I am a newbie. There I said it. I find it amusing how often I see blogs written about internet and affiliate marketing by people who are only claiming to be making their living online, newbies like myself it seems – who are somehow unable to admit to their readers and to themselves that they are actually not. But this is not the point of this post – the point I want to make is in relation to the *free* email marketing services that abound in the online marketers world and how these free traffic bars made me realize I was approaching affiliate marketing from the completely wrong angle.
It really is a Catch 22 scenario here. A good affiliate marketer should provide value and build recognition among their peers in order to succeed. But how can you make money as an online affiliate marketer if you have no peers or brand recognition? Evidently you lie. This brings me back to the issue I mentioned in the opening paragraph and one that is rife in the online marketing world… And there is no greater source of evidence to support this claim than free traffic bars and email services.
Join any of the trafficadbar, list joe, traffic splash, traffic witch, email magic systems etc etc and you will soon realize how fruitless the whole process is. Even looking at the basic premise as to how these email systems work you can see straight away that unless you have something amazing and unique to offer – you are simply wasting your time!
So how do the *free traffic – email systems work?
The basic premise is as follows: You join one of these services and as a member you are allowed to email your offer or salespage or squeeze page or whatever you choose (basically your predefined URL) and this is usually to around 3000 people. In order to get enough points to send these emails (usually weekly) you need to open the emails that come from other members of the service (who are also emailing 3000 people weekly) Each time you click on the link provided and visit their URL you are given points. As these points add up, so does your ability to send free emails to others. So to get enough credits (3000) to email your offer you need to spend at least an hour visiting the URL’s of other members.
So what’s wrong with that? Nothing if you are unable to think outside the box…. but let’s venture outside of the confines of our cube for just a moment…
I am a member of List Joe. In order to send emails to as many people as possible I have to open the gamut of list joe emails that arrive in my inbox. Obviously I am not interested in anything apart from getting those points, so when I click on the link I am definitely not interested in opting in or buying their wares – and therefore it is fair to assume that the 3000 members I am sending to are thinking and doing the same. With this in mind it is fair to assume then that unless you have the most amazing unique offer online, you are going to waste your time with this service. Am I the only one who sees this? This marketing service also provided me with an insight into affiliate marketing that I could not have gotten elsewhere – and due to this changed the entire direction that my online business was going…
Too many marketers marketing the same material to other marketers, trying to sell tactics to better enable them to market… to each other! Ok that was a tongue twister, but mother goose or not, it actually is a spot on account of EXACTLY what is occurring within the traffic bar – free promotional email services. Affiliate copycats forever chasing their tails and wondering why they are going nowhere.
These Affiliate clones can have their own war thankyou very much, I’m off to find another battleground.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, the offer needs to be unique and special in order to be noticed. But what constitutes unique and special?
We are so numb to internet advertising of any kind. The majority of the time even ads with buxom bodacious babes gets cropped by my selective vision. Let alone something I have to READ in order to entice my consumeristic ways.
Oftentimes ads are repeated EVERYWHERE. Sites & emails. So there is an element of desensitisation too.
How do genuine offers stand out from the cesspool of scammers?
Twitter: buildrankprofit
March 26, 2010 at 9:19 AM
Nicely pointed out Nic. I certainly never took into account the desensitization that occurs from the repetition of web advertising, but from the point of view of the traffic bars I was referring, this is certainly a contributing element. Its the a re occurrence of any ‘amazing offer’ that instantly takes the ‘amazing’ element away from the offer and leaves the viewer wondering whether to believe any of the ‘sales pitches’ that come into his/her inbox in future.
In regards to what I feel constitutes a ‘unique offer’ – I feel that any salespage or squeezepage that the sender did NOT create themselves is instantly not unique and only adds to the cesspool of crap and reaffirms the belief that nothing in the internet marketing world is unique or genuine. There is nothing wrong with this cut and paste system, certianly we all have to start somewhere, but using a forum filled with thousands of like minded individuals seems to me to be a waste of time and energy.
Alex!
Truer words have hardly ever been spoken. I totally agree. Of course I also fell for these offers before, but I realized rather fast that its a waste of time. Just clicking through ten websites a day to also get “unique” visits from other folks in the same game and ballpark just doesn’t cut it. Some of these services even have counters running on top counting to ten so you’ll “stay” on the site for at least 10 seconds. Well, great. You might even see a peak in your stats, but you certainly won’t see a peak in your sales.
But thats the name of the game, isn’t it.
Again, thank you for your insight! Good job!
John D.
.-= John Delto´s last blog ..Article Marketing – How to Utilize Your Keywords =-.
This is actually my very first time here, truly good looking blog. I discovered lots of fascinating stuff within your blog especially it’s discussion. From all the comments on your articles, it seems like this is really a extremely well-liked web site. Maintain up the great work.
Twitter: bloggersmarket
August 20, 2010 at 11:46 PM
Hi Alex,
I’m beginning to wonder if social bookmarking is part of the problem mentioned above. I’ve almost given up on trying to wrangle traffic. I’m in this for the long run, so I guess I’m stuck with the organic thing.
Hey Alex, do me a favor will you and look into the “Categories / Select Category” bar on your site in the top left hand corner. It covers up the first line of every post you write. I’m seeing this problem in Firefox 3.5.7..
I’m looking at it in UTF-8 basic page style.
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