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48 Hours To Profit - A Lesson Part II
We left off at “Search Inside” which is a free tool for registered Amazon.com users. You actually get to see the books and reports that they sell, in PDF format. Searching Amazon for 'Cures for Bad Breath' I find several resources. Didn't take long at all. Now I just need to hunker down, spend a few hours researching and finding the most relevant information as well as beginning to outline my report.
Remember to never plagiarize...that's a gigantic no-no...if you do copy something verbatim; please list that resource in your report. Otherwise, you can take an idea, write it in your own words, and it is yours. After I outline my report I will put it into full-on report style and convert it to PDF. This whole process can literally be accomplished in just hours. It requires complete focus but it is not really that difficult to do.
Report done, and now I need my store (web site). I can hop onto any number of domain name providers but for simplicity sake I'll hit GoDaddy here. I'll need something catchy...how about www.BadBreathAway.com ? A quick check on GoDaddy tells me it's available. While I normally suggest grabbing a domain for the two years for longer term savings, if money is that tight, you could have this for about $9-$10 for one year.
Ok, store name is squared away...now I need to build the store. For about 4 bucks a month you could use GoDaddy to host your web site and they offer templates you can use to build one. But even in this tight money/tight time situation I would prefer to build my own and host it somewhere else. The main reason is that when you use these services, people can just tell. What do I mean? People can tell you just used some template...and you don't want that thought to even cross their mind.
Alrighty then...I need hosting and some way to build a web site for no money. For hosting there are a wide array of options out there; and while I'm not going to beat that to death in this discussion, make sure you research the uptime promises of the provider. In any event, for my deal, I'm going to set up an account with Third Sphere for $25 a month. It's pricier than some, but not crazy, and it has a built in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web design tool.
What's really cool about WYSIWYG is that you don't need to know anything about HTML. If you can create a document in MS Word, then you can build a web site. If you can use MS Word features, like highlighting, and inserting images, and inserting links, then you can build a very nice looking web site on a WYSIWYG tool.
Now, I'm pretty practiced in the area of web site publishing so my timing might be less than yours...but it's all about practice. The more you do something the better you get. Anyway, so if I've wrapped up the hosting and got my domain name, I'll get cooking on the sales letter (web site) and the download pages, which is what people will be taken to once they send me a successful payment. Again, this whole process would take another few hours, depending on how crazy I wanted to get.
A special note on the sales letter...keep the copy compelling as always, but since you are speaking to someone's pain points, try to empathize as much as possible. In this case, perhaps I also have bad breath and that is why I am trying to help others. Or maybe it's my sister in law (no one email this to my wife please)...you get the gist. People like to know they're not alone. And if you have experienced their pain and fixed it yourself, they're more apt to buy from you.
Back on track...product...check. Store (web site)...check. Payment Processor...already had it. Total dough out of pocket thus far $30 something bucks. The only thing left to do is to start selling this puppy. I need immediate traffic if I am going to stay within the realm of the challenge; and furthermore I need targeted traffic so my best bet is going to be setting up a Google Adwords campaign.
I can set up a Google Adwords account in minutes and using the free Overture tool mentioned previously, can develop a very nice keyword list for my Bad Breath Cure report. I want to make sure I'm not betting the farm so I'll also use another free Overture tool (http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/) to see what people are bidding for sponsored listings for my keywords with Yahoo. This isn't an end all solution but will give me an idea of how to bid at Google.
The last piece of the advertising pie would be for me to do a minimum of 2-3 different text ads for the same keyword list in my Adwords campaign. This is very much an important facet of the 'test and tweak' I refer to rather frequently in my materials. Immediately after I have submitted my new Adwords campaign to Google my ads will go into rotation. When someone types in 'Bad Breath Cures' or any of my selected keywords, they will see my ad in the spot equivalent to my bid.
At that point if my copy is right and tight, then it's a numbers game. A percentage of the people that see my ad will click through to view the sales letter, and a smaller percentage yet, will drop the hammer and purchase the report. Including money set aside for the Google campaign I have spent less than $100 and have a needed product in the marketplace, helping solve a specific group's pain. It's only a matter of a few sales (reports can be $20-$30 depending on how deep they go and what they offer) and I am in the black.
From what I have discussed above, we have really only talked about 8-12 or so hours of work including research, writing, and building a site. Remember I gave myself 48 hours in the challenge? Well, this will allow for more research, better report and sales letter copy, as well as any propagation that might need to take place for my web site to be 'live'.
In closing, this is not hard. This strategy does not require a ton of money. And unlike the 'desperate for money' scenario I first described, this is a reasonable income objective for anyone. If you take this whole process and do it over and over and over again, perhaps tossing out a new product once a week, you could fairly quickly build up a nice little income of a couple hundred dollars a day ($6000 a month ain't nothing to sneeze at).
John Hostler, aka the Internet Renegade, has been marketing successfully both online and off for 6 years. He released his widely anticipated book on the subject of Internet Marketing on 02-01-06. To find out more about John or his newest release check out http://www.internetrenegade.com
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