, some interviews, checklists, etc., and you have the makings of a full-blown information product that could be promoted with affiliates, joint ventures, etc.

Building Your List With Reports

This one is for the person who’s more patient, who sees the big picture, or who isn’t desperate for money right this minute.

Saying “Pretty please!” just isn’t enough these days to get people to join your list — you need to give them a solid reason to give up their email address. A special report written to solve a problem they have is a great enticement.

Building a larger list of prospects is something that should always be “front of mind” and the reports you put together can be instrumental in helping to build that list.

There you go — three solid ways you can use small reports to make money and build your list. And just think, it all started with writing simple little articles!

If you’ve been around me for more than a few minutes you probably already know I’m a big proponent of cloaking your links.

Not necessarily to slow down link-hijackers — that’s just a fringe benefit. The main reason is so you can know where your traffic is coming from.

Plus, by cloaking your links you are able to change the redirect (where the link sends the person who clicked) at the drop of a hat. Why would you want to do that? Let me give you a real-world example.

I like to promote products and services that have an affiliate program, but if the “best” option doesn’t have one, I’m not going to promote the second choice just so I can make a commission.

NameCheap, for example, is where I register all my new domain names. They don’t have an affiliate program so I make nothing by promoting them, but I think they’re the best.

However, I still cloak the link when I promote them because one day they may start an affiliate program and all I have to do to capitalize on all the links I’ve used for them is to change the redirect to use my new affiliate link.

Voila! Instant affiliate links — in all the forum posts, blogs, articles, ebooks, special reports — everywhere that I’ve promoted NameCheap.

Today I found out my link to HostGator (my absolute favorite web site hosting provider) was not working because of a problem with my Commission Junction account. I still don’t know what that problem is, but in about 15 seconds I had the HostGator-generated affiliate link in place — so all the links out there are once again going to HostGator via my affiliate link.

If you’re not cloaking ALL your links you’re in danger of losing a lot of money. And don’t rely on a 3rd-party link cloaker such as bit.ly or tinyurl — you need something YOU control. Those other guys could go out of business at any time and then your links are toast.

The best all-around link cloaker/tracker on the market is my Sonic Sneak. It’s web-based so you can use it from any location, even when you’re on the road without your laptop. Second choice is my Cloak and Tracker software which runs on Windows and Mac.

Whichever one you like, get one and put it in place right away. Cloak your links starting today and you don’t have to worry what happens down the road — you can change the destination for all your links in the blink of an eye.

There are some markets that are known money makers — big money makers. And you can recognize most of those niches because of the mammoth companies already parked in those spaces, carving out huge chunks of the market for themselves.

Do you really want to compete in the weight loss market against Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, or Nutrisystem?

How are you going to make a dent in the home improvement market against Bob Vila, Lowes or Home Depot?

There are many people whose advice is to find different niches, that you shouldn’t try to compete against those monster companies. And while that’s one way to solve the problem, there’s also another way that keeps you in the competitive space, but also puts you in a class by yourself.

Let me show you what I mean with a great example from the foreign languages market.

Go into any Barnes and Noble or spend a little time online and you’d bet there’s not really any need or desire for yet another book on how to learn Spanish. After all, there’s Spanish in a Flash, Spanish While Driving, Just Enough Spanish, etc. Most people would say to pick another niche, that the “learning spanish” niche is saturated.

But just yesterday I was in a boating store and spotted a book on learning Spanish that speaks directly to a certain group of people: Spanish for Cruisers: Boat Repairs and Maintenance Phrase Book. It’s aimed perfectly at people who are taking their boats down to Mexico!

Sure, any of those other Spanish books would be good to have, but if you’re heading south on your sailboat and see a stack of Spanish books, which one are you probably going to grab? The one that’s written just for you!

And that’s the secret to competing in a niche that others might think is saturated — don’t play chicken with Rosetta Stone or Berlitz, they won’t blink and will steamroll right over the top of you. Instead, go for a segment of the market they’ll never target.

No, the potential market isn’t as big, but you don’t have to stay in the sub-niche. Get good and solid there and then start spreading out with a base of satisfied customers to build on.

Look at the broader niche in which you’d like to market and the start brainstorming sub-niches that aren’t being served. Even if there are products that would be fine for the sub-niche, one that’s laser-focused is going to appear to the target market as if it’s better.

If there’s a big-money niche you’ve had your eye on but didn’t know how to compete with the Big Boys, now you know the secret — don’t compete straight on, make an end-run around them into a sub-niche they’re not exploiting and start serving those people.

What do you think of this technique?

Sitting here outside my son’s Civil Air Patrol meeting and finishing up the notes for my latest product.

What is it? Well…

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could make apps for the iPhone and the new Apple iPad tablet — even if you’re not a programmer?

You’ll be able to do that with my new step-by-step video tutorial series I’m launching very soon. (You can underline the word “very” in that statement.)

I’ll have a sign-up list tomorrow and those who are interested will get full details on Friday.

Get ready!

Jay

PS – Oh, and those who sign up first will get one-on-one personal coaching included so you can pick my “programming brain” for extra ideas!